Fall Again

We are just beginning to dive into the fall harvest season.  Walking around the farm we can see roots in the ground beginning to fill out.  We have begun with the sweet potatoes, going down row by row and pulling up their vines before going through with the digger to get them out of the ground.  The digger, which runs on the back of the tractor, has a large shovel that goes down into the ground and then a conveyer belt that is open so dirt can fall through it.  The sweet potatoes go up the belt, the dirt falls away and then the potato lands on top of the soil.  Then we come through with boxes and fill them up with everything that came to the surface.  These go in a greenhouse to cure and then into their storage room for the winter.  One of my favorite things to do on the farm is to harvest root vegetables in the fall.  Kevin and I have spent many a cool fall day on our knees, armed with produce boxes and scissors, making our way row by row through beets or carrots or turnips (and others).  You grab the crop by its tops, snip it cleaning and let it drop in the box.  Ideally, you get to do this in the fall, when you are just a little cold and you can look around at the leaves changing colors and just be super happy to have a job where you can work outside like this.  Sometimes, you do this when the plants you are harvesting are still slightly frosted and you try to figure out if you can hold a beet with your down gloves and other times you do it in the brutal heat.  Either way I love the fall harvest.  It is not like harvesting in the summer when we simply go out and get what is needed that week.  In the fall you take on a whole field of carrots and get them harvested, put in storage and you look at what you have done and you see a winter full of food for the whole CSA.  Over the next month we will be hauling in harvests by the ton.  Each day or week, depending on the abundance, we take on an entire crop till the field is bare.  We are looking at a large beet and carrot harvest.  There are also a lot of turnips.  I tried out some more varieties of radishes that also store well and this week you will be seeing watermelon radishes in the share.  These are heirloom radishes related to a daikon.  They have a bright pink inside which is where they get their name from.  They are milder than other radishes and can be used in salad, cooked in stir fry or roasted.  They are also very good pickled and can be mashed with potatoes like a turnip.  There is a recipe below for just putting them in a salad with avocado and lettuce.  I hope you enjoy the beginnings of the fall harvest as much as we like harvesting it for you.

5% discount deadline for Winter CSA Shares TODAY!

Sign up for a winter share TODAY to get 5% OFF your Winter CSA!

If you have questions about the CSA please email or call Margaret! Here is some information you may be wondering about the winter CSA:

The winter CSA Share is bi-weekly and starts the first week in December and goes every other week for 12 pick ups until May.  Because the pick ups are every other week the size of the produce share is bigger and it is designed to provide you with most of (if not all) your produce depending on how much produce your family uses.  The share is designed to feed a family or two avid cooks.  Many people wonder and ask if there is really that much you can grow and give out in the wintertime and they are usually shocked by the list I give them of what is in our winter shares.  Not only do we grow a wide variety of storage crops such as winter squash, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, potatoes, parsnips, radishes, turnips and more we also have a 200 foot greenhouse in which we grow winter greens and we are building a second one this fall for later greens. So we can enjoy fresh spinach and other treats all winter and once we get into early spring the greenery will increase even more.  In addition to the storage and fresh crops we put some frozen and canned items in the winter shares as well.  Pickled green beans, beets, tomatillo salsa, tomato hot sauce and more can be found in the share as well as frozen tomatoes, pesto and frozen melon. 

Egg shares are still 1 dozen/week so you pick up 2 dozen each week.  

Pasture-raised chicken shares are sold out.  Email me to get on the waiting list.

The grass fed and pasture-raised meat share includes a free choice of beef, pork and lamb. Lamb, Beef, and Pork are all available at each pickup.  Each item is labelled with a number 1 through 7, and you have a total of 17 points to take home every month. We are really excited to have opened up our own on farm butcher shop this month.  We look forward to making the quality and value of the share even better through the use of the butcher shop.

The local Cheese Share is at least two varieties of cheese--totaling approximately one pound--per month. Our choice.  Most of the cheeses are made from raw cow or raw goats milk, which means they retain all of their enzymes, nutrients, and flavor.

Supplemental Farm Share: Don’t have much time to cook, but want to eat healthy gourmet farm-raised food?  This supplemental, biweekly Share is for you.     Part 1: TWO extraordinary precooked and frozen PERSONAL meals made with Groundworks Farm products.  Reheat in the oven.  Examples: grilled lemongrass chicken breast with garlic-savory mashed potatoes and Roasted beets, pork fried rice with seasonal teryaki vegetables, Shepherds pie with ginger kohlrabi and carrots, Lamb Stew with root vegetables, Chili with roasted fennel and rice.  Hearty meals with lots of great vegetables.  Part 2:  Three easy-to-prepare vegetables. 1 Share is designed for 1 adult, 2 Shares for 2 adults etc.  You can sign up for this Share along with any of our other Shares. 

If you sign up for a Whole Farm Share online you will be signing up for Produce, Meat, Eggs and Cheese, not Chicken.  If you would like to be added to the chicken share waiting list email me!

2013-14 Winter Farm Share Registration Page:

http://groundworksfarm.com/Groundworks_Farm/Groundworks_Farm-Online_Payment.html

You can also sign up by printing out a registration form and mailing it:
http://groundworksfarm.com/Groundworks_Farm/Groundworks_Farm-Registration_Forms_files/2013-2014%20winter%20brochure0.pdf