Volume 21, Week 15
Full share & 🥦 green 🥦 half shares
218 Gates Avenue between Classon and Franklin
(IMPACCT Brooklyn at the Gibbs Mansion)
5:00 to 7:30 pm
Open call for recipes + RAFFLE!!! Send us your favorites!
Send us photos and recipes of your favorite dishes, drinks, and desserts to make with your late summer and fall produce! For every submission, we'll enter your name in a raffle - you'll have a chance to win goodies from Lewis Waite farm and Clinton Hill CSA swag! You may even see your recipe on social media (follow us!), or here in the Beet!
Submit your recipe + photo here! Feel free to reach out to information@clintonhillcsa.org with any questions!
This week’s share
Green leaf lettuce
Kale mix
Radishes
Italian flat beans
Sweet Peppers
Tomatoes
Potatoes
Garlic
Sweet Corn
Basil
Fruit: plums
Extras: bread and eggs
News from Windflower Farm
Distribution #15 - Week of September 12, 2022
Next week, you’ll get acorn or delicata squash, plus lettuce, arugula, tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic. The fall harvest is underway. Blocks of potatoes, winter squashes and leeks are still in the field along with small quantities of turnips, rutabagas and cabbage and the whole of the sweet potato crop. There are seven deliveries remaining in our season, but just three or four weeks that we can count on to be free from frost.
The greenhouse is full for the first time since June. We’ve just bumped the strawberries outside. The last of the greens will go next. Later this week, we’ll be seeding arugula, a variety of kales, spinach and choy for winter shares, and we’ll need the space. And then we’ll be done with greenhouse work for the year because it is the middle of September and the season is nearly over.
What’s new on the farm?
I’ve just climbed out of the cab of the old John Deere tractor. I’ve been doing some fall plowing. I must confess that I like how it looks - I’m tired of seeing weeds. Even in places where we’ve grown good crops, weeds are quick to follow. I also like that I can establish a good fall cover crop if I’ve plowed. Carbon in, carbon out.
A 1985 video of Carl Sagan discussing “emerging issues” is now in the background as I write. I saw him speak when I was in school. It’s therapy to hear his calm, reasonable descriptions of the world we live in. The most important emerging issue then as now was global warming. Listening, I find it remarkable that we knew then – nearly forty years ago - as much as we know now about the dangers of a warming planet. It is perhaps less surprising that the barriers to change then were no different than they are now.
Gray clouds hang low in the sky, and it feels like it might rain. This puts some bounce in my step as I have a fair amount of ground to work up and cover crop or green manure seeds to sow and I’d be happy to have the work done before the rain begins. The cover crop I’ll sow today is a mixture of rye and hairy vetch, which I’ve noted in the past does wonders for the health of the soils we farm. The rye, if let to grow until spring, will fix carbon and the hairy vetch, a legume, will fix nitrogen. This use of the word “fix” is the odd convention by which soil scientists mean to say that these atmospheric elements are incorporated into or become a part of the soil by way of growing plants. It’s a truly wonderful thing. Unfortunately, we are on something of a teeter totter ride in that when we are growing cover crops we are in the business of removing carbon dioxide from the air, and when we are tilling the soil to prepare it for vegetable plants we are in the business of releasing carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
This is why no-till farming and other forms of conservation tillage get so much attention. Unfortunately, producers of warm-loving vegetables, and vegetable farmers in northern climates, and growers who don’t use pesticides (and we happen to be all three of these) have so far had little success with no-till farming. But the work goes on – trial and error. For now, it seems, if we are to make any kind of contribution to the goal of atmospheric CO2 reduction, it will have to focus on reducing the carbon footprint of our modest home and farm facilities (heaters, coolers, lights) and our trucks and tractors. And on this front we all have a contribution to make.
Have a great week, Ted
Community Events
Fab Fulton and Brooklyn Music School Present Free Live Jazz @ Betty Carter Park!
Catch live music, after work and on your way to happy hour — come check out the BMS Jazz Series with the talented faculty of Brooklyn Music School! We’re back with the free outdoor series highlighting the musician-educators on staff at the venerable Fort Greene institution, performing standards and classics you know and love. And if you’re a local musician, bring your instrument and jam for a while!
Where: Betty Carter Park, 38 Lafayette Ave (@ Fulton Street)
When: Friday, September 16, 5-7PM
IMPACCT Brooklyn, our distribution host, is hosting a FREE series of financial capabilities workshops. Workshops are held virtually, on Wednesdays from 6:30-8:00 pm. Details below, click here to register!
September 14, 2022 – Understanding Credit
September 21, 2022 - Learn How To Increase Your Wealth
September 28, 2022 - Understanding Housing Connect and the Lottery Process