CSA Week 18!

Working outside on a autumn morning.
We often feel lucky to be able to call this our office within the season.
The work is very hard and the hours are very long but the satisfaction we get from growing
food and flowers is very...well, satisfying.







This is a FULL SHARES ONLY week...Full Vegetable and Fruit Shares!

That means only those with Fruit and FULL Vegetable shares will pick up.

 

Pick up is Thursday, October 10th. 4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

 

 

• Orange Carrots with Tops (Don't be afraid of any oddball carrots that you may receive such as the one Peter is holding. They taste great and look funny! What more could you want?!)
• Savoy Cabbage
• Purple Top Turnips
• Sweet Peppers (Yes these are still hanging on and are super fantastic roasted/charred for tonight or frozen for a cold night in January.)
• Baby Arugula
• Purple Kohlrabi
• Cauliflower
• Frisee (A slightly bitter green from the chicory family)
• Buttercup Winter Squash (The flavor and texture are quite a bit like sweet potatoes.)
• Lettuce Heads (1 large green romaine and 1 mini red romaine.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  Your (last of the season) Fruit Harvest for this Week...
  
  
  
• Concord Grapes (eat them immediately or juice them for their distinct, explosive flavor!) (Mick Klug Farm)
• Asian Pears (Local farmer, Gail Cox from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin brings us these unsprayed, crisp and sweet fruits.)
• Ida Red Apples (Mick Klug Farm)
• Honeycrisp Apples (Mick Klug Farm)
  
  
  **Yes, it's true. This is the last week of the fruit share.
  The good news is that we have fruit for sale at the farm stand for the next few Thursdays and Saturdays.
  

CSA Week 17!

Romanesco will be in your vegetable share this week.

Big, visually stunning and nutty in flavor, this so called "Roman cauliflower"

comes from a huge, leafy plant that will be turned back into the soil to feed more plants.










This is a ALL SHARES week...FULL and HALF Vegetable and Fruit Shares!

 

Pick up is Thursday, October 3rd.

4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

 

 

• Carrots with tops
• Acorn Squash (lots of recipes)
• Romanesco (Gratin or with garlic or Alla Diavola)
• Arugula
• Lettuce Heads
• Carola Potatoes (Yellow skin and flesh just like a Yukon Gold)
• Sage bunch
• Cippolini Onions (with steak and sage butter)
• Hakurei Salad Turnips (On-farm only. Off-farm will be getting these next week)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Your Fruit Harvest for this Week...
  
• Neptune Grapes
• Golden Smoothee Apples
• Seckel Pears
• Red Courtland or Empire Apples
  
  
  

CSA Week 16!

This is Chris A.
He's in charge of our wash/pack house. A big job for sure.

 He holds a few examples of the celeriac or celery root that you will receive in your share this week.

Celeriac roasts great, mashes beautifully alone or with potatoes and goes very well in fall soups.

Enjoy the delicious sweet celery flavor.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a FULL SHARES Only week...Full Vegetable and Fruit Shares!

That means only those with Fruit and FULL Vegetable shares will pick up.

Pick up is Thursday, September 26th. 4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

 

 

• Gold Beets with Tops**
• Dark Purple "Nadia" Eggplant (last of the season)**
• Mildly Spicy Mustard Greens Mix 
• Spinach
• Celeriac**
• Red and Yellow Sweet Peppers**
• 2 Heads Leaf Lettuce
• Fennel Bulbs**
• Potimarron Heirloom Winter Squash**
• Small and Medium Russet Potatoes**
  
  
  ** These could all be roasted and tossed together for an extraordinary Autumn dinner.  
  Next morning, toss a handful of roasted veg into your omelet!
  
  
  
  
  
  Your Fruit Harvest for this Week...
• Jonagold Apples (Seedling Fruit)
• Bosc Pears (Seedling Fruit)
• Honeycrisp Apples (Mick Klug Farm)
• Red Courtland Apples (Mick Klug Farm)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Tania brushes tung oil onto maple rounds.
  Kevin, in the carpentry shop cut and sanded them down and the flower crew will use them to stage flower arrangments on for a special event.
  Wow, our people do a fantastic job!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Hello Pig.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It's time again to harvest our pork.
  Fresh pork cuts will be available within a few weeks.
  Naturally cured and smoked pork will be ready in a month.
  
  
  

CSA Week 15!

I for one am more than happy to see spinach season back!

 Early Autumn is a favorite time of year and we can't seem to get enough of the cooler season crops like spinach, leeks, and brussel's sprouts!.

Every Fall, it takes some time to grasp once again just how much slower things grow as the daylight hours dwindle and temperatures get cooler.
The water hauling, weed-killing, grass mowing battle can be stepped down a bit now. Whew!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a ALL SHARES week...FULL and HALF Vegetable and Fruit Shares!

 

Pick up is Thursday, September 19th.

4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

You Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

• Spinach

• Brussels Sprouts (removed from the stalk) (4 recipes)

• Arugula

• Green Savoy Cabbage

• Sweet Peppers

• French Fingerling Potatoes

• Leeks

• Broccoli

• Daikon Radishes (Pickled or Kimchi or Salad)

• Red Storage Onions (for On-Farm ONLY. Two weeks ago we mistakenly left these out of our On-Farm Shares...oops.)
  
