Still waiting for the sun. Saturday pickups in October

Greetings shareholders,

This Saturday, we'll have tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, radishes, arugula and other spicy greens for salad, little head lettuces, kale and collards, parsley, cilantro, eggplant, and spaghetti squash.  Pickup time is 10:00 until 2:00. 

Well, I'm losing confidence in my buddy Schnackenberg.  He promised - finally - a nice warm week this week, but instead I think we've had some combination of cloudy and/or drizzle and/or cold pretty much continuously since the last time I saw you.  Altogether, it's amounted to about 1/2 inch of rain, which we needed, but we need normal temperatures more.  Sun and warm would ripen the tomatoes, grow the lettuce, and dry down the corn and soybeans.   Nothing we can do to make it get here any faster.  But it's still aggravating.

We've got lots of ripe sweet peppers and hot peppers, fabulously happy parsley, but not so many tomatoes or good sized eggplants.  The lettuces this week will come from the hoophouse of my friend Susan at Local Harvest CSA in Solon.  The hoophouse has kept things a little warmer so her lettuce has jumped ahead of what I am growing for you in the field.  We've got small greens that you can mix with the lettuce to make spicy salads.  I'll make a sign to let you know exactly which greens are in the mix.  Not sure right now which ones we will cut.  It depends on who grows the most between now and Saturday morning.   I also might be able to cut some beet greens for you this weekend if they grow just a little bit more in the next day or two.

We're going to cut the spaghetti squash on Friday.  I'm not convinced that it is fully ripe, but it's at risk of being damaged if it sits in the field too much longer.  I'd recommend keeping it for a couple of weeks to let it sweeten up some more.  Unless you see a ding on the skin, then eat it.  Spaghettis don't store well if they are damaged.   There aren't going to be the mountains of squash like we've had in the past.  I had trouble with everything in that plant family this year, something you've already figured out weeks ago.  Who ever heard of a summer without zucchini?  Or a fall without watermelons?  I'm fairly embarrassed by this big hole in our production this year, but haven't been able to solve it.  Wait until next year.  I'm going to knock you over with zukes and squash.

There was a little miscommunication in the household involved in the cornmeal grinding operation (like that ever happens).  One person thought there was time for another batch; the other person was wiping down the machine and putting it away.  So, sorry, no cornmeal this year.  They'll notify us sooner next year.  They're going to love us - there were a lot of you who wanted to get some.

Don't forget about the Mt Vernon/ Lisbon CropWalk on Oct 9.  I'll leave my donation envelope on the sign-in table, in case you want to contribute.  Much of your donation will support our local food pantry, and the rest supports the work of Church World Service, a very well regarded development agency.

If you want to take a field trip to see the fall gardens, please feel welcome to walk up to the fields behind my house.  The fall crops are always so beautiful.  A little shrimpy right now, but still pretty.  The hens are up there, too.  Just follow the driveway and the trail around the house; you'll figure it out when you get there.  Remember that you are always welcome to see what's going on around here.

See you Saturday,

Laura