Farm Store Hours & New Items

We are so grateful to everyone who stopped to shop at our farm store in the first two weeks being open!! Folks enjoyed our first sales crop of raspberries, along with greens, eggs, jams and more.

Farm store is closed this week, but we'll re-open Wednesday August 7th with regular hours (below). Mid-August we'll add Saturday hours, for apple season!!

Watch for our FIRST APPLES OF THE SEASON next week! Pristine apples are delish!

Pristine are wonderfully tart, crisp, juicy and firm, with flavor and sweetness under the tartness.

What's Coming

Apples start with Pristine next week and continue regularly with Zestar! beginning mid-August. Watch for fresh garlic appearing over the next couple weeks. The first tomato has been picked, so tomatoes will be regular soon. Follow on facebook for updates!

Farm Store Hours

Wednesday 4:00-7:00
Thursday 4:00-7:00
Friday 9:00-12:00
Saturday *beginning August 17 9:00-2:00

Please come prepared to pay exact change cash or check. We're generally around, but the store runs on an honor system. Bring bags to keep plastic use down!

How to get our garlic

If you have ever had our garlic you know it is top notch - it certainly blows the grocery store garlic out of the water. Grab a tissue...I don't want to make you sad, but...we are sold out for the season.

It was a teeeerrrrrrrible year for garlic growers all over the state. The long cold spring, wet (saturated really) conditions in June did not help. We had a 54% loss on our farm, but we are oh so grateful that loss came in size, not plants (about 3,000 of them). We know two other nearby growers who lost 7,000 and 10,000 plants. So, anywho, hows about that garlic?!

Normally we would have garlic for sale into the winter, but the only way you are going to get our garlic yet this fall/winter is to get in on our Fall CSA program! (Winter/Pantry CSA is sold out at this time.)


We have a limited amount of Fall #2 Hunter's Moon and Fall #3 Snow Moon CSA Shares yet available - holler at us to reserve a share!! info@alternativerootsfarm.com or text Brooke 507-412-7605.

Fall CSA pick up is held at the farm, from 4:00-7:00 pm on the dates listed below. 
Pick up will be market style, bring your own containers. 
Stock up your fridge and pantry with local, organic, seasonal goodness!

Fall CSA Order Form

Hunter’s Moon Share

Fall CSA #2  •  October 17

Full Shares $85  ||  Chard/kale, greens, onions, potatoes, winter squash: acorn/butternut, garlic, watermelon radishes, beets, carrots, apples, applesauce & apple butter.* Deposit: $45     5 more available!

Mini Shares $35  ||  Greens, onions, potatoes, winter squash: acorn/butternut, garlic, parsnips, carrots, beets, applesauce.* Deposit: $20     4 more available!

Snow Moon Share

Fall CSA #3  •  Nov. 7

Full Shares $90  ||  Microgreens, onions, potatoes?, winter squash: acorn/butternut/potimarron, garlic, watermelon radishes, beets, carrots, parsnips, apples, applesauce, cabbage. Deposit: $50     8 more available!


Mini Shares $35  ||  Microgreens, onions, potatoes?, winter squash: acorn/butternut, garlic, parsnips, carrots, beets, applesauce/apple butter. Deposit: $20     Only 1 more available!

*All items subject to change, based on availability.


Fall CSA Order Form

Field to Table :: Garlic Scapes

Garlic scapes - those wild looking curly-qs - are a delightful late spring-early summer treat. Many are completely unawares of this veg, while others know to look for it during this brief season. As seen below, scapes are the flower stalk of the garlic plant - we remove them at this time of year (when they reach full curl), so that the garlic plants may focus on making bulbs instead. (Scroll down for recipe links.)

Garlic scapes growing.

