Share 20 - week of Oct 14th
In the share this week:
1 small butternut squash
1 bunch green onions
1 bunch radishes
Sweet pepper mix
2 heads little gem mini lettuce
1 bunch mustard greens
1 bag spinach
1 bunch/bag carrots
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
We are making good progress getting the last few beds prepped and seeded into overwintered cover crops this week. We plant winter wheat and hairy vetch to help hold in the soil, generate biomass and fix nitrogen. We've been using a strategy where we plant three rows per bed, but offset the middle row so that when we mow down the cover crop in the spring we can plant straight into the beds without doing anything further tillage. Less work and better conditions for healthy soil!
We'll also starting to tear out the hoop house tomatoes and peppers over this week and next so that we can plant spinach and kale for winter harvest. It's exciting to transition the hoophouses and really signals the full end of the summer season. If we get enough green tomatoes coming off the vines, we should have those in your shares next week.
On to the fall goodies are coming your way this week! It was such a good butternut squash year that we have this one last week of them for you. We'll probably still have some left after that, but not enough for everyone. Sadly, it looks like we won't have any sweet potatoes this year as our farm partner, Cole, who has grown the crop for us the past couple of years had a total crop failure between the deer who love those leaves and the lack of rain at his farm. That's a big bummer, as sweet potatoes are pretty popular, but thankfully most of our other fall crops have performed pretty well. I was thinking it might be nice to roast your butternut up and use it as a salad topping, using the little gem lettuce and maybe some spinach or mustard greens too. Something like this recipe:
Fall spinach is here! This is some lovely stuff and would be great raw in salads, or perhaps you could mix in your mustard greens and make some really tasty saag! I think the best saag recipes include both spinach and mustard greens.
The last fun idea for this week came to me from my farm apprentice this year, Sarah. She saw a recipe for pickled lettuce on Instagram and brought some in for us to try. I know this sounds weird, but it is magically good and would be perfect as a sandwich topper. This recipe actually calls for the mini lettuces that you have in your share this week. You can halve the recipe and use just your two heads. Check out the recipe and video here: