Greetings CSA Family and Friends!
I greet the first frost with sadness and relief. Too bad so many green tomatoes, unripe peppers and nearly the whole corn crop were smote by fall’s wrath. But I am ready to put it all into cover crops and get fully invested in the season.
Over the weekend I tried to save as many tomatoes and peppers and summer squash as possible. The quality is poor as these dear plants have had to deal with a lot of rain, which tends to burst the fruits and dilute their flavor, then huge temperature swings and shortening day lengths. Anyhow, you get what you get and that’s all we’ve now got!
Most of the storage onions have finished curing. Onions are bulbs, which means modified leaves that act as storage organs. Curing is a process where the sugars are converted to starches and preservative aromatic compounds are concentrated—essentially a hibernation form that will keep until spring. They like to be kept cool with decent air flow around them. The cabinet dryer was a great place to set them for a few weeks and now I have them at my house on a big hanging rack in the shop. You’ll start getting these in the November baskets.
Announcement Making. Miles Gordon of North Coast Opportunities roped me into contributing to www.thegardensproject.org, which is a Mendocino County affair. You’ll see a link to a Brookside Farm set of pages, where I’ll post newsletters, general information, and other stuff I could concoct during the winter.
Looking Ahead. Brookside Farm is currently the only Willits area CSA, and I don’t like the idea of telling people they can’t be members. Given the small size of the farm, however, capacity is very limited and our shares sell out fast. One way to expand capacity is to find another piece of land to grow more food. But how could I manage another site? Well, I can partner with other farmers so I don’t have all the responsibility. Also, I would only grow a few crops that take up a lot of area but are generally low maintenance, such as winter squash, potatoes and storage onions. Something like this is in the works and I’ll give you some details if it pans out.
Important Information. Given the demise of the summer veggies, we are entering the end of the weekly delivery season. Next week (Oct 21st) will be as usual, but then we are switching to monthly. Your baskets next week will therefore be rather large, as I’ll stock you up on potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, winter squash and parsnips. I will also get back into the hearty greens, which include kale, chard and tree collards. So, please mark your calendars for November 18th and December 16th as future pick up days.
Yours in Plant Husbandry,
Jason
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