Last week! Week 10: November 7 - 10
The final week of the Fall CSA is here! Thank you for your support and enthusiasm throughout the season - we have loved seeing you in and around the market barn, and hope you have enjoyed eating seasonal, local, carefully grown produce over the last ten weeks. We are truly thankful for the community you bring to the farm. As a reminder, we will continue to open the farm stand with regular hours every week throughout the winter, offering a great selection of greens, microgreens, storage veggies, bread, kitchen goods, black garlic, and more. We hope you won’t be a stranger!
We also are having a party on the farm to toast another great season! This Saturday, November 9th, from 1-4pm, we’ll have a potluck celebration with a warm fire, good food, a hayride around the farm/woods, and a tour of our winter veggie production for anyone who is interested. We hope you can make it - bring friends and family if you want! Please RSVP here so we have a general sense of numbers.
This week we entered what is colloquially known as the Persephone Period - the portion of the year in which we get less than 10 hours of sunlight each day. It’s a rather dramatic name, taken from the Greek goddess of vegetation who spent half of her time in the underworld as the bride of Hades. But it’s perhaps a fitting one, given the dramatic changes that happen to plants as we enter these shorter days.Â
During the Persephone period, plant growth slows to a crawl - even in heated greenhouses. Microgreens that take 10 days to mature in the summer need up to five weeks to reach full size. Radishes that typically race along develop at a snail’s pace. Even cold-hardy plants like kale, swiss chard, and mustard greens slow their growth to a nearly imperceptible rate, treading water without their daily ration of sun. It’s a holding period, a stasis.
These Persephone days can be dark - but they also offer a period of forced reflection. We ruminate on what has worked in the past and what changes we need to make for the seasons to come. This is a time to re-center, rest up, and make plans to emerge stronger than ever.Â
As four-season farmers, we try to work with the Persephone period rather than against it. We alter our planting timelines to accommodate the slower growth. We favor crops like spinach and tokyo bekana, which grow steadily, even in lower light. We even name our winter salad bags Persephone Mix, celebrating the tasty variation that comes with the slower season. But we’d be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to the days when the light returns in full force.Â
Have a reflective week,
Chris, Ashley, Hallie, and the 10th Street Farm Crew
Reminder: Please bring back any and all purple bags you have collected over the course of the Fall so we can continue to use them in future seasons!
In Your Bag This Week
Carrots: These carrots are sweet, crunchy, and oh so addicting! Store in your fridge.
Celeriac: We absolutely love celery root - mild celery flavor with texture that’s great in hash or soup or as part of a roasted veggie mix. Store in a bag in your fridge.
Flavor Mix microgreens: Mild and tasty, these make an easy salad on their own or can add some color to any other salad. Try them on eggs or sandwiches – or anything, really! Store in a bag in your fridge.
Tri-color Kale Mix: Fresh bunches of mixed kale. Tasty in fresh salads, braised, or baked in your dish of choice. Store in a bag in your fridge.
Garlic: The best cooking advice we ever received? When a recipe calls for a clove of garlic, use two or three! Store on your counter.
Sweet Potatoes:Â One of our seasonal favorites - creamy and sweet and just tastes like fall. Store in a cool, dark place.
Cilantro microgreens (half shares):Â Zippy micros to add a little flavor to whatever's on your plate! Store in your fridge.
Radishes (half shares): Beautiful red radishes have a mild heat and a great crunch. Add to salads or sandwiches for a little extra flavor. Store in a bag in your fridge.
Salad Turnips (full shares): Also called Hakurei Turnips, these fresh-eating turnips are tasty and versatile. Slice them up with hummus, sauté them, roast them in the oven, or even try them on the grill. Store in a bag in your fridge.
Beets (full shares): These earthy beauties are good in sweet and savory roles alike. Boil, roast, or grate into baked goods! Store in a bag in your fridge.
Spinach (full shares): Spinach gets sweeter the more it freezes and thaws as the plant produces sugars to use as an anti-freeze to keep the plant alive. That means the best spinach you can eat is grown in cold place! Use as a salad base, sautéed as a side dish or bake into a casserole. Store in a bag in your fridge.
What should I make with what’s in the bag?
The gnarled, bumpy thing in your bag this week is celeriac - which was also in the root medley last week. It’s an often-overlooked delight, if you ask me. It has a lighter celery flavor without the stringiness of stalks, and is great in stew, roasts, or other cozy meals. Try roasting (or air-frying, if that’s your thing) with a little lemon, or simply sauté it with some herbs and garlic. Or this celeriac, roast garlic, and mushroom carbonara sounds divine, and it’s oil-free and nut-free to boot.Â
We’ve got fun tri-color kale bunches in the bags this week, which would be great in a salad with lemon and parm or braised with or without pancetta. And the sweet potatoes are tasting amazing right now. Sweet potato hash browns for brunch? Or maybe hold onto them for a couple of weeks and bring a new note to Thanksgiving with a sweet potato pie…
If you've found a recipe you're loving, please send it our way. We're always looking for new things to cook and share with other members!
This is the final CSA pick-up of the season! Please bring back any purple bags you may have collected over the last ten weeks. Thank you!
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