Gosh. The CSA season just flew by for us. It is hard to believe we are already at the end. And it is harder still to believe how much food we harvested this past week. We had a really difficult time deciding what to squeeze into the boxes!  But before we tell you all about your Finale Box, let us say a ginormous THANK YOU!  You are the reason we get to do this wonderful work, Farm Members, and we are endlessly grateful for your support of our little homestead venture here at Circle M.

We really wanted to highlight the fall superstars in this October box, so we've loaded you up with those colorful root crops: red beets, golden carrots, deep orange sweet potatoes and pink radishes. In addition we have a small hard squash for each of you, to celebrate the harvest season. Of course, no Circle M box would be complete without multi-hued greens, so we've got mixed head lettuces in green, speckled, red and maroon, as well as our ever-popular kale bouquets. But we had a few late summer surprises we popped in as well: dill and Napa cabbage! 

Unfortunately, there was a lot out there we couldn't squeeze into the boxes, or we couldn't pick because it wasn't quite ready yet. We may offer a limited amount of Fall Bounty Shares again this year, so let us know if you are interested in that. But we want to invite all of you to come out and pick your own after-the-box goodies as they become ready. We'll stay in touch with the blog, facebook and email and let you know what looks good in the fields. Then you just give us a call if you want to come out and glean with the crew.

We do hope to see you at our Wild and Wooly Farm Festival, this Saturday, October 19 from 2 til night. We will have felting and spinning activities set up to play with all day, and we'll be taking farm tours to visit veggies and animals. In addition, there's a big potluck with live bluegrass music at 6pm and bonfires with s'mores all evening. Come on out and see us!

Here's what's in the box:

Head Lettuce - We love growing special  lettuces that would never make it to the grocery store, or even to the farmer's market, because they are so fragile. We've given you heads of different colors and textures this week so you can mix up a beautiful tasty salad several times this week. Add some leaves from your arugula bunches, too, and top with sliced radishes or thinly shaved fennel.  Dress with a lemon balm vinaigrette and take advantage of all that early fall has to offer!

Napa Cabbage (Full Shares Only) - Yay! A crunchy fresh treat. Sorry, Shorties, these were just too big to fit in your boxes. Our European cabbage took a terrible hit from cabbage moths this year, so it was all too buggy to pack for you, but these pretty Asian open-head cabbages are gorgeous and somehow escaped the worms from moth larvae. Our Amish friends enjoy these leaves spread with peanut butter,  but we tend to mostly make them into Asian-flavored slaws or shred them into rice paper spring rolls.

Arugula Bunches (Shortie Shares Only)  - Ah, the arugula gets so mild and sweet in the fall weather. I LOVE arugula salad with eggs for breakfast. Think I'm crazy? Try this dressed with buttermilk and sprinkled liberally with pepper and goat or feta cheese crumbles. Breakfast!

Eggplant - We certainly hope you aren't sick of these yet. They are so good this year, we really can't get enough roasted or grilled.

Peppers - A colorful bunch of all sweet peppers for you this week.

Fennel (Full Shares Only) - These barely grew big enough for us to harvest this year, so y'all each are only getting one. Try sliced thinly over salad or roast and enjoy the soft, sweet sections with a bit of blue cheese dressing.

Radishes (Shortie Shares Only) - So pretty, tender and sweet.

Kale - Prettier and sweeter then ever. We've gotten so much great feedback on our mixed Kale bouquets this year, so it's our great pleasure to pack them again.

Herb Bags: Dill, Oregano, Lovage/Celery, Parsley, Sage -  All of these herbs should last a week or two, but drying them for the winter is never a bad idea. Our dill is quite incredible. Not sure why, but it was extremely happy in the fall plot and we are delighted to bring it to you. Cut over your salads or season glazed carrots or roasted beets. Yum!

Carrots - Boy o boy are we proud of these carrots. Not just beautiful but sweet. What a year for them! And now after a few frosts, they'll be extra sweet.  Roast, snip dill over and drizzle lightly with honey and vinegar.

Beets - Did you know that frost makes root crops, and other hardy winter veggies, sweeter? Basically the whole idea of what doesn't kill you makes you sweeter. The beets were good last week, now they are GREAT. Try roasting with the carrots for a pretty side dish or mound over lettuce for a wilted salad. Terrific with dill.  Don't forget to save and eat your greens! Mix in with kale if you don't like the taste of the beet greens, which is very similar to swiss chard. I love them with eggs for breakfast. Saute, add eggs, sprinkle with Parmesan or Gruyere cheese.

