• Green cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Cut Lettuce Mix
• Sunflower Shoots
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Hakurei Turnips
• Baby Carrots
• Curly Parsley
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli
• One LAST Leek!

Tribute

Last Wednesday, after months of cold relentless winter, the sun began to shine. The forecast up until that point had been so fickle that it was hard to trust the little sun icons on my weather app, but nevertheless, there they were: Wednesday afternoon through Saturday night, 84 hours of tenuous possibility for an increasingly desperate farmer. I started crafting a master plan for our 3.5 days of promised sun - a plan that would hopefully catch us up on two months of farming and a spring season that had thus far been jinxed completely by the weather. At that moment in time, our propagation greenhouse was busting at the seams with thousands of waiting transplants, many of which should have been planted outside a month ago, and we had yet to break ground anywhere in the field (something we usually start doing in February). 

The problem was, it had rained 3+ inches at the start of the week, so even though the clouds were finally breaking up, our fields were saturated. If it dried up enough to get into the field, it wouldn't be until the last possible moment - Saturday. And should we be lucky enough to get the conditions we needed to work up some beds with the tractor, we were going to have to pull off 4 weeks worth of transplanting in one day, with half our crew on vacation. There was an element of desperate faith laced throughout this master plan.

Leading up to Saturday would be a flurry of preparation: rolling back the occultation tarps that we had deployed back in February - insurance against exactly this kind of winter, which disallows any early ground prep (over the course of 6-8 weeks, the tarps kill the cover crops, leaving us with bare ground that dries out much more quickly once we get a sunny window). We'd also be mowing, weeding, weedeating - all things we need dry weather for - and last, but not least, spreading 15 tons of amendements on the field (a custom blend of calcium carbonate and micronutrients to help bring our soil into balance for the growing season to come). It was a to-do list to beat all to-do lists.

And then early Friday morning while rolling out the kinks on my yoga mat in anticipation of our 15-ton day, we got the news from halfway around the world that my dad had died. He was off the east coast of Africa on a trip of a lifetime, sailing around the world with my step-mom, Katy. He died of unexpected medical complications at the age of 73. His name, which many of you know from his lifetime in public service in Oregon, is Bill Bradbury: state Representative, state Senator, Senate President, Secretary of State. He was the innovator of Oregon's vote-by-mail system, a climate warrior, and a champion of watershed restoration, wild salmon, land use, renewable energy, and campaign finance transparency. He was an avid whitewater enthusiast, sailor, pilot, lover of all things wild and beautiful and free, and there was no one who appreciated food more than he did (somehow every meal he ate was the best meal he had ever eaten - which pretty much sums up how he approached life: unbridled enthusiasm about everything). He was a big, warm, redwood tree of a man at 6'4" with a huge, twinkling, goofy grin, an unmistakable laugh, and a tireless dedication to making positive change in his beloved state, and beyond. He was also the best dad on earth. Bill Bradbury was all of this, in spite of fighting a 43-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis, which eventually confined his body, but never his irrepressible spirit, to a wheelchair.

My dad died on a precious, dry, sunny Friday, and all I could think was: I wish it would rain. Rain so that I could stop everything and stay home and lay still and try to make sense of it. But instead, Abby and I suited up in a shocked stupor and spent the next twelve hours spreading our 15 tons of calcium on the field. It was her birthday, and despite the world turning upside down, it was wonderful to spend the entire day with my sister to process, remember, and feel grateful for the fact that it was our dad who stumbled upon Floras Creek almost 50 years ago and traded a short-order restaurant in Bandon for the farm. The rest is history, made manifest in your CSA tote today (if there is anyone to thank for your veggies this week, give credit to my dad for that serendipitous impulse in 1975).

Before we called it a day to go celebrate a subdued version of my sister's birthday, I had to spend another half hour on the tractor in preparation for our big Saturday plant-out. The evening light was pouring into the valley from the west, lighting up every living thing on the farm. It was heartbreakingly beautiful. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and I suddenly felt the presence of my dad in everything. In the dipping flitting swallows, the apple blossoms, the new buds on the kiwi vines, the easter-green grass, the rich brown earth, and also, I realized, in me. He loved wild, beautiful places and would always say - on a river trip, or at pretty overlook - “this is my cathedral!” (exuberantly of course, with his arms thrown wide). In that moment I felt like I was in his church and I was so grateful he was there with me.

On Saturday, the planting commenced. Roberto and I started at 8 am and were soon joined by my mom, then my husband, then my girls and my nephews. We worked together all day, past dark, and planted every last start. On Sunday morning, right on cue, the rain blew in again. And as it's poured down these past few days, the condolences have poured in - an overwhelming deluge of love and support from so many people who knew and loved my dad, and from people who never had a chance to meet him but respected and appreciated all he fought for and stood for in Oregon. To everyone who has shared their kindness with my family these past few days, whether we have met or not, thank you so much. It means the world to know that his stone has made a wide and beautiful ripple.

