Seventh Week Of Our CSA’s Fall Season
Our Online Marketplace opens this morning, November 15th, and closes at 5pm Sunday November 17th, for a Tuesday November 19th delivery.
What’s Up at Market
It looks like we’ll start market at around freezing this week. Time to haul out the big down coat! Only the farmers and food trucks will show up for this one. Other than being wet, the drive up and back should be fine. I don’t usually expect to deal with winter driving mid-November but we can say that fire season in now over, whew. I expect all the usual great veggies.. In the fruit department we don’t know what we’ll get at market, last week very little, but the Co-op has lots of different pears though I’d say Star Crimson are finished. Runnymede is slowing down fruit ordering from their orchard partners while the weather is shifty. Just ask for what you want (with options perhaps) and I’ll try to find it at the Co-op.
I wanted to discuss fish as that season shifts as well. For starters, we have choices like ‘fresh wild caught’, wild-caught previously frozen’, ‘previously frozen” and ‘Farm-raised Columbia RIver’ – the only farm raised I would buy. So at the Wharf, all their fish and seafood is previously frozen, wild caught or not. At the Co-op, they have labels for all of the above. RIght now, the fresh caught season is limited because the Pacific is into the season where the water is too rough to fish, meaning most is previously frozen and some is line caught from Alaska. The best choice might be the Columbia River farm-raised Steelhead (a red trout). They have salmon-levels of Omegas and the Columbia is a nice river to live in if you are a cold-water delicious fish. You can read about this Steelhead Project in collaboration with the tribes, at Pacific Seafood’s website.
That said, in January and February, when we go to market in Grants Pass, we can get flash-frozen fish, a wide selection, from Jim Bonheim of Beachcombers Seafood. Flash-frozen means frozen when first caught and pretty nice substitute for fresh. For those not familiar with our winter market routine, I try to go a couple times a month dependent on the weather. It is a longer drive (delivery often in the dark) and we need substantial orders to make the trip, which includes the Co-op, TJs, etc., as usual. Typically Coquette takes a lengthy vacation – more on that after consulting with them. RiseUp Bakery is at winter market. Josh is the main farmer but another farm with beautiful winter crops showed up last year adding to the variety. I will ask Teri and Tina if they are growing over winter for their CSAs and see if we can get in on them too, a stop in Rogue River.
At Jessie’s Cosmic Garden
I’m back in the saddle, minus a pesky infected tooth – all systems go but, honestly, not looking forward to winter in the same way the garden is and all of you snow bunnies. Last year was a breeze. This year the long-range forecast is normal-normal, whatever that means anymore. I have brought in a lot of mountain magic tomatoes to ripen up in the basement and have some to offer this week and those to come until they are gone, but limiting basket each, unless few orders permits for two.
All four of the teenagers in the chicken flock are laying eggs instead of growing rooster decorations. How could I be so lucky. We’ll see who Chirpie is in the weeks to come but hoping for one more layer. The eggs are brown or a dark dull green while the yolks are super beauties. I might have 1 dozen pullet eggs a week for awhile but one of them is already laying big eggs for the typical dozen. Chirpie is a throwback looking much like a Buffie and nothing like either parent.
I’m into a batch of Puttanesca Sauce today with frozen Genuwines and maybe a dozen brought in to ripen. Enchilada Sauce is also on the horizon and yet another Puttanesca batch for vegan from the freezer stash. It was such a good year for tomatoes and looking as far as next summer in the NOAA forecast it looks like another super-hot one.
Link to order form: https://www.heartofthesun.com/csamarketplace.htm
Cheers!
Jessie
Important Information (leaving this up for awhile)
I don’t like rules but prefer to suggest some guidelines for the successful running of our CSA. Anyone joining in the last few years has probably not received or been reminded of them. The Old-Timers are quite good about them but we had reminders on the old website that I didn’t include on this one so here goes (and I will leave this up here for a few weeks to catch everyone as well as including it in the link notice email).
Please…
- Watch your statements and leave a payment in your box for pickup when you are not going to cover the cost of what’s being delivered – or make a paypal payment, or stop by with it. Especially during Winter and early Spring Season, our bank balance can get pretty low if we don’t keep accounts topped up. If I use the debit card (often) the transaction is immediate.
- If you are not going to order, tell me well ahead – earlier in the week if its a recent decision and at least two weeks ahead if you are going on a trip or are going to be out for a week or more. I shouldn’t find this out when reminding you to order mid-day Sunday. This is especially desired if you are a regular microgreen customer as I seed them around 12-10 days ahead of harvest. The seed is expensive – making needless chicken treats something to avoid. With a heads up in time, I can plan to grow less.
- Put your boxes out ahead of delivery (will often be later in winter when we drive to Grants Pass). Leave payments taped in them or with a rock on top of them. And please return all my canning jars so I have something to put the next batch of whatever it is in them. Thank You, Very Very Much. I love you all and so do our farmers!
- Microgreens I’ve been thinking about microgreen parameters for some time since it’s heartbreaking to feed them to the chickens who like garbage with equal gusto. Most of my microgreen members have the same order every time they order. I would like to call these subscriptions that I can always fill. When folks order every once in a while I never know its coming and may or may not have seeded enough to cover their orders, though always have some for small orders. I’m trying not to waste pretty expensive seed. So here’s the new rulIf any ‘subscriber’ is going to be gone, give me a heads up 10 days ahead, when you get your Sunday order to check the week before your absence. I will tag all the order emails with a reminder. If you are planning to place a special order or you don’t order very often and want them when you’re planning to order, give me a heads up the same 10 days ahead so I can seed more. You’ll notice I am now using a different sunflower seed (the striped ones from the big sunflowers) so if you’ve drifted away from them in the past, please try again.
- Minimum Orders: ‘Back in the Day’ when we started the CSA, we had structured box prices and an 8-week period in which to spend your box value. Now we are all over the place and it only works well when an X number of people order and a Y number of people have orders over $100. In the old days the minimum order was $35 for the small box if ordering every week. I’m going to make that the minimum order for doorstep delivery. You can place smaller orders to pick up here on order day between 3:30 and 6:00.