Slipping into fall

After a couple additional weeks of 85+ degree days that made it still feel like summer on the farm, lately the weather has been shifting towards fall. The crops, following the weather, are also shifting--summer crops tapering off as fall crops start to come into harvest. Traditional fall crops like garlic and the kitchen herbs thyme, sage, and chives, kick off this week, and we will continue the harvest on kale and storage onions.

The Onion of the Week this week is the beautiful cipollini, a traditional Italian variety with an eye-

Red and yellow cipollinis

catching flattened shape. My culinary guru Deborah Madison has some good general advice on the topic of cipollinis that I posted last year:

"While you can do all those things with cipollini onions you do with your basic storage onion, they're an onion to be featured whole [because of their unique shape], not just used as an ingredient. It makes sense to cook them in a way that showcases their form, such as braised with rosemary and sage, pan roasted, oven roasted, or grilled. They make a special treat to offer friends and family. The only challenge to cipollini is in peeling them. I find it works best to drop them into a pan of boiling water for a half minute or so, then carefully pull back the skins and cut them off along with part of the root. Or you can pour boiling water over them, then slip off the outer skins after taking away a thin slice at the base."
---Deborah Madison, Vegetable Literacy

Along with our own fall crops this week, we also have some treats from local farms. Since potatoes don't do well in our soil here (reasons like soil pH, high organic matter from use of animal-based compost, and the farm-wide presence of the soil-borne potato plant pathogen Streptomyces scabies), we don't grow them. However, on my family's farm in Easton, they grow quite well. So for the second year, we're buying our potatoes in from there. In addition to the lovely red and yellow potatoes, we'll also have delicious and crunchy carrots from Second Nature Farm in Norton--you might know them from the Hingham Farmers Market, where they sell on Saturdays. 

Reminders of the Week

Tuesday is Farm Fresh Yoga day for the rest of the season! Come to the Yellow House on Tuesdays at 5:30pm for your weekly yoga fix! Free for CSA members and sliding scale donation to our Food Access Fund for friends and neighbors and coworkers.

This is the last week for ugly tomatoes--time to get your sauce on! Email me to reserve a box--20lb for $20.

Our end-of-season harvest celebration will be Tuesday, October 27th this year, starting at 6pm. Potluck and BYOB, it's a fun and DELICIOUS evening--mark your calendar!

Garlic drying in the Red Barn loft

Looking ahead to the winter, we're thinking of putting together a Weir River Farm CSA cookbook with recipes for all the veggies of the season. If you have a recipe you love and you'd like to share, please email me or bring a copy to CSA pickup any time. We're looking for delicious, seasonally-inspired, relatively simple, and fool-proof recipes. Thanks!

In your share this week: the last of the tomatoes and tomatillos, peppers, garlic, cipollini onions, hot peppers, kale, Langwater Farm certified organic potatoes, and Second Nature Farm certified naturally grown carrots. Pick Your Own this week is flowers and thyme, chives, or sage.


Recipe of the Week

Sweet-and-Sour Cipollini, Small Red Onions, and Shallots with Raisins
Deborah Madison in Vegetable Literacy

Deborah's note: Choose large shallots, small onions, and cipollini in whatever size you can find them. Add a few pearl onions as well, if you have them. All the different sizes and variations in shape are handsome together. Balsamic vinegar is a fine choice here because its sugars will contribute to the glaze. Serve the onions warm or at room temperature as a side dish or as part of a meze plate.

Rory's note: We'll have shallots and onions (including small ones) in the share in upcoming weeks, once those kinds are finished drying in the greenhouse. If you want to hang on to your cipollinis until you have all the ingredients, they will last in a cool, dry, dark place for months.

1 lb mixed onions (see headnote)
1 Tbs butter or olive oil
1 thyme sprig
1 bay leaf
4 sage leaves, or 1 tsp minced rosemary
4 large shallots, the sections separated
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1/3 c. port (can be Zinfandel port)
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1 Tsp honey or brown sugar
1/3 c. golden or dark raisins, or a mixture of raisins and dried currants
1 c. light chicken stock or water, plus more if needed

Peel the onions and leave them whole except for the small red onions. Cut those in half lengthwise through the root, unless, of course, they're very small. Chances are the layer beneath the papery skin will be stringy and inedible. It will also detach itself from the rest of the onion when it cooks. If you take off that first layer as well as the skin, the stain and flavor of the port will penetrate better.
Select a pan just large enough to hold everything in a single layer and melt the butter with the thyme, bay, and sage over medium-high heat. Add the onions and shallots, jerk the pan back and forth to coat them with the butter, then season with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Add the port, vinegar, honey and raisins, then pour in the stock. When everything has begun to simmer, lower the heat, cover the pan, and cook for 10 minutes. Give the onions and shallots a turn and re-cover the pan. Continue cooking in this fashion until the liquids have thickened to a syrupy glaze, about 20 minutes in all, possibly shorter or longer depending on the size of the onions and shallots. Pierce a few of the larger pieces with the tip of a knife to make sure they are tender. If they don't seem soft enough, add a little more stock, re-cover the pan, and cook until reduced to a syrup. Do this as many times as needed.
Serve the onions warm or at room temperature.

