• Cucumbers
• Basil
• Tomatoes! Red slicers and an heirloom. Heads up that some of you are receiving a pink heirloom, which looks sorta like an under-ripe red tomato, but less uniform in shape. Yum!
• Carrots
• Lettuce
• Eggplant!
• Red Long of Tropea torpedo onions
• Strawberries

August!

This might be the most dramatic switcheroo of harvest basket produce I've ever witnessed from one week to the next. We've been crusing along filling totes up with all kinds of green stuff: peas, broccoli, lettuce, bunch greens, zucchini, parsley, etc. and then wham! August arrives and it's suddenly all about tomatoes and eggplant. With horses you're supposed to gradually transition their feed when you make a change to their diet, but fortunately the human gut is a little more forgiving, which is good news for all of you who are suddenly confronted with a pile of Solanums in your tote this week. So begins our journey into late summer, perhaps the best time of year for eating seasonally. Few people can argue against the idea of a vine-ripe homegrown tomato, fresh-picked sweet corn, and juicy sweet peppers (both of those last two things coming soon!). And a lot of you longtime CSA members have learned to love eggplant, even when it shows up in your tote in catastrophically abundant quantities, like a summer monsoon. Can you really have too much baba ganoush in your freezer, giving you that awesome superpower of whipping out a mediterranean mezze plate in January and outsmarting winter?

Please Mask Up!

Given the recent surge in COVID cases in Coos and Curry counties, we are reinstating our mask policy on the farm and at CSA pickups. PLEASE mask up at your CSA pickup location and at our farmstand and u-pick, whether you are vaccinated or not. We want to be part of the public health solution in our small community and masks and vaccines can help stop the spread!

And to Close, a Little Levity...

Last spring I was approached by the Port Orford Library kids program to participate in their Local Heroes and Helpers project. They collected profiles and headshots of various people in the community and then young artists painted portraits of each person for a public art exhibit in town. The display just went up in the front window of Uptown Frames in Port Orford and can be viewed on the Port Orford Library Facebook page. I'm always out of the social media loop and haven't been to town in weeks, so a friend forwarded me some of the images yesterday. They are fabulous. Here's a sampling, which includes some of our very own CSA members, neighbors, and fellow sustainable food system movers and shakers:

And then, there's yours truly:

P.S. if you haven't met me in person yet, I DO have a face-splitting grin that stretches earlobe to earlobe, but my eyes are brown not blue.