Velcro, ready for his next tractor ride.

Harvesting brussels sprouts is always one of our favorite tasks of the season. With tree loppers we gleefully hack the stalks off at their base, and with nearly 500 stalks in the field, we look forward to sharing them for a few weeks more.   They will only continue to grow sweeter as the nights get colder. Have fun with popping your sprouts off the stalk — if you plan to wait a couple days before cooking them, pop them off the stalk now before putting them in a bag in the fridge. They’ll store better (in terms of freshness as well as space!).

In order to have help with our intense vole problem, this week we adopted three new barn cats from the Knox County Humane Society. They got right to work and have been doing a stellar job, and we love them. Problem is, one of them loves us back a little too much. Velcro, the aptly named grey kitty, will take every opportunity to leap into a momentarily empty lap and purr. He would love to live in a place where he could be both indoors and outdoors, and sadly, we can’t have him at all in the house due to my allergies. But we would hate to send him back to the shelter, since he is such a love. So if you would like to adopt a sweetheart of a cat, let us know! It would be great to have him go to a new home, and then we would adopt another, more antisocial cat, from the shelter. 

Have a great week, and we hope you can all make it to the Common Ground Fair this weekend!

Reba and the HCF crew

FALL CSA SIGN-UP
The fall share will run 4 weeks (October 18th to November 9th) and costs $60 (we’re happy again to accept food stamps).  A smaller share than the summer CSA, the fall share could include the following cool weather crops: salad greens (mesclun mix, arugula, and spinach), bunching greens (kales, chard, and collards), broccoli, garlic, onions, shallots, winter squash, radishes, rutabaga, beets, and carrots.  
Let us know asap if you want to sign up!

FARM GET-TOGETHER
The Hatchet Cove Farm CSA cider-pressing, garlic-planting, potluck party will be on Saturday, October 17th (rain date of Sunday, October 18th) at noon.

Bring a dish to share (it was an incredible spread last year!), apples if you have any trees to pick from, and a beach or folding chair for comfort.  We will have paper plates, cups, and plastic cutlery, but we are always amazed at how much trash a little get-together produces.  So bring your own eating gear if you remember!

Week 15 veggies:  Onions, Green Peppers, Zephyr Squash and/or Zucchini, Beets, Arugula, Spinach, Brussels Sprouts, Bok Choy, Slicing Tomato, Cherry Tomatoes

This week’s recipes:  Brussels Sprouts with White Beans and Pecorino, Beet, Barley, Arugula & Feta Salad