Super spicy Caparino hot peppers!

The Cucurbits Last Stand

With the first full week of September we're going to start turning the corner into fall crops. Up this week: kale and onions. This fall's kale crop has been unexpectedly precocious, surprising me with how quickly it's grown to harvest-ability. But since we haven't had leafy greens in the share for ages, why not enjoy it?

After many hours and lots of effort from the farm crew and our fabulous volunteer crew, we have all of the onion crop in from the field and drying on tables inside the greenhouse. This year's crop is looking like a knockout and we'll be enjoying a plethora of red onions and yellow onions starting in a week or two.  Most of the varieties still need more drying time to be fully cured, but the sweet white variety, Sierra Blanca, is ready to go this week. I didn't plant a lot of this early white variety, so we'll start out onion season slowly, with the bulk of the crop coming later in the month and into October.
Don't worry about the end of summer crops yet, though--we still have a couple weeks to continue savoring tomatoes and peppers and husk cherries!

Farm Fresh Yoga is happening this week! Join us Tuesday at 5:30 at the Yellow House for an engaging class with our yoga-teacher-in-residence, Maureen St. Croix. Bring your mat if you have one and get ready to enjoy a breezy evening class as the sun sets.

We still have LOTS of weeks of veggies ahead of us in the CSA share this year, but I want to make sure you mark your calendars for our end of season Harvest Dinner on Tuesday 10/27 at 6pm. More info coming in the weeks ahead!

Still have some tomato canning you want to get in before tomatoes take a bow? We'll have a limited number of 20 lb boxes of ugly tomatoes available this week for $20. Email me to reserve yours.

In your share this week: the aforementioned kale and white onions, small eggplants, the last of the squash and cucumbers for this year, green peppers, hot peppers, husk cherries, tomatoes, and Pick Your Own flowers.

Congratulations to Farmer Ed & the livestock crew on the newest member of the herd, a boy born on Sunday. Mama and baby are both doing well.

photo: Connor Young

Summer Sizzles On

Rosa Bianca eggplant
photo: Sophie Shillue

Rolling into September, we're still enjoying summer weather and summer crops all week. We've squeezed in the last plantings of fall crops over the past few weeks--lettuce, radishes, arugula, bok choy. While we wait for those to grow big enough to harvest, we'll keep busy pulling in fat red tomatoes, spicy hot peppers, juicy melons, hefty zucchinis and cucumbers, and candy-sweet husk cherries to stretch out summer as long as we can.

Don't forget--Farm Fresh Yoga is back next week on Tuesday at 5:30 at the Yellow House. Bring your mat and enjoy Maureen St. Croix's excellent class while the sun sets.

Rudbeckia
photo: Meg Wilson

In your share this week: tomatoes, green peppers, the last of the eggplant (probably), hot peppers, squash, cucumbers, another melon--watermelon or cantaloupe, husk cherries, PYO cherry tomatoes, flowers, and tomatillos. We're not there yet, but the day is coming when the last zucchini of 2015 will be harvested. Don't lose your chance to make  fresh, local Blueberry Zucchini Cake with Lemon Buttercream frosting. You might regret it all winter.

Seeing red

photo: Sophie Shillue

As we're nearing the end of August, I'm happy to say our summer crops are still going strong! We've had some luck this year with some of the boogey-men of summer--plant diseases and hungry bugs can quickly ruin crops in bad years. This year however, so far, so good!

This week we're lucky to have CSA member Steve Folino and his fellow musicians of MGB Band playing at our Thursday CSA pickup! MGB plays eclectic  Americana--a mix of pop, country & acoustic jazz. They'll be on the back lawn of the Yellow House from 4-6pm for your listening (and dancing??) pleasure. See you there!

photo: Sophie Shillue

If you've been thinking that 5 lb of tomatoes each week isn't quite enough to supply your tomato sauce needs through the winter, you're in luck! We'll have a limited number of 20 lb boxes of ugly tomatoes (small, misshapen, scarred) so you can fill your pantry shelves with rows and rows of summer goodness. Email me at rodwyer@ttor.org to reserve a box at pickup.

In your share this week: MORE tomatoes! a melon, a hot pepper, green peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and squash, PYO cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, and flowers. We need any and all pint, half pint, quart containers back! We're running low and we still have a few weeks of Pick Your Crops, so if they've been kicking around your kitchen, bring them back and we'll put them to work!

A little advance notice on the next Farm Fresh Yoga at Weir River: Maureen will be teaching the next class on Tuesday, Sept. 8th at 5pm. Bring your mat and get ready for an awesome class--I'm already looking forward to it!

