How are the roots and greens treating you? At the Redfearn home, we've been chowing down on lots of sauted spinach, roasted roots, and fresh salads. It's the time of year when we can get so busy with parties and cookie baking, that home-cooked meals can fall by the wayside. I hope you've found some time to work some of our fresh produce into the busy season to keep you healthy and strong.
We've reached the point in the year when daylight hours are under 10 per day and the crops sit in the ground in an almost catatonic state. They're alive and healthy, but not growing much. So we harvest them as we need them and watch them slowwwwwwly grow back. We plan ahead for this and have lots and lots of spinach in the ground so we can wait many weeks, even months between harvests. Once we get back to longer days again in early February, they'll wake up and start growing again and by March, the growth is rapid. That's why we do the every other week delivery thing in the months of January and February. Because once we harvest a bunch for you leading up to Christmas (final delivery of the year will be Dec 15) the crops need extra time to grow back. Then in March when the plants are growing fast again we'll be back to weekly deliveries for the rest of the winter season.
What do we have a lot of?
We hope you enjoyed the bulk bags of spinach we had available last week. Those 1 lb monster bags look like a lot, but if you are going to saute it, you'll find a pound isn't too much. We're doing bulk ginger again this week as we aim to clear out that tunnel and stop paying for all that propane. Also, we harvested a great deal of purple daikon radishes that look amazing and we are really loaded up with beets and carrots and turnips. There are a few items where we just don't have much of them, but for the most part, we're sitting pretty good on the roots and greens, so don't be shy about grabbing extras if you need them.
Bread and Cheese
Farm to Market French Farm loaf
Hemme Brothers Quark Cheese
Not just a box of vegetables.
I hope you know that our intent is to bring to you much more than a box of homegrown vegetables every week. At the very least, those boxes come with a blessing. Did you know that each and every week, our family thanks God for you? We know that your membership with our farm is God's way of providing for our family's needs. So each week, we thank God for you and ask him to bless you and you're household. This week, as I was packing your CSA boxes and reading the labels with your names on them, it was a joy to envision your faces and think of you. While reading off the labels and grabbing your bags of spinach or turnips, I tried to remember to ask God to bless you in particular, by name. Hopefully the practice didn't result in more packing errors as my mind was trying to focus on the person getting the box and not just the contents going in the box. But I hope you know how special you are and how blessed we are to be part of your life, even if we are merely your veggie farmers. We want the very best for you, so as our family reflects upon advent, we want you to receive hope along with your veggies.
May this excerpt from Romans 15:12-13 be a blessing to you.
"And again, Isaiah says,
“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
in him the Gentiles will hope.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
May you overflow with hope as you put your faith in Jesus Christ this Christmas season and beyond.
Your praying farmers,
Dave and Sheri
P.S. If you are interested in doing some personal or family advent readings, here's a free resource we'd highly recommend
