Week twelve is about halfway through the season and we feel like the season is half past. Last week we planted out our last broccoli and kale starts. We seeded our last lettuces of the year, and the green beans finally let up a bit. We’ve been bringing in a scanty few tubs of them the past couple pickings, way down from the truckloads we had before. What a hoot!! It is a fine way to mark the passing of time when one switches from planting to reaping. We feel as if we were climbing to the pinnacle of the season and now we go down the other side. We decided to put corn in the box this week even though a few ears may not be all the way ready, because if we waited until that time, it might be between CSA box days. Corn is tricky, and best eaten fresh the same day it was picked. We get asked “Is this Bodacious corn?” and “Is this white corn?” at the farmers market a lot. We answer mostly no to those questions and we sometimes add, “it doesn’t matter what kind of corn it is, it matters if it’s fresh!” (and if you care, it matters if it’s organic)

Many thanks to CSA member Sean Williams for this week’s recipe for beets.
Charkis Chogi (Beets with Cherry Sauce) from the cookbook, “The Georgian Feast: The Vibrant Culture and Savory Food of the Republic of Georgia” by Darra Goldstein.
Ingredients: beets, onion, dried cherries, butter, parsley, cilantro.
1. Roast half a dozen beets in 1/2 inch of water at 375 for an hour. Cool, peel and slice.
2. Sautee a chopped onion in 1 T butter for 10 minutes until soft.
3. Simmer 1/2 cup dried cherries in 10 T water for 15 minutes; blend into a sauce, adding more water if necessary.
4. Mix the beet slices with the onions and cherry sauce.
5. Chop 2 T each of parsley and cilantro; add to beets with pinch of salt. Serve!

We are so happy to be harvesting so many gorgeous beets this season. The past two seasons have been difficult for the beets and spinach, with many cosmetic issues, funky leaves, cracked and cankerous roots, just lots of stuff we could eat but not sell. Over the winter months of thinking and planning, we conferred with some smart friends at WSU co-operative extension and decided on a course of action involving boron. The beet canker is a symptom of boron deficiency. Boron is a micronutrient. Soils and plants need trace amounts of this and many other micronutrients. We checked our soil test results. We conferred more with the smart friends. We went ahead and amended with boron, and now we have beautiful beets! Success!

Open House/ Farm picnic potluck
Saturday Sept. 19 1-4 pm.

Let’s have a party! A farm potluck picnic, bring a dish to share and tablewares.
We will be hosting farm tours at 2pm and 3 pm. That involves walking around all three fields with some driving in between them all. Don’t you want to come see where all this great food is coming from? Of course you do, so come on over.