And so, here we go. The corn, beans and flowers are no longer available. While expected, it is a sad day when that happens. It is, of course, vaguely possible that the hard freeze the weather guesser is laying out towards the end of this week will not really hit till Friday night/Saturday morning and so the Friday pick may still get some lovely flowers – but the flower farm who is a committed and trained professional flower person is very skeptical.
This week and the next three will be heavy on root crops, squash, lettuce and protected plants from the greenhouse. Generally you should expect a Gill’s golden pippin squash in your box and a ginormous candy roaster over this time. There will also be Kuri and a few of the Oregon Sweet meats are left. Once again: store your squash if you do not want to eat it right away. Most of these varieties will last in your garage, laundry, under your bed… until April. That is not something that is a good plan, they are pretty good so eat them over the next couple of months.
The other major item going out will be apples. There are some very nice red apples over the next two weeks, and there may be a green-yellow apple if it continues to ripen through the cool weather. Some of you may already have had apples in a bag or in the bottom of your box. These apples are selected to be sweet and what some people might call ‘tart.’ They cook great – applesauce, pie, apple butter… The cooked apples that went through the grinder here at the farm test kitchen were also put in the bottom of a roaster when some Turkey breast was slow cooked… it was amazing.
So… here’s the story on what is in the box:
| Lettuce | Muir or Nevada or red Iceberg – the red iceberg is getting pretty ‘heady’ and will need to be the primary go-to this week. |
| Brassicas | Small heads of Red, Algosa, and green. Kale will be added to some boxes – it is in good shape. |
| Roots | Carrots, Beets, and Dragon Radishes. Beets are all over the map – mostly with small roots. There is a mystery there which needs to be fixed next year. |
| Greens | Arugula, Chard, Mustard – the mustard is getting a little long in the tooth, and may not survive the hard frost Friday night. To be discovered… |
| Herbs | Some Cilantro, Basil, small amount of Parsley… Herbs are thinking the end of the season has happened. |
| Misc | Potatoes, Tomatoes (mostly cherry) – hopefully the Tomatoes make it through the cold for a couple more weeks. Mostly Gills, but other squash will show up. Remember that the Gills and Kuri have thin skin. 4-6 Apples. |
Zinnias and some dahlias are in ridding a car off a cliff. It all depends on Wednesday and Thursday night low temps… But yeah, flowers are endangered species hereon out.
