Week 18: September 30

In This Week’s Beet Box:

New Produce: Priscilla Apples
Is it November?

In your share this week:

Red Onions
Beets
Baby Carrots
Parsley
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Tomatoes
Apples

On Rotation

This means that some pickup sites will receive it this week; others next week or in a future week.

Broccoli

NEW PRODUCE OF THE WEEK

Priscilla Apples: They may look like a boring Red Delicious, but they don’t taste like one. Another treat from the orchard this magnificent fruit year!

Is it November?

In all the many, many years that we have dwelled up Floras Creek, we’ve never experienced a storm like that at this time of year. Six inches of rain in a weekend. Sixty mph winds. Heavily laden apple trees blown over. Corn stalks flattened. Parts of the field under water. It’s one thing when it comes in November or December when the majority of things are dormant. It’s a whole other thing at the end of September when we are still mid-swing in peak harvest.

All things considered, we fared OK. You might notice certain little details this week in your share (the particularly small heads of oakleaf lettuce, which I had to trim mercilessly due to extensive rain rot in the outer leaves; the fact that broccoli is on rotation instead of going full throttle, due to rain rot on the newly-formed crowns; the still-small carrots, which haven’t seen much sun to ripen further).

The good news is that the rain seems to have cleared up the powdery mildew that always affects our rainbow chard at this time of year, so hopefully you’ll be seeing chard in your share again soon! Our newly-seeded cover crops also got a thorough watering-in (hopefully not too thorough) and I'm looking forward to a trillion little green shoots popping up all over in the field: oats, rye, field peas, clover, and vetch to feed our soils through the winter.

The Valley Flora Crystal Ball: What MIGHT be in your share NEXT week…

No promises, but your tote might include some of the following: