First, let’s remind one another about the 10th annual fall farm party, yes? There will likely be fire, and there will be kids. We could bust our the bocce ball set, or the metal 55 gallon drums, or anything else – if you’re thinking something sounds fun, let us know. There will be music on in the background, and great fresh wood fired pizzas, and a bunch of interesting, quality humans having a good time (I hope). Bring drinks if you want. Or dessert. Or whatever you’re feeling like.

You can bring good people too. The pizza will be free-will donation, and we usually provide some drinks although bring your own if you’ve got preferences.

Then, let’s look at some photos from the week:

Now lets see what Otis has to say about the week: and try to transcribe what she says when asked for comment on the week:

no comment

Inside Box 15

• Salad Mix – tat soi, arugula, assorted lettuce
• Tomatoes – The tomato tsunami has not abated, quite yet. Many tomato sandwiches are in order; pro tip: microgreens make good traction control between slippery slices and mayo.
• Cherry Tomatoes – these little devils are slowing down, and I’m not sad. Maybe I’ll regret that this winter or something but for now, I’m only glad.
• Sweet Peppers – this might have been our best year yet for sweet peppers – I think it was likely due to the incredible drought and heatwaves. So there’s another silver lining for growing through this madness.
• Jalepenos – the green ones; only they are spicy (the reds and yellows are all the sweets.)
• Spaghetti Squash
• Purple Potatoes
• Kohlrabi – these are underrated and little known, but most of you have been on this ride for years. If you need help, we’re only an email away.
• Radishes – French Breakfast & … other, round red Radishes maybe they’re named “Rover“
• Pea Shoot Microgreens – the afore-mentioned tomato sandwich traction control – or, I asked the AI for some ideas on different ways to use these, and it suggested this:

I told you Autumn was coming! Hard to believe we were roasting hot so recently, as we wake up in the dim misty mornings thinking about multiple comforters and firing up the wood stove, but here we are.

The leaves are starting to change colors, the tomatoes are slowing down, and the mice are trying to start nests alongside our own. Thoughts of winter plans are intensifying, moving from vague notions to anxious 3 am ponderings, bullet point lists, and tentative Google-mapped routes.

Looks like we might return to Habitable Spaces in Texas for part of the journey, where they are also feeling the gavel of climate change – with weeks of triple digit temperatures throughout their summers now, they will be breaking ground rather literally, as they explore building structures buried down into the ground, in search of a more sustainable cool than stick built and air-conditioned structures dependent upon an increasingly unreliable and expensive electrical grid. Perhaps we can have Widget help us …

And really driving it home …. today during the harvest we covered up the sweet pepper plants with row cover fabric … because there’s a good chance it could frost before tomorrow’s dawn.

The season’s end is in sight – and so we did finally decide on a date for the 10th Annual Farm Party … Sunday, October 8th. Wandering Fire will be catering the gathering with wood-fired, free-will-donation pizzas, and I’m sure we will have a bonfire, and a crowd of good human beings with which to mingle and conversate.

As usual, it’ll be laid back and casual – feel free to bring a dish or a drink to share if you’re inspired, or just yourself and your posse, there will be plenty to enjoy. More info to follow, or feel free to ask questions or make suggestions!

My dad and his wife are here visiting this week, so that’s all I’m gonna write for now.!

Have a beautiful week!

Inside Box 14

We got everything boxed up today just before the rain came on … good for the salad row, if not ideal for the row cover’s frost-prevention powers.

• Summer Squash / Zucchini – the summer squash have given up the ghost now, although a few zucchini soldier on.
• Cherry Tomatoes – grandma Deb & Kristin have both been enjoying this recipe and website, maybe you will too!

• Tomatoes – We’re gonna miss these soon enough, but for now they’re still giving me logistical fits. Definitely slowing down though.
• Parsley
• Mint & Mountain Mint – Mountain mint plants are not the same as true mints; they belong to a different family, but they can be used like true mints.

• Shallots
• Cabbage
• Sweet Peppers – we’re loving these – there’s a chance we will be covering the plants up tonight to save them from the potential frost we’re facing … don’t tell the cherry tomatoes, which are gonna be on their own.
• Apples – with the drought they’re runty and misshapen, but we’re happy to have them on the trees we planted. Some are Honeycrisps and some are Red Barons. The lumpy skin is just a cosmetic flaw – they’re tasty and normal inside.

• one Cayenne Pepper – it’s the long red one, and yes it’s hot.
• Radish Microgreens – elevate and zip up anything with a sprinkling of these on top

First, some sad news must be shared. Since we started this farm, we have been supported by our amazing neighbors – you’ve heard me write about Neighbors Dave & Marcia over and over through the years, and they’ve been in our CSA since the beginning. At the end of August, Neighbor Dave traded in his tractor for his wings. It seemed impossible to adequately summarize his influence on Que Sehra Farm, but I had to try – pulling together photos and anecdotes from years of this blog.

It hasn’t all been sadness, which is good because Dave wouldn’t have wanted it that way. For one thing, we got almost an inch of rain – for once, WE got the rain while everyplace to our north and south just had the dreaded thundersun. And that came on Saturday, just before the summer’s last gasp heatwave turned the broiler on.

Looks like this is the last day of that, before we’re reminded of sweatshirts and bonfires and all that autumnal wonderful. The last two farmer’s markets have been record breakers for us, providing objective and measureable verification that in spite of the drought, in spite of trials and tribulations of 2023 … things are, indeed, OK. I remember feeling optimistic earlier this year, when there was very little rationale for such optimism … that was around when I got to looking up the etymology of the word “pollyanna,” as I recall. But I was right! The boxes are bursting, the vegetables are lovely, and my recurring angsts are rooted in problems of abundance (OMG tomatoes stawwwp) (no, don’t please).

