In Your Share This Week

• Beets
• Broccoli
• Green Garlic
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Spinach

Crop Highlights

Beets: This spring we did a trial planting of root crops in our greenhouses in order to get you some heartier veggies sooner in the season. We direct seeded our beets in the greenhouse back in mid-March. We also conducted a transplanted beet trial- with great success! Some specialty beets germinate very poorly in cooler soil temperatures, so we gave them a heated boost by seeding them into flats in our heated greenhouse. Last year we began growing a white beet variety that tastes great and has very nice greens- which also loved the heated greenhouse. This week your beet bunches feature a mixture of red and white beets with big beautiful greens.  

Broccoli: This is a tricky crop to get the timing right on…broccoli seems to have a life all its own. We space our seeding dates apart in hopes of providing a continual supply of broccoli in the spring, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t! The great news is that our second planting of broccoli caught up with the first one, so you get to enjoy a bountiful amount of broccoli this week. We top ice the crowns immediately after harvest, so they keep quite well in the fridge. The variety we grow has a fairly meaty stem, which is my favorite part- you can use most (often all) of the stem along with the florets. Just peel the outer layer if it seems tough at all and cook a tad longer than the florets.

Green Garlic: This week we have our second and last fresh garlic distribution- its a little larger and more developed than Week 1, but you can still use a good deal of the green stalks so long as you peel it sufficiently. 

Spinach: Most folks are familiar with the little baby spinach leaves found in the grocery store- but if you let the spinach keep growing, some AMAZING things happen. The leaves get really big, and the spinach develops a sweet and delectable flavor that can’t be found in baby spinach. Our processing equipment tends to crack and break the leaves and stems on spinach, so we pack it out as-is and unwashed to keep it nicer. Rinse in cool water before using to remove any soil or grit. 

Summer Fun with the Sauvie Island Center

In 2005 Sauvie Island Organics’ owner Shari Raider co-founded the Sauvie Island Center. The Center serves elementary school youth of Portland by providing hands-on educational field trips. These field trips take place on our farm and the adjacent 120 acre Howell Territorial Park. The curriculum includes Soil Investigations, Plant Parts Investigations, Wildlife & the Food Chain exploration & digging in the Grow Lunch Garden. Through these programs, the Center seeks to increase the food, farm and environmental literacy of the next generation.

National Pollinator Week is June 20 – 26 and the Sauvie Island Center invites you on June 18th from 10am to 1pm for a Pollination Celebration. During this family-friendly event you will search the native hedgerow for pollinators, taste honey and find out how bees use their bodies to gather pollen. Pack a picnic lunch and enjoy the beautiful grounds of Howell Territorial Park. Registration is requested, but not required.

There are also few spaces left for Farm Camp at Sauvie Island Center (various weeks). Kids will spend a week exploring our farm and adjacent grounds of Metro’s Howell Territorial Park. For information or to register visit Farm Camp.

Or join the fun at the Center’s 8th annual Barn Dance & Barbecue, on July 30th from 4:30pm to 8pm.  Tickets can be bought on-line. You will certainly see a number of your farmers kicking up their heels!

This year we are really happy with the progression of crops in the early season- we feel like we are able to offer a really exciting range of vegetables to kick the season off. We love the festive red and white scallions, deep ruby and rainbow chards, snowy white baby fennel bulbs, hefty Napa cabbages, and lush purple kohlrabi…yum!!! Its really nice to see a range of textures and colors in the shares since most of what thrives this time of year is green and leafy.  

As always this early in the season, all of the crops in the share will be the happiest if stored in your refrigerator inside of a plastic bag. The Napa cabbage is quite bulky, but will also last for weeks in a bag. Just cut off a portion and re-wrap the rest for later. 

Fennel: This is one of the crops that grows really well for us at SIO. We love growing fennel, and I for one LOVE eating fennel- cooked, raw, or just like an apple. We like to feature a young, tender bulb of ‘Preludio’ at the beginning of the season- which is an Italian variety intended for the earlier parts of the season. We are loading you up with 4 bulbs for full shares and 2 for half shares since they are still petite at this point in time…but why wait??? These bulbs are tender and perfect now…with plenty of stem and frond to enjoy cooking with as well. 

