Hi farm friends!
On The Farm
Week 4 is upon is and the snow and cold have remained. It's been a good opportunity for us to learn about how to deal with the various challenges of cold weather. We put a heater in our cold room so we've been able to store all our harvested veggies in there without them freezing. However, I noticed today that the veggies in our store have frozen! So I guess we have to put a heater in there now too. Most of our root veggies are out of the field by now, except for our beets and carrots. They are pretty hardy and happy out there, but the cold weather makes harvest a challenge so in the future we would try to get everything out of the ground a bit earlier. We also got our final row of garlic planted in the snow! We definitely weren't expecting this cold snowy weather to remain so long, since the last few Novembers have been quite warm and without snow. Since this is our first year extending the season, it makes sense that we have lessons to learn, but hopefully we only have to learn them once!
In this winter weather, the greenhouses are an absolute joy to be in, warm and full of green plants.
Veggie Highlights
Bok Choy is looking so awesome right now! I think it's time for a stir-fry!
I tried a new fennel recipe last week that was really delicious and easy. I would make it again! Fennel is full of vitamin C and other vitamins that are healthy for the heart. This recipe is so simple and involves sauteeing fennel in oil til its caramelized, and then tossing with some lemon juice.
Caramelized Fennel
*Core fennel and slice thinly
* Heat oil in a pan on medium-high heat
* Add fennel slices and cook them for 10-15 minutes until browned and slightly caramelized.
* Toss with a tablespoon (or more, depending on taste) of lemon jucie and add salt and pepper to taste.
Squash Varieties
You might have noticed that your squashes looked a bit different than you were expecting. The kabocha squash was not the same orange variety that we used to grow, but a big grey one instead. And the acorn squash was labeled as carnival but sort of looked like a striped acorn. These are coming from another farm (HOPE Ecofarms) so sometimes there are a few surprises! As our squash inventory gets smaller, you might end up with a different variety than expected, because it's hard to keep an exact count of our inventory and sometimes more go bad than we were expecting. But we will make sure you always get a high quality squash, even if it's not quite what you were expecting.
NEW - Potatoes
We are adding some potatoes this week from Daryl Myny, the same grower who is providing the red and yellow onions.
Happy eating everyone! Hope you're enjoying the fall share so far :)
Your farmer,
Kim
