Volume 22, Week 12

Full share & yellow half shares

218 Gates Avenue between Classon and Franklin
(IMPACCT Brooklyn at the Gibbs Mansion)
5:00 to 7:30 pm

Order local extras from Pleasant Valley Farm!

Local larder Pleasant Valley Farm delivers on green weeks - the deadline for next week’s delivery is Tuesday, August 22. Check out their ever-evolving catalog here!

This week’s share

  • Tomatoes

  • Sweet peppers

  • Eggplants

  • Onions

  • Sweet corn

  • Parsley

  • Cabbage

  • Kale or collards from Denison Farm

  • Fruit: Pennsylvania peaches, complements of Yonder Farm

  • Extras: eggs, bread, granola, mushrooms, maple, and grain!

News from Windflower Farm

A lush green is everywhere. Rose colored Joe Pye weed, purple loosestrife, boneset and cattails are in the wet places along roadways, and goldenrod is blooming. Cooler weather has set in with the arrival of August, perhaps a little prematurely. Rainfall is still regular, but it’s not unwelcome. August is typically a period of transition here: the salad greens that had become buggy or bitter in July are gone, and a new generation is coming along. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are at their peak, as is sweet corn, but we are focusing our farm work on later crops. We weeded our sweet potatoes for the last time. We are cultivating fall broccoli, kale, and cabbage, and beginning to harvest potatoes. And we are sowing our last successions of beets, summer squashes, radishes, turnips, lettuce, and spinach. After this week, there will be just ten weeks left in  the CSA season.

 

I travelled through the lake country of northwestern Connecticut last weekend to pick up a potato harvester. Our old harvester was a large, unruly contraption; the only thing reliable about it was that it would break down regularly. It consisted of hundreds of chains, dozens of sprockets and a bent pto shaft, and had to be tended by half a dozen people to make it function properly. Weeds, rocks, and potatoes would jam in any of a dozen nooks or crannies, causing the tractor to kick and sputter, eventually grinding the whole operation to a stop. The new machine, an Italian import, is made of far fewer parts. The Italians farm on stony soils, like ours, and have developed tools able to withstand harsh treatment. It doesn’t have a single chain. If the old machine moved along the field like a loud, angry mob, this new one sashays, moving down the potato bed in a rocking motion, a harvest dance, a fine piece of machinery. Perhaps Nate will post a video on Instagram. In the meantime, he’s posted three short farm pieces just this week.

 

Take care, Ted

 
Veronica