Broadsheet #15
what's in your share / what's in season
fruit 'Wolf River' apple
fruit 'Golden Anne' raspberries
fruit tomatoes
('Sub-Arctic Plenty', 'Black Krim', 'Hawaiian Pineapple', 'Kellogg's Breakfast', 'Ruth's Perfect Red',
'Aunt Ruby's German Green', & 'Thessaloniki')
fruit cherry tomatoes
('Lollipop', 'Sweetie', 'Pearly Pink', 'Sungold Select X', & 'Principe Borghese')
fruit salad tomatoes
('Imur Prior Beta', 'Bloody Butcher', & 'Sungold Select X', & 'Aunt Ruby's German Green X')
root beet mix
('Touchstone Gold', 'Bull's Blood', & 'Chioggia Candystripe')
root 'Yukon Gold' potato
herb wild white sage#
vegetable 'Applegreen' eggplant@
vegetable serrano peppers
vegetable jalapeno peppers
vegetable Korean green peppers
vegetable sweet bell & baby bell peppers
('King of the North' & 'Sweet Chocolate')
# Wild foraged.
@ Random rotation
+ + +
Use first Ripe tomatoes, raspberries
Best keepers Potatoes, beets, apples
Room temp to 50degF All tomatoes & peppers
Refrigerate Beet mix
Dry it Wild white sage, hot peppers
End of season Sweet bell peppers
Quick Picks
Sweet beet borscht Beets, tomatoes, potatoes, herbs + raisins, mushroom broth, sour cream, dill, lemon juice
Spaghetti sauce Tomatoes, sweet peppers + onion, garlic, red wine vinegar, marjoram, thyme, oregano
Tart Tatin Cherry tomatoes + pastry dough
Salsa verde verde Ripe green tomatoes, tomatilloes, hot peppers, sweet peppers + garlic, onion, lime, cilantro
Egg in green pepper Sliced sweet pepper, egg + butter
Fruit sauce Apples, raspberries + raw honey, water
Getting to the end of the season means fewer surprises in terms of ingredients and crazy harvests. The Wolf River apples are still clutched to the tree without too much windfall or waste. About half the apples are culled due to scrape marks, gouge from twigs, and holes and are destined for applesauce, apple butter, and a special batch of apple-tomatillo ketchup that will be amazing with anything pork. I was proud to serve three little berries last week - will there be four this week? Raspberries are starting to burst out with fruit in the waning sunlight and frigid nights, but frost hasn't nipped them yet. The tomatoes have been dropping off in quantity and quality. At the peak of the season a couple weeks ago, we had three dozen beautiful beefsteaks ready to go. Now there are a smattering of orange Hawaiian Pineapples and Kellogg's Breakfast being matched with some of the most perfectly formed and excellently flavored Aunt Ruby's German Greens and even a Virginia Sweets - the most beautiful varieties are also our worst performers this year. Salad tomatoes now include a few plum-sized Aunt Ruby's so don't wait on a tomato that looks unripe - the green ones are ready when they yield to the touch and will also have some yellowing or pinking on the blossom end. Cherry tomatoes are still going strong, although we've experienced some hitches: 'Black Cherry' is slow, slow, slow, plus we left a tray of them in the garden; 'Snow White', a white cherry, appears to actually be more 'Lollipops'; and 'Sweetie' red cherries are so small and not very numerous that 'Principe Borghese' takes the slot for reds. There may be a time in the near future - or next year - when the cherries arrive in half-pecks but for now cherries are a laborious timesuck that also happens to absolutely be worth it. Finally, beets are on again, which in the context of tomatoes means borscht to me. Once you've decided to make a beet-based soup, you can start throwing in everything from carrots, potatoes, herbs, dried fruit like raisins and tart cherries, and then top it off with yogurt or sour cream and enjoy it hot or chilled. Yukon Gold potatoes, a favorite of a lot of potato eaters I know, have ameliorated our less-than-stellar potato harvests. You'll love them roasted whole, cubed in soups, sliced and baked with olive oil and wild white sage. Speaking of meager harvests, our most elaborate eggplant year has been a dud, with only four harvested and even fewer developing. Peppers, however, are in abundance for the last of the salsas, with a melange of jalapenos (loose on the bottom or atop the potatoes), serranos (with the salad tomatoes), and Korean green peppers (with the cherry tomatoes). With frost or even a freeze on the way, it was time to bring out all the sweet peppers we could muster, with half of all bells regardless of size harvested and nestled in your wax box. Oh yeah - the freeze is coming, perhaps as soon as Oct. 3. Big shares a'coming.
Preview of next weeks 'Silverton Russet' potatoes, carrots, more tomatoes, pumpkins & winter squash
- Barrett Johanneson