This Week
Looking back on all the amazing fruit we have offered this season, from figs, muscadines, peaches, pears, and now a most special surprise is in store for the last week of this season's farm share! Persimmons are here! Other than select varieties of citrus trees, persimmons are the last fruit bearing trees of the growing season. I don't think another flavor quite captures the essence of its season better than a perfectly ripe persimmon. Those Fall spices we all love like cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice can all be found in a ripe persimmon. I tell folks trying our jam samples that it is like Fall in a jar.
The raccoons have been raiding our younger trees at night, so we harvested all of them a bit early. These are Japanese persimmons, so they are not astringent. They can be eaten now by peeling and slicing, or they can be left in a paper sack to ripen on their own. We will include a 2 lb serving of persimmons. Persimmons ripen nearly in the same fashion as tomatoes.
The skin will deepen red in color, and the inside will change consistency. Once fully ripe, the inside is nearly a liquid. It's messy to eat, so the best practice is to scoop it out into a bowl or crack the top and use the persimmon skin as your bowl. You start by pulling out the connection to the top. A clean removal will create the perfect sized opening for a spoon. We were able to offer a really good deal on these persimmons. I've seen persimmons retail for $3 each. They do not retain high quality through long transits. Because our orchard is still young, we normally would freeze them for jam, but we have an amazing offer to pick our own persimmons! One of our farm share members, and former teacher, invited us to pick two of her persimmon trees. Thus, we can use these for jam, and allow y'all to enjoy our favorite taste of Fall!
There is a full line-up of greens this week and the last of the legumes! I also spent a lot of time in the farm kitchen this weekend. We have a big market on Antique Alley in West Monroe on Saturday, so I made a lot of jam, including some new flavors!
Farm Update
Alas, we have arrived at our first frost of the season. We are prepared for frost, but our concerns are mostly over the abrupt and drastic change in temperature. In less than five days, our plants will experience a change from 90 degrees to 30 degrees. This causes crops like broccoli, arugula, radishes, cabbages, and mustard to bolt. It can also destroy normally cold hardy crops like carrots, turnips, and lettuce. It has hardly dipped into the 40s this season, and the shock of a sudden drop to below freezing might be too much. It's stressful for sure, but we seemingly always make it through whatever Nature has in store.
Our first frost is several weeks early, so today we are unpacking all of our row cover. We have several 55-gallon barrels left from our ranching days, and we keep one next to each field block. At the end of the Spring season, we pack all of the row cover inside these barrels until the next frost. We use 9-gauge steel wire for support, placed every three feet, and weight down the ends and sides with bricks. A typical row cover, depending on thickness, will last around two growing seasons.
Fall/Winter Seasons
Our next season is due to start in three to four weeks. We have a selection of root crops, salad mixes, and leafy greens planted for the season. Eggs, honey, hot sauce, and our small batch jams will also be available. There is a pick your own citrus orchard we plan to visit to get marmalade ingredients, and we plan on harvesting extra citrus for the farm shares. We will offer a new pick-up location at Tonore's Wine Cellar. This location pick up will be from 10-6 on Fridays. This pick-up includes cold storage for your shares, a long pick-up window, and a convenient location downtown.
I cannot convey how much your farm share membership means to us. Our farm is growing, and we had to make sacrifices on diversity so that we can have a more balanced workweek. We have shortened our workday to eight hours, but we are still rolling six days a week. To ensure we have steady income through the cold season, we are shifting a lot of our field blocks to crops that will fill retail orders. We will always grow farm share specific crops, that will only be available to you. I just wanted to take a moment to be honest with you all. I hope that our farm shares hold a special value in your home kitchen. Your support through the years has been the reason our still is growing food. While this upcoming season might be less diverse than season's past, we will always uphold our standards of quality and nutrient-dense food, grown right here in north Louisiana.
If you would like to continue receiving our produce between seasons, we will operate a Harvie farm stand each week, or you can place an order on Local Line. The new season should be available on Harvie in about a week, and we will begin the sign-up process. I hope that you will auto-renew and join us for another great season of locally grown food.
I love folk, bluegrass and old country music-you know, music for rural people! I always smile when I hear this "Possum Up A 'Simmon Tree" song by the legendary Merle Travis. I've been listening to it a lot while we work, and I thought I would share it with you. There are so many complicated problems that accompany our modern society. Being anxious and shaking your head at Nature taking part of a harvest is a tale as old as time within the human experience. I hope in another 70 years, there's still someone out there worried about the critters taking every last persimmon.