  
  
  

Your Fruit Harvest for this Week...

• Arava Melon (Grown here at TFO! Sweet, tropical green flesh) 

• D'Anjou Pears (Mick Klug Farm)

• Mars Grapes (Mick Klug Farm) 

• Empire Apples (Mick Klug Farm)

  
  
  
   

 Early Autumn look around the farm.

 

Our Allis Chalmers G cultivating tractor waking.

No it's not an alien ship landing at midnight to abduct an innocent farmer. 

It's once again, the sun rising in the east to warm and feed our world!

 

 

 

The sun and Kyle.

 

 

 

 

L-O-W Clouds.

We gave in this year and grew a vegetable rarely eaten. You know, those round,
orange things you see so much of starting about this time every year...
Yep, those. We grew a bunch of those!









We had quite a few extra hands quickly working this Saturday
 in the first of 2 or 3 mass potato harvests.














Come see us soon and look how beautifully
the flower bouquets
have changed
for the Fall!


Go TFO Flower Team











Please stop by and see us to purchase farm grown products...

 
*Every Thursday 4 - 7 pm on the farm



*Every Saturday 8 am - 2 pm on the farm 



*Every Sunday 10 am - 3 pm at the Logan Square Farmers Market
 
*Every first and third Sunday of the month
           May 5 through October 20, 2013 9 am - 3 pm at Chicago Botanic Garden
 
 







Eat Well, Eat Local and Thank You!

CSA Week 14!

On the left are Red Hungarian Peppers. On the right are Red and Yellow Italian 'Corno di Toro' or

Horn of the Bull peppers.
All three varieties are sweet, thick walled and really delicious roasted or raw!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a FULL SHARES Only week...Full Vegetable and Fruit Shares!

That means only those with Fruit and FULL Vegetable shares will pick up.

Pick up is Thursday, September 12th. 4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

 

• Sweet Peppers
• San Marzano Tomatoes (Great Italian Sauce Tomato)
  Sadly, this will be the one and only time this season that this super-fantastic San Marzano variety will show itself. With tons of hard work and some luck, next year will yield far more of these babies. 
• Heirloom and Hoophouse Tomatoes
• Green Beans
• Sweet Corn
• Lettuce Mix
• Green Kohlrabi
• Eggplant
• French Fingerling Potatoes
•  Broccoli

Your Fruit Harvest for this Week...

• Small 'Tasty Bites' cantaloupes (Grown here at TFO!) 

• Red Courtland Apples (Seedling Fruit)

• Stanley Plums (Mick Klug Farm)

• Honey Crisp Apples (Mick Klug Farm)
  
  

CSA Week 13!

Freshly dug "LaRatte" fingerling potatoes.
These waxy style potatoes roast or boil beautifully.
Check out this potato salad recipe.

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the farm stand and you can meet our 5 other varieties of potatoes!

 

 

 

 

This is a ALL SHARES week...FULL and HALF Vegetable and Fruit Shares!

 

Pick up is Thursday, September 5th.

4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

 

Michelle helps to set up the tomato display at the market.

 

• Heirloom Tomatoes 
• Green Romano Beans (Flat, Italian beans. Just like green beans)
  
• Cilantro
• Red Beets with Tops
• Scarlet Salad Turnips
• Cucumber (last of the season)
• Red Radishes
• Garlic Bulbs
• Red Storage Onions

 

 

 

 

 

 

The significant lack of rain in August made for some concentrated, sweet melons!
Notice how the grass however does not care for the dry weather.

 

Your Fruit Harvest for this Week...

 

•  Arava Melons (Galia type with sweet green flesh) Grown here at TFO!

• Sarah's Choice Cantaloupes (Fantastic, aromatic orange flesh) Grown here at TFO!

• Golden Supreme Apples (Mick Klug Farm)

• Jupiter Grapes (seedless and the last of the season Mick Klug Farm)

• Peaches (late summer variety Mick Klug Farm)
  
  
  
  

Pick up a 2 lb. bag of freshly ground whole wheat flour and some melon for

a superb pancake breakfast...or dinner for that matter!
We have freshly ground corn meal as well, also available in 2 lb. bags.

CSA Week 12!

One of the sweet benefits of being a farm kid.

  Charlie waits in the distance for his big brother Eddie to gorge

himself with perfectly ripe watermelon directly from the field.

We have more melons for you in this week's fruit share.

 

 

 

Charlie has become quite the passionate insect finder and catcher.
Another benefit of farm life.
He can take or leave watermelon but grasshoppers, millipedes and worms...that's real fun!

 

This is a FULL SHARES week...Full Vegetable and Fruit Shares!

That means only those with Fruit and FULL Vegetable shares will pick up.

Pick up is Thursday, August 29th. 4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

 

 

• Heirloom and Slicer Tomatoes
• Cherry Tomatoes (mix of three!) 
• Sweet Peppers
• Basil
• Lettuce Mix
• Cucumbers
• Cipollini Onions (Italian, flat roasting onions)
• Zucchini
• Parsley (Italian Flat Leaf)
• Curly Green Kale