What do they taste like?  Garlic scapes have a mild garlic flavor, the white, swollen flower part of the scape has a bit more kick. You can use the entire stalk; to use test the base end to remove any tough parts (especially if they are real large) just like asparagus, by bending and snapping the stalk where it breaks easy, you may also want to trim the tip. Because the flavor is milder, some folks who have a hard time eating garlic find that they can enjoy scapes.

How to use Scapes  Scapes are delicious raw or cooked! Another bonus is that they have a really long shelf life. I chop up my scapes and add them to eggs, fresh salads, pastas, soups, stir frys. They are fantastic cooked on the grill - leave them whole, add a little olive oil and pepper, and toss in the grill wok. Really they are so versatile, you can add them wherever you would use onions or garlic. Make a scape chimichurri or pesto, hummus, or try pickling them. Scroll down for recipe links. If you want to tame their flavor go ahead a blanch them for 30 seconds, cool, then proceed with your recipe.

Storing Scapes  Store scapes in a closed container - a plastic bag or tupperware - and they will keep for a month or more (I have literally lost some in the back of the fridge and they were still good three months later). Make sure to remove any rubber bands.

Preserving Garlic Scapes  We preserve our garlic scapes two ways here on the farm, and both are easy peasy. First, we simply chop and freeze! In the photo below you can see trimmed scape sections, these are prepped, then chopped and frozen on a cookie sheet; once frozen they are transferred to a freezer container, then we can easily grab a tablespoon or a handful and toss into meals all winter long! They hold really well this way, surprisingly good enough to even throw on raw salads.

The other way we preserve scapes is by making a pesto. We blend up the pesto and freeze in pint jars (experiment with what size jar is right for you). We used to freeze it in vacuum seal bags, with the oil it is easy to open a bag, break off a hunk and reseal; we move to jars to use less plastic.

Some of our favorite ways to use the pesto include in grilled cheese sandwiches, with crackers/sardines/cheese (a favorite quick lunch), in scrambled eggs, with sautéed greens, of course it good with pasta and you can mix with yogurt for a dipping sauce.

**Warning - consumption of garlic scapes may result in extreme pleasure and may result in additive behavior, heightened awareness of the brief fresh garlic scape season, shaking your scape bunches like maracas in the kitchen.**


A Handful of Recipes to Get You Going

Garlic Scape Pesto (We use walnuts instead of pinenuts.)
Garlic Scape Chimichurri Sauce (Omit the jalapeno, if you aren't feeling it.)
Pasta with Garlic Scape Pesto
Pickled Garlic Scapes
Pasta with Garlic Scape Pesto, Sugar Snap Peas and Ricotta 
Garlic Scapes Hummus

CSA Week #6

If you are looking back at recipes from previous newsletters all the shortcut links are HERE.

It seems time has started flying! I knew it was week 6, then it clicked that that's a third of our season! Crazy! Week 6 boxes were delivered - neither rain, nor snow, nor tornado warning shall keep us from delivering our produce. The downpour, torrential at times yielded about 1.7".

Anywho...new this week were Dragon's Tongue wax beans, jalapeños and garlic!

A Full Share CSA box packed and ready to go!

 CSA Newsletter Week #6 ~ featuring: "what's in the box"; Recipes: Grilling Vegetables Part 2, Stir Grilling, Preparing Garlic and bean cooking tips; article: "Food Waste: Put Your Guilt in the Compost."

CSA Box Week #6 ~ July 19, 2017

In the Box: green onions, zucchini (half shares) or 'Ronde de Nice' heirloom summer squash (full shares), green cabbage, kale (half shares), pair of jalapenos, German Red garlic, 1.3lbs Sangre new potatoes, chives, Dragon's Tongue heirloom wax beans, carrots (full shares), 1.3lbs Lodi (tart) apples, cucumber trio.

Sangre new potatoes.

The garlic harvest is in! Fresh, or uncured, garlic went in this week's boxes.