Kohlrabi: The skin on this variety has the most eye-catching hue of purple! Kohlrabi is related to cabbage, broccoli, kale, radishes, and turnips- and has a flavor that resembles broccoli stem…which is essentially what a Kohlrabi is. Over time, the plant has been selected to feature a swollen stem, which is the round bulb that we eat. We left the leaves attached since they taste pretty good too! Slaws are probably my favorite way to enjoy kohlrabi- I really like the crisp, refreshing texture, and sometimes slice it up into chips and have it with hummus.  

Scallions: I am super excited to have picked up a purple scallion variety this season. We have combined the deep purple scallions with our favorite variety of white scallion to make some fun multi-color bunches.

In The Fields

Hello everyone! We would like to welcome you to the kick-off of the 2016 season. We are so happy to have all of you enjoying our vegetables on your table with friends, family, and neighbors…we appreciate your support of our beautiful farm!

My name is Jen and I’m the Farm Manager at SIO; on behalf of the entire SIO crew, I will be writing the blog this season (in addition of course to Katherine’s wonderful recipes!) where each week we will try and capture some of the exciting highlights, lessons, innovations, and inspirations happening on the farm.

We will also provide information about the share that could include storage tips, varietal information, or special notes about unusual crops or conditions as they arise. We plan to feature one or two crops each week- each and every vegetable has a unique and interesting story that can be traced from seed to plate- and oftentimes far, far beyond!

We look forward to introducing our farm crew as well, so each week you will hear from one of the amazing and talented crew members about their experiences on the farm that day or week- that way you can see what a day in the life of a farmer looks like!

Even though this is the very first week you will be receiving vegetables, we have been hard at work seeding, transplanting, weeding, and more for several months in preparation and anticipation of this very week. Now that it’s finally here, we are ready to harvest the freshest, most delicious food for all of you to enjoy!

The early weeks of the share provide an opportunity to showcase all of the wonderful greens that thrive in our bioregion. The beginning of the season will be ripe with vibrant spring greens of all shapes, colors, textures, and flavors. They are all a treat to work with in the kitchen, and provide a welcome nutritional kick to launch us out of the winter doldrums and into summer. Enjoy them while they’re here, we hope you find them as nurturing and satisfying as we do!

The tender greens in the early weeks are sensitive to warm weather so as a preventative measure, we will drape a moist paper towel over (and sometimes under) the produce in order to maintain its moisture and provide some ambient cooling. You can compost the paper towels, or wrap certain crops in them before storing in the refrigerator.

Speaking of sensitive early-season greens…they like very high humidity in order to stay happy. Refrigerators dry out the greens, and overnight a juicy, lush head of bok choi will become weepy and sad. We recommend storing all of your greens in plastic bags (I know, pretty much an antique in Portland these days) in order to keep them perky and fresh.

In Your Share This Week:

• Bok Choi
• Green Garlic
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Mizuna
• Radishes

Crop Highlights

Bok Choi: The crisp, meaty ribs of bok choi are one of my favorites in the spring. We keep our choi covered underneath ‘floating row cover’ (more about that later) which keeps the greens protected from weather and pests. It also results in more delicate leaves- so in the interest of not bruising, cracking, or crushing, we opted not to wash your choi. Just give it a quick rinse under cool water before you want to use it incase it has any soil stuck to the stems or bottom.

Fresh Garlic: You’ll find young garlic in your share- essentially immature garlic that has not reached full size or maturity. When you prepare it you will notice small bulbs forming as well as all the layers of wrapping that would later on dry, cure, and tighten to form the papery skins that enable mature garlic to store for so long. Due to the incredibly wet winter conditions, we opted to delay planting our garlic until January…which is about 2-3 months later than usual! As such, they are less filled out than one might expect this time of year, but tender and delicious for sure!

