Fall Bounty. Potatoes, Butternut squash, Purple Carrots, Green Onions, the last of the Peppers, and lots of greens.
THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Purple Carrots or Beets
• “Irish Cobbler” Potatoes
• Quinces or Radicchio or Peppers
• Swiss Chard or Kale or Bok Choy
• Arugula or Salad Mustard or Sorrel
• Butternut Squash
• Green Onions
• Garlic
Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.
COMING SOON: Cauliflower, Napa Cabbage, Turnips
Well, it looks like we are going to be buying the farm! Thanks to contributions from so many of you, we raised enough for the payment that we needed to get our loan. Now, we’re waiting for all the legal portions of the transaction to carry-through. Hopefully, the rest of the process will be completed quickly.
We are so grateful to all of you for your incredible support, in the last few weeks and for the last 18 years. We wouldn’t be here without you!
When the kids were toddlers, I planted 8 Quince trees. They’ve produced some fruit the last few years, but this year it’s a bumper crop! There’s enough to make them a CSA choice, as well as selling at market. If you’re not sure what to do with them, read on…
Quinces are a relative of apples and pears, popular in medieval times, but not popular today because they need to be cooked. The raw fruits are very sour, or astringent. Not pleasant. But once they’re cooked, they are delicious! I’ve made jam and jelly, but you can also transpose them for apples in applesauce, or roast chunks with vegetables, or poach them as a dessert.
10 years ago we could still overwinter Swiss Chard in the field. But something has changed, and the last several years it’s all frozen to death by Thanksgiving, and it doesn’t come back. So this year, I planted one of the greenhouses full of chard back in August. It’s huge and beautiful even though we’ve already had several frosty nights. The extra shelter should guarantee that it comes back in the spring for a repeat harvest as well!
We are entering what we used to call our Winter Season. Greens, squashes, and roots predominate. We’ll have another round of Cauliflower coming soon, and once we get serious freezing we’ll start harvesting the Brussels Sprouts. We have plenty of carrots and potatoes to come, but the beets are a bit small. We planted plenty early, in mid-July, but we suspect that the weeks of hazy skies from the forest fires blocked a significant amount of necessary daylight in high summer, and that slowed their growth. Regardless, we’ll have plenty of food to get through the end of the year.
That said, we’re already planning for 2018. We are planting the garlic that we’ll harvest next summer, and planting onions that we’ll harvest in the spring. In just a couple months we’ll be starting to plant in the greenhouses for April. So, if you haven’t yet signed up for our 2018 CSA season, now is the time!
Click here to get to the application form. And there’s no penalty for making monthly payments, but remember that it is hugely helpful to have everyone paid in full by February 1 when we start to get busy, and have the most expenses and no other income.
Whistling Train Farm 