The rain has been a welcome sight on the farm this week! What a nice treat! Just when everything starts to get that dried up look this time of year, this rain has given new life to al the trees, flowers and plants! How lovely!

We are starting the slow shift into late summer/early fall. Onions are getting harvested and cured on our “Onion Wall. Garlic is all harvested and cured. And now we are getting ready to plant a cover crop where the garlic grew. Every day we harvest more potatoes. We are watching the pumpkins begin to get color. It’s an exciting time to see everything we babied along all spring and summer finally starting to produce and flourish!

Speaking of fall…every year we offer a limited amount of Fall CSA shares. This is a 4 week program where we focus on fall storage crops, giving you things which you can store for months to come (onions, squash, potatoes) but also adding in the abundance of the late summer harvest (tomatoes, peppers, melons, corn, etc). We begin the Fall Share on Monday, September 9th and it ends on Monday, September 30th. It is $140 for the 4 weeks. It’s a good value for the amount of produce you get! We offer these shares to our summer members first before the general public. So, if you are interested in a Fall Share, please contact us via email (turnerfarms406@gmail.com) as soon as possible to reserve your spot!

This week is a busy one for us with the Western Montana Fair starting. Even though our last kiddo graduated last year, we are still leaders of our 4H Club and also active alumni of the Missoula FFA Chapter. So, we will be hanging out in the 4H/FFA barns with the kids this week! It is so rewarding to watch all the kids compete, showing their animals which they have been raising for the past serveral months. It gives us hope for our future to watch their commitment to hard work, follow through and herdsmanship. It has been a strange time for us though…after 15 years of having our own kids competing, showing animals and other projects, we are now on the outside of it. Such a strange feeling! But we love helping other kids and families have a similar experience as we did all those years! I encourage you to stroll through the animal barns and chat with the kids about their projects!

Okay, here is what your bags look like today!

~Potatoes: freshly dug and freshly washed for you! So yummy!

~Lettuce: We normally don’t have lettuce this late in the season. We tried succession planting this year and were committed to it. Now we are reaping the benefits of it as we are able to enjoy lettuce in August!

~Plums: Jon just went to visit our friend Brandon’s orchard again on Monday. He had a small batch of plums which were ready so you are getting a few of these gems!

~Garlic

~Corn: The first of the season! We had a really weird germination this year on our corn so we had to plant and then replant multiple times. As a result we have corn ripening at different times. Which normally is fine if you plan it but it is sporadic throughout the field! Making it challenging to find the ripe ones in time! Haha! But regardless, it is CORN season! Yippee!

Zucchini: More of the best!

Cucumber; Don’t confuse it with the zucchini! LOL!

~Shishito peppers: these are mild grilling peppers. Throw them on the grill or in a skillet with some butter. They are fabulous! Our plants this year are prolific! Wow!

~Rosemary: finely chop and toss them on top of your potatoes! Mmmmm!

~Sunflower bouquet: Hopefully you saw the sign and grabbed a bouquet! If you haven’t been back on our main farm, then maybe you don’t know that we had sunflowers show up about 10 years ago and every year they spread further within the fields. We love them and let them do their thing! (Although, I try to manage them within our rows so they don’t choke the crops out!). It really is so beautiful this time of year when they are in full bloom! We wanted to share the love with you this week! Our interns had a blast putting these together for you!

Okay, can you believe only two more weeks of the Summer CSA program?? Wow, that went fast! We hope you enjoy your eats this week! Have a super week, folks!