Only two weeks left in the season. Best make the most of it!
First of all a big THANK YOU to all those who participated in this weekend’s garlic planting gala. It was THE social event of the fall season so far. A cornucopia of who’s who in the Fresh Earth Farm membership were here. Ages of attendees ranged from less than one year old to over 70. In fact if I recall correctly this is the second year for the under one year old! We had someone travel from as far away as France to help plant garlic. So don’t use age or travel as an excuse to not participate in the future. It was a wonderful event on a wonderful day with wonderful people. I can’t wait until the next event.
Speaking of the next event, there is still a LOT of produce left either already harvested (e.g. onions, garlic, etc.) or still in the field (e.g. leeks, Brussels sprouts, etc.) I doubt we can give it all out by the end of the season so we are planning a gleaning party to fill the local foodshelf. We’ve done this many times in the past and with the successful season this year we will be doing it again. It is tentatively scheduled for Saturday November 7th (weather permitting), starting around 1:00 and going until we’ve harvested and washed everything left out there. We could have a bonfire and dinner again if there is interest. The last time we did this it was one of our most successful farm events not only from a feel good point of view (we donated over 1800 pounds of food to Valley Outreach in Stillwater) but also from an attendance point of view. So if you need to add to your karma quota this is the event for you! More details to follow.
What else is happening on the farm? Well, we completed a couple of major projects today — harvesting the rest of the squash/pumpkins and harvesting the sweet potatoes. Both of these tasks are heavy tasks. Why does water weigh so much! But we got it done, and that is what matters most — not our backs, knees, or shoulders.
Now a word on sweet potatoes. For those new to the farm this season and for those with long term memory issues, sweet potatoes are one of those crops that you don’t eat fresh out of the ground. Much like a fine wine, you should serve no sweet potatoes before its time. Sweet potatoes need time to sweeten up. But first they need to “cure”. To cure they need to be stored at 80-85 degrees for 5-10 days. We will cure the sweet potatoes for a week prior to giving them out. This means that if you want sweet potatoes you best make it to your last pick-up! Once they are cured they should be stored (according to the literature) for six weeks prior to consuming. The ideal storage temperature is 50 degrees, so store them in your wine cellar for optimal longevity. For the few of us without wine cellars you can just store them wherever is convenient. I don’t think anything will happen to them prior to your consuming them on Thanksgiving.
Another word on sweet potatoes. This season we seem to have a rodent issue — at least that is what we think is the problem. Around half of our sweet potatoes are chewed on at the top. The chewed areas have healed so the chewing wasn’t all that recent. The rest of the potato is fine to use and will store reasonably well. Our plan is to divide the sweet potatoes into two groups — sampled and unsampled. You’ll get some of each. If you don’t want to take the sampled sweet potatoes then leave them behind. We’re sorry that not all the sweet potatoes are unsampled but unfortunately rodents have to eat too.
What will we have this week? Where do I begin? This week we will have garlic, onions, winter squash, pumpkins, radishes, peppers, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, leeks, shallots, kohlrabi, kale, beets, cabbage, Napa cabbage, broccoli and salad mix.
This would be a good time to point out this recipe for Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad that a member of our farm pointed out to me. I made it for the garlic planting party and it was well received — even from those who don’t like kale or Brussels sprouts. To chop the sprouts I put them through the food processor using the slicing blade. It made the perfect coarseness with little effort. I used the same attachment for slicing the kale. I used regular kale instead of Tuscan (dinosaur) kale so don’t fret if we give you the other kale. I didn’t know what Pecorino was but google said it was a hard cheese. Sounded like Parmesan to me, so I substituted. I wonder if it tastes better with Pecorino? Anyway, give it a try. It was surprisingly delicious!
We have FruitShare this week. It will include Honeycrisp and Sweet Orin apples; Asian, Concorde, D’Anjou and Bartlett pears.
EggShare, IceCreamShare and CheeseShare are also this week.
SeafoodShare and SalmonShare will be here by Monday. SeafoodShare includes Spot Prawns, which are absolutely wonderful!
CoffeeShare arrived on Monday.
That is all for now. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, jokes, brain teasers, etc. do not hesitate to send them my way.