CSA Week #18 ~ Wrapping up the CSA season!

Week 18, the final delivery of our regular season shares. It's always a bittersweet end. I love seeing our awesome and enthusiastic members every week, but it's also nice to move on to the next wave of chores and projects. This year we will be will be delivering our first "Fall Share" in two weeks, plus we'll likely attend a few markets until we bring our inventory down a bit. Cheers to a great season all!

CSA Newsletter Week #18 ~ Featuring: farm news, info on Fall Shares, produce still available, recipes for radish butter & winter squash-chipotle quesadillas and a poem.

CSA Box Week #18 ~ October 14, 2015

In the Box: butternut squash, broccoli (half shares), red & gold beets, parsnips, yellow onions, 2 bulbs garlic, acorn squash (tan), 3 green peppers, 2lbs German Butterball potatoes, red onions, radishes--Cincinnati Market & White Icicle, pint ground cherries and Brussels sprouts.

A look inside a packed box.

The young herd is growing! After CSA finishes some of our time is spent cleaning up the field--removing crops that are left, planting next year's garlic crop and removing fencing and debris, tilling in what we need to and removing the rest. We will be finishing up our greenhouse and preparing the pigs, pig shelters and pastures for winter. We are expecting the next round of piglets in December after all!

CSA Week #17

Today and yesterday were absolutely beautiful days for harvest! Ending up in beautiful and bountiful fall CSA boxes. The ninth week of deliveries for our A-week half shares, which meant their final delivery. Next week will bring the final week for everyone else.

CSA Week 17 ~ October 7, 2015

In the Box: 3 green peppers, carrots, broccoli (half shares), 3 red onions, large butternut squash, 8 jalapeno peppers, 5 yellow onions, 1lb parsnips (half shares), 2lbs Nicola potatoes, Dinosaur kale, mixed radishes, 1lb leeks, 2 bulbs garlic, sage (half shares) and basil (full shares).

CSA Newsletter Week #17 ~ Featuring: farm news; info on Fall Shares; Featured Veggie: Parsnips; recipes: Grilled Parsnips, Parsnip & Potato Puree, Butternut Squash & Sage Soup with Sage Breadcrumbs.

Half Shares all packed up.

Full Shares all packed up.

Radishes washed and ready for CSA boxes.

I can't believe I picked basil in October! It's starting to look a little rough, but it is aromatic and tasty as ever.

Parsnips, a fall treat.

CSA Week #16

Week 16 boxes were hefty with butternut squash and potatoes! Fall broccoli began coming in, tomatoes and cucumbers end.

CSA Week 16 • September 30, 2015

In the Box: leeks, cucumber, Valencia tomato, broccoli head (full shares), Waltham butternut squash, Caraflex green cabbage (half shares), pint cherry/grape tomatoes, yellow and red onions, herb bunch: sage, 2 Russian Red garlic bulbs, bunch carrots, 2lbs Nicola potatoes, muskmelon (some half shares, not pictured).

CSA Newsletter Week #16

CSA Week #15

CSA delivery from September 23rd. This is a couple weeks late! Needless to say we are keeping busy on the farm ;)

In the Box: 4lbs baking apples, 2 bulbs Georgian Fire garlic, yellow and red onions, Thelma Sanders acorn squash, Valencia yellow tomatoes, bunch celery (half shares), Kennebec potatoes, muskmelon (some half shares), brussels sprouts, green peppers, cucumber (full shares), pint ground cherries, green cabbage.

Week 15 CSA Newsletter

Apples :: Wealthy

Mid Season • Sweet

Ripens

Early September

Characteristics

Refreshing, sprightly, vinous flavor. Crisp, juicy flesh that makes a great pie. An excellent fresh eating, dessert or baking apple. Wonderful for single-variety pies.

History

Originating from Excelsior, Minnesota on Peter Gideon's farm, 1860. The random result from planting seed from a Cherry Crabapple. Named after his wife, Wealthy Gideon.

Offspring: Epicure, Haralson, Laxton's Fortune, Red Sauce, William's Pride.

Storage

6 weeks

Notes

Wealthy has a long blooming period, making it a great pollinator for other varieties.

Apples :: Prairie Spy

Late Season • Sweet

Prairie Spy apples at market.

Ripens
Late October

Characteristics

A sweet apple with excellent flavor, which only improves in storage. Good sized, firm and dense apples. Great for fresh eating, cooking and storage. An attractive fruit that is cherry red over green-yellow.

History

Introduced in 1940, by the University of Minnesota.

Parentage: Unknown.

Storage

Extra long keeping winter storage apple. Keeps 3- 5 months in storage. Stores very well until mid-January, then waning in quality into March.

Carrots :: From Field to Table

There is a lot of work that brings carrots to the point of being harvested, but today we'll look at harvest and post-harvest handling or getting those big, crunchy sweet carrots from field to table.

Sometimes harvesting carrots is a muddy job! Using a broadfork, or digging fork, we loosen the carrots in the soil profile, then pull them out, removing large dirt clods at this time. Transporting by crates and wheelbarrow to the washing table.

Carrots, fresh out of the ground.

The dirty roots head into buckets of water for a little presoak to loosen the dirt.

After the presoak the tops get trimmed and roots laid out for spraying.

The roots are then sprayed to remove the rest of the dirt.

Then the roots are put into a tank of cool water. This is the hydrocooling part of the process, where we remove any remaining field heat and cool the carrots down to the core. This helps preserve the quality of the carrots, as well as preserve and extend storage life. We use an organic sanitizer in the water tank to sanitize the carrots as well.

Carrots come out and are weighed and bunched. Harvest weights are recorded to evaluate planting methods and carrot varieties. We remove tops, as the greens can take moisture from the roots, depleting their storage life.

Bunched carrots.

Now the carrots are ready for CSA boxes and market display!

Carrots at market.

Carrots are a very hands on crop, from seed, to harvest, but they are one of my favorite crops to grow.

Farmer Brooke and a bunch of carrots.