Fall CSA – final week!

October 31, 2022 by Thiessen Farms 1 Comment

Our season is rapidly coming to an end.

This is the final week for our fall CSA program. By all accounts it has been a success. The weather co-operated and we have been able to keep the boxes full of delicious vegetables – and even pawpaws! Our members have appreciated the extra weeks of fresh produce.

After some light frosts throughout October, we finally had our first heavy freeze last week. While it finished off the remaining sunflowers, the salad greens & beets came through it undamaged. There will be plenty in the boxes this week.

Once we have picked our vegetables for CSA this week, whatever is left in the fields will be picked and sent off to the food bank.

We have covered one bed with hoops and row cover. Under it is a mix of salad greens for us to eat as long as the weather allows. The cover should extend the season for awhile – we’ll see how long.

One of the last major jobs on the farm in fall is also one of the most important – spreading manure & compost. The smaller pile is guinea pig manure – that’s right, guinea pig manure! We have neighbours who breed & show guinea pigs and bring us manure every week when they clean the cages. It adds up over the season and we have quite a big pile of beautiful manure mixed with wood shavings. The larger pile is 40 tons of mushroom compost that we had delivered the other day. We mix the 2 piles together and spread it over the farm. This, together with the cover crops that we grow, feeds the soil and all the living things in it. The result is healthy, vibrant soil that grows our beautiful, tasty and healthy vegetables.

What’s in the box?

Cabbage/Chinese cabbage, squash, garlic, beets, salad greens, green onions.

The final week of CSA includes some storage vegetables – cabbages, squash, garlic & beets and also some vegetables to eat fresh – salad greens (probably our salad mix and spinach or bok choy …) and green onions.