We hope your Thanksgiving feast was blessed with good food, family (either present or by zoom) and rest. We're still working on a 20 lb bird from Farrar Family Farm! Here's to leftovers!
We enjoyed a slower week on the farm with no need to harvest and pack all of your boxes, so we took a trip out to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge where Josiah, our resident birder, helped us identify dozens of species of ducks and dabblers and where we were able to see a large number of bald eagles (seemingly) up close through his new spotting scope.
Besides all the fun, we also planted almost 10,000 each of garlic and onions for next spring. If that doesn't sound like enough onions, we'll be planting another 20,000 or so in spring, which should supply us all for the entirety of 2021!
We've entered the Persephone period when we're at less than 10 hours of daylight. The period will last until near the end of January. Things don't grow very fast during this period even in a greenhouse. Truthfully, the slowing pace of winter in general serves as a time for our family to rest and recharge. We focus on schoolwork, board games, and maybe even trimming back some of the overgrown brambles on the property.
But that doesn't mean you can't get fresh veggies! We plan ahead and sort of stockpile the greens in the greenhouse so we can harvest fresh each week for your CSA box. Come February, things will be growing quickly again but we've got a lot of delicious stuff to harvest until then. We have three consecutive weeks of winter CSA boxes including this one. During this time, we plan on the end of the tomatoes, cucumbers, ginger and turmeric, so get those while you can because we probably won't see those again until next summer CSA!
Just to keep you up to date, we'll have CSA pickups Dec 3rd, 10th and 17th, and then we'll take a couple weeks off for the holidays. Then it will be every other week starting January 7, 2021 (Here's hoping 2021 is a better year!) until we pick it back up for weekly pickups in March. (Basically that's when the tunnels will start pumping crops as the days lengthen).
For Bread Shares this week we'll be doing the following:
Artisan Loaf: Italian
Sliced Loaf: 100% Whole Wheat
Blessings,
Dave and Sheri
