CSA Harvest - Week # 14

Good morning! Brrrrr, it feels like Fall outside. The temperature is 45 degrees and dropping. Luckily we're cozy inside, baking off a few sourdough loaves before the sun pops up. Mmm mmm mmm.

So much rain last week! The skies opened up on Thursday and Friday, it poured in the garden and really cooled things off. Fog layers, stunning rainbows, soggy forest. So gorgeous! 

Prepping for Fall here. I ripped the first couple beds of tomatoes out of the hoop houses this week and seeded spinach and salad greens, hopefully for harvesting during the cold snowy month of December. Whoop! Clearing out hoop house beds feels so good and has me anxious to pull the rest of the tomatoes! But have no fear... we're going to do a couple beds at a time and stretch the tomato harvest a little bit longer. The evening lows have been dropping though so the hot crops are really starting to slow down, It may be the last week for zucchini, eggplant and beans? We'll see.

Week # 14 Harvest Details:
Head Lettuce
Arugula
Kale
Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Peppers
Eggplant or Zucchini
Carrots
Beans
Scallions
Garlic
Herbs

Sourdough Flavor of the Week: Plain

Have a great day!

CSA Harvest - Week # 13

Good morning!

Can you believe it's already Wednesday? I'm trying to figure out where the days go... they're zipping by!  Great week here filled with family, friends and garden work. 

We have been harvesting like mad and tackling one project after another. Yesterday the last push of outside greens were seeded and transplanted, it may be a little on the late side so we'll see? And the early planting of tomatoes has slowed down so we plan to pull those plants in the coming days and make room for spinach in the hoophouse. Yep... it's September. 

We cleaned the garlic, finally! Half of it is beautiful and fatty, the other half is on the small side. Turns out garlic wants all the sunshine and some of the beds were shaded a bit by the trees. Haha, oops! Seems obvious, I know. Rookie move. Wonder what I was thinking last November when I planted the garlic there?! I learn best by doing... and making mistakes. We have lots of beautiful Romanian Red, Inchellium and Chesnook for planting this Fall though so it's fine. Expect garlic in the shares soon! 


I think the garden is peaking right now folks, enjoy those gorgeous tomatoes, crisp beans and flavorful peppers! You may want to bring an extra bag this week to haul your bounty home...

This weeks share will include:

Salad Greens
Arugula
Kale
Heirloom Tomatoes, Lots! 
Cherry Tomatoes
Beans
Carrots
Scallions
Zucchini
Basil
Pepper or Eggplant
Hot Peppers

Sourdough Flavor of the Week: Plain (and crazy beautiful this morning!)

Yay! So happy to share the harvests with you all. Have a great day!

CSA Harvest - Week # 12

Hello there, 

I have sleepy eyes... am writing down today's harvest list and drinking coffee. Mmmm coffee. 

Can we talk about the fact that this is the last week of August and come Tuesday it will be September? Summer, I request you slow down and hang around for a while, ok? The days already feel so much shorter... Eeek! 

The garden is overflowing with color! Flowers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, etc... and the harvests are pretty constant at the moment which has us very busy and trying to keep up.


This week we started pulling storage crops. A few onion varieties (Cabernet, Walla Walla and Mill Creek Red) have started to fall and are ready for curing. The Walla Walls are HUGE, I've never grown softball size onions and am pretty pumped. We also harvested the potatoes and are making room for the last seeding of spinach and salad, which we plan to place a small moveable caterpillar tunnel over in October to keep some greens rocking through the cold snowy months to come. Whoop! 

Details on what you'll find in this week's CSA Share:

Salad Greens

Kale

Tomatoes

Green Beans

Zucchini

Radishes

Pepper or Eggplant

Turnips and Cabbage (Thank Mike Nolan/Mountain Roots Produce!)

Scallions
Herbs

Sourdough Flavor of the Week: Seeded (Quinoa, Sunflower, Sesame and Oats)

Have a lovely day! 

CSA Harvest - Week 11

Good morning! 

It feels pretty brisk outside this morning and the thermometer reads 43 degrees. Brr! So I am drinking a little extra coffee and waiting to harvest until the sun comes up. Fabulous week here. Sunshine, heat, harvesting like mad, seeding green beds, and eating the most amazing meals, and a gazillion snacks. I always forget how wonderful this time of the year is... so beautiful and flavorful. Ha, last night I was starving and could not decide what to make for dinner... too many options. What a wonderful problem!

We discovered quite a few tomato horn worms in the greenhouses over the weekend. Aaaaahhh! I knew it was only a matter of time. The little buggers were chomping on tomato and eggplant leaves.

I have exciting news, the beans have started and will be in the shares this week!! We are growing a few varieties this year: Provider, Rattlesnakes and Gold of Bacau, pictured here. Yum! I snack on them raw all day everyday, but I imagine there are great things you can do with them in the kitchen... ?


The tomatoes are rocking and I think my hands are officially stained green for the rest of the season. Whoop! And the peppers and eggplant are starting.

CSA Harvest - Week # 11:

Salad Greens
Kale
Heirloom Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Carrots
Beets (Thank you Mike Nolan/Mountain Roots Produce!)
Scallions
Beans
Zucchini
Basil
Pepper or Eggplant

Sourdough Flavor of the Week: Plain

Recipe! Oh yea. I've been talking about sharing recipe ideas for... 4 years now. Here goes!

