CSA WEEK 22

This Week’s Harvest

Sweet potatoes

Red beets

Parsley

Spinach

Sweet onions

Carrots

Arugula

Butternut squash

Cabbage

Beauty heart (watermelon) radishes 

Farm News

Beauties! After the undercutter runs through the bed and lifts the carrrots, they pull right out.

This week we moved on from harvesting sweet potatoes and started in our fall carrots. These crunchy treats keep all winter long and even go into the first CSA boxes the following season. Carrots are very sensitive to water-logged soil so we need to monitor the soil conditions and make sure it doesn’t get too wet. Our heavy soil has a lot of clay and we’ve experienced rot before (this year even with one of our summer carrot beds) so we are super mindful of the forecast this time of year (well always, but for different reasons from season to season!) Ideally we’d get a frost or two before we harvest carrots because this tends to sweeten them up even more.

In our 3 days of carrot harvesting, the undercutter implement only broke twice ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But with rain predicted for Sunday more coming later in the week, we decided to get as many carrots as possible out starting Thursday. On Thursday and Friday we just had a few hours to tackle a couple beds each day. We also had current employees, a former employee, and our kids help harvest all day on Saturday. I am happy to report that we got through 9 of 12 beds and have a total of 7 macro bins filled to the brim and tucked into the cooler. I am also pleased to report that despite not getting the cold weather, they are terrifically sweet and delicious! We will bunch carrots with tops this week and next off of the remaining 3 beds. So far we haven’t had to sort any out for rot, but I can report that we are happy with our decision. We did end up getting a good amount of rain between Sunday and Monday and during today’s harvest, the carrots pulled right out of the completely saturated soils. It really is a matter of time before they start melting down, and if we lose a bed or 2 that is nothing compared to all 12!

We fill the yellow bins and then dump them into the large macrobin. The black trailer between the house and the greenhouse is our winter storage vegetable cooler where this and several other bins live.

On Saturday after picking carrots from 8 to 5, Ben used the remaining daylight to prep our garlic beds. We didn’t have time to plant before this round of rain, but now the beds are ready to go and as soon as it drys out enough, planting garlic will move to the top of the list.

This front end spreader drops 2 rows of heat treated chicken manure ahead of the tiller
Ben makes a finished bed top by shallow tilling. By the time he got to the last bed he couldn’t really see!

Recipes

Roasted Beets and Butternut Squash Salad with Arugula

Slow cooker Chipotle Beef Tacos with cabbage and radish slaw

Indonesian Sweet Potato and Cabbage Soup (I’ve posted this one before. It’s a family favorite!)

Coming Up Next Week (our best guess…..) Spinach, Beauty Heart Radishes, Japanese Sweet Potatoes, Red Potatoes, Garlic, Salad Mix, Beets, Carrots, Kale, Tomatoes