Week 19: Falling Leaves and Lots of Greens

Who put all these lovely carrots there?! I guess we’ll just have to bunch them up and give them out!

Hi all, Alli here.

While fall may have officially started two weeks ago, it didn’t quite feel like it then. The hot weather and hundreds of pounds of tomatoes we were still harvesting then made it hard to believe that the season was nearing its end. However, now that September has somehow disappeared in a flash, reality is setting in. We have just 5 more CSA distributions!

Anna and I harvested all of the potatoes on Thursday (with the help of Jay and his amazing potato-digging contraption, of course!). Here, we’re finishing up a bed of beautiful russets.

The signs of the season are all around us now. The crisp and cool mornings and evenings have us carting around tons of extra layers, jackets, and even hats! After harvesting all of our winter squash, we moved our focus onto getting the potatoes out of the ground. These are now stored safely in our root cellar, and the majority will remain there until the day of your Thanksgiving shares. Tons of greens are now begging to be part of your CSA shares, while the tomato bounty has decreased significantly. While it can sometimes be sad to see the summer foods disappear, we farmers breathe a sigh of relief around this time as we look forward to beginning the process of cleaning up the farm. And our bodies crave the warm soups and roasted roots that this time of year provides us with.

Loading these potatoes into the tractor made the trip back to the barn a breeze!

This is the other half of the potatoes. We’re so proud of this harvest! Needless to say, we sure were sore after this day of hauling hundreds of pounds of potatoes around!

An empty potato field, just awaiting a layer of compost in preparation for growing tons of garlic and winter squash next season.

While we may have started clearing out some beds, there is still plenty of food out there! Here’s what we think will be in your shares this week:

Kale

Lettuce Mix

Arugula

Yukina Savoy (whole plants this time…be sure to use the stems also, they’re delicious!)

Napa Cabbage

Hakurei Turnips

Carrots

Leeks

Onions

Garlic

Bok Choy

Tomatoes (just a few this time!)

Cherry Tomatoes, Okra, Tomatillos, Shishito Peppers, or Summer Squash

Escarole

And maybe a surprise or two!

**We are probably going to give the peppers and eggplant a break for this week. The plants are still loaded, but we think they could benefit from another week of growing to size up for you!

A leek before trimming…it’s almost as tall as Anna! We’re getting pretty close to the end of leeks…this may be the last week for them. While we love eating them, we must admit that we don’t love the time-consuming task of harvesting/cleaning/trimming them, so we don’t quite mind that they’re almost gone!

This is a super simple recipe combining carrots and escarole…

…and another simple one for leeks and bok choy.

And, as many of you know, I can’t even write a blog post without sharing a few recipes from my favorite food blog, like these ones for carrots and turnips.

Enjoy, and have a great week!