This week's best food to eat:
-Ginger, eggplant, and boc choy stir fry
-Carrot top pesto
-sweet potato hash
-basil and garlic mashed potatoes
-roasted red peppers with anything
And this week's news:
September trudged by. The sun that has come out these past few days has reminded us there are reasons to hope for a fall revival, but we should also spend a moment in the reckoning. The clouds and rain of that month has consequences. How many clouds, you may ask. How much rain? Please refer to this handy pictorial weather archive of the nasty little month as a reminder.
Plants don't fare well in those circumstances. There were salamanders and frogs all over our fields, folks! Wonderful critters, sure, but we never intended on farming in a marsh. The crops all stopped in their tracks, be they heat loving or cool loving, with no new growth at a time when it was important they be shoring up strength for the potential of October frosts. It also got cool, real cool, real fast, and that slowed growth as well.
No one really likes to hear us talk about the hard stuff, I get that, it's kind of depressing to hear about. And for goodness sake it's a hard enough time in our culture! It's still inescapable that there really are hard times in farming that cannot be avoided by any combination of skill, foresight, and perseverance. Grit can get you through, but grit won't make the tomatoes ripen in a rainstorm.
So what would your local farmers have you do about it? Whatever we managed to coax out of our fields in this challenging time, use it to eat your way through the challenge with us. If we're short on tomatoes, go with tomato sauce. If the winter squash runs out, try the sweet potatoes. Short on salad greens but you see fennel and carrots? Shave or grate those as a salad instead.
As you can imagine, we're filled with joy that we've got beautiful, warm, sunny weather in our now and in our future. We can't wait to get back into the fields - it's time to plant lots of cover crops that protect the soil through the winter, and we're ready and waiting!
Eat well!
-Jess, writing for Chelsea, Darci, Kelsey, Kyle, Lara, Monica, Morgan, and Scott
New this week: Boc Choy and Red Cabbage!
At Pennington and Hoboken only: Mother Earth Organic Mushrooms
At Pennington, Hoboken and Summit: Solebury Orchards Apples and cider
Arugula
Basil
Beets
Carrots!
Eggplant
Flower bouquets
Garlic
Kale
Rolled Oats
Onions
Peppers: green bells, shishitos (a frying or grilling sweet pepper), and hot peppers, red and orange sweet peppers
Potatoes- big ones and fingerlings
Salad Turnips * limited
Salsa
Spinach: maybe ready this week
Sweet Potatoes!
Tomato sauce
Tomatoes: plum tomatoes, and all the rest are weather dependent!
Fresh herbs: cilantro, dill, parsley, chives, oregano, thyme, rosemary and sage
Zucchini and summer squash: limited
Autumn squash: acorn varieties
