FULL SHARE & YELLOW HALF SHARE PICK UP TONIGHT

Pick up today: 5pm - 7:30pm at PS 56 on the corner of Gates and Downing

A Few Reminders:

Please Sign up for our Winter Share: https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/m1xr27rk05nzoa8/

The winter share is four once-a-month deliveries of root crops (our own stored roots, bulbs and tubers), fresh salad greens, apples, pears and either cider or jam. We hope you’ll join us!

Halloween Party! Next Week On Site during Distribution: We'd love to see our youngest members in costume, and anyone else who want to dress up! All festivities are welcome!

November 1: CHCSA 15th Anniversary Party - Save the Date!

CHCSA Survey

Please Take our end of the season survey. It's quick (less than 15 minutes) and helps us and Ted improve our CSA for next season. Click Here to Begin!

This Week's Share

‘Magenta’ lettuce
Garlic and fennel fronds
Butternut squash
Carrots
Kale, choy, chard, radicchio, collards and mustard mix
Fennel bulbs or beets
Onion bulbs or leeks
Potatoes or sweet potatoes

Letter From Ted & Windflower Farm

We wrapped up the planting of our winter greens on Monday. We have planted eleven small greenhouses and three larger ones. I’ll post images to our Instagram page this week. We’ve planted one kind of spinach, two kale varieties, three lettuce mixes, two choy varieties and Swiss chard. We don’t heat our greenhouses. Instead, we plant them now, which is timed to bring them all to maturity by Thanksgiving, and then allow them to “rest” under floating row covers until harvest at any point during the winter. In this way, we can have fresh greens in a Northeastern winter without the use of electricity or fossil fuels. It’s wonderfully rewarding to be able to head out my back door on a cold January afternoon, walk across a snowy lawn to a greenhouse, and harvest a bowlful of fresh salad greens.

We will begin planting garlic later this week. Between now and the end of the season, we will either plant everything we have left or send it to you (you should get garlic every week until the end of the season). We expect to plant eight or nine 400’ beds. Nate fertilized and pre-shaped the beds two weeks ago, and I’ll lay the mulch and drip irrigation tomorrow. Once planted and covered, there is little for us to do except uncover and weed in the spring. This is the garlic that will provide next spring’s scapes and next fall’s bulbs. And next week, we will begin planting much of next year’s onion crop. Perhaps more about this in weeks to come.

We have been spending more and more time in the kitchen with the return of cool weather. And soups have dominated our fall menus. Tonight, it was Hungarian Mushroom, which actually had very little besides onions from our own farm. But last week’s lineup included much from your shares: Carrot Ginger Dill Coconut Soup, Butternut Squash Soup, Potato Leek Soup, Thai Coconut Lemongrass Soup with Tofu and Broccoli, and On-the-Mend Lentil Soup with Carrots. Later in the week we plan to try a Greens Soup in Coconut Milk with Polenta. We’ve been out hiking among the fall foliage – just spectacular this year! – and find that warm soup in a thermos is just the thing to have along.

Have a great week! Ted

Recipe Ideas

I too, like Ted, have been making soups. I love making a big pot, so there's lots of leftovers when times are tight during week night dinners. This past week I made this delicious Farrow and Navy Bean Soup - it's extremely comforting with a loaf of fresh olive bread, and a simple green salad.

I would also recommend trying African Sweet Potato Stew. If you've never had it- it may sound strange (there's peanut butter in the soup) but it's incredibly delicious, and economical! You should have everything you need from the CSA and cupboard basics. Here's a basic recipe, but there are other more sophisticated variations out there. It will fill you up! And it goes well with a fresh loaf of crusty sourdough bread.

Lastly- Here is a phenomenal Butternut Squash Soup recipe, by Bed-Stuy Super Chef, Bryant Terry. It's by far my favorite variation of this soup. Instead of apples and onions, he uses Bartlet Pears and leeks- which really show off the richness of the squash, and folding in the coconut milk at the ends gives you a very creamy, rich soup. Happy Cooking!

THE BEET: Volume 15; Issue 20