It was a beautiful Monday morning drive around the farm today. The dew was heavy on the plants, the sun was bright, and the colours & textures amazing!

There were some good surprises too!

The long-awaited (at least by us) beets are big enough to begin harvesting, as are the salad turnips.

The Chinese cabbage is almost ready. Maybe by next week – our last CSA pick-up – we can pick some? The other cabbages will not be ready in time.

While CSA is coming to an end, our farmers’ markets continue into October so we’re still planting. We will continue to seed lettuce, arugula, spinach, bok choy & baby kale … for another week or two. This will give us vegetables to harvest until the last market on October 25 (providing we don’t get a heavy frost before then!).

What’s in the box?

Salad turnips, beets, beans, squash, lettuce, sweet peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, garlic.

• Way back in weeks 3 & 4 we had salad turnips in the CSA box – and now we have them again. They prefer the cooler temperatures of spring & fall rather than the heat of summer, which is why they disappeared for so many weeks. Enjoy them raw as a snack or in a salad. Salad turnips can also be sliced and stir-fried or sautéed. They have the texture & flavour of a radish but are usually much milder.
• Beets have also not been around for a while. It has been a bad year for beets, at least on our farm. But we finally have some – the usual dark purple (red) beets, yellow beets, and the striped candy cane beets. Regardless of colour, they all taste great!
• Have you tried the Dragon’s Tongue beans yet? These flat, yellow beans with purple stripes are very tasty – with a more “beany” flavour than the green beans. Both colours will be available this week.
• We’re picking more varieties of squash now, as they mature & ripen. There will be at least 4 kinds to choose from this week. Right now we have all 4 roasting in the oven so we can give a first-hand report to you on flavour, texture, sweetness etc … Remember that squash stores well. Keep it dry & about at room temperature.
• Lettuce, sweet peppers, tomatoes (probably only the bigger field tomatoes, not cherries), zucchini & garlic round out the box this week. Still lots of good eating for the middle of September!

Heading out to pick squash on a Monday morning!