Farm News

I guess we need to add a fifth season to the New England weather calendar: monsoon! Every morning last week I would get up, peek out the window, fire up my computer, and bring up the live radar. If it was looking to be wet and murky, we would find indoor work like cleaning up the greenhouses or polishing onions. When we found an occasional window in the rain, we would harvest and pack produce, and if the rain commenced we’d put up our hoods and keep on plugging. The rain produced some pretty extensive flooding in town but we were safe from the Housatonic’s wrath up here on our little terrace. We did have some damage to what was left of the broccoli and cauliflower crops, but most of our greens and roots out in the field, and our stored crops in the greenhouse, did just fine.

Although I wouldn’t ask for that much rain at once, one good outcome of that persistent Nor’easter was to recharge the groundwater supplies. We spent much of the summer pumping water out of the large aquifer beneath the farm, and it’s nice to know that that water is now being recharged and stored for us to use next year. I think this season has been a great illustration of how important irrigation wells are to this farm, even though we live in a place that gets over 40 inches of rain a year. The catch is that 10 inches of rain in one October week does nothing for your rainless July carrots, unless you can store that rain and use it when you need it!

Hope you enjoy the farm and the harvest.

Paul, for Janine, John, and Leah.

LAST CSA PICK UP will be November 2 for Box shareholders and November 4 for Mix and Match shareholders. With this extended date we are delivering one extra week to make up for the cancelled week this spring, for a total of 21 weeks.

BULK CROPS AVAILABLE! Want to stock up on Fort Hill Farm storage crops? We will have extra beets, carrots, butternut squash, potatoes, and hardy fall greens available at the farm during Tuesday and Friday mix and match distributions (2:30 to 6:30 PM) until November 4 or while they last. We sell surplus crops to CSA members at wholesale prices, so it’s a good way to stock up with roots and storage crops.

Crops update: We have an abundance of potatoes, carrots, and beets this year, and we will get them to you every week for the remainder of the season. Ditto for butternut squash and sweet potatoes. We are metering out the last of the garlic and onions. Cold hardy greens like kale are looking good, and we will have red and green cabbage for the last few weeks. We have a decent crop of Brussels sprouts, we will cut them after they get a frost (and we are past due for one at this point). To mix it up a bit we’ll bring out celeriac next week, and rutabagas for the final week. If you are feeling overwhelmed by any of these crops remember that they all store well (you can keep butternut well past January if it is unblemished and stored in a cool, dry place), and that you can use them after the CSA is over for the season. It’s interesting to think how the first settlers, in a world lacking supermarkets filled with pineapples and pomegranates, would have viewed this fall bonanza of easily stored, fresh food!

Featured this week:

Sweet Potatoes: at last! We planted these guys in June, watered, weeded, and waited until late September when we dug the roots and put them in our greenhouse to ‘cure’. This last step helps the tubers convert some of their starch to sugar. Sweet potatoes are a tricky crop this far north but we think these came out pretty well. Sweet potatoes will store for weeks (or even months) in a cool (not the fridge), dry place.

Tatsoi: this dark Asian green is one of my favorites. It is great mixed into salads, or on top of sandwiches or burritos. It can also be lightly sautéed the same way you would use spinach, which we have a real hard time growing in the fall.

Beets: we have a lot of fall beets this year! They are great shredded raw onto salads, or try the salad recipe below. Fall beets taste great and are great for you. Will store for many weeks in a loose bag in the crisper drawer of your fridge. Do I sound like I am pushing beets? Did I mention we have tons?!!!!

Rose Gold potatoes: this pretty, multipurpose spud has red color outside and a yellow interior. Use within a few weeks, store in a dark, cool, place (not the fridge).

Also in the box: green kale, carrots, leeks, garlic, and butternut squash.

Recipes:

Roasted Roots, from “One United Harvest”

Beets peeled garlic cloves

Carrots shallots

Potatoes winter squash

Parsnips olive oil/butter

Leeks salt and pepper to taste

Onion

Use any combination of the vegetables listed above. Slice each vegetable ¼ inch thick. Grease 1 to 2 cookie sheets with olive oil and butter. Coat both sides of the veggies with the oil from the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Roast at 450F for 15 minutes, flip the root vegetables and continue to roast for 10 to 15 minutes more, until they are tender inside, crispy outside, but not singed.

Carrot and Beet Slaw, from “Asparagus to Zucchini”

2 medium beets olive oil

3 large carrots lemon juice

1 medium onion (optional) salt and pepper to taste

Grate vegetables on a medium-fine grater or in a food processor all together in one bowl. Add olive oil and lemon juice as a salad dressing – you don’t want to be swimming in dressing but you want the tartness of the lemon to be prominent. (Farmer’s Note: my farmer friend Sue was here pulling beets and telling tales a few weeks ago, and we sure appreciated her help. She also fixed up a mean salad similar to the one above, but added pieces of goat cheese—yum!)