Michael Chase

Update for the week of September 10th and 14th

Dear CSA members,

This week’s share is a blend of a few summer crops and a few fall crops. Delicata squash, leeks and potatoes along with tomatoes, beans, green peppers and eggplant will be in your basket. Delicata squash can be stored for a few months and will improve a bit with age, so you can keep them in a cool place if you don’t want to use them for a while.

The next few days are expected to be summer like, but the temperatures will cool back down again by Friday. We have the basic ingredients in your share for leek and potato soup, just in time for those cool evenings.

We still are harvesting more potatoes and winter squash from the fields. It looks like we will have quite a good supply of butternut and acorn squash! Pumpkins are coloring up nicely. Our tomato production is slowing down, so enjoy them while you can!

Update for the week of September 3rd and 7th

Dear CSA members,

Happy Labor Day!

Some of us at Belmont Acres spent the morning picking crops for tomorrow pickup to celebrate Labor Day. We had to dodge a few showers, but are quite happy we got more rain.

This week we are celebrating summer with a variety of peppers along with tomatillos. Roast them or make salsa (http://www.belmontacresfarm.com/recipes/tomatillos/). The jalapenos and anchos are hot! Explore some recipes and share them with us. We are also adding in a different variety of eggplant called Rosa Bianca. Most peopled are used to the purple eggplant. Rosia Bianca has fewer seeds, so it much less bitter. It is worth trying out on the grill. Just cover with a little oil sprinkle some salt and pepper. When done, drizzle olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some grated parmesan cheese. You can use the zucchini/summer squash this way too.

Over the next few weeks, we will be moving toward fall crops in shares. For example, next week we will have delicata squash in your basket. Live for the moment, we will continue will summer crops as long nature provides them! If don’t have time to cook all the vegetables, remember you can freeze many of them. For examples, clean green beans, then place them in boiling water for three minutes. Place in ice water to stop the cooking, then drain and place in zip lock freezer bags. You will be happy you have them in December or January.

Update for the week of August 27th and 31st

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

There is no doubt about it, fall is near. School is starting (Abby started this week), the chimney swifts have fledged, the chickens are laying later into the day and the winter squash harvest has begun. We have picked the delicata squash and we will pick butternut and acorn squash over the next two weeks. We are much happier with the yields this year, so get ready for them next month!

Tomatoes continue to yield and should continue for at least the next few weeks. The cucumbers have given up and the next crop is struggling with downy mildew, so it is up in the air whether or not we will have anymore for the season. Beans are producing well and we will have several new varieties that will be ready later in September. Lima beans pods are filling and should be ready by mid September.

Update for week of August 20th and 24th

Dear CSA members,

Tomatoes are ripening quickly now. Some of them are not the prettiest, but we on the farm look at produce differently. How does it taste? Many of the fruits have green shoulders and some have splitting as a consequence of the heavy July rain. It seems like in the quest for the perfect looking and shipping tomato, plant breeders lost some of the flavor (an interesting piece on it here). Perfect looking produce often comes at a consequence. Another question to consider is how much spraying is required to achieve this perfection? Where was it shipped from? How long it has been stored for matters when it comes to flavor. If it tastes better than what you get at the supermarket maybe beauty need to be defined differently.

We constantly evaluate our produce and determine whether or not it is suitable for shares. Our kale has suffered from the worst case of flea beetles we have ever seen. In a ‘normal’ year mature kale plants hardly show any damage, except for a few holes. This year the leaves look like lace work. One variety Toscano, the damage is bad and for the other variety, Red Russian the it is even worse. We have Swiss Chard, so you are getting Swiss Chard for greens now. We tried the organic certified spray, spinosad (isolated from bacteria) and it knocks down the flea beetles. The problem is that you have to spray frequently and it toxic to beneficial insects too (like bees). Flea beetles die off soon, so you will see kale again in shares soon even if we don’t spray anymore. Is it worth spraying?

Food for thought.

Update for August 17th

Dear CSA members,

We have had a beautiful week on the farm, warmer weather is expected next week, so summer is still trying to hang on! The winter squash set look really good. We wouldn’t be surprised if we could start harvesting Delicata squash in two or three weeks. Field pumpkins have sized up but are still quite green.

We continue to harvest potatoes from the field, last week we gathered over 300lbs. We still have well over 1000 feet to harvest, so we expect to have an ample supply throughout the fall. Last year we dug them by hand, this year we are using a tractor with a shovel attachment on a three point hitch. The farm tractor is so old that there is no down pressure on the hydraulic system. So we put Abby, Hadley, Narineh and anybody else we can find on the back of the hitch and drive over the hills, the potatoes come right out! Everybody has been having lots of fun with this method because it combines work with a ride.

The fall planting in nearly complete, we are down to succession planting lettuce, arugula and radishes that will continue into fall. Garlic is the last and goes in early November. Now we only have to weed and harvest!