Woah! Saturday was a tremendous harvest. We usually try to give the apprentices a half-day on Saturday, but Patrick and Ben polished and sorted tomatoes with me all the way until 6pm tonight. We love all the food that is ready to harvest, don’t get me wrong. But some days we still get caught by surprise by the extent of the harvest!

I always try to time things so that at some point in the season we can give beets and arugula in the share at the same time. It finally happened this week! It’s just so that I can print again our favorite Beet, Barley, Feta and Arugula Salad. I hope you enjoy it.

As for the celery in this week’s share, it’s not the wimpy celery heart you find in Hannafords! This is the real deal — strongly flavored, strongly textured. We love it, but generally use it in cooking rather than eat it raw.

If you’re ready to put by some salsa or tomato sauce, I’ll continue to bring 10# bags of tomato seconds to the pick-ups ($15 per bag). Feel free to get as many as you need. My favorite way to preserve tomatoes is to fill a baking pan with tomatoes and roast them in a low oven for hours and hours. When they are wrinkled and deflated, I let them cool (often overnight) and then pop off the skins, pop out the core, and pop the remaining tomato into freezer bags. They make incredible sauce in the winter.

If you want to harvest your own basil (free pick-your-own for CSA members), come on out to the farm. The basil is in the field right next to the parking area at the head of the driveway (across from the CSA pick-up stand). Please check in with us and limit yourself to picking from the first three rows (the ones closest to Finntown Road).

As we all get back into the swing of our fall routine, we hope that these vegetables continue to inspire you to make room to cook in your busy life. Before long, these fresh greens will be just a memory of summer. Enjoy them while they’re here!

Be well,
Reba and the HCF crew

Week 12 of 18: Potatoes, Beets with Greens, Arugula, Celery, Eggplant, Kale, Tomatoes, Garlic, Zucchini/Zephyr Squash and/or Cukes, Green Beans

This is a chicken and egg week

Cheese CSA Week 12

This week’s recipes: Beet, Barley, Arugula and Feta Salad, Kale Waldorf Salad, Chocolate Beet Cake

It was a very, very long day in the wash shed on Saturday! By the end we were all a little punchy and, well, a little weird. Exactly as Patrick’s shirt encourages us to be.