|
Dear Common Thread CSA Members,
A rainy day and looks like a rainy week! We are very ready for some rain after months with barely any. It could be a bit much though, if it rains as many days as are forecasted to rain. We were planning to plant the garlic for next year this week but we may need to do it next week if we don't get a dry enough planting window. In the meantime, we will be cleaning onions, putting squash into storage for winter shares and starting to cover vegetables with hoops and row cover that will be harvested as the frosts and freezes come.
Our apprentices have just a few more weeks here as their apprenticeships wind up, so there is a bit of time left to say good-bye and thank you. We're so thankful to Bianca, Dan, Tiffany and Sophia for their hard work growing food for all of us and applying themselves to learning about sustainable vegetable farming this season. Yesterday, they visited Ingallside Meadows Farm and learned about their animal operation and two weeks ago, they visited Maple Ave Farm to learn about their grassfed beef farm. Thanks to Daniel and to Eve Ann and Harmon for hosting!
We are planning a winter CSA again this year and hope to pull together the form to start signing folks up very soon. It will be a bi-weekly box of storage crops (like potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, beets, winter squash, etc.) and hardy greens from the field (like kale, lettuce, spinach, bok choi, etc.). The boxes are intended to be enough food for two weeks and there will be two boxes in November, two in December and one in January.
The Butternut Squash has now cured long enough to hand out. Butternut is a big favorite. It is a very versatile squash, good as mashed squash, soup and for baking. It goes well with pasta and is great in lasagna.
Celery, like leeks, are a long season crop - planted in the greenhouse in March and we just started harvesting them recently. The celery we grow in the northeast is less watery, a bit stringier and more flavorful than celery from the store which is often from coastal California. My kids are happy to eat it as "ants on a log". It's also great in salads, soups and stir-fries. From racheleats.wordpress.com:
Celery soup
- 3 oz butter (6 Tbs)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 10 oz chopped celery (1.25 cups)
- 4 oz diced onion (.5 cup)
- 4 oz diced potato (.5 cup)
- 2 pints of light chicken/ turkey or ham stock
- salt
- black pepper
- heavy or double cream
Stew the celery and onion gently in the butter and oil in a covered pan for 10 minutes. Add the potato and stir to coat well with butter and oil. Don' let the vegetables brown. Add the stock. Bring the soup to the boil and then reduce to a gentle simmer for 30 minutes or until the celery is very tender. Blend or pass the soup through a mouli. If the celery is particulary stringy you might like to pass it through a seive. Taste and add salt and freshly ground black pepper as you see fit. Ladle the soup into warm bowls, spoon over a little double cream, swirl and eat.
Our fall spinach planting is a bit weedy, so we have started picking whole plants instead of leaves so that it is easier to separate the spinach from the chickweed. It will take a little longer to process but will probably keep longer also.
Sharon shared a tasty sounding beet recipe with us: cook small beet chunks, sautee leeks, and mix together with either sour cream or chevre. Yum!
We'll probably be including potatoes in the rest of the box shares this season. There is no reason to feel over-whelmed if you are not keeping up. Potatoes store very well. They key elements are dry and dark, then the cooler you keep them (but above freezing) the longer they'll last. A good strategy is to put them in doubled up brown paper bags in a kitchen cupboard away from the range, refrigerator or other heat sources. Potatoes exposed to light turn green-ish and mildly toxic. Small green spots can be pared off.
Several other fall vegetables can be stored as well. Roots like beets,carrots and celeriac can keep for months in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Garlic and onions store well in a cool, dry place (above freezing). Most winter squashes will keep at least a few months, best stored in a dry location at around 50 degrees. Greens can easily be blanced and frozen for later.
Yours in the field,
Wendy and Asher
| 
