Circle Brook Farm End of the Season "Stock Up" Share

Circle Brook Farm will be offering one additional share to be delivered on our last CSA delivery day November 20th. This will be a “stock up” share and will include various vegetables that store well, so that you will be able to enjoy produce from the farm well into the winter months as well as provide veggies for your Thanksgiving feast. 

The total weight of this share will be between 50 and 60 lbs. Approximately a third of the share will be an assortment of butternut, acorn, buttercup (kabocha), delicata, and sweet dumpling squash. The share will also include an assortment of root vegetables such as carrots, beets, parsnips, turnips, celery root and radishes. John Krueger expecst that the root crops will comprise about 12 lbs. of the share. He had a great potato harvest this season and an decent onion and winter squash crop as well. There will be about 20 lbs. of potatoes, onions and garlic in the share. The potatoes will include some fingerlings and an assortment of other varieties of potatoes. Also included will be cabbage, and whatever greens we still have in the field at this time, such as arugula, kale, lettuce and spinach. It is possible that there will be broccoli, cauliflower, or Brussels sprouts, but he cannot guarantee their availability at this time. 

The cost of this final share will be $80, which is an excellent value, equivalent to a wholesale price for much of the produce included.

The potatoes, onions and squash can be stored in a cool dry place such as an attached garage or enclosed porch, where they will not freeze. The root vegetables and cabbage will best be stored in your refrigerator. John knows that this final share will not work for everyone, but he hope that many of you will be able to participate. Doing so will help Circle Brook Farm make use of the produce that they have in storage, utilize what remains in the fields, and finish the season with enough money in the bank to pay the bills during the winter months. 

If you want to purchase the Circle Brook Farm Stock Up Share, bring a check to pick-up or mail it to us.  Check should be written for $80 to Circle Brook Farms.  

Deadline is November 13th.

Letter from John Krueger

Hello Everyone, 

Happy Labor Day. 

I hope you have all enjoyed your long weekend and have put your veggies to good use for your parties and barbeques. Of course here on the farm it’s just another day and we labor away. We don’t get long weekends or even weekends - the crops won’t wait! I ‘m just saying…. not complaining; we get our time off in the winter! I will complain (as I am wont to do) about the weather- dry, dry, dry. The rain predicted for last week evaporated before it got here. There is more predicted for this Thursday (100% probability at present). Hopefully the weatherman has got it right this time; it does happen occasionally.

We have a small surprise for you this week. I planted something I have not sown in many years - sweet corn. I have not mentioned it before because it was uncertain whether we would get a decent crop. Some of the members saw the planting when they came out to help with the onion harvest but I swore them to secrecy. There are many reasons why I don’t plant corn but the main one is that I am usually surrounded by plantings of field corn that are GMO. Corn is a wind pollinated crop and since we eat the seed, it crosses with my sweet corn and contaminates it (and then Monsanto might sue me for stealing their genes-lol, sort of). I now own one of the fields where corn has been planted for many years. When I realized that the other field had been planted in soybeans I ordered some seed. I actually planted 3 varieties but only one germinated well. Organic sweet corn is very much in demand because much of the sweet corn being grown is also GMO. Much of it also has the seed coated with a systemic pesticide of a class called neonicotinoids which are implicated in the decimation of both honey and native bee populations. Systemic pesticides are absorbed by the plants roots and are then passed to every part of the plant including the part you eat. These systemic toxins are now widely used on a variety of vegetable crops; something that apparently many people don’t know when they say they don’t buy organic, they just wash their veggies well. Neonicotinoids have been banned in Europe but thus far our EPA has lacked the temerity to stand up to the chemical companies and actually protect the environment and public health. I’ll jump down off the soapbox now; it’s only that I just read an article in Rolling Stone about this and there is still steam coming out of my ears (or my whatever).

I don’t usually give cabbage 2 weeks in a row but we have Napa (Chinese) cabbage that just won’t wait. Besides I’m sure that most of you made a big batch of cole slaw for your holiday festivities- right? We are also going to cheat a little and send kohlrabi as the root vegetable of the week, when everybody knows that it is actually a modified stem (lol). We will also be sending a lot of beans. We have so many at the moment we can’t get them all picked and will have to leave them in the field. I tried unsuccessfully to find food pantry organizations that could send volunteers so that we could donate the excess. Remember beans are easy to freeze- blanch for 1 minute in steam or boiling water; plunge into ice water, place in zip-lock bags and into the freezer. Also try to come out to the farm during the next couple of weeks to help us with the bean bonanza!

