Sweet as Sugar

Remember last week’s newsletter, when I talked about the sweetening effects of frost on many of our crops? Well this week you will be taking home Brussels Sprouts that endured our first hard frost of the season. We had twenty-five degrees here this morning (Tuesday) and will be pressed to have enough time for them to thaw enough to harvest before the Tuesday share is ready at two o’clock. I won’t have enough time to taste test these beauties before all of you arrive today, but I’m betting they will be the garden equivalent of marshmallow fluff. I can’t wait. There are a couple of sprouts recipes on the website for those that need a friendly entry point for this sometimes maligned vegetable http://crystalspringcsa.com/archives/category/recipes/brussels-sprouts

Some good compliments for Brussels sprouts are butter, olive oil, nuts, mustard, the whole onion family, parsley, oregano, caraway and curry spices.

We are giving you the stalk that the Brussels grow on because it’s fun and helps keep the sprouts fresh. When you are ready to use them just pop them off the stalk and jump in. The stalk can be composted, given to vegan dogs or used in your next stickball game.

Next week will be the last week for 2010 Share!

Upic? You’ll notice the upic listing is absent from the newsletter. Last night’s frost was a doozy and really kicked everything out there. You are welcome to do some gleaning of herbs and flowers if you like. We are hoping that the snap peas will progress this week and we can let you into them next week…more on this next week’s newsletter.

Pumpkins this week and next! Starting this week we’ll be sending you home with pumpkins. We had a good crop of jack-o-lanterns this year so get ready to do some carving! There will be pumpkins available starting this week and the last week of the share as well. We should have enough for two pumpkins for each share with some extras for the kids.

Survey Time Continues! We’ve had almost a hundred survey responses, which is great but there are many more of you out there. It’s fine for family members/share partners to fill out their own survey. If you have come to the farm this year and eaten the share we want to know what you think. Please take a moment to fill out the survey online http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3GT5H2N or grab a paper copy at pickup and hand it back.

CSA sign-up for 2011. Many thanks to all of you who have signed up for next year’s share. It’s been a great year and we hope to make next year even better. Your commitment to a share this fall helps us plan for the coming season. By signing up now you also get on our winter payment plan which divides the share cost over three payments in February, April and June. As always, payment in full is great too.

Spring Greens in 2011. With the addition of our new high tunnel we hope to start next years share in May with early greens distributions. Look for more info in our winter newsletters.

What to expect in your share this week…

Lettuce            Potatoes            Rutabagas

Brussels Sprouts            Carrots            Kohlrabi

Kale                                    Chard            Winter Squash

Asian Greens             Chickories            Sweet Potatoes

Winter Work. As winter approaches we have a long list of projects to tackle. The first in the queue is putting a new roof on the CSA barn. CSA member extraordinaire Phil Dostie is leading the effort to help with this along with support by longtime CSA member & friend Mark Wild of G.M. Wild Construction (gmwild.com). We are planning to strip and re-roof the barn Halloween weekend. If you would like to lend a hand (we need lots of on the ground help with shingle gathering) shoot me an email and I’ll sign you up.