foxlinecityfarm

The final share of a fantastic season.  Our best ever on so many levels and we are pleased, grateful, relieved, and a little bit tired out all rolled up together.  It’s fun to reflect on this amazing summer that honestly seemed to zip right by.  The gardens and hoop house have been powerhouses all season long.  We set a few personal goals and hit most of them.  One was to provide “leafy greens/lettuce”  in every share every week.  We did it and we did it well.  Another was to rock on broccoli-and we did it, we wanted to provide more carrots than last season and we did that too and were very pleased that we had carrots in our very 1st share this season.  We still are hoping to grow even more for next season so carrots can be a regular item in the shares all season long as a treat. We wanted to grow more beets and different varieties of beets and we still stink at growing beets….we had 2 good crops and that was it.  We are glad we had “some” but had much higher hopes.  Other seasonal highlights and “best evers”…Wasn’t Uncle Jim’s corn great this year!! 6 weeks.  WOW! Thank you Uncle Jim. The onion crop was amazing this year.  Great varieties, sized up well, and high yield.  Beans were abundant (and not too abundant that we were swimming in them).  We had an early harvest and the rotations were strong all season long.  Peppers were great! And are still rolling along which is pretty crazy.  Our potato crop was near perfect aside from 1 variety which we will discontinue and the new potato digger made harvest so much easier. Brussels Sprouts!  HUGE!!!! best ever for us.  We harvested over 600 pounds so far and the stalks are still loaded.  Winter squash harvest was MUCH stronger than past years, watermelon was spot on, and the 5 varieties of leeks we planted had high yield with more still in the field for winter share.  Our tomato harvest was better than last year but the harvest widow short.  We had great and bountiful tomatoes 3 weeks longer than last season but still ended too soon when the cold wet weather came late summer they never really came back with big harvests.  Cherry tomatoes of course chugged along forever….Cucumbers were perfect and early BUT! ended too soon and our second planting never really amounted to much…we will improve on this next year and same with zucchini-great when they were here but wished for a longer window of harvest. Shelling peas way back at the beginning of the season were delicious and abundant.  A big treat in our mind and I think we are the only CSA around that provides these….sugar snaps flowered when the vines were short and our yield was down because of this.  We hoped for more but were grateful for what we had given the odd weather challenges early in the season.

It is important to us that there are a few extra perks in our CSA.  Every share had flower bouquets a few times this summer as a pretty surprise, beautiful basil plants went home with everyone too to enjoy all season long.  Backyard honey sure is a sweet treat and the ginger a zippy marvel grown in our backyard…..Fun additions that make our CSA special.

The final big goal for us is really 3 fold-1.variety-207 different varieties were provided this season with great rotation and not repetition over and over and over of the same stuff…-2.clean, properly processed and well presented produce with a 3. personal touch.  Our family does all the work with no outside hired/volunteer help at all.  We did it!  We want our members to look forward to their shares every week and enjoy them with very little cleaning to get them to the table.

Now for my favorite end of summer detail….12,718 pounds of produce went home with CSA members this season. With a bit of calculating this translated to less than 50 cents a pound for delicious clean produce all summer long.

We are grateful for this season and the support of our CSA members that make this life possible for us.  Thank you to all….

SUMMER SHARE #20 FINAL SHARE OF THE 2017 SUMMER SEASON

1463 is the weight of the final shares this week!  WOW! But…. is does include the weight of the ornamental pumpkins.

Shares are packed in paper kraft bags this week so no need to deal with a return bag.

Scott packing final share in kraft bags.

SNACK PACK

head lettuce (2 varieties), storage onions, brussels sprouts, carrots, pepper, sweet potatoes, winter squash, ornamental pumpkin

head lettuce-2 gems this week, a fluffy late summer crunch, and mini head bibbs

Summer crunch at harvest this week.

Early morning lettuce harvest.

storage onions-several in every snack pack share.  Long storage life.

Cleaning onions before they go in the shares.

brussels sprouts-We are thrilled to offer these for a 3rd time this season in the final share.  Delicious.

160 pounds harvested this week!

Carrots-Fall carrots are so sweet.  A great end of season harvest for us.  Enjoy!

Carrots!

Posing with the bounty….

This is how we wash our carrots-an old wringer washer.

Pepper-An assortment from the final harvest….How amazing that the pepper harvest is still strong!

Sweet potatoes-A great Autumn treat!  As mentioned before we are thrilled to have a sizeable harvest at all with to our late planting date due to supplier issues and the cool summer.

Phew! We have some big ones.  You just never know what you are going to find when you start digging.

Potatoes-Perfect! baking, mashing Superiors this week.

Winter squash-a mini acorn or Carnival in every share.

Ornamental pumpkin-a thank you treat!  Enjoy!

Scott harvesting the ornamental pumpkins out at Cousin John’s. Thank you Cousin John!

FULL SHARE

head lettuce, spinach, storage onions, brussels sprouts, carrots, peppers, sweet potatoes, potatoes, pac choi, winter squash, ornamental pumpkin

Head lettuce-2 varietes a sweet and juicy mini bibb head and a crunchy cold hardy summer crunch.

Scott harvesting the mini lettuce heads.

Lettuce all crated up and ready to head to the wash tanks.

Spinach-A nice big bag.  We are picking off 3 rotations in the hoop house.

Storage onions-several in every full share.

Brussels sprouts-A nice big bag for several meals.  A favorite!

Carrots-2 pounds in full share.  A great late season harvest for us.

Maeve passing time with the carrot harvest.

and modeling with the carrot….she told me to take the picture as it would look really “cool”.

Final Fun carrot shot!

Peppers-Several in every Full Share from the final harvest.

This week’s pepper harvest.

Sweet potatoes-An Autumn treat that even sweetens up over time….

Potatoes-Superior potatoes this week.  A great baker or mashed. And perfect!

Scott packaging up the beauties for the share.

Winter squash-2 a delicata and an acorn in full share this week.

Pac Choi-Mini little guys to add some crunch to fresh salads or a light stir fry.

Ornamental Pumpkin-a final share treat for autumn decorating.  Enjoy!

Auntie Howdy I will have to send you notes in the mail from now on….love to you and happy autumn.

Ornamental pumpkin Harvest.

THANKS FOR SHARING A GREAT 2017 SUMMER SEASON WITH US!!!

WREATH WORKSHOP IS AROUND THE CORNER….FRIDAY’S CLASS IS ALMOST FULL.

Maeve getting creative with the wreath we made together last year.

1ST WINTER SHARE PICK UP IS THURSDAY NOVEMBER 16TH  See you then….