Hi all!
I hope you enjoyed the veggies last week. The purple carrots and shishito peppers were definitely a highlight. It’s always so fun to share new veggies each week with you!
Read below for some volunteer opportunities on the farm this week!
On the farm…
Wow, this was a busy week! August is in full force around here; which means we’ve been harvesting all our crops like there’s no tomorrow. This week alone we harvested 80lbs of dragon tongue beans!! Obviously you all get to enjoy some in the CSA and we sell what we can at the farmers market, but many of our beans have been going to The Food Group’s: Local Food for Every Table program. Essentially, whenever we have excess amounts of produce, we sell that food to The Food Group at a wholesale price and they work to distribute that produce to food shelves all across the cities. It’s super valuable for us as farmers, because we get paid a living wage to produce large quantities of food, and The Food Group facilitates moving that food to places where local, fresh produce is less available/accessible. As the harvest season progresses, we will keep selling more produce to this program! We are thrilled to share food with the community this way.
This week has also presented us with some colder weather. It’s not every August when you have two overcast, 65 degree days in a row! It feels really nice on our bodies, but it does make me concerned for how the rest of the season will progress. I’m feeling that we may have an early frost in our midst. he average frost date in MN is somewhere between September 15th-20th. We usually plan our growing season around this average. Last year, in 2021, the first frost didn’t come until October 20th! We had a very long season, which is unusual. But things are changing and everything is much less predictable than ever before. As farmers we just need to keep riding out the season, taking whatever weather is thrown our way!
Potato Update
Along with the weather, we just need to keep taking all successes and failures in stride. This week, on Tuesday, we traveled up to Shafer, MN to hill and weedwhack our potato crop only to find that all our plants have been COMPLETELY eaten by the dreaded Colorado Potato Beetle. This pest is specific to nightshades, and will destroy entire crops of potato plants overnight. Unfortunately, they found our potatoes in Shafer and ate them all away. LUCKY for us, they only eat the green foliage of the plants, so the roots that developed in the early summer are still intact and harvestable. Unfortunately, we need to harvest all our potatoes this week and next week to avoid them rotting in the ground (especially with all the rain coming!). We weren’t planning to harvest potatoes until mid-September, so this puts a wrench in our August plans.
If you’re willing to help us harvest potatoes, we NEED YOU! We will be harvesting on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday afternoon this week. Please text me if you’re willing/able to help with potato harvest! Here are the following times we can have volunteers out:
Tuesday: 2:00-6:00pm
Wednesday: 9:00am-12:00pm
Saturday: 3:00-6:00pm
Our potato crop is in Shafer, MN on primitive land. The land is pretty tucked away from amenities, so we recommend bringing lots of water, snacks, and wear clothing that protects from the sun. We’ll send you home with lots of potatoes if you can come help!
In the box….
Large Share
Potatoes!, rainbow carrots, jalapenos, purple curly kale, assorted cherry tomatoes, broccoli, thai basil, heirloom tomatoes, onions.
Small Share
Potatoes!, rainbow carrots, jalapenos, purple curly kale, thai basil, onions, assorted cherry tomatoes.
Inspiration….
Lots of classic summer vegetables in your share this week! We’re really loading you up on cherry tomatoes, we have SO MANY. I’m hoping you can make some fresh salsas, pasts or pizza sauces, share them with friends, or just eat them as snacks this week!
Everyone gets about 2lbs of potatoes! There are three types of potatoes in your share this week:
-Peter Wilcox: These are the purple potatoes with the yellow flesh.
-Adirondack Red: These are the red potatoes with the red flesh.
-Gold: These are the golden potatoes.
All of them are amazing for roasting, making hash browns, boiling, or baking whole. You could totally make mashed potatoes with the Wilcox and the gold ones; if you mash up the Adirondack reds, you might get a beautiful pink mashed potato!
Good luck with all the food, and let us know if you can make it out to harvest potatoes!
See you this afternoon!
Your farmers,
Eleanor and Pearce