CSA Newsletter

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has salad mix, Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, pie pumpkin, French grey shallots, garlic, leeks, potatoes, rutabagas, baby carrots, beets and sage.

Parsley - inside for the winter

Field Notes.  Ken has been wrapping up various projects as weather permits.  He needs to get some mulch on the garlic and shallots he and Sam planted a couple weeks ago.  He is still setting up hoopettes in the garden for fall and spring planting.  He is still harvesting greens from garden and high tunnel.  

Thank you, Sean!

Last week a friend visited and wanted "to be put to work," so he and Ken filled up a section of the cook stove wood rack. Thank you!

And we have been talking about what to plant next year.  Seed catalogs have begun to arrive, and I need to get orders done before there is no organic seed.  As nice as it is to see demand for organic go up, it does mean I can't put off seed orders until January anymore.

Full!

I am nearing full capacity in the root cellar.  As our year round vegetable business expands, the root cellar seems smaller and smaller.  I have a couple barrels in another corner I can block off and keep cool.  This has been a bumper rutabaga year, and Ken has tried some new storage crops as well.  

We have also been reducing the animal population as well.  Two weeks ago the pigs went, and I have gotten a couple emails thanking us for raising great pork.  And last week we took out the cockerels and old hens.  Ken has a small batch of cockerels not yet large enough to butcher.  They will go on a warm day in December or January with a couple geese.

Squash warmed with toasted nuts

From the Kitchen.  With the cool days and nights, we light the cook stove every morning and many evenings as well.  My focus shifts to slow cooking and oven cooking.  Ken has been tackling large jobs in the kitchen many mornings.  Today he sorted squash and all the ones with blemishes got cleaned and placed in the oven to bake.  He will make a pie with some and I will serve some as a side dish.  I like to toast nuts in a skillet, place on a cutting board and chop.  Return to the pan with butter and heat up the squash.  Sometimes I beat an egg in the squash and then I usually flip the squash into a larger buttered pan so the egg gets fully cooked and the squash puffs up like a pancake does.

I addition to baking potatoes, Ken has a new favorite potato "recipe."  He scrubs potatoes, cuts them in chunks, boils them and then peels them.  He sets them aside, and in the morning one of us will make soup and serve it over "smashed potatoes."  They combine with the soup, and thicken it and add texture.

Rutabagas are part of the brassica or cabbage family.  They are one of the cruciferous vegetables - quite healthy.  We usually add them to soups, but many people combine rutabagas and potatoes, boil and mash them.  Ken has been making au gratin with rutabagas and kohlrabi this fall - very delicious and satisfying.

Happy Thanksgiving!  With that in mind, this box has some of our favorites - pie pumpkins, sage, shallots for stuffing, potatoes and rutabagas.  We wish to express our gratitude - we couldn't do this without you!