I am proud of our dad for the legacy he leaves Oregon, and grateful for what he helped instill in us: the instinct to create some kind of positive change on this planet (not to mention, a great love of good food). But more than anything I thank him for this family, and for this homeland. I wish more than anything he was still here with us, that enormous, joyful laugh echoing down the valley. 

• Purple Sprouting Broccoli
• Semi-savoy Cabbage
• Bunched Mustards
• Italian Parsley
• Pea Shoots
• Yellow Onions
• Leeks
• Potatoes
• Kale and Cabbage Raab
• Collard Greens

La Primavera Tardada...

We went into the harvest on Monday full of excitement about all the new spring crops we'd hoped to pick this week: spinach, hakurei turnips, baby carrots, maybe some green onions. After all, it was the first official calendar day of spring, and who can argue with that?! Well, it turns out the weather can. It argued, and it won. Like it or not, winter still has a firm grip on the farm. The rain is near-constant and cold, the grass is barely growing, and the sunshine is scant (oooooh, but when it breaks through it feels miraculous, no?). As for Spring, well, she's slow in coming this year - tardada (i.e. taking her sweet time). You will see spinach and carrots and hakureis soon, guaranteed (plus more cauliflower and no more mustard greens!), just not this week. Instead, deja vu! Leeks and cabbage and potatoes and a motherlode of lovely kale and cabbage raab (even if Spring isn't quite ready to share her bounty with us, Winter is still providing mightily, thank goodness)! If you haven't oven-roasted all of those things with some olive oil and salt, get on it this week! 

Even if winter seems to still have the upper hand, we took a gamble on Saturday and seeded the favas and sugar snap peas outside. Chances are they'll rot in the ground this week, but we had to try. Maybe Uma and Jules, our fava seeders, will prove to be the lucky charm that helps those seeds sprout while it's 39 degrees and raining this week. And if not, we'll try again. C'est la vie! 

A Handful of CSA Shares Still Available!

We are so delighted we were able to accomodate everyone on our waiting list this year, and still have a few CSA spots left for the upcoming 2023 season! If you know of anyone who would like to partake of 28 weeks of VF produce from June to December, send them to our website to sign up!

We are making a special effort to get the word out as widely as possible to folks who have SNAP food benefits. Thanks to the Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB) program, SNAP participants receive a 1:1 match on the cost of a CSA share (they pay half and DUFB covers the other half). It's an awesome program that makes the CSA more affordable and accessible to all! Get the details here on our website.

In a Landscape Comes to Valley Flora on September 6th! 

Classical Music in the Wild at Valley Flora! 

We are THRILLED to announce that Hunter Noack of In a Landscape will be bringing his flatbed trailer and piano to the farm and playing for us on September 6th, 5 to 6:30 pm. I saw Hunter play for the first time last summer at Shore Acres. I love live music, and I love wild places, so it was a no-brainer that I fell in love with In a Landscape. In fact, after seeing Hunter play, I experienced my first-ever case of groupie fever: I wanted to quit the farm and follow him around the West to be immersed in his music and all the stunning landscapes he plays in. Obviously there were a few obstacles to manifesting that scheme, so instead we got him to come to us! DO NOT MISS THIS!!!

All proceeds from this concert will benefit the Wild Rivers Land Trust's "Heart of the Dark Coast" Campaign. Their goal is to double the current 1,000+ acres of protected lands along the southern Oregon coast. A number of Good Neighbor (free) tickets are available at this concert for residents of Curry County and for Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cardholders. 

Get your tickets today, this magical event will sell out!

Hello Friends of Valley Flora!

Although it feels like the coldest winter I can remember here on Floras Creek, calendar spring is right around the corner. Our greenhouse is filling with more and more tender starts every week, and if it ever stops raining we'll be out there planting before you know it! That means it's time to sign up for our 2023 CSA season!

We are particularly excited about a few new initiatives we've launched this year to make our CSA more accessible to everyone:

• Our new CSA sliding scale payment system - a way to collectively make food access more equitable in our community while keeping the farm economically viable
• Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB) - a program that helps low-income Oregonians purchase more fruits and vegetables while supporting local, family farms. SNAP customers can purchase one of our CSA shares using their Oregon Trail card and DUFB will provide 1:1 matching funds (members pay half the cost of the CSA with SNAP and DUFB covers the other half). It's a win-win that strengthens our community by providing better access to fresh, healthy food while helping local farmers earn a living.

We hope you'll consider signing up for the 2023 CSA season with us, and please spread the word widely about these new programs at the farm. Here's to fresh, local veggies for all!

Hi everyone! Thanks for getting by without the farm newsletter this past month while I took a little winter break with my family. I'm back to it now, just in time for a dose of real winter weather! We were grateful to get the harvest in this week before the brunt of the storm hit. If you are a Winter CSA member and are unable to make it to your pickup site today, not to worry. Any unclaimed Valley Flora totes will be put in our walk-in cooler this evening (you can pick up anytime during daylight hours this week) and Bandon totes will be available until 5 pm tomorrow. Stay safe, don't drive if it's scary!

