In the CSA Share this Week:

• Sweet Corn
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Head Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Leeks
• Purple Fiesta Potatoes

On Rotation:

• Chard
• Curly Kale
• Eggplant

Those spuds in your share this week are a new variety the crew picked out called Purple Fiesta. Theyre a vivid purple inside and out, turning to neon periwinkle when cooked. If you're in the mood for technicolor mashed potatoes or lavender potato leek soup, this spud's for you. And like most antioxidant-rich purple and blue foods, Purple Fiesta is high in anthocyanins which can help lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease. They're touted to be great roasted, mashed or fried.

We harvested our first leeks of the season this week - in case you want to make the classic potato leek soup with a colorful twist - although it's hard to think about soup during this little spell of warm weather. We'll be back to onions in the share next week, we just need to give them a few more days of curing time in the greenhouse before we start trimming tops for storage.

September is the beginning of a palpable shift into autumn on the farm, and the rain last week helped usher in that transition:

• It softened up our fallow fields and gave us perfect soil moisture for some well-timed spading this week as we get ready to plant fall cover crops.
• We're winding down our strawberry harvest, although u-pick will remain open every Wednesday and Saturday (rain or shine) into early October. (There are still some lovely berries out there, so if you haven't filled your freezer yet, come get some!)
• We're keeping a close eye on our winter squash field, waiting for all the signs of peak ripeness (and sweetness) so we can start clipping squash off the vine for curing and storage.
• And we've begun digging our storage potatoes - a team effort that involves the horses and the crew - so we can stuff our dedicated walk-in (the "spud cooler") to the gills for fall and winter.

And at an excurciatingly slow pace, our sweet peppers are sizing up and showing the first signs of color. This week's heat will help. I can't wait to be swimming in my favorite food.