We’ve been feeling it coming and noticing all the signs for weeks now, but here it is officially by the calendar, Autumn. We held a fitting celebration here by cutting and bringing into the barn all of the delicata squash. They will taste so much better next week that we are waiting until then to put them into your shares. There will be five more shares, before the end, five more glorious weeks of fall’s finest crops. The ancient Celts would honor a God they called Mabon at this time of year. Mabon was the protector of all things wild and free, things like owls, blackbirds, salmon, eagles, and deer. So I have no personal acquaintance with this god, Mabon, but I sense some power left in him, as the deer he protects are doing so well here. You might recall how we tried to scare the deer away from field two with some wild ferocious cat poop. You might also recall how that backfired and we were the ones scared when a real cougar came by to sniff around, and that the deer were not fooled for a moment by all that silliness. Here at field one is where we grow all the heads of lettuce. Here at field one we have a nine foot tall deer fence around four acres, but the fence is in disrepair. There are several weak points where deer can hop over or through and they do. Fence repair tops the list of winter projects.

What the deer like best to eat when they come into the garden is green leaf lettuce. Next favorite is red leaf lettuce, then green butterhead, then red, then romaine last of all. The deer come through criss cross all over, stepping on some heads, taking one bite out of each one in one area, pooping on others. I wish they would just start at one end and eat a whole head of lettuce, then, if still hungry, have another. I can be very generous. There could be enough for all of us if only the deer would get organized and stop ruining all the lettuces. They are organized enough to wreck all the green leaf before moving on to the reds, so it seems reasonable to me to want that. Two weeks ago we covered all the lettuce heads with sheets of remay to protect them from the deer. The deer poked holes all over them with their pointy little hooves, and tore holes in them and pulled out heads to eat, partially, of course. Meanwhile, the remay covers created a funky humid environment for the lettuces, causing them to change shape and texture. Also, some kind of caterpillar seems to have been trapped under there with only all the lettuce to chew little holes in. I feel sort of punished for not sharing with the deer.

Crazy bright green fractile thing in the share this week. It is not from outer space or the deep of the ocean. It is from the back half of field two, where it grew up among the normal cauliflower. It is Romanesco Cauliflower, an Italian variety prized for its sweet nutty flavor and obviously eye-catching appearance. Use it as you would any other cauliflower, but with more oohing and aahing. One of our customers suggests a creamy soup of the green cauliflower served with a drizzle of beet puree on top for maximum color contrast presentation.