As of Thursday, September 22, it is officially autumn! We are celebrating this week by giving out delicata squash (my fave because you can eat the skin–so easy to prepare!) and sage from our beautiful herb garden.
The deer and woodchucks have set their sights, and thus their chompers, on our little farm in the past week or two, and it has taken a toll on a couple of crops in particular. About a quarter of our beautiful, large broccoli patch has been devoured by our resident woodchucks, and the deer have been plowing right through our fence to get to our winter squash and sweet potato vines.
I’m hoping that the broccoli sizes up quickly so that we can get it out to you before the entire patch disappears. The winter squash is easily replaceable, as we can order it from the same farm we are ordering potatoes from. We are planning to harvest the sweet potatoes this week to make sure that the deer don’t start digging them up. We will likely start doing the same with beets and carrots to avoid damage to those sugary, tempting, higher calorie crops.
Because of the dryness and heat, we were unable to do the field work necessary to get our greenhouse-started spinach into the ground in the middle of August, and as a result had to dump it in the compost pile. It was so dry and hot at that time that we had gotten to the point where we would have had to irrigate the field before prepping it. I just wasn’t willing to waste the time or irrigation money on such a project. We recently direct seeded two beds of it, and I am hoping that we will get a good crop of it towards the end of the share, in October.
Meanwhile, the autumn crops are coming along nicely–storage carrots, turnips and other root veggies are sizing up. Our Brussels sprouts are looking fantastic, and I have high hopes for them, too.
I hope you’ve been enjoying your shares. September is a pretty magical time for CSA shareholders—there’s nothing better than having weeks where you are receiving tomatoes, sweet peppers, and winter squash!
Be well,
Mel on behalf of the Stearns Farm staff