Basket contents: Beans, broccoli, choice of potatoes or onions, choice of beets or lettuce, choice of zucchini or eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, melon, basil, garlic.
Recipe of the week: Broccoli and Tofu in Spicy Peanut Sauce
Another week of abundance! We’re now into the second half of our basket season together, and we hope you’re enjoying your season with us. We will do a formal survey near the end of the season, but feel free to send us your comments and suggestions throughout the season, either in person at drop-offs or by email. We want to not just sell you veggies, but rather grow them for you, with you in mind, and adjust our production to better suit the preferences of our partners.
Seasons are changing, and so are your veggies!
You’ll notice, if you think to think about it, that most of the vegetables in your basket this week are fruit. Not fruit in the commonly-used sense of sweet-tasting non-vegetables (you know, apples, pears, strawberries), but fruit in the botanical sense, meaning the seed-containing vessel that follows the flower. Can you identify which items in your basket are actually fruit? (hint: there are seven in the above list). To generalize, fruit are a summer thing. Remember in June and early July when your basket might have felt a little heavy on the greens? Spring is full of leafy vegetables, as that is what grows first and fastest, providing energy to grow the rest of the plant. We’re now in summer mode, what with our beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant and of course melon- all fruit! But already we can see a shift away from the fruit time of year to the rootiness of automn. As the fruit production starts to dwindle, you will see more and more roots in your basket. It’s already begun with beets, onions, garlic (ok, that’s a bulb) and potatoes (ok, that one’s a tuber), and it will only continue as the season progresses.
Skillshare a big success!
As you may have heard by now, our first ever skillshare was a great success! Despite the rain on Saturday, we had over 70 people come out and so many workshops offered that we had to triple book them! I won’t list all of the workshops here, but just say the caliber of presentation was consistently high, and it was great to have such a range of topics covered. Thank you again to all of the presenters! Potluck meals were abundant and tasty (full of fresh veggies, of course!). About 40 folks camped overnight after an amazing hoedown in the barn, with a live brass band and informal jamming.
Our goals in organizing this skillshare had a lot to do with building resilient communities- communities in which we are empowered in our knowledge and ability to manage ourselves autonomously. It was encouraging to have presenters, many of whom hadn’t presented their topic before realize that they had a lot to share, and that one doesn’t need to be an expert, professional to do and know something well. It was also great to see participants open to learning all kinds of new things to which they may not have been exposed in the past. At the end of the weekend we at the farm all felt so blessed to be surrounded by such a strong and caring community- and also that the farm was even cleaner after the event than before! Big thanks to all who made it possible!