Jan 2008: Welcome! We’re having some technical difficulties with our website this winter. Old posts seem to have bubbled to the top, while newer ones are just buried. While we investigate, most of what you need is in our FAQ or in the upcoming events listed above.
Dear Friends,
The January ’06 share:
3 lb Russet potatoes
2 lb Red onions
2 lb Red beets
2 lb Carrots (Deep Root)
1 lb Parsnips (Deep Root)
1 ½ lb Turnips
1 Red or green cabbage (about 2 lb)
¾ lb Salad mix (red oakleaf lettuce, tatsoi, red kale, red and green
chard and mizuna)
2 doz Brown eggs
3 ¾ lb Gala apples (Borden Farm)
½ gal Apple cider (Borden Farm)
The cold I mentioned in my email earlier this week did more damage to our spinach crop than I first realized. The blizzard arrived with winds that took the roof off our spinach house. And the temperature plunged from a high of over 60 degrees inside the tunnel just before the storm, to a low of 4 below zero in the early morning 12 hours later. The dramatic swing proved too much for the spinach, and by mid-week it had become clear that the mature leaves were all ruined. Farming in the winter is not for the meek!
The good news is that the plants’ growing tips appear healthy, and should, if all goes well, produce a crop of leaves for the February or March delivery. The lettuces, chards, kale, mizuna and tatsoi — all ordinarily far less hardy than spinach — survived the extreme weather just fine under the protection of a greenhouse and three layers of row cover, and we were able to make a salad mix for you by blending them together. We enjoyed ours tonight with cheddar cheese, Gala apples, grated carrots, and a honey mustard dressing.
You’ll note that we had help with some of the root crops in this month’s share. All of our own carrots are now gone, and we didn’t grow parsnips last year. So we turned to the root cellar of a small group of organic growers in Vermont called Deep Root Organic Growers. We hope you enjoy them.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us with your questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Ted Blomgren