From the Pantry :: March

Fall storage items we are still eating from the pantry:

Winter squash (some are getting wrinkly)
Potatoes (beginning to look a little alien)
Garlic & shallots
Red & yellow onions
Sweet potatoes (bought from another farm)

Summer produce items we are still eating from the freezer:

Greens
Broccoli
Shredded zucchini
Peppers
Peas
Various fruit - rhubarb, strawberries
Other items below these, yet to be discovered...

Side Track!

Redefine what you think of as eating seasonally! YOU define the season, if you start preserving for year-round/extended consumption. Part of this may also include redefining what you think these items may look like - octopus sprouting potatoes, wrinkly spuds and squash. YuM.

It's Pantry and Freezer Clean Up Time

With spring and farming season just around the corner we have been putting priority to cleaning up our pantry and freezer. Focusing on prepping items for our busier times. This is the first time we have been so successful at this, during this time of year and it feels great. 

Potatoes: Our storage potatoes may indeed last us until the summer's new potatoes come in! With our potato stock we have been making twice baked potatoes with the larger, better looking tubers. Along with these we also continue to freeze portions of mashed potatoes.

 Twice bakers and mashers headed to the freezer. This is one way to redefine how we eat seasonally.

Winter Squash: We have butternut and acorn squash in the pantry and because of the wet WET fall they are not storing as well as normal. We have been roasting and freezing portions of puree and I still aim to can some (cubed) before we are done. P.S. Another reason I have really been enjoying this is because I have been adding squash to the dog's food and they love it (well Odin loves it, Hazel tolerates it).

Chicken: We put fifteen stew hens in the freezer in November and we have slowly been putting up shredded chicken and stock/bone broth. The chicken, veggies and herbs sit in the crock for a day, before shredding and canning. Then, the bones, skin, etc. goes back in for another day to make bone broth for cooking and using as a healthful drink (which I also put in the dog's food sometimes). I'll add apple cider vinegar to help extract beneficial minerals from the bones and sometimes I toss in a beef marrow bone to increase the benefits. After it's done I strain the broth and pressure can it (then sort out the 48-hr cooked veggies/skin, etc. to throw in the dog food). ;)

Organs: We always get back our pig organs when we harvest and since we aren't super good at eating them they have sort of piled up in the freezer. While one of us likes liver, the other doesn't, so we have resolved to dehydrating these items (if they don't get put into sausage) for dog treats. This is proving a great way to clean up the recesses of the freezer.

Still on the List

Lard: crank out a bunch of rendered lard. (Try making some soap?!?)

Garlic/shallots: freeze some olive oil/garlic balls; ferment some for holistic farm management.

Zucchini: I always freeze too much! I should crank out some breads to stick back in the freezer.

Freezer excavations: what is hiding at the bottom of the freezer? (Usually way too many frozen peppers.)

Lard, beautiful lard!

What's Missing?

It's a great time of year to check in and see what you are missing - what do you need to preserve more of next season? For us, celery. Darn it! Every year we run out. Okay, I'm going for an ice cream bucket full this year! Also, we need a new salsa to put away, one type is not enough. It would also be nice to have some canned beans.

What's on your list?

Resources & Other Interesting Things...

Why is organic food so *#@! expensive?? | Ali Partovi | TEDxManhattan

Bone Broth, Broths an Stock

8 Bits of Plastic You Can Quit Right Now

Garlic :: Field to Table to Field

Read all the way down for information on the beneficial qualities of garlic and some prep tips.

Garlic has come full circle this season. The excitement of garlic begins in mid-late October, here in the North county. This is when our garlic is planted. With time enough to put down roots (to protect against frost heaving), but not sprout.

Garlic laid out for fall planting.

Around the end of July, to beginning of August, we harvest the entire garlic crop, then hang it to cure. This sets the skins and preserves the storage quality of the bulbs. It took a lot longer to cure this year, as it was so humid. We ended up adding a third fan in the packing shed to help with the drying and air circulation.

Garlic hung for curing in the packing shed.

