We had a frost this past Thursday that took out the green beans, flowers, field peppers, and a few other things. We covered the hot peppers and cherry tomatoes so those are still fine for picking for a few more days and the edamame appears more frost hardy than the green beans and is still okay. We have a nice forecast for the next week or so with pleasantly warm days and no frosts, so we're glad to have a bit more time to get the more of the harvest in and covered before more cold weather comes.
We hope to see many of you at our End of Season Celebration on Sunday, October 5. We will do a farm tour at 4 pm. At 5 pm, there will be pumpkins for decorating and/or carving and potluck meal in the barn. An RSVP is helpful.
Winter CSA share forms are now ready and we can accept members. We are planning a biweekly box of storage vegetables and hardy greens in November, December and January. We're excited to be able to provide food for more of the year, despite our cold climate!
Passing this on to interested folks:
All are welcome to come to the Colgate Community Garden Open House
Monday, September 29, 4:30-6:30pm
Located just south of the Colgate campus on Route 12B
You can find out what the vegetables for the week are by going to our "What's In" page on our website and checking out the PYO page on our website.
It is a great time of year to start making soups! Cream of celery, potato-leek, squash soup, kale and white bean, beet borscht, carrot-fennel, and vegetable minestrone as just a few of my favorites.
We've been pulling in winter squash - several varieties are still "curing" but the acorn squash doesn't need curing so we're distributing it now. The classic recipe is to cut it in half, scoop out the goop, put butter and brown sugar in the cavity and bake it for 45 minutes to an hour at 400 degrees. They can also be used for soup, bread, baked in rings, stuffed and more.
Salad turnips can be eaten raw or cooked and their greens can also be eaten raw or cooked (and are very nutritious). Here is a nice recipe for salad turnips from smallfarmcentral.com:
Fall Salad with Turnips and Apples (with Fennel!)
Dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together: 1 T. fresh lemon juice, 1 tsp.
sherry vinegar, ½ tsp. white balsamic vinegar, and ½ tsp. Dijon mustard. Slowly
whisk in 3 T. extra virgin olive oil until dressing thickens. Season with salt and
pepper to taste.
Salad:
1 - 2 bunches small salad turnips and/or radishes, trimmed
1 carrot, very thinly sliced ( or shredded or cut into matchsticks)
1 sweet-tart apple (like Gala, Fuji or Honey Crisp), unpeeled and cut into thin
wedges
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced, optional
4 cups mixed salad greens of your choice
¼ C. diced dried apricots or craisins
¼ C. shelled pistachios ( can substitute toasted pecans or other nut)
Place vegetables and apple slices in a medium bowl. Toss with
half the dressing.
Place salad greens in a large bowl and toss with remaining half
of dressing.
Divide greens onto 4 salad plates. Top with dressed turnip
mixture. Sprinkle with apricots or craisins and nuts. Season
with salt and pepper, and serve