This Week's Winter Share:

• Savoy Cabbage
• Collard Greens
• Bunched Winter Mustard Medley
• Curly Parsley
• Pea Shoots
• Leeks
• Yellow Potatoes
• Tetsukabuto Winter Squash
• Onions

On Rotation:

• Purple Sprouting Broccoli
• Spring Raab

A Couple Recipes for a Stormy Winter's Night:

Oven-Roasted Savoy Cabbage (not so much a recipe; more like the simplest way to make the most delicious cabbage you ever tasted, and warm your kitchen up while you're at it):

Preheat your oven to 450. Cut your cabbage into narrow wedges, leaving the core attached. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and spread onto a sheet pan. Bake until crispy-browned at the edges and soft throughout. That's it. I'm not sure there's a better way to enjoy winter cabbage. 

Lemony White Bean Soup with Lots of Greens (adapted from the New York Times Cooking)

Follow the link above to our online recipe collection for the full recipe. This has become my favorite soup this year, and is especially good with collard greens, which lend a meaty texture to the dish.

Let it Snow!(?)

I'm torn on this topic as I consider the forecast for the next 24 hours: on one hand, I would love nothing more than to wake up to a winter wonderland, pop into my nordic skis, and head out with 6" of fluff underfoot. On the other hand, I'm not so excited about camping in our delivery van next to the greenhouses tonight so that I can wake up every hour and sweep snow off the plastic. But heck, with a zero degree sleeping bag and a thermos full of hot tea, bring it on! I'd do just about anything to have ski season arrive right at my front door.

But why the need to sweep snow off the greenhouses in the middle of the night? Because a couple inches of wet, heavy snow is enough to collapse them. We live in a climate where precip usually falls from the sky in the form of rain, which allows us to use quonset-style hoop houses. They're cheaper to build but they aren't designed to shed snow very well (unlike a gable roof, which has a steep enough pitch to slough snow). So when an arctic storm like this rolls in - and that little snowflake icon shows up in the forecast - it means that we're working the night shift. Not only would it be a serious bummer to lose the greenhouses, it would be a big setback to have all the crops inside them get smooshed (right now that includes winter greens, lettuce, baby carrots, hakurei turnips, spinach, and other treats destined for the Winter CSA shares in the coming weeks). And so, I'll go digging for my winter camping gear, maybe light a little hobo fire in a burn barrel, and pack some extra mittens.

Stay warm, wish us luck tonight, and imagine happy farmers kicking and gliding across the snowy pasture tomorrow on x-country skis (sleep-deprived but delighted).

• Carrots
• Red Cabbage
• Winter Kohlrabi
• Red Onion
• Hakurei Turnips
• Delicata Winter Squash
• Kale
• Winter Crisp Lettuce or Bunched Greens

Shifting Into Winter

As lovely as it was to sail through our big Thanksgiving harvest under sunny skies last week, it feels good to hear the rain on the roof today (and, er, watch the clogged gutter spilling over at the edge of the porch....apparently I forgot to clean that one). This is our second-to-last CSA harvest of the year; next week will be your final Harvest Basket delivery before we put the farm to bed for a little winter break. But in the meantime, be sure you pick up your produce this week and next:

• Last pickup for Coos Bay and the Farm is on Wednesday, December 7th
• Last pickup for Port Orford and Bandon is on Saturday, December 10th

Like many farmers I know, I relish winter. After the relentless pace of a long growing season, I fall into winter like a a marathon runner collapsing over the finish line. It's my moment to slow down, delete a lot of weekly reminders off my phone, and to spend time doing other things while the fields lie dormant (goofing with my kids, seeking out the snow, hiking along our beautiful coast, stealing sunny days for horseback rides, having dinner with friends, saying yes to more spontaneity). Perhaps my favorite winter indulgence is that half hour in the evening - after the kids have gone to bed and while the woodstove is still blazing - when I curl up with a good book and give myself a half hour to read while the dog twitches out her mysterious puppy dreams on the rug. 

Winter is also essential for fixing, building, oiling, repairing, tuning-up and finding re-inspiration in the new seed catalogues that have started arriving in the mailbox everyday. We have some significant projects in the works for this winter: a farmstand remodel, a new equipment shed, and an additional walk-in cooler. In the office, crop planning for the 2023 season is already underway and will be my primary focus for the next month, with the goal of having our seed orders submitted by early January. Then, by early February the greenhouse begins to fill up with starts once again and we pop out of Persephone* into the beginning of Spring. Ah Winter, so fleeting....and in all truth, never as "slow" as I imagine it will be. But it's slowER, looser, a little less scripted, and that unto itself offers some rejuvenation. 

*Persephone is the window of time when we have less than 10 hours of daylight, during which plants are mostly dormant. At our latitude, Persephone begins around mid-November and ends in early February (12 short weeks of the year when plants aren't entirely bossing us around). The story of Persephone is one of my all-time favorite Greek myths.

• Red Beets
• Savoy Cabbage
• Carrots
• Celeriac
• Parsley
• Winter Crisp Lettuce
• Yellow Onions
• Mixed Mini Daikon Radish
• Butternut Squash

The Holiday(s) Ahead: our Thanksgiving CSA Delivery Schedule and VF Gift Certificates!

