Welcome to Week 2!
We are deep into carrot harvest over here. We always wait until they have been hit with a few frosts before harvesting them for storage, because that little bit of freezing sweetens them up (the starch present in the root coverts to sugar when exposed to below freezing temperatures and acts like antifreeze to protect the carrot). Thankfully we've had quite a few frosts here in Clark Fork already and now we are enjoying some beautiful fall days to dig carrots outside!
We will put over 2,000 pounds of carrots into storage this fall, and we do it all by hand. First we seed the carrots by hand in late June (blasphemy to many farmers who prefer to use a push seeder, but we get better results by hand seeding!), then we water them for 3 months and wait, then we dig them by hand into crates, spray them with our heavy duty hose, dry them overnight, then put them in a plastic-lined bulk bin in our cooler where they're kept at 32F (and we have to add a heater on the coldest nights to keep them above freezing). They're a labor of love, but as most of you who eat carrots know, they are so, so worth it for their bright color, sweet taste and hearty crunch!
You will find Autumn Frost squash available this week; it is a buff colored, orange fleshed creamy squash that is great for roasting and soups. We also use it in "pumpkin" pie. Our suite of Asian greens is also available and abundant: heading tatsoi, bunching komatsuna, and full sized bok choi. They really shine in cool temps and don't have any bitter flavors that they sometimes do when they grow during the heat of summer. Enjoy!
Katherine, Spencer and Crew