Sweet Potatoes - Gorgeous, tasty, unique. These white and garnet sweet potatoes will look gorgeous on the plate. So enjoy, but NOT YET! Sweet potatoes  must cure for a week or two to develop the full sweetness in the tubers. So hold off for a little bit.

Hard Squash - We had an absolutely AWFUL melon and squash year. Not sure why, actually. Bug pressure was minimal. The semi-drought was a bit stressful, but we had drip tape on the vines. In any case, we've got just these little squash for you, but it worked out OK since the boxes were so full!

Please do head over to the Farmer Kriss Pinterest page and our Box 10 Recipe Blog for lots of ideas on eating all of this yummy produce.

Gosh. The CSA season just flew by for us. It is hard to believe we are already at the end. And it is harder still to believe how much food we harvested this past week. We had a really difficult time deciding what to squeeze into the boxes!  But before we tell you all about your Finale Box, let us say a ginormous THANK YOU!  You are the reason we get to do this wonderful work, Farm Members, and we are endlessly grateful for your support of our little homestead venture here at Circle M.

We really wanted to highlight the fall superstars in this October box, so we've loaded you up with those colorful root crops: red beets, golden carrots, deep orange sweet potatoes and pink radishes. In addition we have a small hard squash for each of you, to celebrate the harvest season. Of course, no Circle M box would be complete without multi-hued greens, so we've got mixed head lettuces in green, speckled, red and maroon, as well as our ever-popular kale bouquets. But we had a few late summer surprises we popped in as well: sweet corn, dill and Napa cabbage! 

Unfortunately, there was a lot out there we couldn't squeeze into the boxes, or we couldn't pick because it wasn't quite ready yet. We may offer a limited amount of Fall Bounty Shares again this year, so let us know if you are interested in that. But we want to invite all of you to come out and pick your own after-the-box goodies as they become ready. We'll stay in touch with the blog, facebook and email and let you know what looks good in the fields. Then you just give us a call if you want to come out and glean with the crew.

We do hope to see you at our Wild and Wooly Farm Festival on October 19 from 2 til night. We will have felting and spinning activities set up to play with all day, and we'll be taking farm tours to visit veggies and animals. In addition, there's a big potluck with live bluegrass music at 6pm and bonfires with s'mores all evening. Come on out and see us!

Sweet Corn - Surprise! To you and to us all. We planted this long-growing variety, Tuxedo, shortly after our quick-growing variety and we've pretty much ignored it. But suddenly, full ripe ears of white sweet corn have appeared. Enjoy quickly for the best flavor and cook in under 5 minutes for the best crunch.

Head Lettuce - We love growing special  lettuces that would never make it to the grocery store, or even to the farmer's market, because they are so fragile. We've given you two heads of different colors and textures this week so you can mix up a beautiful tasty salad several times this week. Add some leaves from your arugula bunches, too, and top with sliced radishes or thinly shaved fennel.  Dress with a lemon balm vinaigrette and take advantage of all that early fall has to offer!

Napa Cabbage - Yay! A crunchy fresh treat. Our European cabbage took a terrible hit from cabbage moths this year, so it was all too buggy to pack for you, but these pretty Asian open-head cabbages are gorgeous and somehow escaped the worms from moth larvae. Our Amish friends enjoy these leaves spread with peanut butter,  but we tend to mostly make them into Asian-flavored slaws or shred them into rice paper spring rolls.

Arugula Bunches - Ah, the arugula gets so mild and sweet in the fall weather. I LOVE arugula salad with eggs for breakfast. Think I'm crazy? Try this dressed with buttermilk and sprinkled liberally with pepper and goat or feta cheese crumbles. Breakfast!

Eggplant - We certainly hope you aren't sick of these yet. They are so good this year, we really can't get enough roasted or grilled.

Peppers - A colorful bunch of all sweet peppers for you this week.

Cucumber - Our hoophouse has produced a lovely crop of these for us all year. Lovely on a salad. Great with grilled beef.

Fennel (Full Shares Only) - These barely grew big enough for us to harvest this year, so y'all each are only getting one. Try sliced thinly over salad or roast and enjoy the soft, sweet sections with a bit of blue cheese dressing. Shave and add to potato gratin, dice and combine with apples, dill and rice wine vinegar for a wonderful appetizer.

Radishes (Shortie Shares Only) - So pretty, tender and sweet.

