This Week’s Harvest
Rutabaga
Carrots
Potatoes
Cabbage
Shallots
Garlic
Scarlet Turnips
Purple Daikon Radish
Beauty Heart Radish
Sweet Potatoes
Onions
Apple Share
Winesap (red, rich, good cooking) and Gold Rush (green, sweet and crisp, excellent fresh eating)
Recipes
Mashed Rutabaga, potatoes and carrots
Sweet Potato and Cabbage Indonesian Stew (favorite recipe from a favorite cookbook, “Simple Suppers: Fresh Ideas For the Weeknight Table”)
Radish, Carrot and Edamame Stir Fry
Farm News
CSAs of all sizes exist all over the country. Some have less than 50 members while others have a membership reaching in the thousands. Some run year round and some are less than 20 weeks long. Some are multi-farm while others are single-farm sourced. Our 200 member 24 week season single-farm sourced only CSA puts us pretty much in middle of the spectrum. We like this size, especially having the season extension add on that we’ve had the past 2 years, which helps bring in additional income.
One of our goals for the farm is to help create a vibrant rural economy and to that end employ people year round. We are getting closer to that goal and this year we ran payroll a month longer in Spring and a month longer in Fall. We were able to employ Audrey and Ricky from mid February to mid December. They had a major hand in every vegetable that went through this farm from seeding, to planting, to weeding, to harvesting to cleaning!!
We meet Audrey at a farm workshop we gave while she was working on an organic division of Fulton Farm, The Happy Box. That meeting led us to recruit her when the program at Fulton’s closed. We were lucky she came with Ricky! A common thread I see among organic farmers is they often have a passion for art and Audrey and Ricky are no exception. In fact they meet through their art. They are also animal lovers and in addition to caring for pets at home, have rescued several wild animals.
It’s wonderful they came to us with prior experience on an organic farm and we’re looking forward to having them back next season and help them gain more specialized skills like tractor operating. I also hope they get to experience some exciting animal encounters and perfect weather!
