Welcome to the 20th share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2026 Summer CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

• Escarole – A little hardier than lettuce, escarole will stand up to wilting or a little cooking. We like to use it as a base for warm pasta or salmon topped with your favorite sauce/dressing. And it’s time to break out the Italian Wedding Soup recipe.
• Spinach
• Parsley
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Beets – Have you tried to make quick pickled beets yet?
• Bunching Onions
• Sweet Corn
• Mixed Snap Beans – Choose between the flat-podded Dragon Tongue Romano Beans and the round-podded tri-color snap bean mix we’ve had multiple times this season. Use as you would other types of snap beans.
• Mixed Bell Sweet Peppers – These sweet peppers ripen to red.
• Mixed Italian Frying Sweet Peppers – These red and yellow Italian frying peppers can be used like bell peppers.
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Poblano Peppers – The classic stuffing pepper, also good for flavoring any dish that is asking for a mild chile kick.
• Spaghetti Squash – Need some recipes? Here’s 18 from The Kitchn to help inspire your spaghetti squash cooking this week.

As fall approaches we tend to use October 15th as our rough estimate for the first frost of the season. Sometimes it comes later, and sometimes it comes earlier. This year we’re about a week early. The first temperature dip of the growing season means we either take some measures to prepare frost-sensitive crops to ride out the cold or we lose the most sensitive crops. It was a mixed bag this time around as usual.

As we re-focused our attention on the things that needed doing after the CSA Member Farm Day the previous week, we took a look at the ten-day weather forecast. Seeing some rain headed our way we decided to prioritize harvesting the dry popcorn and flour corn. As with many projects we had to start the corn harvest by doing something else. That meant first bagging and moving the onions that had been drying down in the prop house so the corn could dry down further in its place. Thursday we squirreled the onions away in the barn. Friday morning we harvested half of the popcorn before an early lunch.

At lunch I saw we’d received an email from a farmer friend on the other side of town looking for some limestone flour and noting that we were probably busy preparing for the upcoming frost. Wait, frost? I thought it was supposed to rain. A quick glance at the updated weather forecast showed the rain had disappeared and in its place was a frost advisory for Sunday morning with lows temps suggesting frost for several nights in a row. Whoa! I thanked our friend for the heads up but we couldn’t help with the lime as we don’t have any on hand. After lunch we adjusted our priorities and began hauling winter squash out of the field. By sunset we had the 1700 delicata and 140 spaghetti squash in the barn.

We continued the winter squash harvest push on Saturday with the impending frost looming. We made it through the rest of the spaghetti squash, the kabochas, the baby hubbards, and most of the butternuts before sunset. The organizing of macro bins of squash in the barn was done in the dark and we finished by setting out the kabochas in the prop house to cure before storage in the barn, also in the dark. Sunday we were back to it. The frost was very mild and we were able to finish up the last of the butternuts and our few pie pumpkins before lunch. We’ve got approximately 5568 winter squash tucked away for fall and winter eating! After lunch it was time to begin harvesting for this week’s share.

Needless to say it has been a whirlwind of a work week. We lost the basil to the frost, the sweet potato plants have died back, the outdoor tomatoes are likely done. We ran irrigation on the peppers and eggplants during the frosty hours and it looks like we’ve saved them for the time being. As we look ahead to this week it looks like the threat of rain is back so we’ll be once again trying to get the popcorn and flour corn in. And we need to plant and mulch garlic and plant overwintering onions and sow fava beans. And there’s a greenhouse to transplant to winter greens. And those fall peas need trellising. Another week of doing all the things.

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:

Roasted Beet, Corn, and Goat Cheese Pizza with Garlic Herb Olive Oil

• 7 ounce pizza dough
• 3 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• choice of herbs, minced (I usually use thyme, rosemary, and sage)
• pinch salt
• pinch black pepper
• 1 beet
• 1 ear corn, either grilled or boiled, and kernels removed from ear
• 2 ounce goat cheese

Step 1 Preheat oven to 400°F.

Step 2 Pierce beet with a fork all over and wrap in aluminum foil. Bake for approx. 30 min. or until tender when pierced with a knife. When done, open tin foil, peel beet, and slice thinly.

Step 3 Increase oven temperature to 450°F. Divide pizza dough into 2 portions and roll out each portion into a 6-inch circle. Cover and let rest for 10 min.

Step 4 Combine olive oil, garlic, herbs, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.

Step 5 Bake pizza dough circles for 3 min. until slightly firm.

Step 6 Remove from oven and brush on olive oil mixture. Lay slices of beet on the dough, sprinkle on corn kernels, and then crumble on the goat cheese.

Step 7 Bake for 10 min. or until pizza dough is crisp on the edges.

From Food52.com by Sarah, https://food52.com/recipes/28569-roasted-beet-corn-and-goat-cheese-pizza-with-garlic-herb-olive-oil

Roasted Spaghetti Squash

• 1 medium-sized spaghetti squash
• 3 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
• 4 tablespoon turbinado sugar, more to taste
• 1 handful freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 pinch Salt, to taste

Preheat your oven to 400° F.

Line a baking sheet with foil.

Halve the squash lengthwise and scoop out the seeds

Brush the inside of the squash liberally with the melted butter and sprinkle a bunch of sugar all over the insides, too.

Place the squash cut side down on the foil-lined baking sheet, and brush a little of the butter over the skin.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the skin of the squash is starting to show some brown blisters.

Use a fork to scrape out the strings of squash, loosening it so that it’s a spaghetti-like consistency.

Toss with plenty of grated Parmesan, season with salt, and serve.

From Food52.com by Checker, https://food52.com/recipes/12235-roasted-spaghetti-squash

Tagliatelle with Shredded Beets, Sour Cream, and Parsley

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 cups (packed) coarsely grated peeled uncooked beets (about 3 large)
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

• 12 ounces tagliatelle or fettuccine
• 1 8-ounce container sour cream
• 6 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley, divided

Melt butter with oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add garlic; stir until pale golden, about 1 minute. Add beets and cayenne; reduce heat to medium-low and sauté just until beets are tender, about 12 minutes. Stir in lemon juice.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally.

Drain pasta and return to pot. Stir in sour cream and 4 tablespoons parsley, then beet mixture. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer pasta to bowl. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons parsley and serve.

From Epicurious.com, via Bon Appetit, http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Tagliatelle-with-Shredded-Beets-Sour-Cream-and-Parsley-109365