CSA WEEK #14: AUGUST 25-27

In Your Share This Week:

• Beets
• Cilantro
• Corn
• Cucumbers
• Lettuce
• Onions, Walla Walla
• Peppers, Mixed Bells, Jalapenos, Poblanos
• Tomatoes, Red Slicers

  Crop Notes

  Cilantro:AKA ‘Coriander’, Cilantro is a member of the Apiaceae family, which includes celery, carrots, parsley, fennel, parsnips, poison hemlock, dill, cumin, and caraway. The word ‘cilantro’ is Spanish for coriander, which in our part of the world is how we refer to the seeds of the plant. Its hard to say exactly where Cilantro originated, because its very widespread across Southern Europe and into parts of Asia. It has been wild-harvested and cultivated for a very long portion of human history- archaeologists have found coriander seeds dating back to over 1000 years BC and in King Tut’s tomb. The entire plant is edible, including the roots!

  Corn:Again this week, we have an assortment of corn that mostly appears bi-colored. And again, odds are you will find an ear or two with the ever-present late summer corn borer larva on the tip. Just trim the damaged part off and enjoy. Apparently corn borers like sweet corn just as much as people do!

  Cucumbers:The season for cukes has come to a close. This will be the last time you see them in the share for 2015…but there’s a fun summer surprise that looks ready just in time to take up the slack as the rest of the hot-weather crops retire. Hint: its red and gold and oh-so-sweet.

  Peppers:This week you will be receiving a mixture of bell and hot peppers. The bell peppers are mostly green, with the occasional red or bi-colored fruit in the mix. Poblanos are the conical dark green peppers, and you’ll also find jalapenos as well. Poblanos can be eaten raw, but really shine when roasted or blackened over a flame.

  Tomatoes:Its another bountiful week of Red Slicer tomatoes, so get any canning, freezing, or preservation projects in now because the plants are getting very tired very fast, so its possible that we can stretch another CSA distribution out of them for next week and thats probably about it. The Heirlooms weren’t even able to hang on for that long and faded so quickly that we could not muster enough to put them in the share this week (we were optimistic that we would be able to). We are always improving our ‘library’ of varieties each season, so if you had any extreme favorites or dislikes, let us know. Cherokee Green (a lobed, solid colored fruit that was greenish/yellow) and Persimmon (a solid orange globe) were good performers for us this year with some of the best flavor.

  Around the Farm

  Its been such a HOT HOT SUMMER that our summer crops are all tired and declining rapidly in production. We’ve already said goodbye to summer squash, this week its goodbye to cucumbers and heirlooms, and next week its likely goodbye to slicer tomatoes and eggplant. Would you believe it, we are already harvesting the first if our winter squash this week, along with some dry beans and the last of our onions. We also have several plantings of carrots and a field of beets that are very ready for harvest. As a sneak-peek, odds appear very favorable to start receiving sweet peppers in the share next week…the last bit of summer has arrived- red and gold treasure!

  Meet Your Farmer

  Lauren Nicole Nelson

  Hometown: Cusick, Washington

  Joined SIO Crew: May 2015. Lauren has her hands in a variety of farm activities and specializes in CSA harvest and boxing, produce processing, and flame weeding. Lauren grew up on a small family farm that included a huge garden, chickens, ducks, turkeys, horses, dogs, cats and all of that good stuff.

  Favorite part of working on the farm:Being outside, working hard, learning about vegetable production, and driving Hot Dog (our beloved 1972 Ford pickup truck) around the farm.

  What he does off the farm: Lauren loves to snowboard (shred) in the Winter and is also a certified snowboard instructor. During the Summer months Lauren skateboards, plays guitar, and gets out into the woods as much as possible.