THE BEET: VOLUME 18; WEEK 12
FULL SHARE & GREEN HALF SHARE PICK UP TONIGHT
Pick up today: 5pm - 7:30pm at PS 56 on the corner of Gates and Downing
This Week's Share
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Sweet corn
Scallions
German Red garlic
Kale or Swiss chard
Peppers
Eggplants or squashes or cucumbers
Savoy cabbage
Fruit: more of Yonder Farm’s peaches or Windflower Farm's melons
There is an interesting article in today’s Times about a California farmer written by a journalist who adopted one of his heirloom peach trees in an effort to help preserve his crop. In it, she described her annual visits to the farm and her connections to the farm and the people who live and work there or consume its produce. Preparations for our open house are underway, where you might make connections of your own. I hope you can make it. We’ll leave the reservation window open through the end of the week.
For Tuesday sites, our ten-week flower shares are winding down this week. For Thursday sites, last week was the last flower delivery for all but Prospect Heights and Clinton Hill CSA members, who will get their final deliveries this week. We hope you’ve enjoyed them.
Delivery #12, Week of August 26, 2019
What’s new on the farm?
We are beginning the second half of the CSA season with this week’s share. Warm season crops should be a part of our weekly offerings for some time to come, but root crops and winter squashes will eventually take their place. Our pie pumpkins are fully orange and must be harvested this week; delicata and acorn squashes will be ready next week. Butternuts, sweet potatoes and leeks and beets will follow.
Last week we focused on Alliums, bringing in the last of our red and yellow onions and shallots and weeding leeks. We’re pleased with how they’ve come out this year. Alliums do best when the spring is cool and rainy, and the summer is on the dry side, which was certainly the case this year. We’ve increased our volume of shallots and red onions because of shareholder requests to do so. Next week you’ll get some nice sized reds. We grew an experimental portion of our red onions by sowing seeds in September of last year and then transplanting them into the field and covering them in November. It seemed highly risky because they’d have to survive six very cold months before they’d experience their first day of good growing weather, but they were a success. And now ‘Electric Red’ will be in our standard fall lineup along with the ‘Forum’ onion sets we’ve planted for several years. Shallots are the trickiest of the Alliums for us to grow because they are so slow to develop and the most susceptible to thrips, a tiny, feather-winged insect, and the bacterial diseases they promote. There is a biological spray that organic farmers can use to kill thrips, but we try to avoid sprays of any kind and, seeing no reason to spray this year, did not apply anything to the crop. They grew well, and we plan to increase next year’s planting. We’ve begun trimming shallots in preparation for sending them your way, and you should see them in your shares in a few weeks.
We have had a comment or two in past surveys suggesting that there have been too many onions in shares (we do try to include some every week) and that they are easy and cheap to purchase. Conventionally grown onions truly are fairly cheap, but that’s only because of the extensive use of pesticides deployed to keep them weed-free, bug-free and disease-free. For reasons I don’t understand, onions are #5 on the “Clean 15.” After graduate school, I worked for Cornell University’s extension system in onion country and know what they are sprayed with (a pretty toxic chemical cocktail or herbicide, fungicide and insecticide) and how often (at least weekly for the entire season), and I have come to believe that the organic product is worth having and therefore worth growing.
Reminder: Open house on the farm - September 7-8th
You are invited to our annual open house on the farm. We will be celebrating our 20th year here. The weekend will include tours of Windflower Farm on Saturday afternoon, followed by a wine and cheese social hour, a potluck dinner, music and a bonfire. Sunday’s activities include a hearty farm breakfast provided by your hosts, farm tours for latecomers, and local activities. You might go on the Washington County cheese tour, visit one of three wineries in the neighborhood or the Argyle Brewery, swim in the Battenkill River, hike Mt. Equinox, visit the Battenkill Creamery or go to the Schaghticoke Fair. Camping on the farm is encouraged, but B&Bs can be found throughout the Saratoga Springs-Manchester, VT region. Kids, friends and friendly pets are welcome. Please bring a dish to pass for the Saturday evening meal. More details to come. Because we prepare quite a bit of food, it is important for us to know who is coming. Please RSVP by August 30th to windflowercsa [at] gmail [dot] com.
Travel from NYC to Windflower Farm by public transportation is difficult. Megabus goes to Albany and Uber and Lyft will come here, but the trip can be expensive. I would recommend car pooling. If you would like to offer a ride to a fellow CSA member, please let me know. And if you need a ride, let me know that, too. I’ll do my best to help you find each other.
Have a great week, Ted