Hi members!
Some quick housekeeping:
There are 20 weeks in the Main Season program, so the week of October 24th will be our final week. There are still 4 weeks to go after this one!
Delivery members, please be sure to return your bags. Sorting through which bags came back and labeling replacement brown bags slows down our operations here. Thanks so much for your help with this!
Aside from a couple of imperfect pepper orders, our bulk box order fulfillment is now complete! Plum tomatoes are very slowly trickling in and we may be able to fill last minute requests for plum tomatoes, especially if plum tomato "seconds" would interest you. Those would be $25 for 25 lbs. Send us an email and we'll see if we can fill it.
It's officially fall! To celebrate, we've got two fun things happening this week. First of all, we're including acorn squash in your share! In previous years, we've held on to winter squash and used it during our final Extended Season portion of the program, but now that we've shifted the Main Season back two weeks, we felt comfortable including it.
We grow four main kinds of winter squash: butternut, acorn, delicata, and spaghetti. We also dabbled in growing some honeynut this year and we grow a small amount of blue hubbard squash. Since our pumpkin crop failed this year, having blue hubbard will be a real treat - it's actually my personal favorite to make a pie with! More on those later, but for now, you can expect to see a squash in your share - maybe not all of the weeks we have left, but for a few, at least.
If you're not quite ready to give up summer, we've also got eggplant and beans in your share this week. We'll see summer favorites for a little while longer, hopefully until we get a frost. They slow down in the cooler temperatures, but we certainly want to embrace them in your boxes while we can. The winter squash will literally store for months if you'd rather save it for a later date.
The second fun thing we're doing this week is giving away Soup Socks! One lucky winner on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday will find a package of Soup Socks in their share. You use these to make soup stock with your food scraps. As you acquire odds and ends, like maybe some sprigs of an herb that will be in your share this week, or potato peels, or the ends of snipped beans, throw them into a Ziploc bag in your freezer. Once you fill a whole bag, it's time to make soup. With Soup Socks, you put the scraps into the mesh "sock" and then boil them into a veggie stock when making soup. If you aren't the winner, you can boil them right in the pot and strain them out later - these just save that step. Good luck!
On Tuesday, our general email list will receive 2023 Vegetable Subscription details! Be sure to check your mail to read all about next year's program. There will be some changes, but most of the details are staying the same. Enrollment Day begins on Sunday, October 16th at 7 a.m. - our All-Star members are already talking about setting an alarm!
Now that our field planting was completed this week, we're working on a lot of maintenance tasks: sorting through rotten onions, weeding, and beginning to harvest all of that winter squash to be stored in bins. Since we're back to harvesting greens more frequently, our wash station is back to buzzing with action. We're also trying to finish cleaning up the remainder of our garlic to be sold in the coming months. And, of course, staying on top of the harvesting: squash, zucchini, and cucumbers are still harvested every other day, and crops like eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes at least twice a week. Everything else in your share is harvested the day before. Phew!
Here are some beautiful golden hour shots that Carly took this week.
This past week we had a lot of fun featuring potatoes. I got a little silly while packing your shares and started to come across some funky-shaped potatoes, turning it into a game called "Ink Blot Potatoes." What do you see?
Not to mention we had so many awesome submissions for our 2022 LGF Spud Specialist competition! Here are some of those submissions:
From homemade potato chips, to soup, camp packets, shepherd's pie, potato pancakes, and even chocolate mashed potato truffles, we were so impressed by the variety and creativity demonstrated by our community! We set out to show that potatoes aren't just for mashed potatoes and fries, and you all certainly proved that.
Our 2022 LGF Spud Specialist title was awarded to Brian, who made savory garlic cheddar potato donuts with chive and sour cream whipped potato topping. He shared that this submission was adapted from a 1930s recipe featuring Maine potatoes. How fun is that? We loved that Brian sought out a totally unheard of recipe to show all that potatoes can be!
As is always the case with our cooking competitions, Brian won a commemorative prize... a customized potato masher to help him to always remember his win! Thanks for playing, everyone.
Just arrived in the store... Hindinger Farm apples, grown in Hamden!
And coming soon...
Lettuce!
In Your Share (Listed approximately from shortest shelf life to longest)
Large:
1 eggplant
1 lb. of cucumbers
1 pint of grape tomatoes
1/2 lb. of beans
1 bunch of kale
1 bunch of salad turnips or radishes (depending on availability)
1 acorn squash
1 bunch of sage or thyme (you choose!)
Small:
1 eggplant
1/2 lb. of beans
1 bunch of kale
1 bunch of salad turnips or radishes (depending on availability)
1 acorn squash
1 bunch of sage or thyme (you choose!)
