Today is sunny and warm, crickets are chirping and I am not doing very much. In anticipation of a big week of work, I am making more of this Monday day off than usual. I made some garlic braids with some friends, cleaned up a mess or two, and gave a phone interview to the coop news. The interview was about our farm as a business, and the many funny ideas and misconceptions some people have about organic farmers. Colin cleaned up a few more messes than I did, and now he is industriously preparing applesauce from the one tree in our yard that drops its fruits upon us. I am just soaking up the quality of this light and the way the breeze feels not hot or cold. I’m thinking about the CSA newsletter, the lists of harvest work, and project work ahead. In the next few days we will bring in most of our onion crop from the field to the barn, a big job. We will harvest a little more of everything so that we can sell at the Seattle Tilth Harvest Fair, the biggest one day all organic market anywhere. Someone from our farm attends this event every year, and this year, because it falls on our wedding anniversary, Colin and I will go together. I think a special farmers market date is a perfect eleventh wedding anniversary celebration for us.

Before sending Nigel to school this week, second grade, we will have to wash off the dirt that got stuck to the tomato juice that ran down his arm after he ate the Big Beef Tomato that he was so excited to find in one of the greenhouses. I won’t get into what all we have to wash off of our 13 year old, Jonas. A full summer’s worth of grimy farm kid fun for those two. Pleased would be an overstatement of anyone’s back to school feelings around here. We love getting up in the morning to harvest, and leaving the boys asleep in their soft warm beds. We don’t love waking them up, ever, or hustling them into clean clothes and quick breakfast and off to school. Neither of them actually works here, but it is just so nice to have them around. Some of you have probably noticed how well they answer the phone, taking a message or coming out to get one of us. Both boys are usually willing to move boxes or go get a thing to help out in a pinch. They sure are nice to have around. Their teachers and classmates are lucky to get them.

After ten rounds of lettuce, it’s finally time to stop planting. It’s just that time of year. It’s a hard habit to break. It feels a little sad and empty, and light and free at the same time. There’s always the temptation to go for one or two more rounds. The frosts just might be late enough or light enough to get away with it. Just to make sure I don’t plant any more on the sly, the crew filled my start house with some onions to dry inside. It’s a good end of season use for the greenhouse. This week you all get a break from lettuce, but it’s not all over yet. Just a small gap in the harvest. Beginning in February, I start lettuce every other week, so that any given batch of plants, heads of lettuce, should last for a two week harvest period before the next one matures. We make these plans and then the weather happens, and we take what we get. Lettuce will reappear in the share boxes next week. Until then, try Kale Salad, it’s delicious and way more nutritious. The trick is to let it marinate in the dressing of your choice for a while before eating, then it is easier to digest.

This is what the Fedco Seed Catalog has to say about Ailsa Craig Onion:

Also known as Exhibition. The onion made famous by Jason Kafka of Checkerberry Farm in Parkman, ME. Usually he produces tons of 1-3 pound onions from this variety, achieving yields well in excess of one pound per row foot and production multiples that Wall Street can only dream about. Ailsa is the onion to grow for the Exhibition Hall of your county fair. The enormous slightly oval pale straw-colored globes are sweet, mildly pungent and will store a short while. A cross between Danvers Yellow and Cranston’s Excelsior introduced by David Murray in 1887, Ailsa Craig was named after Ailsa Crag, a small steep-sided island off the west coast of Scotland.

We are very pleased with our onion crop this year. Thus far you have tasted the Oly Oly Sweets, Red Wings, Rossa di Milanos, Borrettana cippolinis, and today’s Ailsa Craigs. Look forward to Candy, Copra, and Cortland in future boxes.

Fennel sautéed with onion and summer squash is a simply delicious thing. This can be a side dish on it’s own, or tossed with pasta and olive oil and parmesan, or topping some toasty bread. We hope that when you and fennel met two weeks ago you were happy and want to get together again, maybe try a different preparation this time? How about

Fennel Orange Muffins- Angele Theriault
1 medium seedless orange, peeled
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups grated fennel bulbs
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Oil muffin cups. Puree orange in blender, then combine with eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla and fennel in a bowl. Sift flour, baking powder and salt, then gently fold into wet ingredients. Do not overmix. Spoon into muffin cups, bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Makes 8-12 muffins.