We're rounding the bend into that time of year: Thanksgiving! Winter Solstice! Hannukah! Kwanzaa! Christmas! Which means it's:

A) Time to give you the spiel about our Thanksgiving CSA delivery schedule next week, see below (PAY ATTENTION SATURDAY CSA MEMBERS!!), and

B) Time to remind you that we have VALLEY FLORA GIFT CERTIFICATES! Yes, you heard right! (Here comes the shameless pitch about how Valley Flora gift certificates are the BEST present ever: local, sustainable, delicious, organic, versatile, healthy, full of love, fabulous in every way, AND they can be used at our farmstand, u-pick, and/or applied towards a CSA share!). There, that was the pitch. You can get them for any amount at our farmstand, or you can email us and we can drop one in the mail to you. Easy!

But back to thing #1: our Thanksgiving delivery schedule next week. Muy importante!

Here's the deal: next week is Thanksgiving. Because all of us here at the farm don't want to be working on Thursday, and because most of you want to be eating your VF goodies on Thursday, we do a crazy thing next week. We smoosh our entire 5 day work week into 2.5 days, Monday through Wednesday. I can't remember who's terrible idea this was many years ago (that's a lie, it was mine), but basically our team doubles down and pulls off an unimaginable feat of industrious efficiency so that we can all put our feet up for turkey day.

This means that NEXT WEEK ALL CSA SHARES GET DELIVERED ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23rd (that includes you, Port Orford and Bandon!). 

And furthermore, THERE IS NO CSA DELIVERY TO BANDON OR PORT ORFORD ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26th! Please mark your calendars with big bold flourescent Sharpie so that you don't miss out on your food next week!

• For members who pick up at the farm and at Coos Head Food Co-op, nothing changes for you next week.
• For Bandon Members: Pick-up is on Wednesday, November 23rd between 10:30 and 5 pm at Well Within
• For Port Orford Members: Pick-up is on Wednesday, November 23rd between 8:30 and 5 pm at the Port Orford Co-op (please try to pick up before 11 am or after 3 pm to avoid congestion on the loading dock at POCC)

And for once, and just this once, I will tell you exactly what will be in your share next week so you can plan, scheme, flip through cookbooks and shop for other ingredients as needed at our farmstand (we're open this Saturday and next Wednesday 11:30 to 2:30 pm):

• Purple Brussels Sprouts - 1 stalk
• Carrots - 1 pound
• Celery - 1 head
• Rosemary - 3 big sprigs
• Shallots - 1+ pound
• Parsnips - hopefully 2-3 pounds, won't know until we dig them next week
• Yellow Potatoes - 3 pounds
• Rosalba Radicchio - 1 very pink head
• Autumn Frost Winter Squash - 2 squash, great for roasting or soup-making or anything that involves squash. Also beautiful decor for the Thanksgiving table.

OK, everyone repeat after me: "I will pick up my Thanksgiving CSA share next WEDNESDAY!"

AND finally, if you are going to be out of town next week we are more than happy to hold your Thanksgiving share in our cooler for late pickup from the farm when you return. In order to do this, I need you to email me by this Sunday, November 20th with your NAME, PICKUP Location, and the DATE you plan to retrieve your tote from our cooler at the farm. 

Get ready to feast!

• Bunched Spinach
• Winter Crisp Lettuce
• Apples - Liberty and Topaz
• Jalapeno & Serrano Hot Peppers
• Winter Carrots - big, fat, crunchy and sweet!
• Dill
• Red Onions
• Red Potatoes
• Spaghetti Squash
• A tomato

On Rotation:

• Cauliflower, Purple and White
• Romanesco

Remember that first single tomato that landed in your tote a couple months back, and the story about the request effigy? Well, many weeks and many, many tomatoes later (request effigies wildly successful!) we are full circle back to "A Tomato." What a run! We made it all the way into November, and who knows, Bets might eek out one or two more from her greenhouse before she calls her tomato season a wrap. A homegrown tomato feels extra special on a "suddenly it's winter" kind of day like today.

While you've been luxuriating in abundant tomatoes, it's been a sorry year for orchard fruit - barely any apples, pears, plums or Asian pears this year. Chock it up to a cold wet, spring: in weather like that the bees can't fly and the blossoms take a beating from the wind, rain and hail. The Valley Flora orchard is extremely diverse, with 85 different varieties planted, including quince, italian plums, asian plums, apples, european pears, Asian pears, pie cherries, and peaches. Over a third of those varieties are different kinds of apples, which are a longtime passion of Abby's. Fortunately amidst all that diversity a few of the apple varieties scored a successful pollination window and were able to set a small crop of fruit. The Liberty and Topaz you're receiving this week are from some of those lucky trees. They're great fresh-eating apples: crisp, tangy-sweet, and juicy.