From there the garlic needs sorting. Bulbs are sorted out for our seed stock, about 25-30% of the crop. By growing our own seed we can improve our product over time and the garlic becomes more and more adapted to our growing site. The remainder of the bulbs are cleaned for use in CSA boxes and sales at market.

It takes a little while to do this process, but its a easy job at the end of the day, or during rainy weather. When cleaning garlic, the stalks are trimmed down and the outer dirty wrapper taken off. Below sorted and trimmed garlic being cleaned.

Cleaning garlic.

Cleaned garlic.

When garlic is cured garlic is set aside to go into CSA boxes every week for the rest of the season. The remainder of the garlic is sold to Farm Share members and brought to the farmers' market (Saturdays, New Ulm). We also stick a basket of garlic in our pantry for the winter and use it frequently, in healthy quantities. Properly stored garlic lasts for months, alongside our onions, potatoes and winter squash.

In another month we will be preparing our seed garlic for planting and starting the process all over again. 

Seed garlic, ready for planting.

Include Garlic in Your Regular Diet

Make sure to use this healthful veggie in your regular cooking! Not only does it taste fabulous, but it protects your immune system through its anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. Garlic lowers bad cholesterol while raising good cholesterol; helps lower high blood pressure; prevents dangerous blood clots; as been shown to limit cancer growth.

Preparing Garlic

Chopping and crushing preparation techniques stimulate the enzymatic process that converts the phytonutrient alliin into allicin, a compound with many health benefits. In order to allow for maximal allicin production, wait 10 minutes before eating/cooking the garlic. Many of garlic's health benefits (including its anti-cancer properties) are preserved if the whole cloves are crushed and allowed to sit for 10 minutes prior to cooking. Observe this 10-minute wait before adding any high acid ingredients to the garlic (ex. lemon juice). Research has shown that microwaving or boiling garlic uncrushed or whole will deactivate its enzymes.

Garlic Harvest & August Photos

While it has been great working in the cool of these strange summer days (as you home gardeners no doubt agree) we need some heat for those summer lovin' veggies! Tomatoes, peppers, melons, they all like the heat and you can see the positive response when we get it - foliage grows, yields increase.

Some harvest photos...

Our 'Winningstadt' cabbage grew huge this season! We have had several reports that it makes delicious cole slaw and have been enjoying the tasty slaw at home quite a bit as well.

We had some lovely visitors out to the farm! Harry and Jackie Hoch, of Hoch Orchards and Gardens (La Crescent, MN) stopped in. They have been fabulous mentors for us for the orchard, hogs and farming business.

Mmmmm, garlic. We have our best garlic year yet and we are so grateful for this! Two years ago there was a very widespread garlic disease, which meant no saving seed from the crop. We experienced some residual effects from that last year and decided to bring in new seed again...

This year we will be able to save our seed garlic! This saves us money and adds to our viability as a business and over time this seed will become adapted to our micro-climate, showing hardiness and vigor. Sweet!

Farm cat Ivan, enjoying the flowers?

John looking at the 'Honeycrisp' tree in our home orchard. It is looking bountiful this season!

Along with the garlic, our storage onions are curing. We tried a new method this season, where we remove the tops right away, in the field. It is working fabulously! It means more work up front, but it leaves the organic matter in the field, which we like. Plus it makes it much easier to lay them out.

It's a hard melon year for many farmers, it sounds like. Our farmer mentor was out at the farm on Saturday and Ben taught us a little more about melons, which was great, as they are a tricky crop in some ways and there is always more to learn about any crop! We have about 50% fruit set on our melons, but there will be melons to enjoy!

A look down the bean row. Beans have been amazing this season! We love cooking them in a foil pack on the grill.

The whole crew. We have said goodbye to ten of our herd, as they have moved on to new homes. Some left as feeder pigs, for folks to grow out and harvest. One of the sows and two of the gilts (unbred female) have left to nurture other herds. It was sad to say goodbye, but part of the process and they went to great homes.

