Happy Holidays!

I was going to title this post, "worst day of the year," but that was when I couldn't find my keys this morning and then rode to the farm in some of the windiest, wettest conditions yet. Actually besides those two things, which weren't all that bad, it's been a pretty great day. A leisurely breakfast with friends from Canada (before searching for my keys for an hour), and a final harvest of the year (and the final harvest from the Sauvie Island farm site) that wrapped up the season nicely. We'll see how the ride into town goes, it was a killer headwind getting off the island, but the electric assist makes that much less of a problem. It did actually dry out a little so that's good.

Today's share is the same as Monday's, in case you were wondering. I'm now on a two week break from harvest before winter CSA shares start. There's lots of planning that'll be happening in that time, as well as a bit of clean up and end of the year accounting. I may also take a bit of a break from the blog for the next two weeks (or maybe not). Hope you all have a great end of the year. 

Final Week of Fall

The weather forecast had me a little worried about today's harvest but its actually been very nice out, for the most part. I can say that partly because I'm fully suited up in rain gear and I wore nice cozy mittens on my ride to the farm this morning.

Today's share has two chicories, frisée and sugarloaf (pan di zucchero), a small leek and a few small Egyptian flat beets. I haven't grown this beet (successfully) before so I'm curious to try it. The sugarloaf is one of my favorite chicories, very crunchy and sweet, and mildly bitter. These heads are slightly immature, which means they haven't reached full sweetness yet. I ran out of time though, and they're still good eating. I used to always roast these heads, split in half and drizzled with olive oil and coarse salt, but I've been enjoying them like escarole in salads recently.

This is the final week of fall shares. The next two weeks will be a winter break before getting back to the harvests in 2013.

Blue Sky

Today's share is basically the same as Monday's. I was a little short on escarole so one lucky member gets a head of frisee that was growing with the escarole. It was a beautiful day on the farm. I realized how warm it's been up to this point when I was packing the vegetables in the barn. My fingers were getting quite numb, which is the usual case for this time of year although it hasn't actually happened that much this year. 

One more week of harvest before the Sauvie Island site is put to bed and harvest moves into town for the winter. Kji was out today cleaning up his side of the field. It was nice to see him out there. I've been solo in the fields since he stopped harvesting at the end of October.

Penultimate Week of Fall

Another lovely share today, benefiting from the warm weather we've had so far this fall. The last of the celeriac is in this weeks bag and mâché makes a first appearance. The mâché is a delicate salad green, which does take quite a bit of rinsing to get clean. I've also put a head of escarole and the tops of the kale, which you'll want to strip the leaves from.

Planning for next season is well underway. Last week I made my first serious pass through the seed catalogs and picked out a few new items. You'll have to stay tuned for more details on those, but I will say I'm excited.

Whoops

No photo today, I apologize for that, it's been a bit of a crazy day. The share today is the same as Monday, although the been greens were looking better so I added them in as well. You might have noticed a couple of unintentional blog posts earlier today (I've taken them down now), the result of autofill in the email address line. I make my blog posts by email, which is convenient and also gives me a backup copy just incase something happens. I've had blogger loose too many posts while I was working on line so it seems safer to do it through e-mail. Except, the address that it gives me to upload is too similar to some other addresses I use and so I've always been worried that I would unintentionally post something. Today it happened. Fortunately it was just notes to the CSA telling folks that I'm short on bags, which happens every now and again. There was also a reminder in there that today is the last day to order T-shirts. if you want one don't delay, let me know now.

T-shirts, Finally!

I just sent out an announcement, which you can see here letting folks know that I am taking orders for T-shirts, but only until the end of the day on Thursday! If you didn't get the email you definitely want to sign up for the mailing list (see that little widget up there on the sidebar?) You also want to click on that here to get the details on how to get a shirt.

Red and Gold

Today's share has radicchio, kestrel beets, and gold ball turnips and greens. Radicchio is tricky because it seems like just as the heads are really getting good the voles always find them and they must be a favorite because they can take out quit a few in short order. If you're not familiar with radicchio it is like the other chicories in that it is sweet and crunchy and has a slight bitter edge that many folks really like. That bitter is tamed with cooking, but it can also be eaten raw and goes well with strong salty, sweet, or fatty foods, contrasting nicely. The gold balls and their greens are thinnings from the winter planting. The greens can be a little stringy so cut them up before cooking. I have a lot of beets to get out of the field so there's a nice little bunch of roots today, and there should be one more distribution before the end if the season. It has been an unusually bountiful beet year on the farm so enjoy it while it lasts.