September 2, 2009: This week’s featured fruits and vegetables are: sweet corn, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, herb, sweet potatoes, and apples.

FINAL REMINDER FOR FALL CSA SIGNUPS: To repeat the recent email that went out to members, there are just a few shares remaining for Sandy Spring CSA’s Fall Season that runs Oct 7 to Nov 23. The cost is $195 for returning members and $245 for new members. Complete your application with out delay – you don’t want to miss out on the Fall CSA goodness!

RETURN THOSE BOXES! ‘Nuff said.

Recipes: Corn/Tomato Explosion

Is anyone out there besides me still working through their bounteous ears of corn? And is anyone besides me coping with a tomato explosion, either from the CSA or from backyard harvests?

If so, here are some fresh ideas for those old standbys, corn and tomatoes.

Here’s a classic: Corn and Tomato Casserole (read the reviews for some variations, or try this version for more ideas). Or here’s a tasty-looking recipe for Corn Tomato Basil Soup from Dr. Andrew Weil on Good Morning America – can’t go wrong, right?

For some main dishes, there’s Tomato and Corn Pie, which gets rave reviews from the blogger who posted it. This Tomato, Corn, and Black Bean Gazpacho also looked like fun. For meat-eaters, try Tomato Corn Chowder with bacon, or Salmon, Tomatoes, Corn, and Orzo from The New York Times, or Coriander Chicken with Tomato Corn Salad.

Enjoy the red-gold end-of-summer bounty, as we head into fall!

Food For Thought: Sustainable Agriculture

Farmer Pam sent us an interesting story from Sunday’s Hartford Courant on the sustainable harvest of the medicinal plant witch hazel – a sustainable tradition that goes back more than 100 years.

This is just one instance of sustainable agriculture, a different kind of approach to farming (you can read about it in more depth in this 1997 paper from the University of California. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition site does a lot to tie this approach to farming to several of the pieces of food-related legislation currently or formerly in Congress – an educational read.