In the Box

• Red & Yellow Onions
• Kale
• Thyme
• Sweet Peppers
• Spaghetti Squash
• Heirloom Tomatoes
• Hot Peppers
• Zucchini & Patty Pans
• Sungold Tomatoes
• Cucumber
• Roma Tomatoes
• Cantaloupe (Dayton St & West Side sites)

This box showcases the wonderful heirloom tomatoes that we have this week. Enjoy them. With all the rain this week, the tomatoes may not be so plentiful next week. The roma tomatoes are usually used for cooking, but I find them good to slice up and eat. Below I have listed some methods that you can use to preserve your tomatoes to eat during the tomato off-season.

Kale is making its first appearance of the season. Kale is a delicious green that has great nutritional qualities. It is high in vitamins A, B, and C and it has lots of calcium. Kale also has the highest protein content of any vegetable. I like to sauté it with onion and garlic in sesame oil.

Thyme is the aromatic herb in your boxes. If you have never had fresh thyme, you are in for a treat. I always thought thyme was a boring herb. But I always had the dried, out of an old bottle type. Fresh is delicious. Try mixing olive oil, thyme, zucchini and patty pans and either grill or sauté them. Thyme is also great in tomato dishes or on fried potatoes. You can dry or freeze the extra for future use.

This Week’s Recipes

• Sausage and Kale Soup
• Late Summer Bruschetta

Food Preservation Tips

We will all miss tomatoes in the winter. Here are some simple preservation ideas so you can enjoy them during the winter:

1. Freeze tomatoes without cooking them. Simply cut off the splits and put the whole tomato into a freezer bag. Place in the freezer. Remove in January and add to pasta dishes.
2. Dry tomatoes. Spray baking sheets with a baking spray. Cut tomatoes in half lengthwise. (Romas work best for this). Place tomatoes skin side down on the baking sheets. Roast at 200 degrees until tomatoes are almost dry. (This will take 6 to 8 hours. I like to do this overnight). Then put the almost dry tomatoes into freezer bags and place in the freezer.
3. Make spaghetti sauce. Sauté onions, pepper, basil and thyme. Add chopped tomatoes and cook until it thickens. Put into freezer bags or jars and freeze.

Fall Farm Party

Our annual fall picnic is coming up soon. Come to the farm on Saturday, September 8th. We will start at 4pm and go as long as folks want to stay. We will have a farm tour, potluck dinner, and a fire with marshmallows to toast. Plus, there may be some fun and games. Please join us.

News from the Farm

Those of you who are still doing rain dances can stop now. We have had more than enough rain - at least for this week. Monday morning the rain gauge was overflowing at 6 inches. So I’m not sure how much rain we’ve actually had. Big thanks go out to my crew who slogged through the rain on Monday harvesting veggies for your boxes. We also worked last Wednesday in a cold drizzle to get the squash harvest in.

The sandy soil on the farm does absorb lots of water. But at this point the soil is very saturated. We do have standing water in a few places around the farm, but so far, not in the fields.

Too much rain can be a problem for some of our plants. Tomatoes and peppers tend to split even more than normally. Heavy rain can also knock off blossoms, which means that future fruit does not grow.

But the biggest problem is that so much moisture brings in diseases that shorten the life span of the plants. Some of these diseases come because there is not enough airflow and the plants don’t dry out. Some problems come because the roots are too waterlogged. I hope that none of these things become problems.

I hope you all are safe (and dry) in this wet weather. Let’s hope for some balance in the wind and weather. Have a good week.