A few photos from the farmers' market. We are the first certified organic vendor :)

And a little sneak peek at apple season...our 'Beacon' apples made it into boxes this week!

{Field-to-Table} Garlic Scape Pesto

Garlic scapes are only around for a brief couple of weeks in early summer. These flowering stalks of the garlic plant are harvested when they emerge, and curl back on themselves, so the plants may focus their energies on growing a nice, big bulb underground. Scapes are versatile and amazingly delectable - raw or cooked.

Garlic plant with scape.

A delicious recipe for this ephemeral spring treat!

Garlic Scape Pesto 

• 1 bunch garlic scapes (6-8)

• ½ C nuts, any will do

• 1 C freshly grated Parmesan cheese

• 1-2 T freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste

• ½ t salt

• ½ C extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to taste

You may use the entire scape. Roughly shop the stems. You will have roughly one cup of chopped scapes, or more. Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the pesto reaches the consistency you like – adding additional olive oil and lemon juice as necessary.

Store in a glass container in the fridge for up to ten (10) days. Store in the freezer for up to six (6) months. Enjoy!

Tip: If you would like to reduce the garlicky flavor you may add 1 cup chopped parsley, spinach or basil to mellow it.

Garlic Planting

Many people asked me, over the last few weeks, if everything was wrapped up for the season at the farm and were then surprised to hear that we were getting ready to plant garlic and shallots. Yes, in Minnesota we plant garlic and shallots in October, when the soils cool down, with enough time to start rooting, but not sprout.

To get ready for planting we started by "popping" the cloves. Taking the bulbs and separating all the cloves to plant individually.

Bags filled with garlic cloves.

This year we also planted 'Walking Onions' (aka Egyptian Onions) in the kitchen garden--I've been waiting to have those! After popping the garlic I prepared the garlic bed map and was ready to plant.

Cart with garlic, shallots, map and tools.

The dibbler helps us ensure good spacing, more efficiently.

John tilled the bed, which had been resting for about a month (they followed beans this year) and I raked it. We have heavy soils so we used a raised bed to allow for good drainage. Next I used the fancy-schmancy dibbler John made to mark out spacing--6"x6". This makes planting go a lot faster.

Marking spacing with the dibbler.

View a short video of me using the dibbler. After the spacing is marked I laid out the garlic and shallot cloves, then went back and started planting. Garlic is planted 4-6" deep and shallots are planted with the tops even, or just under, the surface of the soil. View a short video of me planting garlic.

Garlic laid out for planting.

Dutch Yellow Shallots ready to plant.

 All of our garlic is organic certified, as we are transitioning to organic. Red Russian garlic, Dutch Yellow shallots and French Gray shallots were planted again; we liked all of these. We also planted some new varieties to trial--German Red and German Extra Hardy, and Inchelium Red (soft neck garlic). In our region we grow hard-neck garlic--these produce those lovely scapes that we all cherish for a few weeks in spring (yum!)--but I wanted to grow a small amount of soft-neck, just to experiment (these are the braiding kind).  We purchase seed from The Maine Potato Lady (great source for garlic, onions and potatoes), and we also got some from Territorial Seeds this year too.

 The last step in the process is to cover with a thick layer of mulch. Mulch provides protection from the elements over winter, and helps to suppress weeds. The pigs helped us with the mulching! Using bales from their pen we are able to add a little fertilizer--perfect since it sits out, breaking down all winter and spring (the minimum requirement is 120 days, and it will be about 240). Also, in anticipation of garlic planting, we threw several bales in there over the last week for them to forage through and clean out the small-grain and weed seeds. We purchased some really seedy straw last spring, hopefully this will reduce the amount of barley growing in the garlic bed, plus we got to nurture the pigs foraging instincts!

 I am already looking forward to next year's garlic and shallot crop!