The sad news of the week is that farmer Sophie is headed to school and this is her last week on the

photo: Sophie Shillue; hand model: Casey Amster

farm. Sophie started here in April of 2014 and it feels like she's always been here--in fact, it's hard to imagine how the farm will feel without her. She knows the veggie operation here backwards and forwards and she's worked so hard week in and week out in the field, in the greenhouse, and in the share room. We'll miss her warm energy and snappy wit, her love of spicy arugula and pretty cloud-scapes, and her artists' eye for the curl of a cucumber tendril or the sheen on an eggplant. Good luck, Sophie, we'll miss you!

Cucumber tendril getting ready to unfurl and explore the world.
photo: Sophie Shillue

Tomato rainbow

The farm is hopping and we're hardly staying on top of the harvest these days! There's so much good stuff coming in from the field as well as new crops being planted for the fall. The best part of the last few days has definitely been this latest eye candy from Sophie, our farm crew photographer extraordinaire--

In your share this week: lots more tomatoes of every stripe, color & size! eggplant, cucumbers, husk cherries (they're delicious--you'll love them!), green peppers, a hot pepper, squash, another big bunch of PYO flowers, and of course PYO cherry tomatoes. Enjoy!

PYO Bonanza!

After a whirlwind of deconstruction and reconstruction activity last week, our greenhouse has landed in its new home on top of Turkey Hill.While the structural work is done there, over the coming months we'll be adjusting the grade inside the house and trenching in water and power. The first order of new business in there will be drying and curing our storage onion crop for the fall. We'll start

Newest baby Beltie!
photo: Ann Antonellis

harvesting that later this week, now that our garlic crop is fully harvested and up in the loft of the Red Barn drying and curing. Another baby cow was born last week and I'm happy to report that all three sets of mamas and babies are doing well.

One of our CSA partners this year is the fabulous Blue Barn Farm Share Program, a home-grown Hingham non-profit. Blue Barn is working locally on the South Shore to connect families and small farmers, addressing food access issues and strengthening our community. Blue Barn raises money to provide families with a farm food budget at a local farm, which can be used at the farm stand or to purchase a CSA share. The farms receive market rate compensation for the food that they grow and everybody wins. Support Blue Barn or find out more here.

We have a limited number of 20lb boxes of ugly tomatoes available this week. Uglies are prefect for

photo: Sophie Shillue

making sauce, canning, or freezing. A 20lb box is $20. Please reserve your box by emailing me at rodwyer@ttor.org. I'll also have ugly tomatoes available over the next few weeks if this isn't an auspicious week for you to be making sauce!

In your share this week: lots of tomatoes! green peppers, eggplant, a hot pepper, the last of the fresh onions this season (storage onions are headed to the greenhouse for drying very soon!), our good friends squash and cucumber, and a bonanza of Pick Your Own crops: cherry tomatoes, green beans, tomatillos, and a large bouquet of flowers.

A note to Tuesday shares about the PYO this week: rain/thunderstorms are predicted for Tuesday afternoon (we'll see if that actually happens.. the weatherpeople don't have a good track record of precipitation prediction on Turkey Hill). If it does indeed rain/thunder, feel free to come back on Thursday afternoon for the PYO portion of your share!

Zinnia in full bloom
photo: Sophie Shillue

Summer lovin'

This sunflower's for you, Johanna!
photo: Sophie Shillue

Our summer veggies are loving these long hot days we've been having the last two weeks! The eggplant crop is truly bumptuous and the tomatoes are finally ripening faster than the groundhog mafia can eat them. The flower patch is a riot of color and we're at a full sprint trying to keep on top of our squash and cucumber harvests. Yup, it's definitely summer.

On top of all the harvesting and weeding this week, we are seeding beets and carrots (a touch late!) and, at long last, we're moving the greenhouse. It's going from its old home next to the red barn up to the top of the hill next to main field. We can finally put and an end to much of our non-stop trips up and down the hill! Water and power will follow in the weeks to come. A big, HUGE Weir River Farm shout out to Johanna Ross for her incredibly generous gift that paid for this significant undertaking! Johanna is one of the farm's original and proudest benefactors - buying our first belted Galloway cows back when we started our herd. Thank you Johanna!!!

Farm crew Sophie's been taking some amazing pictures out in the field this past week--enjoy the eye candy!

Mmmm looks like a BLT waiting to happen.
photo: Sophie Shillue

In your share this week: red slicing and heirloom tomatoes, more fresh onions, green peppers, eggplant, squash and cucumbers, PYO cherry tomatoes and PYO flowers.

Enjoy your veggies!

Green pepper hiding under the canopy of leaves.
photo: Sophie Shillue

Fiery calendula in front and pink cosmos floating in the background.
photo: Sophie Shillue

Beautiful Italian eggplants!
photo: Sophie Shillue