Erehwon Farm CSA Newsletter Week 17 of 19  October 3, 2005 Farm Report Love the cool weather – noticed that my energy level for manual work seems a little higher than it was during the heat wave.  Bucky is more active, too, wanting to play with all the subscribers who come to the farm.  Our neighbors have harvested their crop of soy beans and it is truly amazing to watch the combine process the whole plant and come up with a hopper full of clean little round beans.  Greens continue to improve but there is a noticeable slowing in the hot-weather crops.  We’ve harvested all the winter squash and also a few pumpkins and are beginning to spread compost and till it in for the winter. Tomatoes are about done although we’ll have some this week.  We may get a frost on Friday night (the average first frost date is October 6 in our area, so we’ll be picking all the mature green ones and distributing them so you can put some in your basement to ripen.  Our top job right now is to clear the spent plants from the beds and work in whatever compost we have to prepare for spring planting.  We’ve been discussing ideas for limiting the weed growth next year and one thing to try (suggested by Robin M) is to place newspapers in the pathways. My understanding is that newpapers now use soy-based ink so they are safe to add to the soil.   We plan to put them on thickly, wet them down and give them a light cover of compost or soil to keep them from blowing around.  So, please bring us your old newspapers when you come to the farm – we can use a lot since we have about 3 miles of pathways!  Another idea is to have an “adopt a row” program where subscribers could select one row to keep free of weeds; raspberry and strawberry rows would certainly get some attention! Thanks to volunteers Robin Migalla, Jane Casey, and Karen Kulver who came out last week and provided some much-needed help.  I’m considering a new subscriber benefit:  fall firewood exchange.  We will designate an area to store whatever firewood we come across and you can bring cut wood that you don’t want or take home some from the pile.  Look for this pile to be started this week.  Also, thanks to Gerard Brillowski, not only for giving us some great music, but also for the donation of the new mitre saw to the farm.  Every time I’m sawing up the points for our end-of-row stakes I’ll humming one of the OD Tapo IMI tunes. . From Your Garden This Week Standard shares should include: (subject to change of course)   Lettuce Spinach Tomatoes: Various kinds.   Potatoes Spaghetti Squash Jumbo shares may also include raspberries, strawberries and arugula,  broccoli Extras:  Pick  3 or 5 for jumbo subscribers plus one herb. Parsnips Beets Tiny baby beet greens Spicy salad mix Mustard greens Arugula Mizuna Salsa pack (tomatillos, cilantro, and hot peppers) Eggplant (regular or oriental) Hot peppers Sweet peppers Bag of red/brown/orange mini sweet peppers Red Cabbage Mini Cabbage (2) Kale Chard Gourd – birdhouse, apple, or snake Herb List Important Note:  We are expecting 33 degrees on Friday night which could severely damage our basil.  If you want to load up and make pesto sauce for the winter, now is the time.  You may order a single, double, or triple size of pesto basil.  We may actually pull up the plants and give you the whole thing if you want a lot. U-Pick this week:  Cherry tomatoes, especially yellow pears, dried beans, hot peppers for freezing, sweet pickling peppers, potatoes (if you have a lot of energy and don’t mind getting dirty!  We’ll help and split the harvest with you) Dill Basil—regular, lemon, lime, Thai, dark opal (purple with a wonderfully strong flavor)(pesto sized bag available if you ask) Chives, Cilantro, Lemon Balm, Marjoram, Mint—spearmint, Oregano, Parsley—flat leaf or curled,  Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Winter Savory Pages from Grandma Beth’s Cookbook Pages From Grandma Beth’s Cookbook I made this one for dinner Saturday night and it was very good. We also had boiled German Butterball potatoes with just a little butter. Yum. Sautéed Greens with Tomatoes Clean greens thoroughly. (I used arugula and mustard greens). Chop coarsely. Chop onions and garlic. Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil for several minutes. Add greens and sauté until tender. Add a dash of balsamic vinegar. Place on plate and top with chopped tomatoes. Two thumbs up for the greens! And for the beets and carrots we had last night!  We got ‘em if ya want ‘em! Announcements Needed at the farm: 1) Newspapers 2) Your unneeded cut firewood. CSA Cookbook As October begins and the farm season winds down, we are starting to think about next year.   A project I would very much like to undertake this winter is the development of a CSA Cookbook. Every summer people ask how to cook the various vegetables we have available. If we had a CSA Cookbook, we could give a copy to subscribers.  Every year we could collect new recipes and the cookbook would grow. Returning subscribers would get the new pages. New subscribers would get the whole book. In addition to sections on vegetables, I would like to include a section on herbs. This would include any dish that uses herbs. I would like to begin collecting these recipes right away. Electronic format is preferred—then I don’t have to retype them. Please send recipes directly to me at alpropst7@yahoo.com. I can read both Word and WordPerfect. Delivery Times:  As you may have noticed, I’m running later than expected delivering so I’d like to give you a better schedule (95% likely to meet): Lombard: 3:00 Wheaton: 3:45 Elgin:   5:00 Farm Pickup Times Wednesday Pickup:  Starting Wednesday, September 28, we would like to change the hours to 4-6:30 because it will be getting dark earlier.  