We like to re-use boxes! Feel free to unload your box when you pick up, or once home cut the tape to collapse your box, and have it ready when you collect next month. If you're short on space not to worry, they can go in the regular cardboard recycling.
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Our first winter deliveries are Nov 10-12th, so it's time to customize your shares. Each month I'll try to give you a bit of a story about what's keeping us busy on the farm, and information about your veggies. There's only a snippet that shows here at the top of your e-mails, so just click to "continue reading" to get the full newsletter. This month I'll give you an overview of veggies, info about the two items not from our farm (squash, pumpkins and pears!), and storage tips for your vegetables once you get them home.
We've been very busy the last couple of weeks bringing in all the storage veggies, and the frosts have been mild so there's lots of fresh treats from the fields too this month! We're able to offer up tastes of summer and winter this month :) Staples we will offer each month include potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, napa cabbage and garlic. This month we have fresh romaine heads, bagged greens, radicchio, peppers both sweet and hot, and herbs like cilantro, parsley and fennel. I've listed our storage crops too in case you want to swap for them, although we'll be relying on them more heavily as we go into the winter so I recommend enjoying the fresh greens while we can!
Two items this month that aren't from our farm: Pears and squashes. A friend has a few asian pear trees (managed organically) that yielded far more than she can eat and so we thought we'd offer them up to share! Renata's asian pears are available as an extra this month, sweet and crunchy little pears that we'll pack up by the pound for you to enjoy. Ed's squashes and pumpkins are also listed, we partnered with Honeywagon Farm this summer and here's the link to my full happening about how Ed and Sandi grow. Our squash patch was decimated by cucumber beetles shortly after planting, and the only squashes we were able to grow this year were Butternuts. So Ed has supplied us with delicata's, pie pumpkins and acorn squashes for next month.
Once you get your veggies home, how should you store them? Generally everything we send you can go in the fridge. Notable exceptions are winter squashes and sweet potatoes which will prefer stay on the counter. Sweet potatoes prefer high humidity (in their bag) while the others like it dry. Items like onions and potatoes and garlic also like it dry and are best loose in the fridge, but if you're tight on space a cool spot (5-10C) is ok too. Because we store them in the fridge for long term storage, they may sprout if you leave them out. The rest of our vegetables are all safe in a humidified fridge here at the farm. A simple way to replicate that is to tuck everything else into a nice big plastic bag closed loosely. Everything from root veggies to cabbages and romaine like it around 4-5C and 90-95% humidity. Typically, there's two things that can go wrong in the fridge to watch out for - if they're getting too dry they'll shrink, limp or go wrinkly. If they're too wet they'll start to rot going brown, mushy, and leaking liquid. We keep these veggies all winter long, I don't expect them to go off on you over the course of the month however you store them, but I think it's helpful to understand what can happen to help you judge weather to seal up that plastic bag a bit better, or leave the top open for a day to dry out. Our enemies are condensation, and drying out. With that in mind, you'll be able to adjust your storage to work great for you!