And everyone's favorite: spaghetti squash!!! I actually heard my stomach doing some hungry growling while I was flipping through this gallery of spaghetti squash recipes. Spaghetti squash burrito boats, spaghetti squash lasagna boats, Greek style spaghetti squash with shrimp, daaaaang! Guess I need to bring me home some spaghetti squash this week!

Finally, cauliflower! In spite of our best planning efforts, the purple and white cauliflower and our late season romanesco all decided to head up during the same two weeks, dern! So much for a nice staggered harvest over the course of October and early November (something that Allen's heroic back muscles would have appreciated, after hauling hundreds of pounds of cauli out of the field on Monday). If you haven't gotten a purple cauliflower yet this season, you'll get a bonus romanesco instead. The slugs have been fierce in our fall Brassica field, thanks to a cool summer and the epic quantity of organic matter left behind by our spring cover crop. All that straw and residue is fantastic for soil health, but it's also a wonderland of slug habitat. They did significant damage to the purple cauli crop in particular, which worked out well for the Common Good foodbank this week but left us short for the CSA. Fortunately the romanesco has withstood the slug pressure a little better and will fill in the gap. Not a bad trade.

But yeah, the slugs. Spring was no cakewalk, we lost our summer carrots to them, and are currently fighting tooth and nail to save our winter carrots. I'm pretty sure the Chinese zodiac got it all wrong about 2022 and the tiger: 2022 has most definitely been the Year of the Slug. 

• Italian Parsley
• Carrots
• Eggplant - the last of it for the season!
• Fennel
• Garlic
• Head Lettuce
• Red Onions
• Hakurei Turnips - back for Fall!
• Winter Squash: Starry Night (the speckled one) and Honey Bear Acorn
• Beets

On Rotation:

• Romanesco Cauliflower

Shifting into Fall

This month-long streak of sunny, dry weather - plus the omnipresence of late-season tomatoes - has created some cognitive dissonance with the actual calendar. Blindfolded, I'd guess it was late September. Eyes open to my wall calendar and lo and behold! We're two weeks away from November. Bets, the tomato/pepper farmer at Valley Flora, is away for a few days, which means the fruits of her labor are absent from the CSA share this week. Instead, filling in (and helping to remedy my acute case of calendar-date-denial), some of our quintessential fall favorites: the first of our 10+ different winter squash varieties, hakurei turnips, and for some of you this week - romanesco cauliflower! 

Tomatoes might well be back next week for another round or two, but not the eggplant. We had our last harvest yesterday and promptly tilled the plants in to make way for winter cover crops. I know that makes some of you sad, but not all of you. See below, Exhibit A: Unloved Valley Flora Eggplant Kicked to Curb in Bandon. (By the way, that photo was taken by a friend of Valley Flora in early September, when the eggplant was still scarce and on rotation for each town, NOT in mid-October after getting 5 straight weeks of quasi-abundant eggplant in your share). It turns out that even during our worst eggplant season on record, it's still too much eggplant for some folks. :)

Winter Squash!

So long unloved Solanum melongena, howdy doody Cucurbita pepo! There are two different acorn squashes in your share this week to kick off our winter squash season, which lasts through December and into the new year. All of our winter squash varieties have been curing in our warm greenhouse for the past week or two, after being clipped from the vine and hauled out of the field. Over the course of the next 8 weeks you'll see Delicata, Butternut, Spaghetti, Kabocha, Pie Pumpkins, and a few specialty varieties, including this week's "Starry Night" acorn. We trialed Starry Night last year and it got rave reviews from our farmstand customers, who loved the sweet, nutty flavor. In hopes that you'll do your own little side-by-side taste test, we're giving you a regular green acorn (Honey Bear) as well as a Starry Night. Send us your feedback! Acorns are most commonly cut in half, baked face down (put a little water in the sheet pan to help steam-bake the squash), and then eaten with maple syrup and butter floating inside the squash boat. Sounds like a great plan for a rainy weekend.

A quick, obligatory note about winter squash safety: they've got tough hides and they roll around, so don't cut your hand off with a kitchen knife! Some CSA members swear by microwaving them whole for a few minutes to soften the skin slightly, which makes it easier to pierce and cleave them with a knife. Others opt to bake them whole for awhile, then cut them up. Me, I like to live on the edge so I always go after them without any pre-softening, but without fail I use our sharp-tipped, heavy-bladed chefs knife to do the deed. I stabilize the squash, get the tip inserted into the skin, and then work the blade around the circumference of the squash until it's cut in two. I still have ten fingers, so far. Other varieties, like Delicata and Butternut, are easier to work with without lopping off a limb. Acorns are one of the toughest - pretty much the black diamond of squash hacking - so be careful!

If you want to go hog wild on winter squash, or squirrel extra away for winter, we've got most of our varieties available at the farmstand now, in abundance. We're open every Wednesday and Saturday, 11:30 to 2:30 through Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving it'll be Wednesdays-only until December 14th.

Looking forward to the rain so very much, for the soil, the pastures, the cover crops, the creek, the fire-faded sky. Time to make soup.

• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Eggplant
• Head Lettuce
• Yellow Onions
• Sweet Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Bunched Spinach
• Zucchini
• Jalapeno and Serrano Peppers

On Rotation:

• Cilantro
• Chard
• Collards

Abby's Greens Salad Shares are Done for the Season

For salad share CSA members, last week marked the final distribution of Abby's Greens for the season. If you're not sure how you will live without them, rest assured you can still find Abby's salad at our farmstand, the Port Orford Community Co-op, Coos Head Food Co-op, McKay's in Bandon, and at various restaurants in the area. Depending on the weather this fall, Abby hopes to be harvesting salad greens through October, and with any luck a little bit longer :). 

Fall Colors

We may not be able to brag about a showy display of autumn leaves here on the Oregon coast, but with October comes some of the most intense farm-food hues of the year. Purple napa cabbage, neon pink daikons, ember-orange beets, shiny lipstick peppers, purple-black eggplants, and, soon-to-appear in your share: carnival-striped winter squash. Even after all these years, the wash table still stops me in my tracks on a day like this when Roberto has the produce piled high into a root crop rainbow:

I'm guessing the fall shares are going to feel abundant as we enjoy the overlap of late-ripening summer crops alongside the right-on-time arrival of fall roots, broccoli, romanesco, and greens. I hope your fridge - and your stomach - are big enough.

:)

• Napa Cabbage
• Carrots
• Eggplant 
• Fennel
• Red Onions
• Sweet Peppers
• Zucchini
• Jalapeño Pepper
• Serrano Peppers
• Tomatoes

If that picture doesn't look like a batch of ratatouille waiting to happen, then I don't know what does. Usually ratatouille doesn't include fennel bulb, but I stumbled upon this recipe from a UK magazine (they eat a lot more fennel in Europe than we do here in the States) and it looked worthy of sharing: Ratatouille with Fennel. The only bit of produce not in your share this week is the dill, but some of you might have a bit leftover from last week...?

Or, if like me, all you want to eat at this time of year is raw chopped salad, then this is the recipe for you: Yotam Ottolenghi's Spiced Chickpea Chopped Salad. Yotam Ottolenghi has a cookbook called "Jerusalem" - probably the most dog-eared compendium of recipes in my entire kitchen, and it's the book I reach for every week from August through October. You'd think I'd have the recipe memorized by now, but no, I seem to like to pull that book down like an old friend and open it up to the page with the hot pink post-it note that's spattered with olive oil stains. I cheat and use canned garbanzo beans instead of soaking dry chickpeas in order to make it a fast weeknight dinner. I've also been known to add homemade croutons, feta, broiled eggplant - anything you want to bulk it up and make it even more of a meal. You could even shred some of that napa cabbage and add it to the mix. Anything goes. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I do have a little vegetable deficit to make up for on the heels of a glorious horsepacking trip into the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness last week. Not to say that my friend, Laura, and I went hungry (I dehydrated all kinds of farm veggies and added them to our homemade backpacking dinners each night....plus we're guilty of making the horses carry in 8 carrots, 5 apples, 3 cucumbers, a bag of Jimmy Nardello peppers, 3 peaches and 4 avocadoes for our 5 day drip. But still! I've got some catching up to do this week in the roughage department. Chopped salad, watch out.

Here's a glimpse of what Jack and Lily were "up" to last week. Lots of elevation gain, innumerable high alpine lakes, wild blueberries, a thunderstorm or two, and beautiful meadows. Upon hearing some stories from our Mt. Jefferson trip, my mom referred to them as "renaissance horses." I can't think of a better descriptor: from digging potatoes on Monday to climbing mountain peaks on Friday. 

A big thanks to my crew - and my horses - for helping make our pack trip possible this season! I'm always grateful to be able to sneak away for a long weekend during peak season, and also just as happy to come back to this beautiful reality called home.

Hi everyone!

The CSA newsletter is going out a couple days early this week because I'm sneaking off the farm for a horsepacking trip in the Jefferson Wilderness. I'll be gone Wednesday 9/7 through next Monday 9/12, but never fear - you are in fabulous farming hands! The food will be delivered as usual thanks to the all-star crew that keeps this place humming.

This week's share will likely include:

• Bunch Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Lettuce
• Leeks - our first harvest of the season!
• Hot Peppers
• Sweet Peppers
• Strawberries
• Tomatoes
• Zucchini

On Rotation:

• Sweet corn
• Eggplant
• Dill
• Cilantro

Many of our returning CSA members will remember that I took my draft horses, Jack and Lily, on a maiden ultralight horsepacking voyage last summer with my dear friend, Laura (who also uses draft horses to grow food for lots of CSA members in the Willamette Valley). We did an epic trip in the Trinity Alps last July and had so much fun that we finagled a second trip in September 2021, exploring Indian Heaven Wilderness near Mt. Adams. It's a mandatory tradition now, so this week we're heading up to Mt. Jefferson to ride into some new terrain astride the big ponies. The wild blueberries are likely to be ripe, the mosquitoes should be gone, and the forecast is for clear skies. With any luck it'll be as magical as last year's adventures...

