FULL SHARE & GREEN HALF SHARE PICK UP TONIGHT

This Week's Share

garlic
herbs (Rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage)
greens (lettuce, kales, tatsoi, mizuna)
leeks
potatoes
carrots
winter squashes
sweet potatoes
broccoli
Fruit Share: Apples: final pick up tonight

Letter From Windflower Farm

Last week we had temperatures down to 18 degrees. Everything not covered was lost, with the possible exception of broccoli. But we covered just enough of everything else so as to fill out your shares for the next two weeks and four more for the winter share (you’ll find a sign up link below).

This week’s Instagram image shows the team planting garlic. Although we had a good garlic crop this year, we will be sending just a small garlic bulb this week and another medium-sized one next week. We would like to have sent more but, because we had a bad garlic season the year before, we have had to keep our better, bigger bulbs for replanting. We have planted eight 330’ three-row beds this year (one of which was planted upside down by a new member of the staff, but has since been dug up and replanted pointy side up!), and hope to be able to include quite a bit of garlic in next year’s shares.

Nate has been building a pair of wooden doors for a workshop we’ve been renovating under a shed roof off the north side of the barn. He is taking a gap year before finishing college and is expanding his knowledge of carpentry, welding, electronics (and sailing!). He and I have talked about a number of winter projects we’d like to undertake, including machinery repairs and crop harvest aids, but we both know nothing will happen if we don’t have a warm place in which to work. One of the barn’s posts had moved causing the roof line to follow something like a sine curve, so last week we jacked it up, removed a slice of the post, and set it down again, giving us a roof line approaching level. Jan has been helping to insulate the space, and once we’ve installed Nate’s doors and a little wood stove I bought a few years ago, the workshop should be pretty snug. After next week’s harvest, our last until the winter share, we’ll start in on actually building an electric cultivator we’ve been imagining for years.

It’s time to sign up for your winter share! Help keep your farmer and his staff off the streets of Valley Falls this winter by giving them something better to do with their time.Click here to sign up. https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/windflower-farms-20152016-winter-share/. Or read on for more information.

This year we are celebrating our tenth winter share season! The share is meant to be something of an antidote to the long winter, and includes fresh salad greens from our greenhouses, stored roots, bulbs and tubers from our root cellars, and locally grown fruits in the form of cider, berry jams and stored apples. Shares are delivered just once a month so as not to overwhelm your kitchen.

Our winter deliveries will take place on four Saturdays - November 21st, December 19th, January 9th and February 6th – and are timed to coincide with the deliveries made to your CSA pickup site by Lewis-Waite Farm and Winter Sun Farm. PLEASE sign up for your winter share by November 5th, the end of our regular season.

Have a great week, Ted

The Permaculture Podcast

Recently, the farm I work with in Costa Rica, was featured on The Permaculture Podcast. Permaculture is a way of farming with the land in a regenerative way; it's a philosophy of working with nature and looking at systems as a whole, rather than individual components. It's also about mindfulness: setting an intention of gaining better relationships for both humans and the eco-systems in which we live. I invite you all to give a listen to the podcast- it's an interesting conversation that covers everything from farming challenges in Costa Rica, to taking a closer look at your life style foot print, and even the joys of being part of a CSA.

Click Here to Listen!

Permaculture @ VerdEnergia, photo courtesy of Justin Orman

The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze in Croton-on-Hudson

Happenings Around Town

There's a lot happening this weekend as it's Halloween. In Croton-on-Hudson you can catch the Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze, which features over 7000 hand carved pumpkins: there's a Pumpkin Planetarium, flying pumpkin ghosts, and the headless horseman.

Nearby, in Sleepy Hollow, is one of the BEST Haunted House's around. Horseman's Hollow. Wander through a haunted school house ending in the lair of the Horseman.... click here for info and tickets!

Back in Brooklyn, NY finally get's its own FOOD MUSEUM! MOFAD (Museum of Food and Drink). It's not just for foodies, the founders boast- How food is made, why it matters, history, science, and a had look at contemporary food issues.

The World's First Plant based Scrambled Eggs have arrived!

A San Francisco Tech has discovered in various plants, a way to make egg products, like mayonnaise, and now "scrambled eggs" without the eggs! This is amazing news for all the chickens out there, living in tiny cages who need our compassion. And for all the people who like mayo, but not the cholesterol. Check out this awesome video! I personally saw some "Just Mayo" at the Associated Grocery store on Waverly :)

THE BEET: Volume 14, Issue 22

In This Week's BEET: