Welcome to the 14th share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2026 Summer CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

• Lettuce Mix
• Basil
• Broccoli and/or Cauliflower
• Beets w/ Greens
• Torpedo Onions
• Garlic
• Sweet Corn – Too much corn to keep up with? Get some in the freezer for winter meals! Also, we’re into the third succession of corn and we’ve found more earworms than we’d like. Just an FYI to keep an eye out.
• Summer Squash & Zucchini
• Mixed Cucumbers – Mixed green and silver slicers and some lemons too.
• Mixed Sweet Peppers – We’ve got some more Italian frying peppers that are at various stages of turning red and yellow. Italian frying peppers can be used like bell peppers.
• Shishito Peppers – A Japanese variety known as a roulette pepper, 1 in 10 might be hot. They’re great with eggs, or anything else really, but traditionally blistered in hot oil and eaten with a little salt.
• Mixed Tomatoes – We’ve got tomatoes! Pints of cherries plus lots of slicers of all sizes this week.
• Melons – Tom watermelons and Lambkin piel de sapo melons this week.
• Pears

We’re three months into this Summer CSA season with three months to go. We sure hope you’ve been enjoying the super seasonal produce that’s been coming your way and are excited for what the season still holds. We’ve been feeling a hint of fall in the air the past week or so. Perhaps it’s the cooler overnight temps, the morning cloud cover, the ripening of the pears. We’ve made it to September!

We plan to extend the summery goodness as long as possible, though with rain and cooler temps in the forecast we’ll have to wait and see how crops fair. With any luck the tomatoes will keep coming. The sweet peppers are just beginning to fully ripen to red. The zucchini and cucumbers continue to pump out the fruits. You’ll see some continued transitions though too. We’re into some beautiful early fall broccoli with cauliflower not too far behind. Pears are making their annual appearance. The kale and collards are looking very tasty.

Perhaps the big news this week is the return of the watermelon! We’ve been on a journey trying to improve our watermelon game. It was looking dicey earlier this season but maybe half of the plants persevered, put out fruit, and somehow there’s enough for everyone! Enjoy!

With a deluge of rain headed our way in the coming days we realized last week that our plans for the big onion harvest needed to shift to sooner than later. At first glance much of the onion field looked like a weedy mess but we had kept it clean early in the season and we knew there were plenty of sizeable onions dry and ready to be harvested. Somehow we managed to get the onions undercut and harvested in a couple of afternoons (and a very late night Sunday) after finishing the transplanting and propagation and pear harvest and melon harvest and tomato and zucchini harvests in the mornings. It’s been a very busy week but the onions are all safe and drying down in the prop house. Whew.

In the week ahead we’ll endeavor to clear out the spring pea/carrot greenhouse for flipping to fall greens, get to some more mowing, cultivate many things, direct sow some fall greens into a recently cleared greenhouse, etc. etc. And we’ll be opening the Winter CSA sign-ups on Friday September 4th for current/past members who would like to join us for the upcoming Winter season. Watch for an email later this week!

Enjoy the vegetables and we’ll see you here next week!

Your farmers,
Carri Heisler & Jeff Bramlett

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Here are a few recipes to get you inspired:

Cucumber, Watermelon, and Roasted Corn Salad

• 2 ears fresh corn
• 2 cup diced seedless watermelon
• 1 hothouse cucumber, seeded and diced
• 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 2 tablespoon champagne vinegar
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Roast the corn for about 30 minutes, until tender. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. When cool enough to handle, shuck and corn and cut the kernels off the cobs. Toss together the corn, watermelon, cucumber, feta, red onion, and basil in a large bowl.

Whisk together the vinegar and olive oil in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss gently to coat.

From Food52.com by Riley Wofford, https://food52.com/recipes/29529-cucumber-watermelon-and-roasted-corn-salad

Quinoa with Roasted Beets and Pear

• 2 cup cooked quinoa (I prefer red)
• 2 medium-sized beets, scrubbed (I like a mix of colors)
• 1/4 cup walnuts
• 1 large pear, cubed
• 3 ounce crumbled feta
• 1 splash olive oil
• 1 splash Balsamic vinegar
• 1 pinch salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat your oven to 400° F.

Slice off the leaves at the top of the beets. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and then wrap each individually and loosely in tin foil. Place on a baking sheet and roast for 40 to 50 minutes, or until soft enough that you can easily stab one with a fork and it doesn’t give you any problems. Unwrap and set aside to let cool; once touchable, run the beets under water to slide the skin off. Cut beets into cubes.

Lower your oven temperature to 350° F. Spread walnuts out in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast for 8 minutes. Allow the nuts to cool before giving them a rough chop.

Assemble the salad by dumping everything together into a bowl because you, brilliant human, know that that’s how salads work. Quinoa, beet cubes, pear cubes, walnuts and feta, a.k.a. the dream team. Toss with a slight drizzle of balsamic, a little olive oil, and some coarse salt and freshly ground pepper. Did you know this is awesome warm or cold? It is. Bring it to work for lunch the next day because it will be bitchin’ straight from the fridge, and your coworkers will be like ughhhhhhh.

From Food52.com by Kendra Vaculin, https://food52.com/recipes/31742-quinoa-with-roasted-beets-and-pear

Baked Salmon with Brown-Buttered Tomatoes & Basil

• 2 pound salmon fillet (skin on or off)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 5 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon brown or black mustard seeds (see author note)
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 2 cup cherry tomatoes
• 1 to 2 cup fresh basil leaves
• flaky sea salt, for finishing
• Crusty bread, pasta, or rice, for serving

Heat the oven to 325°F.

On a quarter sheet pan or baking dish, place salmon skin-side down. Season generously with salt and pepper.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the butter and mustard seeds. Cook, gently swirling the pan, until the butter is nutty and browned and the seeds are fragrant and toasted, 3 to 4 minutes, lowering heat if needed. If using black mustard seeds, they will begin to pop once they’re fully bloomed. Add red wine vinegar, red pepper flakes (to taste), and cherry tomatoes (dry them well if freshly washed; otherwise the hot butter will splatter!). Season with a few big pinches of salt. Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes, or until the tomatoes have started to burst and release their juices. Gently smash them to help them on their way (the back of a metal spatula or potato masher works well).

Pour the brown-buttered tomatoes over the salmon, smearing the butter and mustard seeds evenly over the salmon’s flesh. Bake until just-cooked through and the flesh flakes, about 15 minutes (or an instant-read thermometer reads 120 degrees in the thickest part).

Let cool for a few minutes, then shower the salmon with the basil. To serve, break the salmon into large pieces, and divide across plates with the brown-buttered tomatoes. Season with a few pinches of flaky sea salt.

From Food52.com by EmilyC, https://food52.com/recipes/85933-baked-salmon-recipe-with-tomatoes-basil-mustard-seeds