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Week 19 from Valley Flora

Beet Box -

Week 19 from Valley Flora Asian Pears & Winter Squash!
Thanks for eating locally from our family farm!
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What's Cookin' at the Farm...
  • Winter Squash, with a Caveat...
  • Asian Pears!
  • New Farmstand Hours Start this Week!
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What's In Your Share This Week:*
  • Yellow Onions
  • Head Lettuce
  • Carrots
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplant
  • Kale
  • Sweet Peppers
  • Cilantro
  • Asian Pears
  • Winter Squash
On Rotation:
(Some locations will receive it this week; others in a future week)
  • Nothing this week...
*Harvest Basket contents may vary between pickup sites in a given week depending on what's ripe and ready on the farm. Don't worry - if something is on the list but not in your tote, you'll get it soon!

The VF Crystal Ball - What might be in your share next week...
  • Onions
  • Carrots
  • Romanesco
  • Lettuce
  • Apples?
  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers?
  • Hot Peppers
  • Winter Squash
  • Beets
  • Potatoes
  • Radishes?
Winter Squash, with a Caveat...
We’re putting the first winter squash of the season in your totes this week, but there's a caveat. We trialed two new varieties of Delicata and one new variety of Butternut this year, all of which came out of the field two weeks ago. All three varieties were highly acclaimed and we’ve been excited to try them. But we’ve been dismayed to discover that while they’ve been curing in our greenhouse the past two weeks they’ve developed skin defects that are going to significantly shorten their storage life. Butternut and Delicata make up about half of our squash crop - because everyone loves them so much - so losing these varieties in storage would be a big hit. 
 
I took a gamble today and decided to send out our “ugly squash” this week, in hopes that you will use them ASAP and forgive us their leper looks! It chafed against every cell in my body to put ugly squash in your totes - especially for our kickoff winter squash week - but I think the eating quality is still good and I’d rather you have ugly, tasty squash than no squash at all. 
 
I’ve cut into dozens of them to see how deep the damage is and feel pretty confident that everything that is going out this week is afflicted only skin-deep. The butternuts will make great soup, and the delicatas should roast up nicely - all with the help of a peeler or a good sharp knife to take the skin off. After this round, you should see nothing but good-looking squash in your share!
 
And in case you’re worried, we’ve been handling the squash for two weeks and the leprosy doesn’t seem to be contagious. :)

(And I suppose if it is, well then we can all have a raucous party in our leper colony together, feasting on ugly butternuts till the cows come home…)
 
Thanks for your understanding. I hope you can see past their flawed exterior to the true beauty within.
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Asian Pears
A little gift from the orchard this week: everyone is getting my all-time favorite Asian Pear variety, Chojuro. It has a copper glow to the skin and tastes about as close to butterscotch candy as anything I've encountered in nature, only better. I like to keep my asian pears in the fridge so they retain their crisp texture and juiciness. I have a certain addiction to slicing them up and dredging them through hazlenut butter. Something about that combo sends me.
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New Farmstand Hours Starting October 2nd!
 
Every Wednesday & Saturday (rain or shine)
10 am to 1 pm

Fresh Produce
Homemade Jam & Hot Sauce

Please bring your own bags and u-pick containers!

Directions to the Farm
For Recipes & Cooking Inspiration:
 
Valley Flora Recipe Wizard
Our own collection of recipes gathered over the years.
 
Epicurious
A vast collection of recipes, searchable by one or multiple ingredients
 
Full Belly Farm
Recipes from one of my favorite farms in California, pioneers of the organic movement since the 80s.

Farm Fresh to You
A storehouse of recipes, searchable by ingredient.
 
Helsing Junction Farm
A Washington farm that has a good collection of seasonal recipes geared toward CSA members.
Copyright © 2019 Valley Flora, All rights reserved.


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Week 18 from Valley Flora

Beet Box -

Week 18 from Valley Flora Happy Fall!
Thanks for eating locally from our family farm!
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What's Cookin' at the Farm...
 
  • Pivot to Fall
  • Dry Farm Potatoes
  • Eggplant Chips
  • Farmstand Hours Change Next Wednesday
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What's In Your Share This Week:*
  • Leeks
  • Head Lettuce
  • Carrots
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplant
  • Potatoes
  • Sweet Peppers
  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • Onions
On Rotation:
(Some locations will receive it this week; others in a future week)
  • Nothing this week...
*Harvest Basket contents may vary between pickup sites in a given week depending on what's ripe and ready on the farm. Don't worry - if something is on the list but not in your tote, you'll get it soon!