The share for this week will be: Lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, garlic, sweet corn, Napa cabbage, choice of arugula or Swiss chard, beans and more beans, kohlrabi and choice of an herb (basil, parsley, garlic chives, and summer savory). Some groups may receive zucchini and some cucumbers -as supply allows. For extras there will be mustard greens, purslane, okra, tomatillos and hot peppers. 

Enjoy! 

Farmer John

Letter from John Krueger

Hi Folks, 

So we have reached the mid-point of the season. As we move into the 2nd half, greens will become more abundant again. We will begin to have more of the cool weather root crops such as radishes and the salad turnips and you can look forward to receiving parsnips and celery root as well. We will begin to go through the various brassica family crops, beginning with Napa cabbage and kohlrabi and then soon broccoli, cauliflower and finally Brussels sprouts. 

For now the summer crops will still dominate; eggplant, tomatoes, peppers etc. Summer squash is still a little scarce; hopefully new plantings will begin to produce soon. It the meantime we are sending some to different groups each week as supplies allow. The same is true for the cukes, although I expect an abundance of these soon as well. Beans will be plentiful for the next month at least. As we move into October we will begin to have winter squash and sweet potatoes-yum! Melons are starting to slow down, but we are still waiting for a 2nd planting of watermelons to ripen and hope to get some to any groups who have not yet received them over the next 2-3 weeks.

The weather has been good, but dry. We are hoping for some rain later this week.

The share for this week will be: Escarole, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, gold potatoes, leeks, choice of arugula or kale, green cabbage, choice of baby beets or radishes, cherry tomatoes, green beans and choice of an herb (parsley, thyme, chives or garlic chives and possibly some lemon or Thai basil). Extras will include tomatillos, okra and hot peppers. 

Enjoy! 

Farmer John

This Week's Shares -- Friday, August 21, 2015

Vegetables

Eggplant

Tomatoes

Potatoes

Garlic

Choice of ground cherries or cherry tomatoes

Beets

Melons

Peppers

Choice of Swiss chard or dandelion greens

Purslane

Red cabbage 

Endive (frissee)

Fruit
TBD 

Poultry
Full Share ONLY

Eggs

Pasta

Please note that we have volunteer supervisors this week.  Please be patient this is there first time at the job and thank them for taking on this role!!

Letter from John Krueger

Hi Everyone,

So I thought we were almost done with the brutal heat and humidity for this year but I guess the forecasters were wrong (imagine that!). We received about an inch of rain last week but my soil dries out quickly and I am hoping for a good rain soon. We are in the midst of a big push to get planted up with the fall brassica crops, greens and lettuces and I really count on precipitation, especially for the direct seeded crops like arugula, radishes, turnips and spinach.

​I have heard of CSA farmers who pick the weeds to send to their members when they are unable to produce sufficient crops to distribute. Even though many of the weeds that grow in our fields are edible and generally more nutritious than our cultivated crops, I have always tried to avoid that situation. They may be better for you but they are just not palatable for most people. The one exception is a succulent plant called purslane. We regularly harvest it for sale at market. Purslane has a mild, slightly sour taste that most folks can tolerate and it can be easily mixed into salads. It can also be cooked- one of my market customers recommends it with tomatoes and onions. My workers leave it alone when they are weeding the fields and remember where to go to harvest the freshest crop as we cut for market. It’s claim to fame is that it is rich in anti-oxidants and especially omega-3 fatty acid. We have such an abundant crop in the fall cabbage patch and because of that my lead field worker has not cultivated there with the tractor. It seems the only way we are going to get these beds cleaned up is to harvest the purslane! I hope you enjoy it. We will have beets again this week, but the greens have succumbed to the heat, so we will be sending them topless. The second plantings of zukes and cukes are just starting to come in, so some groups may get one or the other. Soon they should be more abundant. Beans will be back next week. We are still out of lettuce but we do have some frissee (endive) and we are sending red cabbage this week. So may I suggest a salad with these two items and the purslane, along with tomatoes and or beets?

The share for this week will be: Eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, choice of ground cherries or cherry tomatoes, beets, melons, peppers, choice of Swiss chard or dandelion greens, purslane, red cabbage and endive (frissee). 

Enjoy! 

Farmer John