Dear Country Valley Farm Community,
This is week #20 of the 2023 season – the first share of Autumn! We are 2/3s of the way through the 30 week season.
Emails were sent to folks that have memberships expiring this week or soon. If you did not receive an email and are unsure when your membership expires, please reach out.
Thank you for your support and participation. It means a whole lot and makes a big difference.
This week’s shares contain the following, some preparation inspiration is below:
- Shishito Peppers – 1 pint from our farm
- Mini Sweet Peppers – 1 pint from our farm
- Sweet Corn – 3 ears from Sunnyside Produce in Homer, MI
- Macintosh Apples – 4 apples from Almar Orchards in Flushing, MI
- Mixed Cherry Tomatoes – 1 pint from Cinzori Farm of Ceresco, MI
- Green Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm
- Italian Eggplant – 1 nice one from Cinzori Farm
Medium shares contain the above listed items, and:
- Shishito Peppers – 1 extra pint
- Sweet Corn – 3 extra ears
- Macintosh Apples – 4 extra apples
- Mini Sweet Peppers – 1 extra pint
Some preparation inspiration: Remember to wash all produce thoroughly.
- Shishito Peppers – these peppers are known to have zero heat, except an occasional one may have mild heat. They are best blistered, grilled, seared, cooked at high heat with just a touch of olive oil and salt. Serve them as an appetizer or side dish. You eat the whole pepper including the seeds, use the stem to hold the peppers while eating and discard the stem.
- Mini Sweet Peppers – these are our favorite pepper as they are nice and sweet and have thick and juicy walls. Great for snacking, salads, or cooking (fajitas, grilled peppers, etc.)
- Sweet Corn – grill them in the husk, or boil for just a minute or two. Enjoy this end of summer treat.
- Macintosh Apples – this cultivar is a Nova Scotia Macintosh, it ripens a few weeks earlier than a regular Macintosh. They are great for fresh eating or cooking as they are sweet and tart. Fresh apples are so nice and crisp and juicy, what a blessing to be able to eat certified organic Michigan apples grown by a family farm.
- Mixed Cherry Tomatoes – a mix of different types of cherry tomatoes. They are great in salads, on a sandwich, also a healthy snack. You can skewer them and make kabobs, the sky is the limit.
- Green Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash – the quintessential standard squashes of summer. As the days and nights are growing cooler, the summer squash season will soon come to a close. We are giving thanks or the tender sweet squashes we’ve been enjoying throughout the summer as we prepare for the winter squashes that will soon be in the shares.
- Italian Eggplant – another summer specialty. Eggplant is very versatile, ratatouille with the squash and tomatoes is a great way to go, make homemade baba ghanoush, grill the eggplant in big slices, or cube it and use on kabobs.
What is going on at the Farm:
This time of year different plants react differently to the shorter days and cooler temperatures. While we’ve been getting a good amount of sunshine, it is noteworthy that the light levels are lower as we get into the fall.
We are weeding the beds of the crops that are still growing, to help them optimize their last weeks before the frost.
We have a lot of peppers in the field. They are really starting to ripen faster now than they were.
Most of the herbs are doing great and will help us continue to offer aromatics in the shares for the weeks to come.
Tomatoes will end soon.
We are hoping for another week or two of cucumbers, but that is TBD.
We are still digging potatoes and will use the next few weeks to get them all out of the ground and into storage. Potatoes take a more prominent place in the shares as the summer veggies come to an end.
We have a lot of nice garlic to include in the shares right until the very end of the season in early December.
We have plenty of onions to fill the shares for the remainder of the season.
The lettuces we transplanted some weeks ago are thriving and looking happy. We will begin to include lettuce in the shares in early to mid-October.
The tatsoi that we direct seeded is up and will start to grow fast as it is known for, this will be a tasty green for fall shares.
There will be lots of other greens in the shares in the weeks to come.
Cabbages and bok choys will also be rotated through.
Brussel Sprouts will become a highlight in the CSA shares as we get into the fall.
There will be a great variety of winter squashes starting soon with delicata and spaghetti squash, then acorn, sweet dumpling, carnival, butternut, koginut, pie pumpkins, kabocha, etc.
Sweet Potatoes will also grace the shares now and then.
Apples will be in the shares most weeks. We are hoping to get pears next month.
Root veggies will be in abundance with a colorful array of varieties.
Microgreens will return the boxes soon enough.
There will also be lots of other fun and tasty produce that I am not remembering to mention at this point 
.
Here is the plan for deliveries:
Route:
8-10AM Ypsilanti and Milan
9AM-1PM Ann Arbor and Dexter
12PM-2PM Canton, Plymouth, and Northville
1PM-3PM Farmington, Farmington Hills and Bloomfield Hills
2PM-5PM Troy, Hazel Park, Gross Pointe, Detroit
We understand that there may be weeks that folks want to skip their share. That is okay so long as you confirm with us at least 7 days in advance of the skip week. In those cases, you can let us know if you want to add a share to the end of your season, or receive double shares some weeks etc. We encourage members to find a friend, family member, or neighbor to pick up your share from your porch and share the bounty of the harvest, instead of skipping weeks – if that is a viable option for you. Some members opt to notify us of skip weeks and ask that we donate the shares – we are happy to do that. We don’t donate to a food bank in those instances, we give the food directly to our neighbors or folks in the community that would benefit from it.
Email is the best way to communicate with me. My phone number is (831) 706-1237. You can call or text if it is the day of or day before delivery if you have anything urgent to communicate. I don’t usually check emails much over the weekend but I do have my phone on me if you need to touch base.
There is lots of good info on our website www.countryvalleyfarm.com
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions at all.
Thank you for sharing this message and our contact info with anyone who you know who may be interested. We appreciate the community support.
Kind regards,
Adam Mitchel
Country Valley Farm
Follow us on Instagram @ countryvalleyfarm