Caring For Your Share (All of this information, plus long-term storage info, can also be found in our Vegetable Library of Resources)
Wrap sage or thyme in a paper towel and store in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Store beans in a plastic bag in the fridge. Wash and blot dry when ready to use.
Store grape or cherry tomatoes in a bowl with lots of airflow on your counter. If stems are still attached, don't pull them off until you're ready to eat the tomatoes. Wash before using and enjoy within a few days.
Store acorn squash in a cool, dark place such as a pantry, cabinet, or cellar where it will get air flow.
Remove the greens from the radishes or salad turnips and store them in separate plastic bags. Wash and eat the greens within a few days; the roots will keep for a couple of weeks if stored properly.
Store kale in a plastic bag in the fridge. Or, snip the ends and store in a glass of water, like a bouquet. Wash and spin out when ready to use, within a few days.
Store eggplant at room temperature, like out on your counter, but keep it away from other fruits and vegetables that will emit ethylene gas, as this will cause it to rot faster (tomatoes, melons, bananas, etc.)
Store your cucumbers in the crisper drawer in the refrigerator.
The LGF Cooking Club
Baked Acorn Squash with Blueberry-Walnut Filling (Cut the recipe in half)
30 Minutes or Less:
Large Share Additional Ingredients:
Biweekly Catch-Up (A copy of last week's updates)
Hello everyone!
We love hearing your feedback about some of the more unfamiliar crops in your share. It always surprises and delights us to hear you all gush about the Tokyo bekana! We've definitely found a winning crop in this green.
This week you'll see the return of more greens in your share as we shift to some of our cooler crops. One exciting new crop we're sharing this week is Brussels sprout tops.
We cut the greens off of the Brussels sprout stalks so that the plant can focus its final bits of energy into producing large sprouts. We harvest the sprouts themselves for Thanksgiving, so they still have a good couple of months to continue growing.
Brussels sprout tops are like sweet, tender collard greens. I have to give a shoutout to member Elayna B. - I remember her coming in to the store mid-week last year to grab another bunch after receiving the one in her share because she loved them so much! Definitely check out the Library of Resources for information about them and recipe ideas. When in doubt, use them as you would any other cooking green.
Remember, if you'd like to use the swap table this week, feel free to swap out one item of your choice. As we see the return of greens, this is a great resource if there's anything you're not a fan of, though we highly recommend keeping your Brussels sprout tops and trying them if you haven't before.
On Wednesday we took a ride to Monroe where we grow our pumpkins on family land. We hadn't checked on the pumpkins in weeks and had no idea what we'd find with our crop. But we truly expected the worst - this plot of land has no irrigation. Sure enough, it was a disaster and we had lost all of our pumpkins.
The plants just didn't take off like they should have with the lack of water, and what pumpkin carcasses we did find had been ransacked by critters looking for water.
While we were there, we checked out the ornamental corn and popcorn we planted. Randy said it needs to stay on the stalk to finish the drying process before it can be harvested, but is pessimistic that it'll hang on long enough before being eaten by something else.
Luckily we have a very small planting of pumpkins up at Booth Hill and were able to grab an armload. Laina and Felicia also rescued some that were growing out of the compost pile. Randy says there are still some green pumpkins up at Booth Hill, so we'll cross our fingers to at least get a few.
On Friday, we changed our store over for fall by putting out new product offerings. Take a look at some of the things we have in the store!
Winter squashes will most likely begin to arrive in your shares next week.
Plus, we moved our mums out front and they're ready for sale. They're $8 each or 2 for $15, and they come in 4 different colors: red, orange, pink, and yellow.
On Saturday, we held our second annual Bonus Box Harvesting Event! Every year we offer an Early Bird Registration period for enrollment in our vegetable subscription program, and one of the perks for signing up during that early window last fall was an invitation to the Bonus Box Harvesting Event!
We've held this on the same Saturday in September when our bounty is overflowing, and again we were blessed with the most beautiful weather. 56 families came to the event!
If this is something that you're interested in attending next year (and believe me, the more the merrier!), be sure to sign up for your 2023 subscription during our Early Bird window starting on Sunday, October 16th - we're definitely offering this same perk again. Here are some photos of our members having a blast!
Don't forget about our 2022 LGF Spud Specialist contest - a cooking contest with potatoes! Here's how it works. Cook an appetizing and totally unique recipe using potatoes, then send us a photo and description of what you made. Think outside the box beyond basic mashed potatoes and fries. What we're out to do is show the world how much fun and how creative cooking can be. Just saying, I saw a recipe for chocolate mashed potato cake!
The contest will close on September 25th, and we'll pick a winner the next day. The winner will receive a custom, commemorative prize for being the Spud Specialist! Check our social media accounts @laurelglenfarmllc to see the submissions. Good luck!