Volume 24, Week 18

Full share & 🧽 yellow 🧽 half shares

218 Gates Avenue between Classon and Franklin
(IMPACCT Brooklyn at the Gibbs Mansion)
5:00 to 7:30 pm

As we tiptoe into October and the last few weeks of the CSA season, we still have something to look forward to: our legendary end-of-season Halloween potluck! This year, the party will be on our last pickup, on October 30th, and one day before Halloween. We’ll have fun activities for kids, including decorating their very own pumpkins, and lots of spooky decorations.

Here’s the potluck part: you can sign up to bring the dish of your choice.  Don’t forget to drop it off before 6pm so it has lots of time to be enjoyed by your fellow CSA members, and in a disposable container (unless you know you’ll be at the distribution site when we close at 7:30). 

Questions? You can reach out to the potluck organizer, Sarah Chinn, at sarahchinn67@gmail.com.

Submit your recipes! As we move into the final six weeks of our summer season, we want to know what you’ve been cooking with your Windflower fruits and veggies! Your recipe may be featured in the Beet, and if 15 minutes of CSA fame isn’t incentive enough, know this: everyone who enters will automatically be entered into a raffle to win some covetable culinary prizes!

Submit a recipe!

The new member waitlist is now open for the 2026 season! If you know someone who’s interested in joining the CSA, they can now add their names to the waitlist! We will reach out to waitlisters in early spring as spots become available. Feel free to share this link with anyone who might want to add their name to the waitlist: https://clintonhillcsa.org/join. Please note: current CSA members will receive priority registration for 2026 and do NOT need to join the waitlist - it’s for new folks only!

And - winter share signups coming soon - keep your eye on the Beet!

Spice popup this week (and next) - for real this time!

Bhavna, a Fort Greene neighbor and founder of Sourcery, a Brooklyn-based spice company that sources fresh, will be with us at distribution tonight with a variety of fresh spices sourced directly from small family farms in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, including: Black Pepper, White Pepper, Timur Pepper, Turmeric, Cuming, Coriander, Fennel, Clove, Kashmiri Chilli, Mace, Nutmeg, Black Cardamom, Green Cardamom (pictured), Ginger, Cinnamon, Jaggery, Asafoetida, Masala Chai, Smoky Chai. 

This week’s share

  • Spinach

  • Mustard Greens

  • Radicchio

  • Parsley

  • Leeks

  • Broccoli

  • Onions

  • Sweet Peppers

  • Pie Pumpkins

  • Tomatoes

  • Fruit: Empire Apples from Yonder Farm

  • Extras: bread, eggs, granola, mushrooms

News from Windflower Farm

Delivery #18, week of September 29, 2025

It rained on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, giving us a total of more than 3 inches. Hallelujah! It was so much rain all at once that our electronic rain gauge couldn't produce a reliable figure. Already, it seems, the grass is greener. And we've been able to move on to other activities. We live just 35 miles south of the Adirondack Park "blue line." To celebrate the arrival of rain, we went paddling for the day in Lower Saranac Lake, where we enjoyed the company of loons and peak fall colors.

Our soils are rolling and rocky, making them less than ideal for the kind of work we do. Still, they are highly productive soils and have yielded record corn crops and some very good vegetables. The rolling aspect of our farm is not a great problem, and not one that can be easily remedied anyway. To be sure, it can make the tractor ride more exciting. We've learned that brakes should be fully operational. Having adapted to being hill farmers, we've also learned to farm on the contour to prevent erosion. 

Rocks, on the other hand, can be a problem. Hand picking, something we've done for 25 years, has helped, but it hasn't been enough and it is back breaking. Last December, we made the decision to spend some of our equipment budget on a Rock-O-Matic, a big pull-behind rock picking machine.  We found one in Ontario and had it shipped here just ahead of the Trump tariffs. Because potato harvesting brings a huge number of rocks to the surface, we decided to start our rock picking there. The quantity of rocks coming out of the field has been staggering. Our farm won't be stone-free overnight, but the improvement makes me think that we might grow straight carrots here one day!

 Have a great week, Ted

 
Veronica