Mizuna: This mild and tender mustard is a member of a special group of vegetables known in Japan as ‘Kyōyasai’- comprised of over forty specialty vegetables that are produced in the area surrounding Kyoto. Just as we have a mild climate and rich soils, Kyoto experiences similar conditions that have enabled farmers to turn vegetable production into a high art befitting of Kyoto’s position as the cultural center of Japan. These vegetables are prized for their exceptional nutritional value, taste, color, shape, and seasonality.

In Your Share This Week

Its nearly the first official day of Spring, just as we say goodbye to the last of the CSA Winter Shares for the season! We hope you have enjoyed participating in our Winter Share…it was a bountiful winter of greens and storage crops, even though we hit a few bumps in the road with potatoes and carrots. We appreciate your support throughout the winter and hope that you were able to create lots of delicious meals to share with friends and family during the cold, rainy months. Although the winter has a smaller palette of local crops that are available than during the summer months, it still boasts a really wonderful and nutritious set of offerings and we’re glad you decided to continue to support your local farmers!  

The farm is looking very verdant and cheery as the longer days and warmer temperatures coax everything out of their winter slumber. Bees can be found foraging in the flowering mustards, the Oregon Maples are beginning to blossom, and the fields smell sweet with the scent of mustard and fava blossoms. We are racing to get as much accomplished as we can during this window of good weather so we can create space in the fields for our very first rounds of transplants to go outside- head lettuce, kales, fennel, onions, broccoli, napa cabbages and beneficial flowers. Transplanting season always comes as a bit of a surprise, since it feels like we just wrapped up the last of the field work not so long ago. Our muscles also have to re-learn the many hours of bending over and walking that come along with this time of year as well, but we look forward to it for sure!

Share Notes

Cabbage: The cabbage is quite pale this time around- because its more like the heart of the cabbage than the whole thing. These cabbages braved the winter elements out in the fields and still have nice, tasty leaves underneath their haggard exterior. Those tough outer leaves sure did their jobs though- because once you peel away enough of the outside, you are left with a nice little head of cabbage.

Chard: This chard has been the gift that keeps on giving. This is the very same chard that we planted back in July last year and harvested throughout the late summer and fall. Once the rain and cold temperatures showed up, the chard went to sleep for the winter. Normally thats the end of it…but this season it awoke from its slumber rather than disintegrate in the cold. I think the stems are probably the best tasting chard stems I have ever had! 

Kohlrabi: This is another storage superstar for sure…we grow two large varieties that have been bred specifically for storage. As such, they have tough (and lets be totally honest…kind of weird looking skins) that are oftentimes mottled with some black or grey. For the best continued quality, stash your kohlrabi in a plastic bag and cut off however much you want to use at a time and peel right before use. We just got a great tip from a new staff member to try out kohlrabi pancakes!!! Just grate the kohlrabi and mix in some egg, bread crumbs, and seasoning of choice, then fry little pancakes until golden brown on both sides. She tops hers with a parsley-yogurt-avocado sauce. Wow!

Leeks: They just keep getting bigger and bigger…will they ever stop?!?!? One of my favorite decadent treats (which I have made for St. Paddys Day in the past and goes great with soda bread and taters)  is to bake them in heavy cream with a dash of nutmeg and salt. Cut the white portion in half, put in a dish cut side up so they are touching but not crammed, and fill the pan until they are very nearly submerged. Cover with foil and bake at 375, remove the foil after about 30 min and then continue to bake until the cream looks thickened to your liking. Sometimes I put it under the broiler just a bit at the end.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli: This was a nice little treat from an experimental planting we did in one of our greenhouses. We planted the broccoli a little late, but then put some of the plants in the greenhouse to see if we couldn’t hurry things along a bit. We’re glad we did, because it was ready just in time for the last share! Rather than a singular large crown like regular broccoli, purple sprouting broccoli is a massive plant that sends out tons of long, slender side shoots with little mini florets on the tips and sometimes along the length of the stem as well. The stem is really sweet and tender so you can eat the whole thing along with any leaves that are attached. Cook it gently and quickly like you would asparagus-  if you let it languish in the pan or overcook the shoots, it will rapidly turn mushy and flavorless. Saute it quickly and plate it right away…dress it with some salt and olive oil, lemon and garlic, or tamari, rice vinegar, and sesame seeds. 