Brussels Sprouts Leaves (Full Shares Only) - Our Brussels Sprouts are still too tiny to harvest (we'll let you know when they are ready and you can come and pick them if you are a fan) but the leaves from the plants are tender and taste just like the sprouts. Of course, we searched Pinterest for recipes and we were shocked to find a ton. Chefs apparently LOVE Brussels Sprouts leaves and now we feel a bit behind the curve. Enjoy!

Kale - Prettier and sweeter then ever. We've gotten so much great feedback on our mixed Kale bouquets this year, so it's our great pleasure to pack them again.

Herb Bags: Parsley, Dill, Sage, Lemon Balm, Basil - Use the basil up right away, then put the rest of the bag in the fridge and use it as you have need. All of these herbs should last a week or two, but drying them for the winter is never a bad idea. Our dill is quite incredible. Not sure why, but it was extremely happy in the fall plot and we are delighted to bring it to you. Cut over your salads or season glazed carrots or roasted beets. Yum! We love sage combined with hard squash in a fall soup, in squash lasagne or ravioli, or a smashed garlic side dish.

Carrots - Boy o boy are we proud of these carrots. Not just beautiful but sweet. What a year for them! We had an incredible dish this week at Mount Horeb's Bistro 101 that served up crab cakes on a bed of skinny roasted carrots. The crab cakes were great but the carrots blew us away. So we came home and looked up a bunch of roasted carrot recipes. You can find them at the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page.

Beets - This week we are packing you bunches of Cylindra beets. They grow long and skinny and push themselves right up out of the ground. Cool to look at, even better to eat. And the bonus is, these skins are soft enough to eat. Just scrub and slice from top to bottom.

Sweet Potatoes - Our crop was dissappointing in both size and yield this year because of the cool summer, we imagine. But what we have here for you is the best of what we got. Enjoy, but NOT YET! Sweet potatoes  must cure for a week or two to develop the full sweetness in the tubers. So hold off for a little bit.

Hard Squash - We had an absolutely AWFUL melon and squash year. Not sure why, actually. Bug pressure was minimal. The semi-drought was a bit stressful, but we had drip tape on the vines. In any case, we've got just these little squash for you, but it worked out OK since the boxes were so full! We have our favorites, but all hard squash and pumpkins are interchangeable in recipes. Look at the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page!

Please do head over to the Farmer Kriss Pinterest page for lots of ideas on eating all of this yummy produce.

What a week of gorgeous outside living and inside eating! Fall is such a delightful time to be on a farm. The mornings are brisk, the afternoons temperate, the harvest endless and the food incredible. If you can look past the weeds that inevitably encroach as the season progresses, the gardens are lovely with colorful fruit and seedheads of various sorts, while the fields beyond our boundaries are ripe and golden with corn, soy and hay. We just love it.

You can join us, if you like, in the work and the feast. Monday through Friday we eat at noon, and if you want to come chip in on the harvest some morning, we'd love to share our riotous buffet of food with you. Of course, we've given you a lot to play with at home, this week, too. Don't forget to look at the Box 9 Recipe Blog and the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page for recipes. Here's what's in the box:

Head Lettuce - At last some crisp fall head lettuce. We love our salad mix, but the sudden change to the sturdier heads is always a welcome surprise. Yum! Be sure to pull these apart and wash them well, leaf by leaf, before eating. They are very sandy due to that pounding rain last week. If you haven't already invested in a small, inexpensive salad spinner - this might be the time to do it. Salad is much nicer is soaked in very cold water just prior to eating, then spun nearly dry before serving.

Nasturtium Flowers and Leaves - For some members, we know this bag is the highlight of the season. Others of you might not know what to do with these but we encourage you to try these peppery-radish-ish treats in a salad or as a stand-alone appetizer. Mix some goat or cream cheese with chives and pepper, spread lightly on a leaf and top with a flower - enjoy and impress your dinner guests! Chefs most often use these to garnish fish or soup, so that's an option, too. These were originally grown in South America as a salad vine - not as the flower bed edging we see here, so we know they are terrific to eat. Trust us!

Tomatoes - This is it for our tomatoes,  so enjoy the last bite of summer!

Eggplant - DO roast these. We've had them roasted in all kinds of dishes this week - including this morning for breakfast as a base for a poached egg. Lots of ideas on the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page! If you don't have time to eat them, roast them, peel and discard the skin,  and freeze the flesh to make babaganoush later. A friend and neighbor, Jean-Margret, shared a terrific recipe with us this week for Lamb Mousaka. Find it on the Box 9 Recipe Blog.

