Up until now, the winter CSA hasn't really felt like winter, has it? Winter finally came with the new year. Thanks for bearing with us last week with the postponement of the CSA delivery! We just don't want those precious winter greens to wilt while they wait for you at various pickup sites. We're comfortable as long as the temps are above 20 degrees or so, and there's also icy driveway conditions at the farm and our member pickup locations that we want to be aware of. This week, the forecast is good to go, so we hope you are extra hungry for greens! We've got so many this week!
Abundance Alert: (Here are some items we have a lot of, so don't be shy about taking lots of it!!!)
Stir fry greens, "zesty" and "regular" salad mix, dill, daikon radish (of any color!), pea shoots/ claytonia microgreens
New product alert:
Jerusalem Artichoke. This is a crop we haven't grown since moving to the farm. They're a native plant which has no relation to an artichoke, nor is it from the Holy Land. They're also known as "sunchokes". It's a super delicious and amazingly nutritious tuber which can be eaten raw on salads adding a crunch like water chestnuts or roasted with olive oil like new potatoes. The interesting thing about Jerusalem artichokes is the special kind of sugar contained in them - inulin. This form of carbohydrate does not spike blood sugar so is great for diabetics and also has great medicinal uses. I'm excited to see what you guys post about them in the Facebook group as you try these things!
Purple top turnip - Old school gardeners know about these amazing roots. They grew really big this year! You can use them as a substitute or addition to mashed potatoes
Black Garlic - These are heads of garlic that have undergone a peculiar fermentation process that produces interesting flavors and unleashes new flavor compounds. The process was first developed for asian cooking but has now been embraced by American chefs. This is our first year doing the fermentation process and we're excited to see what you think.
Where is the spinach????
Spinach is there but not listed under our abundance crops. The warm fall led to a few challenges. First off, the outdoor plantings just didn't do well in the high temp conditions at planting time so many of those were a failure and second, the warm weather allowed us to keep some of the warm crops like peppers going way into the winter CSA and delayed our larger spinach plantings in the high tunnels (the plan was to go with spinach after these crops but keeping them longer delayed the spinach). Now we have a lot of spinach planted and growing well, however, we're also in the coldest and lowest light conditions time of year so they grow extremely slowly right now. We're confident that at some point this season, we'll have an overabundance of spinach, but we are't there yet. Please bear with us and remember those extra yummy peppers you got in December that has delayed your spinach fix:).
Future CSA Dates
Jan 27th, February 17, March 3rd (Then every week after that).
Bread and Cheese
Bread: Farm to Market Rosemary Olive Oil Artisan Loaf
Cheese Share: Hemme Brothers Original Curds, 10oz.
Thanks so much for eating through the seasons with us!
Dave and Sheri