Roasted Beet Spread:

Blend together roasted beets, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt until smooth and spread on EVERYTHING. So beautiful (about the same color as this zinnia!) and so delicious. We enjoyed it on veggie sandwiches yesterday. 

Have a lovely day folks! 

CSA Harvest - Week #10

Hi there. I hope everybody had an amazing week. Things got a little crazy here on Wednesday after I updated the blog... I had to say goodbye to my puppy dog. He was very sweet, hilarious and spent so many days helping me in the garden. He would charge out the front door with me in the early morning hours and head down to the garden super excited. I'd open the gate and head off to my morning task and he would walk the perimeter of the garden, checking this and that and then lay down near the gate and wait for me to need a break or a snack. When he was a young pup he would steal my shoes and sandals, but he'd only take one and stash it with his toys under a tree in front of the house. Deegs, thank you for hanging out during late harvest evenings, sounding the alarm when bears were in the yard and always being there. You're going to be missed. 

Whew. Ok... 

The garden is looking amazing. We received a couple big storms yesterday that soaked the garden, the forest, me, everything with rain. I think it was the first real Colorado storm I have felt this Summer. The kind that appear out of no where, dump rain, move quickly and then all of sudden the sun is shining again. LOVED IT.  So, it should be a glorious muddy harvest morning.  

Tomatoes are on and they look stunning. Yesterday morning I woke up in a panic... the actual low temperature in Ridgway for the night was supposed to be 55, and in my dream the temperature dropped to 15 degrees. I had a little freak out and was relieved to wake up to a warm August morning and ripe tomatoes to harvest. 

CSA Harvest - Week #10:


Salad Greens or Arugula
Cherry Tomatoes
Heirloom Tomatoes
Basil
Scallions
Carrots
Zucchini
Kale or Chard
Turnip or Radish

Have a beautiful day!

CSA Harvest - Week #9

Good morning. It's Wednesday already... and we're gearing up for harvest, drinking too much coffee and baking sourdough. The weather this week has been lovely so far, cool and rainy on Sunday and the last few days have been warm with off and on clouds. Perfect for planting fall greens. We seeded more arugula yesterday and transplanted kale, bok coy and napa cabbage. Yum. Spinach and head lettuce were on the list but will have to wait until later in the week. 

Flowers are blooming, Pink Beauty radishes are pushing themselves out of the ground and the pole beans are twirling up the fence and starting to set beans. woohoo!

I spotted a katydid hanging out on the calendula last night. We don't see them very often but this one looked big to me. They're funny and move so slowly. As I zoomed in to snap a photo he just slowly sidestepped to the edge of the flower. 

Harvest Details for Week #9:
Salad Greens
Kale or Chard
Squash or Napa Cabbage
Cherry Tomatoes!
Carrots
Turnip or Radish
Basil
Scallions
Herbs (Mint, Oregano or Parsley)

Sourdough Flavor of the Week: Plain

CSA Harvest - Week #8

Good morning! 

Its lovely and crisp outside this morning and the mountains are just starting to light up. Mmm should be a gorgeous day. Sorry we missed the last couple weeks on the blog... things have been a little busy and I have been sleeping in, oops! I probably need the extra sleep but it makes me wake up in a panic  :). 

The days have been silly and playful lately... hiking, laughing, seeding, harvesting, digging, pruning, and everything else. 

We harvested the garlic last week and it's now hanging in the barn for a month or so to cure. Smells AMAZING.

Yesterday we smushed squash bugs and their ugly eggs on the cucurbit block in Montrose. The winter squash are rocking and the melons are shortly behind, flowering and about to set some fruit. Fingers crossed the we have a looong warm season so the melons have lots of time. 

The greens in the garden loved the early July rain and produced much faster than I had anticipated, hence the heavy green shares over the last couple weeks. They may slow down a bit before the next round is ready... but the hot crops are just about to start so the timing should work out well. 

Tomatoes are beginning to blush in the greenhouses and we've started harvesting cherry tomatoes... just a few but it has begun! The summer squash and zucchini are producing as well and the eggplant and peppers are coming along. The beans and cucumbers are flowering and the tomatillos look amazing. Woo hoo! It's happening. We're a couple weeks behind last season, but I think that's to be expected with the wild weather we've experienced this season. 

Now, if somebody would please tell the squirrels and chipmunks to stop nibbling on carrots and tomatoes! Seriously critters, you're making me crazy. Grrr. 

So... the share this week should look something like this:

Salad Greens or Spinach
Kale or Chard
Carrots
Turnips
Basil
Scallions
Mint
Edible Flowers
Zucchini, Cherry Tomatoes, Padrons or Beaver Dams! (Just a teaser, but there are many more of these to come)

Sourdough Flavor of the Week: Seeded (Sunflower, Oats, Flax, Millet)

CSA Members, please note that next week we are harvesting everybody's share on Wednesday, August 5th, as there will not be a Friday Farmer's Market. Ridgway CSA Shares will be available on Wednesday, August 5th from 2-3 pm in town (location tbd). 

Have a great day!!