CSA Box #8 • September 2026
The seasons are shifting and the garden is sliding into a new transition.
The dahlias are putting on a spectacular display, the tomatoes and peppers are finally pouring in, and the pollinators are busy working the flowers. But tucked among all that late-summer color, the first signs of fall are beginning to arrive: winter squash, red beets, cooler-weather greens, and the beginnings of a new rhythm.
This week’s box brings a little bit of all of it home.
🍂 From the Garden
Delicata Squash
One of our favorites. Delicata has a naturally sweet, creamy flesh and a thin, beautiful skin that is completely edible, so there’s no peeling required.
Storage: Keep in a cool, dry place and use within a week or two for best quality.
Try it: Slice into half-moons and roast with olive oil, salt, and pepper, or stuff and roast the halves.
Red Beets
The first of our fall beets! Their earthy sweetness makes them a natural companion to our tangy sauerkraut or fresh herbs in this week's box.
Storage: If the greens are attached, remove them and store separately. Refrigerate the roots and use the greens within a few days.
Try it: Roast until tender, grate raw into salads, or pickle them for later.
Sora Red Radish
Crisp, bright, and pleasantly peppery, these little radishes are one of our favorite ways to add some crunch to a meal.
Storage: Refrigerate and remove the greens if attached to help the roots stay crisp.
Try it: Eat them raw in salads or sandwiches, slice thinly with butter and salt, or roast them for a softer, milder flavor.
A Whole Mess of Peppers
Corno di Toro • Sheepnose Pimento • King of the North • Poblano
This is a particularly good week to embrace peppers. The sweet varieties are wonderful raw, roasted, grilled, or sautéed, while poblanos bring a little more depth and a gentle heat. Try roasting a mix of peppers alongside your delicata squash and garlic for an easy side dish.
Tomato Season Is Just Getting Started
Roma • Costoluto Genovese • Black Beauty • Black Cherry • Sunrise Bumblebee • Black Strawberry
We’re gathering tomatoes in every shape, size, and color while the garden lets us. Keep them at room temperature until ripe. Enjoy them fresh, roasted, sauced, or simply sliced with olive oil and salt.
Butter Lettuce Mix
Extra tender and delicate, this lettuce is best enjoyed sooner rather than later. It makes an especially lovely contrast to the heartier greens and vegetables in this box.
Curly Kale
A dependable garden favorite as the seasons begin to change. Keep refrigerated and enjoy it raw, massaged into a salad, sautéed with garlic, or added to soups, smoothies, and stews.
Cured Garlic
Store it somewhere cool, dry, and well ventilated, and use it generously in sauces, roasted vegetables, dressings, and just about everything else.
Herbs
Sage • Chives • Parsley
These herbs are especially lovely alongside the fall ingredients in this box. Sage and rosemary are natural companions to roasted squash and garlic, while fresh chives or parsley add a bright finish to salads, potatoes, eggs, and dips.
A Little Something to Grow
This week we're also sending you home with a grow-your-own herb trio: basil, thyme, and rosemary.
Your basil is already potted and ready for a sunny windowsill. The thyme and rosemary can be transferred to slightly larger pots if you'd like to keep them growing and harvesting for months to come. With plenty of light, good drainage, and careful watering, they can continue providing fresh herbs well into the colder months.
From Our Kitchen
Marquette Grape Jelly
Made with grapes grown right here at the farm, our Marquette grape jelly is canned and shelf stable. Refrigerate after opening and enjoy it on toast, biscuits, with cheese, or anywhere a little sweet-tart grape goodness belongs. Ingredients: Marquette grapes, sugar, pectin, lemon juice.
Garlic Confit
Whole garlic cloves are slowly roasted in organic olive oil with fresh thyme until soft, mellow, and deeply flavorful. Keep refrigerated and enjoy within a few weeks to a couple of months; spoon it over bread, vegetables, pasta, chicken, or roasted squash.
Tomato Sauce
Made with tomatoes harvested from our own garden and tucked away in the freezer while tomato season was at its peak. It’s an easy little taste of summer to pull out when you need a quick meal on a cooler fall evening. This sauce was made with tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, fresh basil, and garlic from our garden, along with yellow onion, extra-virgin olive oil, dry red wine, kosher salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, Parmesan rind, unsalted butter, and a touch of sugar.
Storage: Keep frozen until ready to use. Thaw in the refrigerator and use within a few days.
Try it: Toss with pasta, spoon over roasted vegetables, use as a base for pizza, or add your favorite herbs and toppings for an easy dinner.
This Week's Bouquets
The flower fields are still very much in their late-summer chapter.
This week's bouquets feature dahlias, zinnias, strawflower, sunflowers, mint, ageratum, celosia, and marigolds — a mix of bold blooms, airy textures, and little unexpected details from around the garden.
The dahlias in particular are going strong! This is their time to shine, and until the first frost we will keep sharing the blooms. We’ve also been making a conscious effort to weave more of our native prairie plants into the bouquets. Most weeks, we try to tuck at least one prairie-grown element into the mix, giving these plants a little more time in the spotlight and sharing a small piece of the landscape beyond the garden beds.
This week, frost aster and stiff goldenrod made their way into the bouquets on Saturday, bringing a bit of our prairie right along with the cultivated blooms. Our Tuesday flower delivery boasted a second wave of Black-eyed Susans.
Field Notes
Box 8 feels a little like the garden itself right now: part summer, part fall, and not quite ready to choose between the two.
There are still tomatoes and flowers everywhere, but the squash is coming in, the beets are getting sweeter, and the cooler-season crops are beginning to take their place. It's one of our favorite moments of the growing season — when the garden starts offering a glimpse of what's next without quite letting go of what's here.
We hope this box gives you plenty to cook, grow, preserve, and enjoy as we make the turn toward fall.
From our garden to your table.