“Accuse not nature, she hath done her part; do thou but thine.”
- John Milton, from “Paradise Lost”

What’s in the box this week: (stuff that’s in one size share that’s not in the other is at the top of its respective list so you can easily see the difference. Remember, small shares will generally have smaller quantities of the duplicate items. – Debbie)

Family Share:
Kale
Potatoes
Mustard greens
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Apples
Beets
Carrots
Chard
Cucumbers or summer squash
Green beans
Lettuce
Radishes
Tomatoes or peppers

Small Share:
Apples
Beets
Carrots
Chard
Cucumbers or summer squash
Green beans
Lettuce
Radishes
Tomatoes or peppers

Extra Fruit Option:
Strawberries, pears, and apples

CALENDAR

Sat. Oct 22
Halloween Pumpkin Pallooza

Sat. Nov 5
Permaculture workshop #3 - Polycultures & agroforestry; food forest design and installation

More Political frustrations. There seems to be no end to the attacks on the longstanding and established legal structures protecting our environment. Again we are called upon to fight abuses, this time by greedy landowners and developers who want to undermine the public good for their own private gain. Last week it was the National Organic Standards that were being threatened, this week it's the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act is America's safety net for wildlife, fish and plants on the brink of extinction. Richard Pombo, a congressman from Tracy, California, successfully passed a bill that would eliminate many of the Act's protections for wildlife, including critical habitat protections. Last week by a vote of 229 to 193, the House of Representatives moved to undo some of the central provisions of the 32-year-old Endangered Species Act. Environmental groups believe that if enacted it will represent one of the most far-reaching reversals of environmental policy in decades. More information, as well as a form to contact your Representative, is available on the Defenders of Wildlife website at: www.saveesa.org. You can also call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 to be connected to your Representative.

Get your Pumpkins at the Farm! On October 22nd we invite you to come to the farm and pick up your Halloween pumpkin. We don’t deliver pumpkins to your pick-up site, as there is just not enough room in the truck for all the share boxes AND a bunch of big pumpkins! This is how our ‘pumpkin day’ at the farm originally came about. I intend to have less of a "Palooza" and more of a day-long, “Come-When-You-Can/Pick-Your-Pumpkin” Day. Every CSA member gets a FREE pumpkin of choice and if you like to get more there are plenty to choose from. Depending on their size, prices will range between $2 to $5. We have beautiful orange cinderella pumpkins, as well as Jack-O-Lanterns. The farm will be open all day Saturday. Activities will take place throughout the afternoon. We'll have different ongoing activities such as pressing apples into fresh cider, sowing cover crop seeds, pumpkin carving and farm walks. It'll also be a chance to visit the new chicken coop and the new flock of baby chicks, a mix of Auracana, Rhode Island Reds, White Leghorns, and Bard Rocks. Not being a chicken farmer, this new challenge has already asked us to evaluate our management practices and learn more about the delicate mothering skills of baby chicks. Over the weekend we lost many of them due to overheated conditions in our brooder box. If you are interested in worm composting, right next to the chicken coop you can check out Amy's large-scale worm composting project. We seem to learn so much from nature; there is never an end to the depth of it, whether it is the awe inspiring grandeur and beauty of the night sky, the sprouting of a seed unfolding into a delicate little seedling, or the more destructive realities of natural disasters. Experiencing the seasonal cycles, and learning from their dynamic and changing conditions is what makes farming a life's adventure – Tom

Field Notes from Farmer Tom (via Debbie)
I asked Tom what he’s got growing in the fields these days that we can look forward to in our shares over the remaining weeks of the season (hard to believe, but including this week, there are only six weeks left!). He says next week we should be seeing some Chinese cabbage, the first of the season this year, as well as more green onions (scallions). There are lots of brassicas in the ground: broccoli, red and green cabbage, collard greens... (no radicchio this year though) and we should be seeing some sugar snap peas soon (yay!). Lettuces, of course, will continue to appear, but I think we’ll be taking a break from the arugula/spinach/mustard greens (though they may come around again before the season is over). I asked him about winter squash, and he says it is coming along, but that it is running late, much like the pumpkins. Due to the unseasonal weather we had earlier in the year, I believe they got planted out later than usual, plus the summer has not been that hot so that’s slowed ‘em down a bit too. What kind of squash, you ask? This year it’ll be delicata, butternut and acorn. Expect to see them near the end of the season. Fruit-wise, for folks getting the extra fruit option, the strawberries will continue to slow down and will likely peter out before the end of the season. Pears are winding down also, but the apples will continue through the end, and we can look forward to getting some of those wonderful pineapple guavas sometime in November!