The farm crew will be checking email in my absence if you need to communicate, and hopefully when you get the next newsletter on Wednesday, September 14th, it'll be full of new pics from Mt. Jefferson.

Happy Labor Day!

• Sweet Corn
• Red Dragon Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Strawberries
• Zucchini
• A Tomato
• Walla Walla Sweet Onions
• Head Lettuce

On Rotation

• Eggplant
• Sweet Peppers

One Single Tomato: A Request Effigy

When I was a kid my step-dad had a dog named Marlene. She was part Basset Hound, part Electrolux: a big spotted tube of a dog with 3" legs, the most velvety-soft Basset ears, and beautiful black eyeliner around her doleful eyes. She loved to lie behind the woodstove, stretched out like a queen on her tuffet, until her speckled coat was too hot to touch. She also considered herself a lap dog, even though she weighed close to 70 pounds with a body as big and dense as a huge Lab. But despite all her domestic habits - some of them stupendously manipulative - she had a penchant for roaming. John, my step-dad, spent a large percentage of his years with Marlene searching for her, waiting for her, hoping for her return from her various forays. He was a runner in those days and would take Marlene out to Floras Lake to put in miles on the trails towards Blacklock. Inevitably her long snout would get onto a game trail and, despite her stubby legs, she'd disappear in a flash - usually for hours. The routine that followed went like this: John would finish his run, get back to the car, and then sit there in the day-use parking lot waiting for her until she returned, often around dark. He's a patient guy.

One winter day, though, she didn't return. It got dark, he waited awhile longer and still no dog. A storm was blowing in and John was reluctant to leave her at large, but he also knew she'd survived multi-day hound dog benders before and had started her life as a street dog. She was savvy and resilient. He finally gave up and made his retreat, windshield wipers sloshing furiously. This was before the new footbridge was built spanning the outlet to Floras Lake and overnight it rained so hard that the lake flooded and the makeshift crossing to the beach and trails washed out. John went back at daybreak and spent another day waiting for her in the parking lot, unable to cross the torrent - to no avail. The rain kept coming and the waters kept rising. He came home despondent, at which point my very proactive, type A mother - feeling exasperated about his passivity - asked him: "Aren't you going to DO something to find your dog?!" Then she went back to adding a new wing onto the house, or somesuch incredibly productive endeavor. (Uh, do you sense an interesting dynamic here?).

Meanwhile, John shuffled around the house and rounded up a bunch of old toilet paper rolls. When my mom came back into the house hours later John was playing guitar and there was a papier mache effigy of Marlene sitting on the tuffet behind the wood stove.

She considered it a moment, then said, "Ya und?"

"It's a request effigy," said John. "I want her to come back so I made that." 

At which point my mom couldn't hold it back: she burst out laughing. And she also got on the phone (this is the days before the internet, before Facebook, before everyone knows your dog is lost before you do). She called around locally and picked up a few leads, which eventually led them to a trailer in Port Orford a few days later. John knocked on the front door and when it opened, low and behold there was Marlene. She glanced at him, then went right back to gnawing on the pork chop that her new family had cooked for her. Ever the operator.

This week's one, single tomato is a request effigy: put it on your counter so it can finish ripening, while saying out loud: "I want more of these." 

It worked for John.

• Kale - Red Ursa or Green Curly
• Cucumbers
• Lettuce
• Walla Walla Sweet Onions!
• Serrano Hot Pepper
• Zucchini
• Red Beets
• Fennel

On Rotation

• Broccoli - winding down for the summer, more to come in the fall
• Eggplant - winding up for the season, very slowly

At Last! Flower U-Pick is Open and Summer Solanums are on the Horizon...Someday!

I've decided we need a theme song for this season, so no better pick than Jesse Lawrence's "Better Late then Never." If, like me, you dig soul. 

Across the board, our crops are lagging about three weeks behind normal, including our flowers. We were finally able to open up the flower patch to u-pick last Saturday now that the zinnias, sunflowers, rudbeckia, yarrow, strawflowers and nigella are in full bloom. We lost some of our dahlias to rot this very wet spring (wah!), and many of the plants are delayed, but little by little they are rebounding and we're starting to see more color in the beloved dahlia bed. We also have some trial dianthus in the ground this year - old-timey, divinely-scented riffs on carnations in beautiful shades of peach, cream, burgundy, and pink. It's been fun to watch the first blooms slowly crack open their tight, grey-green buds and fill the air with their unbelievable, heady perfume. I anticipate they'll be in peak bloom the next couple of weeks. If you come to pick flowers on a Wednesday or Saturday, swing in at the strawberry u-pick shack to get a pair of clippers and a PVC tube. We sell flowers by the tube: a small tube is $3.50, a large tube is $9. It's always a good idea to bring a bucket to carry your flowers home in so they don't wilt in transit. Also, please be mindful in the flower patch and don't push through the plants to cross to a different row; it snaps the branches off, tips the plants over, breaks stems, and does damage to the flowers. Take it slow and go around, or look for a gap to cross through. Also please don't cross the white rope fence; we have variety trials underway on the far side of our sunflowers and don't want folks trampling through them. Thanks!

