Dear members,

It’s already mid-september! There’s lots of news in this email, so please read through to the end (or just skim to the part that is most interesting to you).

In this email:
1. Your box this week
2. End of season
3. Cider pressing event sept 30
4. We still need help with harvests!!
5. Season summary so far

1. in your box:
the only thing that’s very weird this week is SWEET POTATO GREENS. These are very yummy and nutritious. Eat the leaves, not the stems. You can steam them, sautee them, boil them, or basically eat them like any other green. You also received some variety of WINTER SQUASH. If you received acorn, delicata, or a small orange kabocha, these should be ready to eat now. If you received a tan squash (butternut, Seminole pumpkin, long island cheese, or a cross of these), these should taste good, but they will taste better in a few weeks, and even better in a couple of months if they are unblemished and you store them well. Winter squash are easy to store – they do just fine at room temperature. For more details about this follow this link:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-library/vegetables/winter-squash-eati...

it’s time for winter storage veggies. All the varieties (potato, onion, garlic, squash after this week, sweet potato, cabbage, beets, carrots) you will be getting now are good for storing for numerous months.
for an extensive winter storage guide:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-library/vegetables/storage-crops.html
this guide is for farmers – we have done a lot of the curing recommended already for you for most of these veggies.

2. Are you wondering when the season will be over? So are we! There is no frost in the 10 day forecast, so for now, expect more warm crops like tomatoes and peppers for at least one more week. We usually try to deliver at least one week after frost because a number of our crops taste better after the frost: cabbage, broccoli, kale, carrots.
For now we plan to deliver next week and the first week of October. If there will be more after that – I will let you know.
3. Come join us for our fall cider pressing fun! Saturday Sept 30th, 1-4pm. Bring apples and jugs.
4. Help us HARVEST! We still totally need help every Tuesday and Friday morning 7am-10am. It’s fun, and you get more vegetables this way. Contact (text is best) alice 978-471-8414, 515-460-1467 if you are interested.
5. I could say a lot, but I think you might be worn out from reading this long email already. So I will be very brief. This has been an incredibly dry year – the driest I have experienced in more than 10 years. Considering that, we have had amazing harvests of many crops. This is due to lots of irrigation, mulch and the miracle of healthy soil. Some pests were not too bad, while the grasshoppers and flea beetles have been terrible. One of our big resiliency strategies at the farm is diversity: biodiversity and a wide variety of crops. Because of this, every week we have had big delicious boxes, but there are some things that were missing. The drought and pests have kept us from having many or any of these things: beans, celery root, tomatillos, sage, rosemary, carrots, thyme, marjoram, apios, ground cherries, berries, mustard, fall greens.
I hope all the great tomatoes make up for this in part.
We would love to hear from you. How have you felt about the season so far? Do you have any special requests for these last few weeks?

Thank you all!
Sincerely
Alice mcgary