2017 CSA ~ Week 14

September 5, 2017

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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

GREEN BEANS! We are all finished in the green bean plantings, so you are welcome to come this week again to do some gleaning….the patch will be open to you through Thursday, and then we will be tilling in the plants to make room for our cover crop planting. You can come to the farm between 3-7pm. Refer to last week’s blog for directions on where the planting is, and parking if you drive down to the field.

Member Wesley Voth came out to glean last week and  wrote in ….I enjoyed what he wrote so much, I thought I would share his musings with you all:

Thank you so much for the opportunity to glean the green beans, which I did Friday afternoon. I was alone out there from about 3 pm to 5:30. I picked 2 Trader Joes bags full; among the mature beans it was possible to find plenty of the young and tender ones. Can you tell me the name of the variety (new to me)? While I was there I helped myself to lamb’s quarter and purslane growing among the bean plants. 

The smell of the bean field brought back memories of my first experiences picking beans–I picked Blue Lake pole beans commercially from the summer of 1960 when I was 8. Of all the crops I picked as a farmworker—strawberries, raspberries, currants, blackcaps, cherries, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, sweet corn, apples, & various squash, I liked beans the best. The pay was 2 and a half cents a pound, with a half cent a pound bonus if you worked the whole season. We picked into 5 gallon metal buckets, dumping these into cloth flour sacks that held about 40 pounds. These were carried or dragged to the scale and cardboard tickets with our names on them would be punched to show the poundage. On a good day, and after a couple of years, I could pick 200 pounds a day–$5. First I worked on a farm east of Corvallis, riding my bike from our home on Kings Road. One season I worked on a farm in Monroe, riding a picker bus; I think the incentive was being paid in cash at the end of every day instead of waiting for a check at the end of the season. We moved to Newberg the summer I was 14, and there a farmer offered me a dollar an hour to carry bags to the scale, then to move irrigation pipe. From then until the end of college and moving to other work, I did most every Willamette Valley farm job imaginable: bucked hay, drove tractor, hoed, ran a farm stand, drove picker bus and field bossed crews of pickers, dug outhouses. Top pay by the time I finished was $2/hour (minimum wage at the time was $3.75) but I could work 70 hour weeks (5 12s + 10 on Saturday—moved pipe 6am/6pm Sundays but didn’t get paid because it was Sunday, a weird kind of Quaker logic). I loved it all. Thanks again. 

Wesley Voth

BEEF! Winter Green Farm beef is now available…if you would like the information about this years offering, or would like to reserve a share just contact the farm office.

STRAWBERRIES! The strawberries are in a lull right now, so that is why I have been filling your orders for flats slowly….if you have been waiting for a flat, rest assured that it will come soon! We expect another flush in a couple weeks, but I am filling orders from the few flats we are harvesting each day. Thanks so much for your patience!

WHAT’S IN YOUR SHARE THIS WEEK:

  • Corn
  • Sweet Peppers
  • Cilantro
  • Cucumbers
  • Tomatoes
  • Lettuce
  • Zucchini
  • Collards
  • jalapeno
  • Carrots
  • Onions

SOME SITES ONLY

  • Eggplant
  • Cherry Tomatoes

RECIPES:

Eggplant Parmesan Rollatini

Eggplant Pasta Salad

Sautéed Collard Greens w/Garlic

Collard Greens w/Raisins

Sweet Corn & Ricotta Ravioli

Corn & Zucchini Salad w/Feta

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Happy Labor Day! As I write this blog on Monday, it won’t be labor day when you read it, but I wanted to share the sentiment. We are laboring today, while I hope most of  you are enjoying a day off. We are fairly inundated with smoke here and it’s just not pleasant, to say the least. Many of the crew are wearing masks to protect themselves while working

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outside but it still stings the eyes and creates of feeling of heaviness, weariness. We can only imagine what those who are even closer to the actual fires are experiencing….our thoughts and prayers for their well being are with them all!

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Last week the crew was busy preparing the new strawberry beds for planting. The field has been worked and composted, the drip tape and ground cloth have been applied and the strawberry starts have arrived….guess what we’ll be doing this week?? You guessed it! Wednesday much of the day will be spent putting these lovely new starts in the ground for next years harvest. Last week we also harvested over 20,000 onions for Late Shares and wholesale, and this week we’ll be harvesting carrots…lots and lots of them!

LATE SEASON!

We are fast approaching the end of the Standard Season and will begin with Late Season deliveries on October 20th. We do still have some Late Season shares available and I thought I might entice those of you who have not reserved a Late Season share with some peeks at some of the winter crops ahead, sizing up nicely…..if you feel inspired to continue on with  your CSA share through the week before Thanksgiving, just call/email the farm office to reserve your spot!

 

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Festival Squash
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Delicious Delicata Squash
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Orange Kabocha Squash
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Leeks!

FEATURE VEGETABLE:When I first started on the farm, writing the “box notes” as we used to call them, when they were the paper version, we used to feature a vegetable each week. I have been looking through the archives and thought I would revive some of that old info….will be a repeat for those of you who have been members for many years, but some of you newer members might enjoy the info….

Our feature vegetable this week is the Tomato! A member of the nightshade family, Solanum lycopersicum is one of the most awaited summer delights. Technically a fruit, many cultures consider it a vegetable, and use it as a main course in their cooking.

Originally thought to be brought from the highlands of the west coast of South America, the tomato was distributed throughout their colonies by the Spanish Conquistadors. They introduced it to the Caribbean, the Philippines, and from there, it migrated to Southeast Asia, and to the entire Asian continent.

Popularity grew slowly, due to the belief that the plant and fruit were poisonous. It was grown as a decorative plant, until the peasant classes discovered that it could be eaten when more desirable food was scarce. It grew easily in the Mediterranean countries, and the earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was in Naples, in 1692. By mid 18th century, they were cultivated on many southern plantations, probably introduced from the Caribbean. It is also said that the tomato became popular in France during the French Revolution, because the revolutionaries’ color was red, and they were told to eat food that was red as a show of loyalty.

Today tomatoes are used in a wide variety of culinary applications, from salsa and pizza, to garnish and pasta sauces, and let’s not forget the American institution….Ketchup!     You have all of the fixings for more salsa in your boxes this week, so hope you enjoy!

Linda and all of the Winter Green farmers