Radish, Daikon: The crisp texture of a radish is always a treat this time of year since many of the other crops available are more of a starchy root. You can cut them into rings and lacto-ferment them, grate them for salad, or use for slaw. Cooking daikon is a common practice, although I can never quite bring myself to cook a radish. The ends and tips suffered some insect damage, so those have been trimmed away. Some we had to trim quite a bit, so it may look more like a daikon log than the whole root. Tastes great though! Also make sure to store these in a plastic bag so they do not loose that crisp texture and turn rubbery. 

Winter Squash, Crown Pumpkin: This squash has got to be one of the absolute best storing we have ever seen! Long after all of the other squash have faded, or begin to turn into something resembling a science-experiment, Crown Pumpkin is still going strong! The ash-blue and peach colored exterior is very tough, so be prepared to use some muscle power to cut these open. The flesh is a nice deep orange and tastes great! 

Enjoy & we hope to continue to grow for you this summer!

Sign up is now open for our May-November CSA season.

In Your Share This Week

• Beets, red
• Cabbage, green
• Celeriac
• Herb, sage
• Kale, mix
• Leeks
• Mustard Raab
• Radish, daikon
• Shallots
• Winter Squash, Baby Blue Hubbard

Around the farm

During that spurt of sunny weather we had last week we were plenty busy on the tractors, turning old sections of cover crop or dead plant debris into the soil for our early season crops like radishes, chard, fennel, lettuce, and the like. Our garlic is looking happy as it pokes up from its bed of alfalfa mulch, and little fava and pea sprouts are emerging from fields that were broadcast seeded earlier in February.   

The greenhouse is also filling up with starts at an exciting rate. Our heated portion of the greenhouse features onions, kales, salad mix ingredients, flowers for attracting beneficial insects, herbs, head lettuce, spinach, a golden beet trial, and more!  

New parts have arrived that will get an old, abandoned direct seeder up and running for the 2016 season, which we hope to begin trials with soon. It mounts to the back of a tractor, allowing one person to seed multiple lines down the entire length of a bed in just one pass. It also ensures that all the lines are evenly spaced and straight, which will allow for easier and better weeding with our cultivation tractors later on. These little improvements are the types of exciting innovations that allow us to gain efficiency and thusly focus more time and energy on other important aspects of the farm.   

The hedgerows are also bustling with life this time of year! Sauvie Island is well known for its diversity of avian life (you can find about 250 species on the island)- and its a real treat to hear the bird songs all day while we are working. Hummingbirds are also appearing more frequently as the Red Flowering Currants are beginning to bloom- a favorite food source. 

Share Notes

Cabbage: These green cabbages have been awaiting harvest all winter long in the furthest outer reaches of our farm fields…and now they are ready for you! This is a pretty variety called Daedon that has purple-tinged outer leaves. Alas, those outer wrapper leaves take all the beatings from the elements and must be peeled away to reveal the well-protected interior. 

Leeks: Another great late-season crop that holds forever and ever in the fields. We still have a decent sized block to harvest from and are excited that they just keep growing without showing signs of bolting. We are about to come full-circle on the farm as we will still be harvesting leeks until nearly the time when we start our new babies in the greenhouse. 

Mustard Raab: The farm is starting to show the signs of spring- lots of little yellow flowers abound as our overwintering brassicas like kales, mustards, mizuna, and asian greens bolt and flower. This provides great bee forage this time of year when there isn’t much else available but we sometimes have warm sunny days that motivate the bees to leave the hive. If you harvest the flowering stems just before or as the buds open into full flower, its a tasty treat that is somewhat reminiscent of asparagus. I usually prepare it just like asparagus- a quick sautee in a a very hot pan with garlic and finished with olive oil, salt, and a sprinkle of lemon juice. The raab bunches are a rainbow of mustard varieties from Wild Garden Seed’s mustard blends we grow for salad. 

