Good evening CSA family,

Here we are into October with the summer weather continuing. This appears to be the last 80 degree day for the year. Without any rain to speak of for so long we finally started up the irrigation pump again the last 2 days to keep some of the larger sized crops of lettuce, cauliflower, and broccoli from wilting. That is highly unusual for this time of year. If the forecasts hold true there should be some substantial rain by the time we chat with you next week, which will be quite helpful for all the fall and winter crops. We hope the smaller sized plants will make it until then.

Your treats for this week will be a smaller amount of broccoli, a head of red cabbage for all, orange cauliflower, green butter lettuce, red onions, and a butternut squash.

Your meals should have a lot of color with these red and orange items that are plentiful this week. The red cabbage has a nice bright red color, the orange cauli is high in nutrients, and the red onions have been a more popular choice of onion in recent years, especially on salad bars because of their color.

We have shied away from giving you the butter lettuces because they are naturally smaller and have not always looked good. But right now there is some large and clean green butter in the field to pick fresh for you in the morning. Years ago one farmer told me that he grew this as the premier organic lettuce for the market in those days. It is certainly tender and sweet.

Butternut squash is probably the most desirable winter squash around, so we start the winter squash season with it. It is easy to peel and cut compared to most other winter squashes. It has a creamy texture which is delicious chunked and roasted.

Have a great week,

Farmer Brown and His Mrs.