The VF Crystal Ball - What might be in your share next week...
  • Onions
  • Carrots
  • Kale
  • Lettuce
  • Eggplant
  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers
  • Hot Peppers?
  • Winter Squash
  • Broccoli?
  • Cauliflower?
Pivot to Fall
Nothing to prove the autumnal equinox like a Harvest Basket peppered with leeks, potatoes and celery! Happy Fall, it's soup time!

I'd say that fall has arrived gloriously, and to the sound of lawnmowers! The grass is growing again - luxuriantly - which makes all of our rancher friends and neighbors very happy. All the rain might have juicied-up this week's celery stalks as well. Celery loves water, and actually gets twice as much of it as any other crop on our farm through weekly irrigation. Even so, we've never managed to grow heads of celery that are quite as big and juicy as the ones you'll find in the produce aisle at the store. Maybe it takes four times as much water to grow something like that...No matter, what might be lacking in fat ribs is definitely made up for in flavor with our celery. In the past we've opted to harvest stalks and bunch them for you, leaving the plant to continue growing in the field. We scrapped that idea this year because it meant you never got the best part of the celery - the heart! This year we're logging whole heads instead, so get out your soup recipes, buy some cream cheese or nut butter (ants on a log anyone?), or make some homemade dip and get crunching!

You do have the key ingredients for potato leek soup this week, as well as some of the ingredients for one of my favorite, easy, amazing meals of all time, Sicilian Fish Stew.
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Dry Farm Potatoes
We've continued our dry farming trials with OSU this year after fairly good results from our tomato and squash experiments last year. In analyzing the 2018 data, OSU discovered that we had the highest yields of any trial site in their dry farming cohort, most likely due to the fact that it's cooler here in the summer than their other sites in the Willamette Valley. In the absence of irrigation, our plants probably experience less heat stress overall. We replicated the squash and tomato experiments again this year, and also participated in a potato trial. Most of the potatoes going out this week are from the dry farm plot, where we've had upwards of ten varieties growing since June. On the whole, the potatoes are smaller than those in our irrigated patch and some varieties have some ugly skin defects, which meant a lot of potatoes went to the food bank this week! Let us know how they taste!
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Eggplant Chips
I've been impressed by our CSA members this past month. Every week I've encountered someone who has shared some new, creative eggplant-coping strategy. One family pre-bakes rounds of eggplant and then uses them as mini pizza crusts (their kids love it!). Some of you have made epic quantities of eggplant parm and frozen it (and sent me tantalizing photos of it, when can I come over for dinner?!). Eggplant brownies, baba ganoush, and some of you are simply keeping up with the weekly share and are excited for more. This weekend I met a CSA member who might just take the eggplant cake. I was riding horseback out near Floras Lake and encountered a couple of hikers who immediately swooned over the horses. As we got to talking she told us she was an ex-endurance rider turned avid backpacker, and lo and behold she is a first-time CSA member this year! She told me how much she loves the CSA but immediately commented on how she had first struggled with the eggplant until a friend, fellow backpacker and veteran CSA member turned her on to eggplant chips. She dries rounds of eggplant in her food dehydrator with a little balsamic vinegar and salt until they're crispy. She says they're delicious, great dipped in hummus, and an awesome trail food. Eggplant production is slowing down but I'm going to have to try making a batch before it's too late!
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New Farmstand Hours Starting October 2nd!
 
Every Wednesday & Saturday (rain or shine)
10 am to 1 pm

Fresh Produce
U-Pick Strawberries & Flowers
Homemade Jam & Hot Sauce

Please bring your own bags and u-pick containers!

Directions to the Farm
For Recipes & Cooking Inspiration:
 
Valley Flora Recipe Wizard
Our own collection of recipes gathered over the years.
 
Epicurious
A vast collection of recipes, searchable by one or multiple ingredients
 
Full Belly Farm
Recipes from one of my favorite farms in California, pioneers of the organic movement since the 80s.

Farm Fresh to You
A storehouse of recipes, searchable by ingredient.
 
Helsing Junction Farm
A Washington farm that has a good collection of seasonal recipes geared toward CSA members.
Copyright © 2019 Valley Flora, All rights reserved.


unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 

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