CSA Newsletter for Week 15

Farm Update

The sweet potato harvest continues!  Danny and Ben harvested
a whole bunch of them on Wednesday!

Hi everyone!  We are officially into fall now, and the weather definitely reflects that.  Another sure sign of fall is the massive harvests of sweet potatoes we've been doing lately!  So far we've gotten about 7,000 pounds of sweet potatoes out of the ground, and we have another 2,500 or so to go.  Harvesting is definitely our most time-consuming project these days, as the time spent weeding and irrigating (our other two major time-consuming tasks at the farm) are less important this time of year than they were a few months ago.  In other news, we had our inspection for our organic certification yesterday, and it went really well!  So that's out of the way, and now we just have our food safety inspection on Monday, and then we're set for the year.  Another fun thing is that on Wednesday, we had a photojournalism student from Central Michigan University come out to the farm and take some pictures for a class project she's doing.  She has been assigned to shadow and photograph a farm family so she can tell our story in pictures.  So Wednesday she came out and got pictures of Fred and me packing up the shares for our Lansing area drop-offs, and she's going to come to our house tomorrow evening and take pictures of the whole family.

I've also had a lot of people ask when the final drop-off will be, so just in case you're wondering, the last week of October is our final CSA week.  The last Alma drop-off will be October 29, Mt. Pleasant will be October 30, Lansing will be October 31, and Midland will be November 1.  But we still have six weeks of veggies left until then, so get ready for a bunch of seasonal fall goodies coming your way!

What to Expect in This Week's Share

If you are picking up at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, or Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station.

• Sweet potatoes

  

  Carson pints cherry tomatoes in preparation for
  Tuesday's drop-offs.

• Butternut squash or cherry tomatoes
• Roma tomatoes, potatoes, or eggplant
• Slicing tomatoes or lettuce
• Pie pumpkin, delicata squash, or 2 bell peppers
• Kale, cilantro, or microgreens
• Large onion

If you have a prepacked share (Midland hospital, St. Johns, Lansing, Okemos, or home delivery), here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A or share B, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.

Share A:                               Share B:

Sweet potatoes                     Sweet potatoes
Butternut squash                  Cherry tomatoes
Roma tomatoes                    Potatoes
Lettuce                                 Lettuce
2 bell peppers                       Pie pumpkin
Cilantro                                Kale
Onion                                   Onion

Recipes

There are a lot of tomato options in the shares this week!  So if you are as much of a tomato lover as we are, you really could get a ridiculous number of them if you so choose.  If you're reading this and thinking, "That's an awesome idea!  I think I'll do that!", here are some great tomato recipes to help you on your way, from Chili-Lime Shrimp Fajitas to Heirloom Tomato and Onion Quiche.  Enjoy!