11/1/23 Newsletter: First Frost & Into Our Winter CSA

Not only have we had our First Frost since last CSA but our first SIX. Lows on our property have been between 26 and 32 each of those nights. This means we’re finally putting our summer crops to sleep. The first of these on Wednesday night took out all the field tomatoes and summer squash plus the zinnias, dahlias, celosia and other flowers. Then Saturday night was cold enough it also took out our peppers and cucumbers in our hoop houses. We still have a few eggplants but honestly they won’t produce well any longer. It has been pretty hard on our crops as it was a pretty deep dive down.

This is our latest first frost in our 16 years of farming. We used to say that our average first frost was Autumnal Equinox (Sept 21) but the last three have all been in in mid or late October so we can’t say that now. 

We’re anticipating rain this coming weekend. It looks like a bigger rain that the drizzles thus far so we’re getting our bottom fields buttoned up. Monday we had a huge project day with a chipper getting much wood cleared out from the last two years worth of pruning trees. It feels really good. And now we have a couple big piles of wood chips to help us with erosion and building soil. The first of which was already used to build a retaining wall at the top of our property where we’re having some erosion from neighbors. 

Also in anticipation of rain we’re getting our last beds of cover crop in this week. See last week’s newsletter for more on our cover crops. 

As we’re really in winter farming mode let’s talk about our CSA over the winter. We say our Winter CSA but since we never stop, that’s not exactly right. 

We’re not able to grow enough over the winter to have fresh veggies for you every week. In fact much less than that. How we keep the boxes coming is this… on November 22nd will be our first NON-CSA week. From that point forward we’ll be about every-other-week for all CSA members with our schedule being below. I say “about” because we take two weeks off over Winter Solstice and the Winter Holidays. First off, nothing is growing in the few weeks around Winter Solstice but also, so many people are traveling. 

Now we offer two optional Holiday Boxes on Tuesday November 21st and Wednesday, December 20th. You can use these to shop for your holiday cooking OR just to keep the veggies rolling into your kitchen. We do not curate a box, they are 100% Add-On. 

For those of you who are bi-weekly we were debating taking you down to once a month but we think we’ll have enough food for you with every box. We will transition all of you to the same schedule which means 
West County bi-weekly members will have to do a skip in their schedule (and then Santa Rosa bi-weekly will do a skip in spring). 

Here is our Winter CSA Schedule for all CSA members: 

Please mark your calendar with below dates! 

There is always a copy of this at the top of CSA store. 

November: 15th (last weekly box!), 

           Tues 21st Optional Holiday Box, Nov 29th (for all)

December: 13th, 20th Optional Holiday Box

January: 3rd, 17th, 31st

February: 14th, 28th

March: 13th, 27th

April: 10th and likely weekly (based on winter weather)

Beyond fresh items we will also have storage items in each box: Potatoes, Onions, Garlic and Winter Squash. Next week we’ll have Butterball Potatoes for you. And we’ve made sure to have enough of most items to have them in our Add-On store starting next week.

Produce Notes & Recipes

This Week’s Box

 Red Butter Lettuce

Red Russian (SR) OR Rainbow (WC) Kale

Mixed Beets

Broccoli (SR) OR Cauliflower (WC)

Green Tomatoes

Kohlrabi

European Pears

Family Boxes: Tokyo Bekana

What a wintery box we have for you today!

Last week we had a rotation of Cauliflower and Delicata… well then we had a crop of Broccoli come on faster than we were anticipating so we’ve worked Broccoli into that rotation. If you were expecting Delicata this week, you have Broccoli and will get the Delicata next. If you are getting Cauliflower this week, you’ll have Broccoli next.

An ode to our Tomato Season is in todays box with Green Tomatoes. With a cool June it was a late start to our Tomato Season, our heirlooms didn’t do as well as we would have loved but it was still decent. Before the frosts we did one last harvest for you of hard green tomatoes.

There are two main ways to use Green Tomatoes: you can cook them green, as in Fried (or baked) Green Tomatoes, or you may let them sit on your counter and ripen. Cooked green they are very different. Let to ripen they will not be as tasty as the vine ripened tomatoes we have given you all season, but should still be far better than store tomatoes. If you wish to preserve them as late as possible, wrap them individually in newspaper and store in a cool area of your house (though not the fridge).

I'm not a fan of deep fried anything, so here is a baked version similar to versions of fried green tomatoes I'm finding. Also, a couple years ago, I did this, and just pan fried the breaded tomato slices and that worked well too.

Baked Green Tomatoes (allrecipes.com)

1 c cornmeal

1 Tbs dried dill weed

salt to taste

ground black pepper to taste

5 medium green tomatoes, thinly sliced

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a medium baking sheet.

2. In a small bowl, mix the cornmeal, dill, salt and pepper. Dip tomato slices into the mixture, coating both sides. Arrange coated slices in a single layer on a medium baking sheet.

We’re excited to have a bunch of fresh Mixed Beets for you today with beautiful Beet Greens. The beets are primarily red with some gold and chioggia. The greens can be used much like Rainbow Chard… they would be great in the Greens Soup recipe below.

We also have a nice bulb of Kohlrabi. Although we love it sliced and dipped into Hummus, it’s lovely in salad or soup (see next two recipes). With Kohlrabi, make sure to peal and only peel what you’re ready to use that day as it will otherwise get bitter.

Kohlrabi, Apple, Beetroot Salad (Ottolenghi)

1-2 large kohlrabi
3 apples

2 medium beetroot
1 bunch cilantro

1 garlic clove, crushed
¼ c cider vinegar or white wine vinegar 
¼ c extra virgin olive oil 
Salt and pepper

1. Peel the kohlrabi, cut in half and slice thinly. Core the apples and slice to the same thickness. Peel the beetroot and grate coarsely on a cheese grater or shred on a mandolin.

2. Mix together all the vegetables in a large bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients. Stir well, taste and season - you can afford to be generous with the salt. Pile up on a serving plate and garnish with extra chopped coriander.

Greens and Broccoli Soup (The Living Kitchen by Jutka Harstein via CSA member Laura Gittleman)

Note: this recipe makes a lot so scale back as necessary.

2 medium onions finely chopped

1 leek, cleaned and chopped

Bunch spinach, chard or kale, washed and chopped

1 lb broccoli broken into florets

1 kohlrabi, peeled and cubed

½ TBS caraway seeds

Stock/water to cover vegetables

1 can coconut milk or 1 cup light cream

½ c. dill or cilantro, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Put vegetables in pot, cover with water/stock, cook til vegetables are soft. Blend the soup, add the coconut milk or cream and chopped herb (maybe some cayenne pepper).

This is the last of our European Pears. I was too busy to write about the m last week. We harvested these 6 weeks ago and they’ve been in cold storage. Just what they want. They are edible now, but better if left on the counter a couple days until they start to get a little soft to touch. Don’t wait too long.

Thanks everyone! Have a wonderful week!