This was the official week of the pack shed here at Great Oak Farm. I am still not completely sure how we got everything "pack shed" completed, but with the real cold weather coming next week we had to make sure all of the storage crops were out of temporary storage and ready to get tucked in for winter.
The first big project we checked off of our list was finishing the new micro room - walls painted (metal for the walls and ceiling will have to wait till next year, but it's on the list), floor laid, lots of insulation installed all around, electrical wiring completed - and moving all the micros in. We're pretty happy with how it turned out, and it will allow us to increase our production to keep up with demand better this coming winter. Right now we are only utilizing less than half of the space for production.
While we've been working on this project, I have really enjoyed watching Farmers Ryan and Alex pick up some new skills. Seeing how a building is put together is really informative, and having some proficiency in construction and electrical wiring is always useful no matter what you do in life.
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After the micros were all moved into their new home, we moved the squash (which had been temporarily stored in the unheated portion of the pack shed since harvest) into the well insulated OLD micro room.
Farming is a lot of materials handling - we farmers regularly move everything from soil to harvested crops. When it comes to the harvest time of year, I am eternally grateful for the efficiency of concrete and wheels to help us roll things around. Moving over 10K# of squash in there would have made for a rough day without a good pallet jack and smooth floors!
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We stacked the bins of squash two high and rolled 'em in their storage room, then brought our onions out of the greenhouse where they had been stored and curing down or the short term and in there as well. While our onion crop was smaller than we had hoped due to the drought, we trialed a few new varieties and are excited to see how well they store through the winter.
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With all that squash moved out of the main working area of the pack shed, we had loads of room. Room to move pallets of carrots around the barrel washer again! So we got right back to harvesting and washing the winter storage carrots. Now that the cold temps are likely here to stay, we feel comfortable putting the storage carrots in the root cellar.
We would have liked to get more bins of those tasty carrots harvested this week while our hands are relatively warm, but the pack shed shuffle had to take priority, and we really want the root cellar to be properly cool before we sock it full of carrots for winter. There's a lot of thermal mass in all those bins of carrots, and it takes some consistently cool temps to bring the cellar temp down to 35-40 degrees.
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With all of our winter beets harvested now, our final push will be to harvest carrots every spare second we have before the ground begins to freeze. With forecasted lows in the low twenties and highs just breaking 40 next week, the ground will be cooling off quickly. The race is on to get the carrots out in time. We stocked up on warm gloves, and we'll be layered up in our work bibs to help keep us dry - wish us luck!
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For dinner this week, my family enjoyed 2 of our favorite fall foods - roasted brussels sprouts and delicata squash. Both make for easy pan roasted dinners, and can be ready to eat in 30 mins or less - aka before anyone in our household gets crabby after coming home from work or school - which is a big plus.
Delicata squash is probably the single most ordered squash each week - it's more like candy than squash... SO GOOD! Now that the squash is all snuggled in storage for the winter, we will have squash of all varieties for many weeks to come. The brussels sprouts are holding pretty well in the field, and cold temps just make 'em taste even better. We expect to have the sprouts for several more weeks, so if you are signed up for a Winter Veggie share and you like roasted brussels sprouts and winter squash as much as we do, we gotcha covered.
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This will be the final week of the Summer CSA season, and all of us Farmers in the Cooperative would like to extend our most heartfelt thanks to each of you for eating with us this summer! Every season is different, full of successes and challenges, with some crops that thrive and some crops that struggle. We hope you have enjoyed the seasonal variety this year, and as always we are truly honored to have been your farmers these 20+ weeks!
So long summer, and hello winter!
In community,
Farmer Chris
Great Oak Farm
