This is the last week of the season. Please plan accordingly.
We are still taking orders for 2020. If you haven’t already please sign up at your earliest convenience. You can either send in a deposit of $100 to hold your spot or purchase the shares through our online store. You can also send your deposit through PayPal to my email address chris@fresherthfarms.com. We’d love to have all of you back for next season!
We still have onions and shallots for sale. Onions are 10# for $15. Shallots are 5# for $15. We can send them to drop sites as well.
Farm News
We had a few people take us up on the offer of planting garlic this past Friday however we didn’t get finished that day. Then Saturday it rained in the morning which pushed the completion day to Sunday. It wasn’t the best soil conditions for planting garlic — or planting anything for that matter — but with the forecast we have this week we felt it had to get done before the rains come. Otherwise we’d be looking at needing a week of dry, warm days to get the soil dry enough to plant — and I don’t see that happening until sometime in April or May 2020.
Speaking of the forecast, we have cold rain all day Monday and Tuesday this week. This is the type of weather that makes me disappointed that we didn’t end the season last week. But we have a few things left out in the field we’d like to get and hand out, so we put on the rain gear and harvested a bunch of it on Monday. Of course by the time we were done the rain stopped and the sun came out. Talk about perfect planning!
Other than harvesting and washing the last of this season’s produce we are thinking a lot about next season’s plans. If you have any thoughts be sure to send them out way.
What will we have this week?
Well we still have lots of onions, shallots, and leeks. Then everything else is a few of these, a couple of those and a bit more than a bunch of something else. In this category we have potatoes, carrots, winter squash, green beans, daikon radishes (very few), Brussels sprouts (equally few), small rutabagas, small peppers and I suppose a few other things that slip my mind.
Produce Usage Ideas
One nice thing about the fingerling potatoes (either the red/pink or yellow/white ones) is that they fit through the entrance to the food processor without having to cut them. With this in mind, and with all the cheese from CheeseShare I made au gratin potatoes last night. They looked like slices of Polish sausage since the potatoes I used were the red/pink ones. But the taste was great and it used mostly things from the farm. I used this recipe I got from my 40 year old the Betty Crocker cookbook.
2 lbs potatoes, sliced
1 medium onions, chopped
1/4 c butter
1 T flour
1 t salt
1/4 t pepper
2 c milk
2 c shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c bread crumbs (I skipped these since I didn’t have any)
Cook onions in butter until tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly (I admit I didn’t stir constantly and it still turned out), until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in milk and 1 1/2 c cheese. Heat to boiling stirring constantly (I did stir constantly in this step). Boil and stir one minute. Place potatoes in ungreased 1 1/2-quart casserole. Pour cheese sauce on potatoes. Cook uncovered at 375 for 1 hour.
Mix remaining cheese with bread crumbs; sprinkle over potatoes. Cook uncovered until top is brown and bubbly; 15 – 20 minutes longer. Remove and let cool a bit because it is really hot (my advice).
As always, do not hesitate to send in questions, comments, suggestions, 2020 share orders or anything else you think I would appreciate!