Peppers - Reds of all sorts and lovely huge bells. Little hot jalapenos. The fat horn-shaped reds have sweet flesh and spicy seeds - so watch out for that!

Cucumbers (Full Shares Only) - We had a great salad dish featuring cucumbers and beef at Madison's wonderful Lao-Laan Xang Atwood recently. Don't be afraid to combine your cukes with warm ingredients.

Herb Bag: Parsley, Sage, Lemon Balm and Basil - Don't miss this last chance to make a terrific citrusy salad dressing with the lemon balm. Also great to chop and add to a quick tea bread or scone.

Kale - Oh, hooray! Kale is back in the box and better than ever. Boy, we can't get enough of this lovely mixed kale this year, and from your feedback, you feel the same way! Check out the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page for a ton of new recipes. Great in a recipe mixed with sweet potatoes - but don't use the ones in this box yet! They have to cure for a few weeks before their sugars develop.

Brussels  Sprout Leaves (Full Shares Only) - Yeah, you read that right - leaves! We don't have the mini-cabbage heads off of the Brussels Sprouts yet, they are still too small. But we had to top the plants in order to stimulate the balls to grow - these are those leaves. They taste just like Brussels Sprouts and are certainly easy to prepare. A quick search on Pinterest turned up a gajillion recipes for them, of course! So enjoy. We hope to have Brussels Sprouts for you in the final box.

Kohlrabi - Really one of my favorite veggies of the year. Looks awesome in the garden - like a vegetable asteroid from space - and tastes great on the plate. I tend to eat these like apples, right in the field, but we grew the Gigante variety this year, which gives us more to work with in the kitchen. Today we had Chili-Spiced Kohlrabi fries for lunch and they were truly terrific. Sweet! New to me this year - cubed, roasted and sprinkled with a tiny bit of Gruyere and pepper and salt. A superlative side dish.

Beets - We had a superlative beet year, so enjoy these, and enjoy their very lovely, tender, tasty greens, as well. They are very nutritious and can be used in any recipe where you'd use spinach, collards or kale. Check the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page for ideas.

Sweet Potatoes - These little tubers are a bit of a disappointment for us this year. Of course, we got spoiled with last year's unusual heat. But sweet potatoes are a Southern crops, and here we see why - they just need a long hot season to get big. Nevertheless, they need to be planted well after the last spring frost and dug before the first fall frost so we have a limited window to let them grow. Maybe think of the smaller ones as sweet potato carrots, and simply scrub and cut into rounds and cook that way. The skins are certainly tender enough to eat. BUT NOT YET! Sweet potatoes have to cure for a few weeks before their sugars develop. So wait for about two weeks on these.

Gourd - One pretty gourd, courtesy of our friends at Barham Flower Garden. Thanks, Kim and Roberta!

Delicious Driftless  Fare
October 4th and 5th
Mineral Point, WI & Dodgeville, WI
This is the first ever local food fair in our neighborhood, and we’re excited to be a part of it! Farmer Kriss will be mediating a movie discussion in Mineral Point on Friday night the 4th, and Circle M will be serving veggie samples at a booth on Saturday.  Also, Kriss’s bluegrass band, MooGrass, will be playing on Saturday at noon! Better yet, there is an old-time  Potluck and Square dance that evening. 

Oct 4th @ Mineral Point Opera House (139 High Street, Mineral Point)
6pm: Meet the authors of Super Snacks for Super Kids
7pm: FREE screening of documentary Hungry for Change
9pm: Wine and Cheese Reception at Grey Dog Deli, panel with local farmers
Oct 5th @ Folklore Village (3210 Cty Rd BB, Dodgeville)
12 to 6pm: Delicious Driftless Fare with vendors and live music
1pm: Keynote Speaker Steven Deller, UW Madison Professor Ag and Econ
6pm: Potluck and Barn Dance ($7 with a dish, $10 without)

Warm and Wooly Fall Farm Festival
Saturday, October 19th
Circle M Farm (1784 County Rd. H, Blanchardville, WI 53516)
This is our annual fall farm open house – we’ll be here from noon til night playing with wool, building bonfires and touring the farm to eat veggies and pet animals. The evening will culminate with a huge potluck dinner at 6pm and live bluegrass music at 7pm. Smores all night. Meet your farmers and bring friends, blankets, chairs and a dish to pass!