If you cannot get to the farm by 6:30, call Beth’ s cellphone ( 630-346-1503 )and she will bag you order and leave it in a cooler on the table for you (you can drive right in, get your bag, and continue around the circular drive. Friday Pickup: Since some of our extras, such as herbs, are unsold items from the Friday Farmers’ Market in St. Charles, and Beth gets back to the farm about 2 p.m., if you could come after 2:15, it would help us have time to get everything onto the tables. We Get Mail Hi Tim, I was wondering if I could have some broccoli, regular eggplant and spicy greens. I was reading the question about growing parsley inside. I had a parsley plant for quite a few years that I planted outside in the summer and brought back in the house for the winter. Since parsley has a long root you will need a large pot for the root. I sat it on my kitchen counter that is very sunny and it grew like crazy. After about five years it gave up the ghost and died. But while it lived it was a beautiful plant and we thoroughly enjoyed using it in many dishes. Susan Voigt Wow, a five year old parsley plant!  Just shows ya what a little love and care can do.  This week on display is a strange looking beet that we harvested last week.  This is a large beet with about 8 plants coming out the top.  It looks like these eight plants got together to produce a large beet.  We call it our “community beet.” Hi Tim and Beth! Thank you so much for a fun time yesterday!!! Everything was and looked great. Especially some caramel corn that I had trouble staying away from. This week, would you exclude the peppers? We do not eat a lot of them. For extras may we …Just let me know how much to leave. Thanks!!! And thanks again for throwing a great party! Georgine Where was the caramel corn?  I never saw it.  Did you eat it all up??? Hi Tim, Thanks to you and Beth for your hospitality. Robin, Sam and I had a great time. We enjoyed exploring the farm and meeting a lot of very nice people. For this weeks order we would like the spicy salad mix, beets, summer squash, if we could get a double pesto order of basil. Thank you and enjoy your week. Julian Miller Well, as I’ve stated a few times, our subscribers are the best nice people!  Only a few meet the rigorous admission standards to become Erehwon subscribers. Dear Old Tim Fuller, E-I-E-I-O My daughter is not quite two, and she likes clapping immediately after "on that farm he had a sheep..." CLAP,CLAP, CLAP, YEAH!!!! No time for Baa. Thank you for your generosity. We'll take some gourds and some of those yummy little mini-peppers if you have extra. I hope to have my whole kitchen smellng of basil on Weds, which I've decreed to be "Make Plenty of Pesto Day." Best, Jen Geez, I guess I’m never going to hear the end of the “Old Tim Fuller” song!  “and on his farm he had a farm dog…with a “woof-woof here and a woof-woof there…” Hi Tim, I'm a bit late with my response, so I hope I catch you before you go out for the day. Farm Day was just great! Good folks, good music, and good food. Can't go wrong with that. Speaking of good food, that vegetable curry sure struck my fancy as did those kolache-type, apricot filled cookies. I don't suppose there is any way we could get those recipes, is there? For extras, I'd like chard, beets, a double order of spinach, and a pesto sized bag of basil. Hugs, Robin Vegetable curry and kolache makers, we’d like to hear from you! Hi, Tim: I don't have a download option on your note this week--too much farm-partying going on, I guess! Or maybe those beets got to you... Jane Halteman Yes, even I make mistakes so thanks for catching this one!  Love those beets! Of course, you’ll hear about 50 times…no newsletter attached. Love ya! Gerard and Sandy Well, only about 20 times in the first 5 minutes!  Look, it was  a beautiful fall morning and everyone is sitting around glued to your computer screens??!!  Get thee a life and outside to your gardens! HI Tim-For the 3 extras, I would like to get: eggplant (either is fine with me), salsa pack, and red cabbage. Any herbs you can spare. I have been drying what I have leftover each week in preparation for the winter so I will have something to season the winter soups I plan on making. Great idea to dry herbs for the winter. We’d like to here about your techniques for drying them. (regarding the missing attachment) In the words of the old Saturday Night Live's "Roseann Roseanadana"... "Nevermind"! :-) Triple my basil as an extra, also summer squash, and gnarly old beets. I assume the triple basil will suffice as my extra herb, but if not, we'll enjoy any extra herb you have lying around... Thanks so much for hosting the farm party potluck--it was lovely to meet you and Beth and Bucky, the farm dog. What a warm, friendly creature he was to all us strangers. And well trained, too--didn't touch the food on our plates until we deposited them on the ground! (That's a whole sight different from our bulldog/granddog who will devour morsels wherever he noses them out. At that rate, Bucky would have had a heyday yesterday.) We enjoyed the garden tour and seeing that heated up compost you guys are cooking out there... The steel drums were a nice touch, too, and, of course, the food provided a great sampler of garden produce. Jane Halteman Hi, Tim & Beth! Thanks so much for the wonderful gathering last night! It is a beautiful thing to see how your farm has not only grown healthful food for our bodies but also a sense of community for our souls. Besides the brownies and dancing, the lasting memory for our three-year-old has been Bucky the dog. She has been asking us to draw pictures of Bucky on her Magnadoodle non- stop--Bucky playing in a mud puddle, Bucky picking Beth's flowers, Bucky sleeping in bed, etc. . . --and in all of her imaginary play she has even BECOME Bucky the dog! Anyway, thanks for making our lives so rich. : ) As for extras this week, we'd like the following: spinach mini-sweet peppers mini cabbages pesto-sized bag of lemon basil Many thanks, Dennette Dennette, thanks for your kind words about the farm.  Bucky saws “Woof! Woof! And gives two paws up for for his beautiful new dogbone kerchief from Jasmine.  Thanks Jasmine!