The Week of the Ugly Vegetables
Sunchokes, are native to North America and Native Americans called them "sun roots". They are in the sunflower family and are also referred to as Jerusalem artichokes. They have a potato like texture but contain no starch and their carbohydrates are not converted to sugar so they are a perfect potato substitute for diabetics. They have a slight sweet, nutlike flavor and may be eaten raw or cooked like potatoes.
We had a large patch of sunchokes years ago, but it died back and just this season started to come back. We hope to reestablish the sunchoke patch for next year so that we may delivery more of these native roots.
Celeriac - www.celeriac.comdescribes it as "An elusive root vegetable, burdened by an ugly, gnarly, disorderly, somewhat frightening appearance, and underutilized due to general uncertainty over its real potential. Yet, once one goes beyond the unglamorous shell, challenges of cleaning and peeling it, it is serendipity: an extraordinary flavor, almost non-existent calories and a rich nutritious texture are the rewards." Like the sunchoke you can use them raw or cooked. It has a celery flavor and there are recipes for soups, casseroles, gratins and the hollow stalk is sometimes cut to straw length for serving tomato-based drinks such as Bloody Marys!
We had a full crew working on Sunday to harvest & bunch up the greens for delivery this week. Lisa, Erin & Jessie worked 5 straight hours harvesting & bunching the chard, kale, sorrel & parsley. We were a bunch of bunchers!
From the Fields: The greenhouses are starting to be cleaned up as the season winds down to prepare for next year. Any plant debris is removed as well as fixing and repairing the structures. The field plastic is being removed from the beds and we plan on taking down the small greenhouse & moving it up top to better improve productivity. This allows for larger growing area in the lower field where we can manage it better with the tractor. The heated greenhouse will be reconfigured to start transplants in March.
Weather Report: Warmer weather finally arrived this week, after the unseasonably cold weather on the 17th & 18th. Saturday brought another 2" of rain, which seems to fit with the rest of the season.
Last deliveries of the Season for our Hoboken & Jersey City Sites - 
Thank you for your support.
One more delivery to Mahwah @ Beth Haverim Shir Shalom : November 2nd / 3rd (to make up for missed week during Yom Kippur)
End of Season Potluck Dinner All CSA members are invited to the end of season potluck dinner to be held in Hoboken on November 7th starting @ 7:30 pm Hoboken Historical Museum 1301 Hudson Street - Hoboken please refer to the details in your weekly newsletter copy.
Pick of the Week: click on the links below or to the right to bring you to the delivery specific to your pick-up location. Deliveries will be of similar variety & poundage, but may contain different items. Occasionally, some crops are ready to harvest but not enough to deliver to all our drop-off locations. What we do is start to filter them in each week to a different drop-off until there is enough to delivery to everyone.
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