Erehwon Farm CSA Newsletter Week 18 of 19  October 10, 2005 Farm Report We avoided the frost last week so we didn’t have any sudden crop losses. As usual, we had some volunteer help.  Dana Kalumbo brought a flock of girls (Amie, Kierra, Naneth, Corrina, Destiny, Starr, Angelica) from the Glenwood School who learned how to harvest potatoes (“A lot of work!” said one.) and tomatoes.  Thanks to all for visiting the farm and helping.  Robin Migalla and Karen Kulzer came out and we pulled all the remaining bean plants, pulled the weeds, added finished compost to the beds, scraped the paths and laid some newspapers in a path as a test to control weeds.  Newspapers will work well but we used all we had.  Delivery subscribers please put some out on Tuesday and I’ll take them when I deliver.  If you come to the farm, bring newspapers and put them under the tent where you pick up produce. This week we are planting perennials for Beth so she will have a good supply of flowers in the Spring.  We hope to get the garlic planted today.  When we harvested garlic in July, I saved the best heads for planting so we could improve our crop for next year.  We will continue to pull weeds and spent crops (good upper body workout!) and put them into the compost pile.  We are continuing to turn the big pile and hope to have finished compost by the first planting in the spring.  We have seen quite a number of volunteer sugar snap peas coming up in areas outside the fenced pea area.  Umar finally fessed up that he had fired a few of the big pods at co-workers when he was harvesting.  The good news is that some of the volunteer plants have mature peas on them so next year we hope to make more plantings so we have a longer season of peas. . From Your Garden This Week Standard shares should include: (subject to change of course)   Lettuce Tomatoes: Only a few and these will be not quite ripe but they will be in a few days..   Potatoes Winter Squash Mini Pumpkin Big pumpkin (grown by a friend of ours) Parsnips Jumbo shares may also include raspberries, strawberries and arugula,  broccoli, kohlrabi Extras:  Pick  2 or 4 for jumbo subscribers plus one herb. Beets Baby beet greens Spicy salad mix Mustard greens Arugula Mizuna Salsa pack (tomatillos, cilantro, and hot peppers) Hot peppers Sweet peppers Bag of red/brown/orange mini sweet peppers Kale Chard Gourd – birdhouse, apple, or snake Herb List Basil:  Can still do pesto basil if you want some. U-Pick this week:  Cherry tomatoes, especially yellow pears,  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 Announcements Needed at the farm: 1) Newspapers 2) Your unneeded cut firewood. 3) Recipes for Beth’s cookbook 4) A washing machine (we can use a beat-up one as long as the spin cycle works.  We’ll use it to spin-dry lettuce and other greens.  You should see the little critters, like lady bugs, after coming out of the spin cycle. They walk around in tight little circles looking dazed! 5) Materials for our compost pile. 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 There are a couple of reasons for the later deliveries:  We have more items to pick in late summer, I’m slowing down due to what appears to be increased gravity in the area around the farm (seems to happen in the fall) and the sunrise is much later. 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 Some dispatches from volunteer Arsenio Sala who has been travelling the world promoting Erehwon Farm: 9/5 Dear Tim and Beth, Next time you come to Naples you will find that half the town knows about you. Best from - Arsenio 9/12 Too bad, I will miss it! (farm day) I am now in Loano, a nice little sea/town west of Genova and Savona, It is particularly nice now as there are no tourists around and everything is quiet and relaxing. I will drink some extra wine to your and Beth's health. 9/19  I have your seeds for tomato and celery, if you need any more, please let me know. 10/3 Hope you will still have some basil for pesto when I come back on the 9th. Best wishes from Sitges, Spain - Arsenio Boy does he get around – don’t know how we will deliver to Naples!  Glad to see he’s finally back, timing his return in hopes of missing the heavy fall weeding!  Now we’ll see if those Italian vegetables are as great as he claims. Hi Tim, We're looking forward to seeing you this Wed. I wanted to send along the veggie curry recipe as requested, as well as the caramel corn recipe Beth had asked for: http://vegetarian. allrecipes.com/AZ/MarrakeshVegetableCurry.asp *I added green beans (because we had some from you) and grated in fresh ginger as well. http://christmas.allrecipes.com/az/74950.asp *My only change here was that I boiled the caramel mixture until it reached a temp. of approx. 260 degrees WITHOUT stirring. I'm hoping for that apricot cookie recipe as well, and if the chef behind the red cabbage slaw wants to come forth with a recipe, I'd love that too! Thanks! - Corrie Thanks for the recipe, Corrie! Hi, Tim: We'll take a triple sized basil bag, mini peppers, big beets, and salsa pack as our extras... We're going to miss all these goodies after the next few weeks, but, be honest, aren't you secretly glad for the break from your usual chores? Not that farmers don't have winter responsibilities, of course. But you can do all that cool stuff the Little House on the Prairie family did when winter came and they could shut down their small farm for a season... Jane Halteman Yes, Beth and I sitting around the fire, she knitting, me smoking my pipe, sipping some of Beth’s mulled cider and reading the Farmers’ Almanac.  Bucky the farm dog snoozing on the rug.  Life is sweet… Hi Tim! I actually own a CSA cookbook. I bought it from a group in Madison. They have an updated version at the following url: http://www.macsac.org/foodbook.php You might want to take a look at to get some ideas. I love my cook book and only have one complaint. It does not have color photographs. It’s not that I don’t know how to cook the yummy veggies you give us, it is that I cannot identify them. How about a CSA encyclopedia? Cheers! Yep, sounds like a good winter project to put some pictures of veggies on our web site.