Fork & Knife

October 15 & 16 Plantings

Last weekend I planted the following:
Easter Egg & Altaglobe Radish, Red Giant Mustard, Tatsoi, Yukina Savoy,  Arugula and Champion Collards.

I have two more 4' X 125' beds left to plant. I will then start making some more beds or cleaning up summer crop beds closer to the house for other greens and stuff to overwinter.

I wonder if there would be much interest in a winter greens subscription?

Long Pie Pumpkin

The big green zucchini looking things are really Long Pie Pumpkin. The tell is the orange color where it touches the ground. You should store this oddball until it flushes bright orange all over. Then get ready for a true delight. Information on this  heirloom is in the "History" section here.

Fedco listing is here.

Carnival Squash

Carnival Squash has also been in the deliveries lately. A good picture and recipe will be here. They can also be yellow and white or green, yellow and white.

Spaghetti Squash

For those of you not used to using Pasta Spaghetti Squash, this site will help immensely. It is ideal for folks who are sensitive to wheat.

A good picture and other information is here.

Recipe source

The following site has many recipes and you can search them or look them up by vegetable:
Live Earth Farm CSA Recipes database

I have not had a chance to look at many of them but the one's I have looked at seem promising.

Delivery Day Change

Newsflash:
For those of you not picking up last week, I am trying to change everyone's delivery to Thursday from 4-6 p.m. at the Columbia Farmers' Maket site (where we have been picking up all year). Those of you with home delivery will get that delivery after 6 p.m. on Thursday. We were going to have to change at the end of October as the weekday market ends. I usually go to Saturday, but with thirty of you, I would not have room on the truck for anything else.

The change was motivated by an offer for a gig working in the Columbia Regional ER from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. This schedule leaves me pretty wiped out and thus makes it difficult to stay on my feet to pick for Tuesday and Wednesday deliveries. And there is only so much my long suffering helper Jordan can do by himself. The wringing out is exacerbated by caring for Miles from the time I get home until just before I go back. He does not tend to sleep a lot during the day. I got eight hours of sleep in the three days last week. I am not twenty or even thirty anymore and so cannot do that schedule for an extended period of time. I do not know how long this gig will last. I have worked for SOS Temporary Service for five or six years and usually end up with very long assignments.

The drought and Lisa's difficulties during pregnancy leave me little alternative as we have been teetering on the edge of a financial abyss for several months now, but I cannot say I am happy with this schedule or being away from Miles and Lisa so much or stepping away from farming or being just absolutely beat.

I am in the process of getting together this year's questionnaire for subscribers and would greatly appreciate detailed responses to try to learn what went well and what didn't. This process will lead to evaluating changes in the way things are done, what subscriptions will cost, even whether the CSA goes forward. I had hoped to only work on the farm and to make a living wage doing this, but I'm not there yet. The price of gas and other inputs has risen dramatically and I have had to find help to do everything. Miles' arrival complicates things somewhat but also provides an avalanche of joy.

One of the things I will probably do is allow current members to join for next year at this years' prices until December 31. It will be a great boon to me and will allow you to save some money by paying at least the down payment for next year by the deadline. I would like to thank everyone for joining this year and apologize for my (and the weather's) shortfalls during the season. I think we managed nearly ten items per week but the variety was down and the amount was down due to the weather, mostly, and a couple of mistakes on my part (not getting enough regular red tomatoes transplanted). Most of these issues will be solved before next season. Drip irrigation here I come. Rest assured you have seen the worst season in my father's sixty plus year memory of gardening. I will do better.

Frost

After pausing to watch the baseball playoff games Friday night, I returned to my field of dreams after midnight to finsh picking for market. I cut flowers for an hour or so and it was cold. I then pulled radishes and was headed to bed when I decided to put the flowers in the cab of the truck because it felt frosty. Saturday morning I went to walk the dogs and the ground was hoary white. I thought it a fitting end to a arduous garden year, but I admit to being saddened. The thermometer on the screened in front porch read 33 degrees and it certainly looked like the end of all frost sensitive crops.

I went to market and had a better day than I expected with flowers, radishes, a few pumpkins and winter squash. I returned to find some things (nearly anything in the cucurbit clan) pretty much burned down, but other things (zinnias & green beans) only seared lightly. I was pretty surprised given the temperature but the fog that was rolling in as I cut flowers must have insulated the earth just enough. We are certainly transitioning to full on autumn; you can smell it in the air, feel it in the dirt, sense the lessening of the sun's fire and wade through moist fog on morning walks.

October 9 plantings

Replanted Space Spinach, Wildfire Lettuce Mix and Kinbi, Nelson, Cosmic Purple, Atomic Red and other carrots. Planted the following: Bright Yellow, Magenta Sunset, Lucullus, Bright Lights and Ruby Red Rhubarb Chard along with Bull's Blood Beets. Toscano, Winterbor, Redbore, White Russian and Red Russian Kale. Tyee Spinach.