Cauliflower or Cabbage, Delicata Squash, Carrots, German Butterball Potatoes, Beets or Bok Choy, Chard or Kale, and lots of Garlic.
THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Cauliflower or Cabbage (we were short of both)
• “German Butterball” Potatoes
• Carrots
• Swiss Chard or Kale
• Beets or Bok Choy
• Delicata Squash
• Lots of Garlic
Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.
COMING SOON: Napa Cabbage, Turnips, Endive
After a year of Total Onion Failure, I’m setting up for a Season of Onion Abundance in 2018. I ordered about 6,000 onion transplants that we’ll (hopefully) be able to start harvesting in April, just as we’re getting ready to plant the main crop of onions for the rest of 2018. Torpedo and Walla Walla.
I think I’ve already explained the Great Onion Disaster of 2017. After many years of onion abundance, this year was the opposite. But I’ve taken measures to make sure that doesn’t happen again in 2018. We’ve made beds for next year’s onions next to the garlic that is going in the ground now, so that we’ll be ready to plant as soon as the transplants arrive in March. We won’t have to wait for the ground to dry out. AND, I’ve just planted about 6,000 sweet onions that will be ready to harvest starting in April. I’ve just finished planting them, and they’ll hang out and grow all winter. The Garlic for 2018 is half-planted and the Shallots will go in next week. My goal is to get them all settled before Thanksgiving.
Cauliflower is my favorite vegetable. And Fall Cauliflower is the queen of them all. Frost-sweetened, fewer bugs, and all deliciousness. Raw or roasted, in soup, stir-fry, even steamed.
The Onion Disaster is just one of the strange, climate-related changes that happened this year. Generally we plant all the fall and winter crops by August 1, so that they’ll have plenty of time to mature before the Great Darkness comes in November. We got everything planted by the middle of July and thought we were ahead of the game, but many things, like our beets, cabbages, and celery are still small. Another farmer who complained that his fruit wasn’t as sweet as it should be by now speculates that it was a result of the blocked sunlight by all the forest fire smoke. I’m taking that stance as well. We lost a few weeks of sun with the smoky haze. And as a result, we have small plants. Our winter brassicas are later than expected, and that would tie in to the same theory. But at least the cauliflowers are ready before the first hard freeze, and they’re delicious!
Glowing colors of Rainbow Swiss Chard stems. They are the best part of the chard.
A decade ago, we could grow Swiss Chard out in the field and we could harvest all winter, and then it would regrow in the spring. But the last four or five years it has been killed by winter freeze right around Thanksgiving, and then they don’t resprout in the spring. So when I was doing crop planning last winter, I planned to plant our big chard crop inside a greenhouse. The result is spectacular! (Of course, the chickens that we kept in there all winter didn’t hurt.) The leaves are dark, and huge, and beautiful and the stems are so vibrant!
AND HERE’S MY PLUG FOR CSA PAYMENTS!
I’m a bit more needy for everyone to pay for their CSA early this year because a number of our CSA Farmily have paid for theirs through our GoFundMe campaign. I am incredibly grateful for everyone’s help in reaching our downpayment goal, but that shorted us a bit in our farm expense fund. In just a few weeks it will be time to start buying supplies and seeds for 2018’s farm season, and we’ll also need to pay our family bills, PLUS a mortgage. So, please, if you are able, send in your CSA payments as soon as you can! There’s no extra charge for breaking it up into payments, either, if you can’t swing the whole thing at once. Here’s the link to the enrollment form.
And if you’d prefer to sign up for monthly Mystery Boxes, here’s the form for that! 2018 Mystery Boxes
Have an amazing fall week!
Whistling Train Farm 