Cooking in Season
week 13
The tips on the leaves are starting to turn now but the weather is holding at the same –not really too hot- level it’s been at all summer. The pumpkins are crawling along and a few are hinting at oranges through their green veins. The tomatoes in the back garden got blight and are now toast, but the romas and heirlooms at work are doing just fine so far surrounded by ragweed in bloom. (sneeze.) I see local plums and peaches at the farm up the street and wonder how the heck they manage that. I’ve been looking for local cherries but this season has been a bust. Exotic fruit growers in the area said we had an extremely ground chilling winter last year and everything took a hit. We’re planting new peach trees in hopes of production in the future.
The grapes are hanging airily on the vines at work and I’m testing them every three days and charting them to see when the chemical compounds are just right for harvest. It’s so funny how something as earthy and basic as growing things can turn so scientifically complicated.
This past week I’ve eaten out of the garden more than ever. Wed night I grabbed a leftover basket and chopped up some turnips, squash, beet greens, potatoes and fresh tomatoes and put them in a light tomato sauce and it turned out amazing. I feel as though I’ve overlooked turnips unjustly as their mild flavor was just the perfect surprising zing to the dish. Last night for Labor day my sister cooked up a green / purple / yellow bean and tomato dish that was amazing and we had steamed sweet corn and ribs. I loved the red corn, which turned an odd shade when cooked but still was sweeter than I thought it would be. I would plant it again.
And I already feel this year winding down a lot as we start to tuck up the gardens after another very odd Ohio growing season. Last year we had so many tomatoes we didn’t know what to do. This year was the year of the summer squash. I wonder what next year will be like…
Anyway, now is the time for some much appreciated feedback. Throughout the season we hope that we are providing what our members are looking for; weather and growing conditions permitting. Here’s your chance to let us know how we did and what we could do better. Also, if anyone feels so inclined to post on our localharvest page, we’d much appreciate it and offer up a free dozen eggs for your time.
You can email me your feed back or fill it out and bring it in next week.
On a scale of 1 to 5 for your CSA preferences, how important are the following with 1 being not at all and 5 being extremely important:
__ Diversity of fruits and veggies __Flexibility in pickup
__ Organic __ Local
__ Recipes __Heirloom varieties
__ Fruits included
Anything you would have liked to see more of?
______________________________________________________________________________________
Comments or suggestions for next year? ______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
Any feedback is always helpful. Thanks and see you next week…. ~janee
No comments:
Post a Comment