Goat Milk and Cheese
Lynn Selness of Summer Meadows Farm, who sells a goat milk (and yogurt and cheese) ‘share’ to some of our CSA members, said that she is open to taking on a few more members for the rest of the season. Apparently she sold off a bunch of her ‘kids’ and so now she’s getting more milk from the mama goats (the milk that the babies used to get). So if anyone would like to snap up this opportu-nity for the remainder of the CSA season (the milk/cheese is delivered to your pick-up location), give Lynn a call to learn more about it. Her number is (831) 786-8966. She does not have email.

Notes from Debbie’s Kitchen . . . . . . . . Have a recipe you’d like to share? Contact Debbie.
It is amazing, really, how there’s pretty much an endless supply of recipes out there if you go looking. But that doesn’t mean you should stop sending me your favorites when you find them! - Debbie

Chard and Ricotta Pie
Modified from a recipe found on Mariquita Farm’s website! Serves 6

1 large bunch Swiss chard
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 bunch green onions, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
4 large eggs
1 pkg. (15 oz.) ricotta cheese
3/4 C milk
1/2 C grated parmesan cheese
2 tbsp. cornstarch

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 ½ inch deep dish glass pie plate. Trim off and discard end of chard stems. Sepa-rate stems from leaves, thinly slice stems and coarsely chop leaves. In a large non-stick skillet, heat oil until hot. Add sliced stems and cook 4 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Add green onions, salt, and pepper and cook 1 minute. Add chopped leaves to mixture in pan (in batches if they don’t all fit at once), stirring and moving around, until all are wilted and excess moisture evaporates, about 5 min-utes. In a large bowl, using a wire whisk or fork, mix eggs, ricotta, milk, parmesan and cornstarch. Stir this into swill-chard mix-ture. Transfer mixture to prepared pie plate. Bake fore 40 minutes, or until knife inserted 2” from center comes out clean.

This next recipe is one sent me a while back by another "Debbie" in our membership. She says she’s tried it and that it is yummy!

Orange Beets
from “Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things”

6 medium-size beets, peeled and sliced
3 tbsp. bread crumbs
1/4 C sugar (Debbie M. used half that)
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 C orange juice
more bread crumbs for topping

Layer beets, bread crumbs, and sugar in a greased casserole dish. Mix lemon juice and orange juice together, and pour over the beets. Cover and bake at 350 degrees F for one hour. Sprinkle more bread crumbs on top and run through broiler.

Here’s another chard recipe, this one sent to me by member Doña Bumgarner back in June, who says, “This week was our first week getting food from the farm, and I was a bit stumped by the chard, which I've never really cooked with before. I found this recipe on the internet and we loved it. This is the quick way to make "caramelized" onions, but if you have a bit more time, omit the sugar and cook the onions in butter instead of oil on low heat until the natural sugars come out and they get good and brown and melted.”

Chard and Caramelized Onions
from www.allrecipes.com
makes 4 servings

1 lg. yellow onion, sliced
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 bunch Swiss chard, rinsed & chopped
1/4 C kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp. capers
1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, or to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste
juice of one lemon

1. In a cast iron skillet (if you have one, otherwise use a good, heavy-bottomed pan), cook onions in olive oil over medium-high heat until they begin to brown. Stir in brown sugar and continue cooking for a few minutes until brown and tender.

2. Add chard and olives to the pan and cook until the chard is slightly wilted. Stir in capers and salt and continue cooking until chard is completely wilted, about 3 minutes. Season with black pepper and squeeze lemon over top before serving.

Lastly, an interesting radish recipe from a website sent to me by member Sara Calkins of San Jose.

Lemony Rice Salad with Carrots and Radishes
from www.fooddownunder.com
serves 4

2 tbsp. water
1 tsp. grated lemon rind
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. chopped fresh or ½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
2 C hot cooked rice
¾ C shredded carrot
¾ C shredded radish
¼ C golden raisins
3 tbsp. chopped walnuts, toasted

Combine first 7 ingredients in a small bowl. Combine rice and remaining ingredients and toss with dressing. Serve warm or room temperature

*Click Here* for a link to a comprehensive listing of recipes from Live Earth Farm's newsletters going back as far as our 1998 season! You can search for recipes by key ingredient. Recipe site is updated weekly during the season.