Say CHEESE! (It just goes so well with Broccoli) With two weeks of Summer harvest to go, there’s plenty to smile about, even on a drizzly Monday morning. With several tons of Winter Squash cut, collected and curing up for Fall and Winter, the crew has a whole lot to be proud of. I wish I could say that our work was done, but alas—the last crops of Summer are still trickling in and bed after bed of greens, roots, and aromatic vegetables of all kinds are awaiting their moment in the spotlight (and the root cellar). Summer is playing us a pretty juicy outro this year—we’re going to finish out the season with tomatoes, by goodness, not to mention corn and beans and likely peppers. As you’ve probably gathered from the photos of your wonderful farmers, we’ve got another beautiful round of broccoli for this week, and wouldn’t you know, the number of heads has nearly doubled over the course of seven days! So, I made sure to share an equally bountiful list of recipes for you to draw inspiration from below—soups, casseroles, breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Broc-ON!

Guess who showed up about three weeks early? Broccoli AND Napa Cabbage! Thanks to this extended patch of warm Summer weather (80+…again?), our Fall Brassica crop is coming online a little earlier than we would have planned or preferred, so we’re picking them, along with the the Melons, the Romano Beans our third rotation of Sweet Corn, and yes, more amazing Tomatoes. It is the perfect excuse to prep a make-ahead slaw or weeknight stir fry!

Many of our big bumper Summer crops have begun to taper off just in time for us to get ready for our next big project—storage. There’s a changing of the guard at play between the Summer Squashes (they’re done) and the Winter Squashes (they’re being cut and cured in the field on these dry days). And I don’t mean to sound the alarm, but the Tomatoes seem to be pumping the brakes just a little. In fact, today was our annual Pizza and Passata Day for the crew. Socking away a few quarts of sweet sauce is a treasured but humble way to celebrate work they’ve done to bring us thousands and thousands of incredible tomatoes this Summer. They pressed a little bit more than 25 quarts after the morning harvest, and we fired up some pizzas in the backyard for lunch. (The color of the sauce is like nothing other, and it makes for a relaxing albeit messy afternoon.)

Summer 2023 #15/18