It’s fall. I wonder if these soon-to-be butterflies will actually make it to Mexico?
This week marks the last Summer Share. Thanks so much for being with us these 16 weeks of vegetable eating. We don’t have exact measurements, and because of choices everyone’s experience will be a little bit different, but if you got a small share you’ve eaten at least 112 pounds of fresh vegetables, and if you got a large share it’s closer to 190 pounds. Nice work. I know it can be a challenge to eat fresh vegetables, to create a flexible menu to incorporate what the farm has to offer each week.
We hope you have enjoyed it. We are very grateful for your participation.
We are also grateful for our awesome assistant manager, Erin, and the rest of our crew who have carried all those vegetables around all summer. (And seeded, transplanted, weeded, weeded again, harvested and washed them).
Erin was away this weekend, back in North Carolina for a wedding. She went to school at UNC Willmington and did an Americore year with Feast Down East, a non-profit that does important work building a sustainable and just food system in southeastern North Carolina. The small farmers they serve were dramatically impacted by the hurricane. Erin’s intent was to volunteer on Friday before the wedding, but road blockages made traveling to the area impossible.
I’d like to share a link for you all to support a fundraiser her former employer started to help small farms and food-insecure families deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. Donations will be used to purchase product from farms on the outskirts of Wilmington whose wholesale markets and retail customers were affected by the hurricane. Purchased product will compensate farmers for lost Wilmington markets and be donated to hunger relief efforts in the area as well. Donations will also go towards helping the farms that don’t have product to sell due to the hurricane’s impact.
Additionally, here are two farms near and dear to Erin:
Kyle Stenerson of Humble Roots Farm lost the roof to his barn and is dealing with inundated pasture and crop fields. Here is a gofundme for his farm. https://www.gofundme.com/support-humble-roots
Morgan of Red Beard Farms lost many fall crops but is planting a late fall crop this week. No donation link, just interesting to see the before and after pictures.
Small, sustainable farms are an important counter-point in a state where massive, combined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) had their waste management “lagoons” overflow into rivers and streams during the flooding caused by the hurricane. There will be, as there has been in the past, massive die-offs in rivers and estuaries because of this pollution. Read more about this topic in this article posted on the website of the Union of Concerned Scientists:
In a Warming World, Carolina CAFOs Are a Disaster for Farmers, Animals, and Public Health
Meanwhile. Back at the farm (our farm, anyway). We worked hard to cover more than 1/2 acres of field with row cover this morning. This will help to reduce the impact of the rain tomorrow (it always rains Tuesday, doesn’t it?!) and also speed up growth on some of our latest planted lettuce and spinach. They are intended for the November fall shares, so they have some time to grow, but we need to boost them along.
Last summer seemed to go on forever, this summer just came to a screeching halt. We were glad to have such an abundant harvest of tomatoes while they lasted, but there won’t be any tomatoes in the share this week.
What is in the share:
Delicatta Squash and/or Acorn Squash
Sweet Potatoes
Bunch choices: kale, cilantro, sweet turnip, beets, turnip, carrot, parsley, kohlrabi, napa cabbage
Weight Choice: Potatoes, Onions, Leeks, Beets, Carrots (maybe peppers)
Choice: bagged lettuce or bagged arugula
Maybe some other odds and ends
Recipes:
Also, just roasting root veggies is delicious.
Upswing Farm 