Sundog CSA September 30th, 2024
Autumn 2024 is officially one week old today. Last week there were lingering temperatures of summer with the forecast this week showing 80s for highs and 50s for lows and one lone morning in the 40s. I am not a fan of anything below 20 degrees and really like it when it is in the 50s when I hike out to the barn in the mornings. All of the critters living on the hill are excited about the lower temperatures though as you can see
Very contented and very muddy pigs who have dug themselves Lake Swine which we will have to fill in in the next few weeks so as not to step into it this winter and lose footing. The cows and goats are excited about the decrease in the fly population and the chickens are excited about their incarceration sentence being lifted since the gardens are almost done for the season. There are chickens everywhere as they explore all the places that they have been looking at through the wire enclosure of their pens.
Record corn harvests are keeping the dirt roads busy as farmers combine and haul and come back to combine some more while the weather holds. Soybeans are starting to turn yellow and dry down so I guess it really is the season of fall.
Hay bales are sitting everywhere as the pastures responded to all the summer rains and there is no shortage of dried summer grasses to feed this winter – very different from last year’s season when cows and their owners were scrounging for bales. For us as gardeners, it was a good year also. The beginning and ending of the season lacked moisture so there was a struggle for those early and late crops and we were never able to get a good stand of either. Eggplant was another crop that failed for us this season and peppers were scarcer than they have been in previous years. The onions were nice for hill (us) growers and we appreciated the okra pickings each and every week. Tomatoes were plentiful as were potatoes. This year’s garden queen though has to be the carrots. They are the biggest ones we have grown in several years. The interesting part about the carrot harvest is that they are growing in a high tunnel that is without it’s cover since the early spring storms ripped the entire “skin” off, leaving the bare metal tubing that forms the tunnel. We decided to let the tunnel go without its cover in order to rid the soil of “salts” that accumulate from watering with rural water and never having rain to wash it. It was the perfect year to do that so I guess there was something positive about the loss! 😊
In your bag this week are a sample of the leeks – small as they needed more growing time and more water, I think? We also included a sample of HONEY from the hives here on the hill, compliments of Izzy and Seth, with the help of Shawn and Roger, bee mentors. And of course, Gary, who was the beginning of this insect experiment!
YOUR BAG THIS WEEK –
- Tomatoes
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Okra
- Onion
- Leek Sample
- HONEY sample
- Sweet Peppers
- Herb Bundle
RECIPE SHARE – this week’s recipe is one that Zach uses to make corn muffins and I asked him for it because it uses honey. Jen took the picture for us – muffins made with Sundog Honey! Recipe credits to Food Network, shared by Patrick and Gina Neely.
PREHEAT the oven to 400 degrees.
Mix the following in a large bowl:
1 cup yellow cornmeal (we use polenta because we like the texture)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
In another large bowl, whisk together the following:
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
½ stick butter, melted
¼ cup honey
Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.
Place muffin paper liners in a 12-cup muffin tin. Evenly divide the cornbread mixture into the papers. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden. -
The one on the left is Artisan Pink Jazz and the one on the right is Polish. They are both large and both delicious even though they would not win the local “miss beautiful tomato contest”!
These are the kind of suction boots I need to hang onto the earth when walking through mud in the cow lot. The little guys above had no trouble hanging onto their footing!
Today was one of those beautiful days – slow and easy. We spent our free time doing a little laundry and hanging it out in the bright sunshine, picking produce, scrubbing carrots and filling our vegetable bags. One of the unexpected surprises was a good friend, Philip, stopping by with this amazing melon and sharing it with us. His generosity will be remembered next season as we intend to try and grow this sweet flavorful melon from seeds that we saved. That break made the next part of our day a little easier as we approached our building project and looked it over critically, took our new repairs that we had just screwed and pounded together a couple of weeks ago and unscrewed and disassembled and re-did it, making it square and level. We are learning a lot about what we don’t know and learning a lot from other people who do know something about building. At the end of the day, we were pleased to see the skeleton standing straight which will make the next part of siding much easier since all the boards will be the same length (we hope)!
We also are showing off the pumpkin that Cathy and Chuck gifted us with since we are not able to grow anything close to this size most seasons. We have some ideas on how to outwit the squash bugs every year and so far, they have not worked. Even so, this will be another seed saver project.
This picture that Katy took the other day kind of defines most of our days. We sometimes slide through them with the thinnest of hope that things will work out even though we are staring down a huge storm cloud. The colors of this slender rainbow are still visible and underneath of the aura of that bow, the storm clouds appear dimmer.
THANK YOU so much for the support and encouragement that this season has brought to us. We appreciate your emails and words – water and fertilizer for us as gardeners.
Blessings to you from the farm – hope to see you next season!
Teresa, Seth, Izzy, Dan, Katy, Zach and Jen