CSA share weeks 9/6 -The Harvest Doesn't Wait and Raspberry Repulsion

Last week two events coincided to reinforce that nature waits for no man or woman. We received a wondrous bounty in our farm share and I became ill that night. I rarely get headaches. Unfortunately I developed a sinus headache Tuesday night that lasted until Sunday. This severely impacted my ability to process our share. To further complicate matters, prior to taking ill I purchased 20 pounds of "seconds tomatoes" from a local farm that also required processing. I really had to pull myself together to get any food processed and called upon my husband to help out more than usual. The major casualty were about five pounds of pickling cucumbers, about two heads of lettuce, and a few quarts of cherry tomatoes. All in all, I can live with that.

Unlimited Raspberries. It was like hitting an organic lottery. Given the abundance of ripe berries and limited number of pickers due to the rain falling, Farmer John declared "unlimited pick-your-own raspberries" for all while we were in the field. My son gorged on them while I picked as fast as I could. My daughter, however, was not into berry picking. Not one bit. She screamed almost the whole time. Putting a damper on the already wet experience, we gave up once we had about 1 quart picked. I had to put them into a plastic bag as I had forgotten to bring a box with me. The berries, crushing under their own weight, were destined to be preserves.

The following night I took the bag out of the refrigerator to make my first batch of raspberry preserves and to my dismay saw several little worms on the berries. Yuck. I didn't worry, however, and threw those berries away. I picked through the remaining berries, poured out the juice that had collected in the bottom of the bag, and set about making my preserves. I elected to go with a freezer method rather than the more time consuming cooked version. Shorter shelf-life but just as tasty. I carefully poured the preserves into the freezer jars. Admiring my work, to my horror I noticed something white and moving in the jar. Insect larvae. In my preserves. Not just one. Many. Almost as many as there were seeds. Resisting the gag reflex, I dumped out all the preserves in the trash. Oh, how sad. I don't know if there was contamination on the bag I used to collect the berries or if the berries were hosting eggs that hatched upon harvest. What I do know is that in the future I will always make my preserves the same day I pick the berries. I will always use a relatively sterile berry box to collect the berries. And I will choose the boil method of making the preserves. It may be a while before can enjoy raspberries again.

Share on week of 9/6:

• 2 eggplant
• 1 Asian eggplant
• 1 head cabbage
• 11 pounds heirloom tomatoes
• 1 cucumber
• 8 sweet "ethnic" peppers
• 2 white peppers
• 4 green/yellow peppers
• hot peppers
• 12 stems kale
• unlimited bush beans
• unlimited raspberries
• 1 pint husk cherries
• unlimited basil'
• 2 quarts cherry tomatoes
• flowers

We canned  all the tomatoes. The yield was 10 quarts of diced tomatoes. We also made tomatillo salsa, roasted all the ethnic peppers and enjoyed kabobs with the Asian eggplant and the bell peppers.