15th Week of the Summer CSA Season: September 2nd

Aug 29

*That message on the barn there is for you…. “You are beautiful”, photo by Adam*

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have:

Greens: baby lettuce, arugula, pea shoots, green curly kale, lacinato kale, rainbow chard, head lettuce, green cabbage, caraflex cabbage, brussels crowns*
Roots: red beet bunches, yellow beet bunches, carrot bunches, loose carrots
Alliums: garlic, yellow onions, sweet onions, red onions, scallions, shallots
Herbs: parsley, basil, sage
Miscellaneous: Rhubarb, celery
Fruiting crops: slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, roma paste tomatoes, juliet tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, green beans, shishito peppers, poblano peppers, carmen sweet peppers, tomatillos, husk cherries, spaghetti squash

*Brussels crowns are the top tender part of a brussels sprout plant that we remove this time of year to force the growing energy of the plant into the sprouts versus continuing upward energy. They are delicious and tender, and if they are new to you, you can imagine using them like collard greens, but with a brussels sprouts flavor. Our favorite, easy way to enjoy them is to cut them into thin ribbons, and saute with olive oil, garlic, and salt. Super yum.

This week, you can order some items in bulk if you do any preserving. We listed bulk heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, green beans, pickling cucumbers, and onions. If you pick up in the barn, feel free to send us an email to order bulk items with the volumes you want, and what day we should have it ready in the barn, and we will give you your total and where to find it in the barn.

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag to Ludlow or Rutland

*rainbow cherry tomatoes, photo by Adam Ford*

Farm News

This past week was our 14th Irene-aversary on Thursday, and we have usually taken time on that day each year to walk around our old place, down the old river channel, and up the new one, often finding new remnants of our old farm buried under river valley rubble that have been unearthed with each season’s high water movements. This week we were too busy after landing back home from our trip out to the Midwest, but we hope to take that walk next week, this year for the first time with our kiddos. We haven’t walked it yet with them, mostly because it’s been a nice quiet ritual for Ryan and I to have time away from running a farm or parenting, in a space that was formative for us for just a brief time. But as any kid growing up with environmentalist parents in the time of climate breakdown, they know the language of climate disasters, and have been curious about where we first started this project. It will be neat to show them the illows and poplars that are stouter than their legs, growing in rock piles where the river used to run just 14 years ago. It will be cool to swim with them in the new swimming hole, scoured out a dozen feet lower than where the garlic crop grew that first year. And maybe we will go hunting for any new pieces of our first caterpillar tunnels that might be protruding from the new riverbank. For many years now, it hasn’t been an emotional or heavy memory anymore, but rather an opportunity to reflect on our deep gratitude for the many factors that allowed us to move a farm and continue this project. We would not be operating up here if it weren’t for the tremendous amount of support and generosity that our family, friends, neighbors, community, farming peers, and CSA members offered us during that time. Thank you to everyone for being a part of this CSA… from the folks who just found us this season, to the folks who have been with us since that first season before the flood hit, and everyone who joined along the way. (And if you are one of those new people who joined this year, and don’t know about our experience with Tropical Storm Irene, you can scroll halfway down this page to read that history.)

-ESF Team: Kara, Ryan, K2, Cindy, Taylor, Leah, Natalie, Katie, Galen, Vanessa, Miguel, Georgia, and Hannah (and Sky and Soraya)

Summer Tomato Soup