The foraging has been an abundance too, with hefty hauls of pristine lobster mushrooms and radiant chicken of the woods, while at home we smoked tomatoes and peppers, and roasted onions, and picked and juiced perhaps thousands of tart tiny wild grapes for jelly.

Hey foraging is a great transition into the part where we talk about what’s

inside Box 13

No, there aren’t mushrooms in the boxes, those were just why your box has that apple in it …

• One Wild Apple – So I was out in our woods with the boys, enjoying our surroundings and picking lobster mushrooms to sell at the market. As we picked the last in our patch, Otis spied a big beautiful chicken of the woods mushroom on a dead tree, in the distance. And then, as we finished harvesting the clumps of that, I looked up and was … baffled. Apples? Big pretty reddish apples? Yes. We found a wild apple tree, and the apples turned out to be quite tasty (wild apples often aren’t, as their genetics are basically randomized)! Where had it come from and why had we never noticed it before and how was it thriving in the sandy shadows? The mystery apples tasted like a little bit of magic, so we are going to cut some branches this winter and try to graft them to rootstock so that we can plant our own … and we thought it would be fun to share one with you. (The boys made quick work of the biggest reddest ones.)
• Summer squash/zucchini
• Beets – might not be many, but honestly we’re lucky that we got any at all

• Sweet Peppers
• Tomatoes – if you want a bunch of flawed ones for sauce, let us know because the high tunnel is producing them at Henry Ford production levels and it’s freaking me out.
• Cherry tomatoes

• Curly Kale
• French Breakfast Radishes
• Kohlrabi
• Italian Basil
• Sunflower micro greens

Creature Report:

Otis saw a blue jay. Sandhill cranes are being heard. Krisin saw a couple of day-walking deer looking at her from the edge of the woods. The 12 baby chickens look a lot like adults, and rays of sunshine on metallic-greening  tailfeathers are an ongoing gender reveal party  There are always more roosters than you dare let yourself hope. 

It seems the grasshoppers never got that bad this year, despite The Dry, and wonder if it’s because of all the blister beetles we’ve been seeing about the place – what with their grasshopper-egg-munching habit.

Garden Report:

It’s still happening. Pumpkins are emerging into the open. The last sweet corn was brought in to be canned as corn relish and vacuum-sealed and frozen.

Sehr Report:

We’re trying to preserve more stuff. It’s that time. We could be only a month out from the first freeze, they say. This week we brought home wild grapes, mostly Chokecherry season is on. So are the lobster and chicken mushrooms, and our apples.

The bugs have been barely noticable even down by the creeks and rivers, which really makes foraging so much easier to enjoy. (In related news, this is the week I finally got into some poison ivy.)

Jasper is wanting to know “why?” a lot for a one year old.

Inside Box 12

• Edamame – boil them in salted water for 4-5 minutes, pop the pods out with your teeth and snack! Or hand shell and use in a stir fry or something.
• Bok Choi
• Eggplant – we’ve been smoking ours and making awesome baba ganoush
• Sweet Peppers
• Tomatoes – the tomatoes are ON! This week was likely peak mater time.
• Summer squash/zucchini
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Microgreen Mix – (sunflower, radish, broccoli, amaranth, kale, red cabbage)
• Shallots
• Potatoes (mix of red, white, and purples)

It was the week in which we prepared for another round of baking heatwave while simultaneously beginning to ponder the cutting of firewood, as the season teeter-tottered atop the tipping point. Warm-blooded creatures of all types consider scouting for winter havens.

In the garden, “we are just mowing shit down, at this point,” Farmer Kristin reports, referring to utilizing Farmhand Gabe atop a riding blade machine, turning rows of towering weed forests into a finely-minced green mulch.

The weight of the dinosaurian tomato and pepper plants in the high tunnel has made us realize we will need to up our trellising game, if we’re going to keep spoiling our plants with amenities like consistent soil moisture and Munch Bunch goat manure. Which is to say; they’;re falling over and exploding a little bit, because they’re humongous. (Another one for the list of good problems to have.)

WWOOFer Laura has returned for another couple weeks in paradise, on her arc back toward Northern California, blackberries are still out there and wild grapes aren’t quite ripe but we still get them for crazytart juice. Lobster mushrooms emerge, grasshoppers are rather rude, sanhill cranes bugle and we assume they too are thinking about the coming of winter, a bit.

But it’s still early and hey it’s a bona-fried heat wave this week. But we probably do need to pick a date for the end of the year party. Think that it’ll be a potluck this time around, a few weekends into October ….

Inside box 11

Getting everything to fit into the box gets increasingly comedic this time of the season. Only the big 3/4 bushel boxes had a chance of closing. The clouds and cool 83 degree air held for the whole harvest – we got it done just as the sun broke through to turn up the broiler.

• Russ Hanson Plums – eat soon, they’re ripe and ready!
• Bree Broccoli 
• Red or Green Cabbage
• Shallots – the return of the fancy onions
• Italian Eggplant of one kind or another
• Thai basil – hopefully using it as packing material didn’t bruise it too badly.
• Cucumbers – the plants report that they aren’t dead yet
• Zucchini
• Cherry tomatoes
• Tomatoes – we water them twice a day and it shows
• Radish microgreens – zippy dish elevator