What’s been going on!

The first week of fall certainly wasn’t messing around, almost straight to early November weather instead of the beautiful 70’s and 50’s originally forecast.  Good days to be inside working on other projects.  At least today looks dry to get all the peppers picked and Saturday looks marvelous.

The season is beginning to pick up with meetings and events for many of the organizations that we work with.  Farm to Fork 2015 picnic planning is well underway with an exciting plan to expand it to an entire weekend with multiple events that folks can pick and choose from, more on this as we fill in more of the details.  Many events around the 20^th anniversary of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) that we serve on the Advisory Board for.  The same weekend is RAFI’s Crop Hop a fun time and they raise money for their farm sustainability programs.

We were talking the other day about all the groups we work with and that the three we will do just about anything asked of us are the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, RAFI and CEFS.  They constitute the entire range of issues that are most important to us.  Of course the market is our main source of income but is also a leader in how local markets should be run.  RAFI fills a middle niche working on policy issues that affect us both in the state and nationally.  CEFS rounds it out by actually doing the hard science and field scale experiments of sustainable agriculture as well as much work in local food systems.

The Carrboro Market’s fall harvest dinner was last night and it went off beautifully with a sold out house, fed by 20 area chefs we raised nearly $7000 to go towards market site physical improvements.  The exciting new announcement was the kickoff of the Market Perennial program.  Like the WUNC Sustainer program it allows people to donate a set amount every month to help support the ever expanding market programing.  Check in at the market’s website where there soon will be a link for you to sign up so that you can be Perennials along with us!

Picture of the Week

A gray day but these crazy celosia brighten up anything

What’s going to be at the market?

Peppers slowing down a bit but still plenty with Red Bells and some yellow too.  Red, yellow and orange Corno di Toros.  Peppers with little or no heat- Shishitos and Padrons for appetizers and Aji’s, the habanero without heat.

In hots it is an off week for Poblanos, Anaheims but plenty of Jalapenos, Serranos, Cayennes, Picante Pimentos and a few Pasillas, Piquillos and Espelettes.

Lacinato Kale is back along with tender white Japanese Turnips and Easter Egg Radishes.  Yukina Savoy, a really tender spinach like green.  Lots of Sweet Red Onions, get them while we still have them.  Cilantro.  A few more of both the Nubia and Italian heirloom Eggplants.  Bring on the winter squash, goes with that snow theme- Spaghetti Squash, Butternut, Acorn and Sweet Dumpling; they go great with chiles!

The flower department is down to a ton of Celosia with felt like heads and the radiant plume type.  Asiatic Lilies make a late season appearance too.

As a reminder if there is anything that you would like for us to hold for you at market just let us know by e-mail, by the evening before, and we will be glad to put it aside for you.

Hope to see you all at the market!

Alex, Betsy and Jennie

If you know folks who you think would be interested in news of the farm then please feel free to forward this to them and encourage them to sign up at the website.