We finally saw our first eggplant harvest this week - a shy offering, given that we would normally be putting eggplant in all the CSA totes by now (along with tomatoes and early peppers). Ironically, in this day and age of scorching heat domes, our coastal weather tends to shift in the opposite direction: greyer, cooler, more days socked in under the marine layer. That, combined with the slow, cold start to the season has put off our heat-loving Solanaceous crops like eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers. The peppers and tomatoes look fantastic and are loaded with unripe fruit, so it might be one of those years where it's all about tomatoes in September instead of August and the avalanche of peppers in October instead of September. Hopefully! Sweet corn, also late, is tasseling so I think we'll have our first pick within the next two weeks. We plant five successions of corn so that we can keep it coming from August through September. Make sure you stock up on butter, cuz the corn rolling is about to begin!

And because all we really do on the farm is horse around, another shot from my favorite perch on the stradderow cultivator: Jack and Lily cultivating the new fall Brassica field, with the intrepid crew in the background tackling our weekly transplanting (look at that form!! - hinged at the hips, strong straight backs, wide-legged power stance, we're talking ATHLETES, not just farmers, people!). Lots of fall and winter cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and romanesco going into the ground right now - setting the stage for late season bounty!

• Broccoli
• Red Cabbage
• Cucumbers
• Dill
• Head Lettuce
• Purplette Onions
• Strawberries
• Zucchini

Bulk Basil Available by Special Order!

Pesto Lovers! The Basil is abundant and you are invited to place a special order for delivery to your CSA pickup site! To Order:

Email your name, phone number, CSA site and desired quantity to: betsharrison@gmail.com

Available in 1 pound bags, no limit. $22/lb

Yum!

Carrots and Climate Change

It pains me to announce that starting this week VF carrots will be on pause for the next month. Normally those sweet, crunchy delights are a weekly staple in our CSA, from mid-June until the bitter end in December. But this spring we lost four consecutive carrot seedings to heavy rains and voracious slugs throughout April, May and early June. It was a major blow, since carrots are one of our most important and iconic crops on the farm. We've rationed our only bed for CSA and farmstand this past month and disappointed our wholesale customers mightily. But as of this week, we officially harvested the last of that planting and our next beds probably won't be ready until late August.

Fortunately our carrot beds have been germinating spectacularly since mid-June as conditions have become more hospitable to those tiny, slow-growing seeds (less mud, fewer slugs), but it takes about 60-80 days to get a carrot from seed to harvest. Hence, for the next few weeks carrots will be notably absent in your tote (nothing like having to buy a bag of old supermarket carrots to boost your appreciation of the fresh-dug, homegrown ones!).

In all the years I've been growing food, I've never experienced a carrot crop failure like this one. The weather this past spring was unlike anything I've farmed through over the past 20 years and posed some extreme challenges for us and for farmers around the state. When all was said and done, we had a lot to be grateful for on Floras Creek compared to many farmers in the Willamette Valley. We were able to find little windows of opportunity to get plants and seeds into the ground, but conditions were far from perfect. Meanwhile, a good friend of mine who runs a CSA near Salem was unable to plant ANYTHING until June, putting her 2 months behind and forcing her to cancel a few weeks of her CSA in June. As the weather gets more extreme - scary dry last year starting in April, crazy wet this year starting in April - she's wondering if it's time to throw in the towel and be done with the stressful rollercoaster. Farming has never been easy, but climate change is making it all the more tenuous and unpredictable.

Our carrots are the climate change casualty du jour at Valley Flora. It's disappointing at the kitchen table level, but indicative of something much, much more serious and heartbreaking at the global level. Is it possible that those carrots - or the absence of them - might be one of many sparks to help us tip towards solving our climate crisis?

• Carrots
• Fennel
• Head Lettuce
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Strawberries
• Cilantro

On Rotation:

• Broccoli
• Broccolini
• Red Ursa Kale
• Rainbow Chard
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini

Fennel!!!

One of my favorite vegetables is finally here this week! Like many things on the farm this season, this first harvest is a few weeks later than usual due to our chilly spring weather. For those of you who have never eaten fennel, here's a little context: in all these years of running the CSA, fennel seems to be one of those black and white vegetables, where people either love it or decide to hate it. I like to say "decide to hate it" because there is a study they did with kids that shows it can take 20 tries for someone to learn to like a new food. We saw that happen with our 11-year old, who hated mushrooms. I'm not one to cater to picky eating habits in the kitchen, so after enough bowls of mushroom-studded risotto and sauteed chanterelles, one day she suddenly realized she loved mushrooms. Which could happen to you if you're in the anti-fennel camp!

Here's a mouth-watering collection of recipes to lend some inspiration. It's pretty meat-heavy, so if you're not a carnivore this set of vegetarian recipe ideas might be more up your alley.

I hope loving fennel is easy for you. We grow successions of it, so you'll see it again a few times this season - hopefully enough that you can learn to love it if you don't already.