In the CSA Share this Week:

• Eggplant
• Tomatoes
• Asian Pears - 3 kinds: light yellow skin = nijiseiki, freckled bronze skin = yoinashi, deep orange skin (two of those in your tote) = chojuro...try 'em all and let us know your fave!
• Zucchini
• Gold Beets
• Onions: Rossa di Milano (red) and Patterson (yellow)
• Napa Cabbage
• Summer Crisp lettuce

On Rotation:

• Sweet Peppers 

Peppers, Almost!

We managed to pick 22 sweet peppers (my favorite crop!) this week, enough to put one in each tote for our CSA members who pick up at the farm on Wednesdays. This means that peppers are officially on rotation(!), a month later than usual. Also this week, finally: TWO tomatoes! And more than one eggplant!

This week last year we picked almost 200 pounds = 800 peppers. If you love the Solanaceae family as much as I do, the wait has been a test of patience. All those late summer fruits - eggplants, tomatoes, peppers - need ample heat to ripen, and ample it has not been. If this tells you something: this year we produced more kilowatt hours of solar energy per month in March, April and May (1000 to 1200 kWh each of those unseasonably sunny months) than we did during our usual solar production peak in June, July and August (600 to 800 kWh this year instead of the usual 1300 to 1500 kWh, about half as much). 

June was so chilly that our pepper plants didn't grow for an entire month after transplanting. They simply sat there in the field, shivering, losing leaves, testing my near-bottomless optimism. Starting in July the plants slowly managed to gather some steam and are now loaded to the tipping point with green peppers. Only this week have we started to see real red, yellow and orange in the field and I'm crossing my fingers we get enough sun before a frost smacks us to get those peppers over the finish line for you. Sometimes a cool summer will give way to an extra-toasty fall, but not so this year. The month of September in Oregon has been the coolest on record in decades, averaging about 5 degrees chillier than usual. I believe it firsthand: as I write this I'm bundled in a down vest, with a down throw wrapped around my legs, wearing wool socks - since it's way too soon to turn on the heat pump or build a fire in the woodstove. 

Our summer season has been incredibly comfortable for working outdoors - 65 degrees is pretty much perfect for us humans. It's just not so ideal for a heat-seeking solanum. With any luck we'll get the best of both worlds: abundant peppers, albeit delayed, having enjoyed a not-so-sweaty season in the field. Global warming = global weirding and more and more we find ourselves trying to adapt to something new and unexpected each year. We ARE having a bumper year in the potatoes and the onion situation is off the hook (go figure, both of those crops are best-suited to hot and dry places like eastern - not coastal - Oregon). We'll take it, no complaints, just don't mess with my peppers!

A Love-Note to Readers

Never has there been a BeetBox response like the one last week on the heels of the corn piece I wrote. So many messages describing how the essay made you laugh/cry/slam-your-fist/foward-it-widely/sit-your-family-down-and-talk-about-the-food-system. Wow. That's all I could ever hope for, and more. Thank you all for reaching out, and although I haven't had time to respond to each of you individually, I did want to take a moment to address a few of your concerns:

1. No, I am not quitting or retiring or giving up. 
2. Even if I sounded disgruntled (aka "piping hot with anger"), this is what that actually looks like (yes, taken the day I was composing this piece in my head while thrashing through the corn with 70 pounds on my back):

So yeah, you probably don't need to worry too much. The corn situation this year has made me realize that I've always been someone who leans in to adversity, even seeks it, and maybe that's the fundamental reason I'm still at this farming thing after all these years. For my sister, Abby, and I our first job on payroll was working for a landscaper in Bandon when we were in our teens. The very first day on the job we were assigned the task of shoveling yards of pea gravel out of the back of an old truck. The truck had a rusty bed and the pea gravel was trickling through the holes in a steady stream. So we shoveled faster and faster while the north wind blew bark mulch sawdust into our eyes and the blisters formed on our hands, bit by bit losing the battle with the rusty bed, until we found ourselves doubled over in laughter. It was so ridiculous in every way the only thing to do was laugh. Not quit. Just laugh and finish the job.

Neither of us have ever forgotten that moment and neither did our boss, who gave us a raise not long after. (I've wondered many times if the rusty-truck-bed-full-of-pea-gravel was her simple but brilliant test of all new hires, in which case I might have to buy an old Ford for future farm crew working interviews....). Life has thrown plenty of all-you-can-do-is-laugh moments at me since, which leaves you in pretty good mental shape to meet a rough day in the corn patch head-on.

That 10 for $1 comment was a gift - an opportunity to speak some truth to important issues that are top of mind and near to heart. To actually feel heard and understood by so many of you, that's icing on the cake. 

Also, we're thinking of making a new sign for sweet corn at the farmstand: Corn $2.79, SALE $1.75/ear! ;-)

Thanks for all your kindness, your support, and for savoring that corn.