Greentree Naturals CSA Newsletter - September 20, 2006

Fresh from the Garden News

Autumn officially begins this Saturday. We had our killing frost Sunday morning, so life is right on schedule of what we have come to expect of the changing seasons. I can't say that we are sad to have the bean harvest come to an end after picking over 500 pounds in the past four weeks.

This is your last delivery of the CSA season. I know that this will take some adjusting, but you will be fine. I am enclosing some information on pesticide residue in produce that we have found quite useful with our winter purchasing of veggies. We eat organic as much as we can, but there are times that we succumb to the assortment that is available from other parts of the country and buy conventionally grown.

With the end of the growing season, we shift gears and start into garden clean up. Everything that has died from the frost has to be pulled up or chopped up to be mulch. Once the garden clean up is done, then time to plant the garlic. Following this, we take the plastic coverings off the hoop houses for winter, pull up soaker hoses, spread manure, till in cover crops and keep going with clean up until the snow flies.

Sometime in between the garden chores, we are going to work on setting up the 30X96 foot greenhouse with the hope of having it ready to go for early spring crops. This project is an expensive endeavor. Amazing how much everything costs these days! Just to get the power in will be almost $3,000. We are looking into alternative methods for heating to make this a more sustainable greenhouse; considering hydronic heating in the floor that would heat with wood. The greenhouse will expand our season and perhaps bring an earlier CSA season start-up. We just have to take it one day at a time and do what our budget allows.

I spent two days last week at University of Idaho at the annual Advisory meeting developing plans for the College of Agriculture. This winter, I will be involved with teaching a four workshops on small farm liability and direct marketing in different parts of the state with Rural Roots. I have been invited to present at a sustainable ag conference in Tennessee mid-winter as well. In between presentations and travel to and from such, I hope to do some grant writing and business planning for Greentree Naturals future.

We will continue to sell the last gifts of our gardens at the Saturday Farmers Market in Sandpoint until the last market on October 14th. For those of you that are getting eggs, if we can, and the chickens keep laying, we will figure out a delivery system for every other week or so to keep you in fresh eggs through the winter.

Thank you all for supporting this local farmer and being a part of our CSA program. We hope that this has been a positive experience for you and that we can share our gardens with you again next year.

Please fill out the member survey and return to us at your convenience.

WHAT'S IN THE BAG...

• Sweet Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Eggplant
• Corn
• Delicata winter squash
• Jack-be-little pumpkin
• Potatoes
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Beets
• Green onions
• Garlic
• Walla Walla sweet onion- From Mikki at Almost Eden Farm
• French Melon - We only grow a few of these and are excited to share them with you! Let it sit out for a few days on the counter to ripen up.
• Herbs - Parsley, sage, summer savory and chives.

Sorry to say the lettuce just didn't kick back in enough to offer a share for this last delivery. The weather guy says this is the driest it has been on record since 1895, so we have a good reason for lack of cool weather crop like salad.