It’s a funny kind of fall here at the Farm. The forecast calls for temperatures in the upper seventies and even low eighties for the next ten days! I’m feeling a little confused, excited and skeptical. The weather is warm and the conditions for harvesting are perfect. The warm air makes our fall work comfortable and easy. Enough years of experience doing this work tells me that we’ve got to keep going strong until the end because the weather can shift very fast this time of year to windy and cold and wet in what seems like overnight. 
Harvesting Celeriac Root
There are just three more Summer Share deliveries left, but the farm keeps on going long after the peak-season deliveries end. We have root crops like carrots, potatoes, celeriac, beets, daikon, sweet potatoes and more to get out of the ground before it becomes too wet or cold to dig them. There is tomato trellising to take down and plastic mulch to rip up. We have garlic to plant and Fall Shares to ship out.
The harvesting this time of year is exciting. There is wind again. The possibility of frost is eminent. The time is limited. We have to be very wise about how we spend our days now choosing to spend the nice weather days outdoors and stock up rainy days jobs for when the weather is inclement. Even the hours of sunlight are a limitation to what and when we can get some jobs done.
I love it though. I love how cooking dinner warms the house. I love how there are tomatoes and peppers and squash on the countertops. The dehydrator is humming along and the freezers are nearly filled to the brim. I love how at the end of a long season we feel tired yet satisfied. I want to make apple pie and pumpkin bars. I want to pick apples and drink cider. I want to eat sweet red, yellow and orange peppers until I’m sick of them to hold me over until next year.
We’re very excited about some of the vegetables coming up in the last few weeks of delivery. We’ve been nurturing along crops like Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, leeks, rutabaga, more cilantro, and several different varieties of winter squash. This week we have daikon radish and celeriac root, a couple more new vegetables that are unique to these Fall CSA boxes. If any of these vegetables are new to your kitchen, don’t be afraid to try some new recipes. We include several recipes each week, but don’t be afriad to use the magic box (the internet) to inspire new and creative ideas in the kitchen. Do some quick searching and find something that sounds good to you!
Red Norland Potatoes– These red beauties were dug just a few days ago. Their hearts are still beating! You will notice that we do not wash our potatoes. They have less mechanical damage and they keep much nicer this way. The difference between a potato that is freshly dug out of the ground like this and a potato that has been in storage for months is so amazing. I am loving eating freshly dug potatoes. They have a crisp texture that is so wonderful!
Beautiful Fall Broccoli hydrocooling in the tank.
Tomato Mixer Bags- A much smaller bag of tomatoes this week! Just 3.25lbs per member this week. Production on the tomatoes is way down now. We will continue to pick them up until the frost. For now, they green ones left on the vine are still ripening and waiting to be picked!
Mini Sweet (Lunchbox) Peppers- This week we stuck the mini-sweets in the same bag as your tomatoes so as not to be confused with your jalapeno and hot wax pepper.
Sweet Dumpling Squash- Sweet dumpling squash are a sweet winter squash. These will keep great at room temperature!
Sweet Bell Peppers- A mix of red, yellow and orange bells. Love them while they are still in season, just a anohter week or two with peppers.
Yelllow Onion- Gotta have that onion!
Carrots- A nice one pound bag of carrots for all this week!
Jalapeno Peppers- These are the little red ones this week with ‘stretch marks’ on them. They’re hot, though!
Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers- This is the longer, lime-green colored hot pepper that sometimes turns an orange-ish color when *ripe*. These peppers are funny because they are usually picked lime green, but a small 10% of them will turn orange and get a touch sweeter as they “ripen”. Hungarian Hot Wax are also called “bananna peppers”. Despite it’s big name, these are among the most mild of all hot peppers. Technically they are considered a hot pepper, but they are not usually hot. Although sometimes they are!
Spinach- A half pound bag of spinach this week! So much fun to be giving spinach-a fan favorite!
Green Curly Kale- In addition to the spinach this week, we also gave a nice bunch of kale. You’ll have plenty of greens to work with this week!
Diakon Radish- These are the long white radishes in the middle of your box. Diakons are famously found in KimChi, a Korean fermented blend of cabbage, hot peppers, onions, garlic, ginger and diakon radish! This radish has a very nice, mild flavor. These are rarely spicy and have such a nice juicy crunch to them. They are great just sliced into coins for snacking, shredded onto salads, or even sauteed in a stir fry.
Broccoli, Cauliflower or Romanesco- You received one of the three listed. We just didn’t have enough of any one of these to give everyone the same thing. These crops are not all maturing at one time, they are slowly maturing over the course of a few weeks here and we grab then as they come on.
Celeriac Root- This is the gnarley looking root in your box with the greens still attached to it. The greens will resemble celery a bit. The greens on your celeraic root can be used in stocks or soups to add color and flavor. Celeriac root keeps very well for months if you cut the greens off and store the root in a plastic bag in the fridge. Celeriac is hard and dense like a potatoe, but has a mild celery flavor. It can be eaten raw or cooked. There is no doubt about it, celeriac is ugly, but they are a treasure! They have a very long growing season. We start these little babies from seed in early March and baby them all season until they have grown up big and strong into these masculine monsters! They are a rare and unusual vegetable that used to be grown by all home gardeners in the early 20th century because they kept so well and so long in root cellars. They make wonderful winter food!
Celeriac Potato Hashbrowns with Jalapeno and Cheddar
