In the Share - Week 24

SWEET PEPPERS F/P  Everyone gets a bag from the last haul out of the fields.

LETTUCE F/P  butterhead or red leaf

ESCAROLE F  See Tom's post about it and it's starring role in the Outstanding in the Field dinner.

GREENS CHOICE F/P  Gai lan or bok choy.  The choice for the partial shares include escarole.

ROOT MIX F  A bag of beets, carrots, turnips and whatever else we can glean from the fields tomorrow.

HERB CHOICE F/P  hot peppers, chives, thyme, sage or dill.

GARLIC F  We had more garlic than we thought, so here's an extra dose.  It should keep well into winter if kept cool and dry.

TOMATOES F  A mixture of ripe, ripening and green tomatoes.  The last of the season.

BROCCOLI P  We have a small harvest this week, just enough for the partial shares.

SWEET POTATOES F/P   choice of white or orange.

NEXT WEEK:  The fall extended season begins with harvests from the high tunnel: lettuce, greens and roots plus some items held over like potatoes and onions.

FARM REPORT:
This week your farmers got a off-farm break for the first time since March.  The Outstanding in the Field dinner started the fun on Wednesday. 

Linda Hezel, from Prairie Birthday farm, began with a toast.

By Saturday afternoon, we were driving south to Fort Scott, one of our nation's military outposts on  "the permanent Indian frontier" as it was considered to be back in 1842.

Heading home on Monday we hiked through the tallgrass prairie at the Mine Creek Civil War battle site near Pleasanton, Kansas. 

Now here it is Tuesday and we are faced with the last week of the 24-week CSA season.  For many this is goodbye for the year.  A hearty hug of appreciation is sent to all of you who weathered 2015 with us!  Community Supported Agriculture kept our farm afloat through pretty tough weather conditions this year and we cannot thank you all enough.

Despite a year's worth of rain in two months and then no rain for two months, we have somehow managed to continue to find crops to harvest each week.  From our varied crop list (about 40 in total) we lost many but were surprised by others that survived and even thrived.  The carrots rotted but we had one of our best harvests of white potatoes ever - over a ton in total.  The peppers, eggplant and okra rebounded from the rains and produced a bounty of fruits.

A special thanks go to Megan McQueen and Semra Fetahovic who apprenticed at the farm this season.  They started back at the end of March and seven months later, 44 hours a week, they have successfully completed a job well done.  Best wishes to them both!

And thank you to all who participated in the success of another season.  To steal a phrase, it takes a community to raise a farm!!!

Saturday morning CSA members dismantling the cherry tomatoes