{ Community Supported Agriculture Newsletter {

Looking Forward to

October 27th

Anticipated Harvest

§ Arugula

§ Celeriac

§ Kale

§ Lettuce

§ Onions

§ Parsley

§ Pie pumpkins

§ Turnips

§ Winter squash

Next Thursday,

October 27th

LAST DAY

to place a PRE-ORDER!

End-of-Season Special:

Extra carrots and/or potatoes are available for pre-order.

When the growing season allows for a little bit extra potatoes and carrots to be harvested, as this one has, we can offer them to our CSA members.

The pre-order cost of the carrots and potatoes is one dollar per pound. You should have your check, made to Hawthorne Valley Farm, given to your site coordinator by October 27. The pre-order carrots and potatoes will arrive with your regular CSA pick up on November 3.

Dear CSA members:

During this growing year, the seasons have rolled one after another in quick succession, each week intensely quintessential. Early spring was cold and dreary, then we warmed up for a very hot and humid summer, then the tree leaves turned to fall colors in a snap, and now the rains and wind are blowing the leaves off the trees, getting us ready for raking and jumping into the leaf piles.

We are getting ready to wrap up another CSA season, but we are not done yet! Thursday, November 3 is our last CSA pick up day.

Thinking ahead to next year’s CSA, we will be asking all our CSA members to fill out a response postcard to return to the farm. Over the winter months, as next year’s crop plan is formed, your input is important. So be on the lookout for the postcards, and help us out with what is essentially your crop plan and your farm!

Also thinking ahead to next year’s CSA, if you would like to reserve your place in the CSA, we will be sending you a deposit form for 2006. An easy way to guarantee your CSA membership will be to send in a $25 deposit, which will be subtracted from your final CSA payment. The total size of the CSA is limited, based on the size of our farm, so once our membership is full each year, we are full and that’s that.

Each year, the CSA gets better and better. Members feel a deeper connection to agri-culture, which is at its base a working together of people and nature. As farmers, we feel a deeper connection to our work and our members, knowing that the vegetables we harvest are going directly into your kitchens. With the variety of the seasons, the harvests, the kitchens and the recipes, we have together created a great amount of delicious meals! Thank you for being part of our Community Supported Agriculture.

Farmer Katy

A note from Don and Marnie at Thompson-Finch Farm

We are getting toward the end of the season and the late apples will be coming to you. We have had a great season with high yields of most varieties though the appearance of some of the apples has been poorer than we had hoped. We want to explain one of the blemishes that you will be seeing. It is called Sooty Blotch and it causes the dark "blotchy" discoloration on the skin. We thought we had good control of this fungus through late summer but it became much more prevalent in the last few weeks. It is much too late in the season to try to eradicate it and we regret the less than beautiful appearance of many apples. However, it is only on the surface and it washes right off. If we could take the time to wash every apple for you we would but that would be a monumental task at the peak of harvest and there is just no way to manage that. So, many hands make light work. With a little water and a dish cloth and they will clean up to a sparkling shine. We are learning new things every year that we hope will guide us to the elusive goal of an organic apple that not only is good for you, but looks good too.

Last Pick-Up November 3^rd!

Fast Squash Saute

1 orange-fleshed squash

4 Tbsps. butter

2 shallots, minced

2 tsps. minced fresh ginger

Coarse sea salt to taste

Pinch cayenne

Peel and seed squash. Grate coarsely using a 4-sided grater or food processor. Melt butter in alarge skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and ginger, and saute briefly until they just wilt. Stir in squash. Season well with salt. Cook, stirring constantly, until squash turns tender, but not soft, about 7 to 10 minutes. Add cayenne, mix well and serve.

from The New York Times, Nov 1, 2000

Squash Tart

2 cups coarsely grated buttercup or kabocha squash

1/3 cup maple syrup or honey

1/3 cup heavy cream

½ cup dried cranberries

1 Tbsp minced crystallized ginger

½ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 partially baked 9-inch tart shell

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine squash, maple syrup or honey, cream, cranberries, ginger, allspice, cloves and salt. Mix thoroughly. Taste, and adjust seasoning, adding more spice if you like. Add eggs, and mix well again so ingredients are completely combined. Pour into prepared tart shell. Set pan on baking sheet on shelf in lower third of oven. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, until filling is fully set. Cool completely before cutting.

Just Food Tips: Storing the Harvest

With the CSA harvest season’s end rapidly approaching, here are some ways to extend your CSA eating season. Nature helps us out by giving us the longer-lasting squashes and root crops at the end of the season.

Winter Squash and Pumpkins will keep up to 2 months stored in a dry, dark, well-ventilated place.
Trim leafy greens to ½ an inch from the top of Carrots. Otherwise, leaves absorb water from the root and the carrots soften quickly. Carrots can be stored in a perforated plastic bag in the refrigerator drawer for up to 2 months.
Onions can be stored for several months in a cool, dry, ventilated place. Warmth and moisture will cause sprouting. Do not store onions near potatoes, as they cause spoilage.
Keep Potatoes in a cool, dark, dry, ventilated place. Sunlight will cause the potatoes to turn green, which indicates an increase in solanin (a toxin).
If you want to increase the life of your Sweet Potatoes (and sweeten them), put them in a paper bag in a warm place and wait a month before using. Otherwise keep them in a loose plastic bag in a cool, dark place for up to 3 weeks.

Drying, canning, or freezing can preserve those vegetables that cannot be stored for long periods of time. Below is a rough guide to these preservation methods.

Freezing maintains the most nutrients and flavor of vegetables. It does not completely stop the process of spoiling; it simply slows it down. The extremely dry air in your freezer causes the unattractive, tough, and dry areas on a vegetable's surface known as freezer burn. To avoid this, use packaging that allows no air to reach the surface of your vegetables. Vegetables that you would cook before eating are best suited for freezing. If you are concerned about the Vitamin C content of your harvest, you should choose freezing over drying and canning.

Drying maintains an almost equal amount of nutritional value as freezing. The color, texture, and flavor are often altered, as complex substances in the vegetables are changed to simple ones during the drying process. Small pieces tend to work better when drying, but the most important thing is that all pieces are the same size so they dry at the same rate. Fruits such as apples and perennial herbs are the best drying candidates.

Canning food means sterilizing food by sealing it in glass containers. When you add vinegar to the vegetables, the process is called pickling. While some nutritional content is lost, canned or pickled food can last for years. The main threat with canned food is a type of food poisoning called botulism, so be sure to heat the jars to the recommended temperatures when canning or pickling. When sufficiently heated, all pathogenic and spoilage organisms in the raw vegetables are killed.

For more information about Just Food, visit www.justfood.org.

For additional info on these storage techniques check out

www.backwoodshome.com/articles/clay53.html