In Your Share This Week
- Beets
- Celeriac
- Corn
- Kale
- Onions
- Parsley
- Potatoes
- Tomatoes
On Rotation:
-Sweet Peppers & Kohlrabi
-Green Bell Peppers (Tuesday Pick ups)
-Eggplants (Thursday Pick ups)
Pardon Our Mess
We just wanted to let you know that although the share this week is very bountiful and beautiful, some of the items that you wouldn’t expect to appear dirty (like tomatoes or peppers) do indeed look a little dirty. The culprit is the rain we’ve been getting recently…its been lovely to see some nice Fall-feeling weather and rain, but it sure makes keeping those hot-weather crops well-maintained really difficult! In some instances you may find actual soil on your crops (mud just has a way of getting EVERYWHERE) and some of what you see is in fact resins from the plants themselves. As our harvest teams make their way through the pepper and tomato fields, the moisture on the plants, our hands, and the fruit mixes with the plant resins and leaves what looks like thin, watery mud smudges on the fruit. Our standard practice is to always harvest these crops in the afternoon sun when they are plenty dry, but what can you do when its raining all day? Just give your veggies a quick rinse or wipe down and they’re good to go.
Crop Notes
Beets: This week we mixed together pink Chioggia heirloom beets with our white beets. If you’ve never been a big fan of beets, the white ones may very well change your mind!
Celeriac: This is a real farm favorite! Also known as celery root, this knobby vegetable has a great earthy flavor that really shines alongside potatoes- in hashes, or gratins, shredded, mashed, roasted, and soups too. Just note that celeriac takes longer to cook than potatoes so make sure to slice or chop it more thinly, or start cooking it slightly ahead of the potatoes. This is a classic vegetable that folks see in stores or farmers market, but don’t know what to do with. Fear not, even the New York Times has something to say about how to prep and ‘Master Celery Root’…check it out for some quick tips on how to get the UFO veggie prepped and ready for cooking. Celeriac will store for months in the refrigerator (yes, months) if stored correctly. Don’t peel or trim until you’re ready to use it, and keep it wrapped in a plastic bag to retain the moisture.
Kale, White: The first pick of what will be our overwintering kale field, we have several varieties of white kales that we are featuring in the share this week. The leaves on all of them are really tender and succulent, so just a super-light saute is all you will need. Try the stems too, they are mild and sweet in cooler weather.
Peppers: Well, we FINALLY have some sweet peppers! We admittedly planted them later than usual in anticipation of a cool, wet spring…so we have been anxiously awaiting some ripe fruit. We hope the plants will really start producing lots of fruit just as the tomatoes begin to wane, but before too much rain and cool night temperatures settle in. Look for both gold and red sweet peppers in the shares in the upcoming weeks.
Onions: As previously mentioned, we have now moved on to storage-type onions for the remainder of the season. When I trim an onion I like to save the top, bottom, and outer skins in a ziploc bag that lives in the freezer along with other trimmings or bones. When I have critical mass, I make a batch of stock.