Radish, Daikon: You may find entire roots in your share, or portions that have had tops and tips cut off due to pest damage. We have also found that during their time in storage, the soil really glued itself on there pretty well- so the roots have been sprayed and washed but we were not able to get them as sparking white as you might recall them being earlier in the winter. You could give the skins a quick scrub prior to using to get the last little bit. 

Sage: We have seen just enough new growth on our sage plants to harvest for the share. Sage goes well with just about anything containing potatoes, as well as celeriac. Try making a brown butter sage sauce, or putting half the bunch in a chicken before roasting. The sage will dry easily just like the thyme- so use what you need now and leave the rest on the counter, or hang upside down with a rubber band tightly secured around the base to dry it out more completely. 

In Your Share This Week

• Asian Radish Greens
• Beets, red
• Cabbage, red
• Kohlrabi
• Mizuna
• Onions, red
• Radish, daikon
• Rutabaga
• Salsify
• Winter Squash, Acorn

We are feeling the full excitement of Spring here on the farm- with all this warm and occasionally sunny weather, we have made progress on several fronts to get ready for the 2016 season. We have completed our crop and rotation plans and are ordering seeds, we have tilled in some of our overwintering cover crops in our lighter, sandy soils, we sowed fava beans in the field, we refurbished our propagation greenhouse, have developed a new potting soil recipe, and have begun seeding onions, shallots, parsley, fennel, chard, and lettuces in the greenhouse! 

Most of the items in the share this week are ones that you are familiar with already. Its a very red and white share…which feels very appropriate for this time of year as we see the Snowbell and Indian Plum with their elegant white blossoms and the pinks/reds of the Red-Twig Dogwood, Wild Ginger blossoms, and Flowering Red Currant on their way…a sure harbinger of Spring! 

We have posted sign-up options on our website for the main-season CSA, so make sure to go have a look! We have a new payment plan, are accepting SNAP, and have made some exciting changes to our delivery schedule! 

Cabbage, red: This variety is a little less densely packed than the other red cabbage that has been in the share before. It has great flavor, but we noticed that the color has faded over time in storage…so its more like a lavender colored cabbage than a deep royal purple. I’ve made kraut with this variety and watched it turn a very electric fuchsia color.

Greens, bunched: For fresh greens this week we selected Mizuna from the outside fields and a radish green from the greenhouse with lovely pink stems. Some of the Mizuna bunches have ruby mustards mixed in as well, which is a fairly mild and lacy mustard green. The bunched radish greens are an Asian variety that has been bred and selected for its tops and stems rather than the root. They are grown for micro-greens, baby leaves for salad mix, and mature greens like the ones in your share. Some of the undersides of the leaves are ever-so-slightly hairy in texture- so I would consider these a cooking green. But be gentle with them- their thin, delicate texture will wilt very quickly so add them at the very last second as you take the pan off the heat. 

Kohlrabi: This is a large German storage variety that was bred to be harvested and kept in a root cellar for use throughout the winter. You can do the same in your refrigerator- just keep it in a plastic bag and cut off however much you need at a time and put the rest back into the bag for later. These certainly have a tougher skin that should be trimmed off.    

Salsify: This is the last installment of this funky looking root with the best flavor around! We were really happy with the size, quality, and ease of harvest for these roots that were planted in our most silty field. As you can imagine, pulling these hairy roots out of a wet clay soil is no fun…but harvesting them from a field of powdery loam was a breeze. It also meant that we had very few instances of forked or deformed roots, which happens when the taproot encounters an obstacle such as a rock, clod of clay, or bits of cover crop that have not yet decomposed in the soil. CookWithWhatYouHave has some great salsify tips and recipes or just cook them with lots of butter and prepare to be amazed.

In Your Share This Week

• Beets, baby mix
• Cabbage
• Carrot, mix
• Celeriac
• Kale, mix
• Onions, Cortland
• Radicchio
• Winter Squash, Butternut & Delicata

Beet, baby mix: We gave you a bag of mixed baby beets that includes red, gold, and Chioggia varieties. The mix is primarily red beets, and the size is great for roasting in halves or boiling whole.

Cabbage: These lovely green cabbages are a type known as a ‘semi-savoy’, which means they have a slightly more crinkled in texture than what you may typically think of when you envision green cabbage. It also a flatter, squat shape, but it still cooks and tastes like a regular green cabbage. We love this type of cabbage because it holds so well in the field through all types of weather conditions, including ice, frost, rain, wind, and heat.

Carrot, mix: This week we blended our standard orange carrots with a purple-skinned variety called ‘Dragon’. Both are tasty either raw or cooked but the purple skins on the Dragon fade when cooked…but another really cool thing happens- the interior flesh turns a darker, richer shade of orange and it looks (and kind of tastes) like a sweet potato. At least that’s what we thought…try it out and see what you think!

Celeriac: Its our very first celeriac of the winter season! You may also know this crop as ‘celery root’ or ‘knob celery’- its a variety of celery that has been cultivated and bred over time in order to produce a large, bulbous root rather than the fleshy stems and leaves we all recognize as celery. This is a great staple for winter soups, stocks, stews, casseroles, and gratins. Celeriac also has tremendous storage life and can last over 6 months in storage so long as the humidity is sufficient, which is why it was probably more common in America several generations ago when putting up food for the winter was a more widespread activity rather than trips to the grocery store. You will want to peel the celeriac before using it; to do that, start by trimming off the top and most of the root mass on the bottom. Now that the bottom is flat, set that on the counter and trim along the sides with your knife. These peelings are indispensable additions to the stock pot!

Kale, mix: Viva diversity!!! This bag of kale mix features most of the kale varieties that we grow. We skipped washing the kale in order to avoid cracking, bruising, and the like- so we recommend giving it a rinse before eating just in case it has any soil splattered on the undersides from the rain. You’ll find red, purple, green, crinkled, smooth, wavy, ruffled…you can rough chop it all together for cooking, or if you want to have a kale taste-off you can try each type on its own and see how it cooks and tastes. I’ve used the super ruffled green (a winterbor kale) in the past for raw ‘massaged’ kale salad and I hear its good for kale chips too. If you’re wondering what exactly massaged kale salad is, pay a visit to this website for a base recipe and some excellent variations.

In Your Share This Week

• Cabbage, red
• Carrots
• Kale
• Onions, red
• Parsnips
• Radicchio
• Rutabagas
• Thyme
• Winter Squash, Butternut
• Winter Squash, Pumpkin

Crop Notes

Kale: This is a blend of kales sourced from Wild Garden Seed that is a genetic rainbow of Red Russian type kales that have historically done very well throughout the winter long after all the other kales have withered away from the cold. With the cold weather, we have seen the leaves all darken from plain green to a beautiful rich reddish-purple color. Enjoy!

Rutabaga: I always think of rutabaga as one of those weird looking vegetables (along with kohlrabi and celeriac) that are really tasty, but less common in our modern diets. An interesting aside is that in the British Isles, rutabagas have been the longstanding vegetable of choice for Halloween-time vegetable carving to ward of evil spirits. We grow a variety called ‘Joan’ that is thought to have originated in Russia or Scandinavia, and came to the United States by way of England around the early 1800’s. It has a nice mild flavor and good texture, just trim the top and the roots off before using…peeling is a matter of personal choice on this one!

Thyme: I love thyme on just about everything, especially in savory winter soups. We made little bundles for the share this week (which Rhiannon and Tabitha harvested and felt particularly satisfied with…thanks ladies!). While its a lot more thyme than you’ll need at once, its one of the easiest herbs to dry so you can have it around for as long as you need it. It generally dries out quite well just left out on the countertop, but you can also hang it upside down to dry it. To use, you can either strip the leaves off of the stem, or if you’re roasting/simmering/stewing just toss a whole sprig in and then fish it back out before serving.

Winter Squash, Pumpkin: These squash are a pie pumpkin- which means the flesh is a little drier and less stringy than a jack-o-lantern type. You can find lots of recipes on the internet involving ways to stuff and bake the squash whole, which makes for a great presentation (or sometimes a good Julia Child story moment in the event that the walls give way and soup goes all over your kitchen). You can also cube the pumpkin with skins and all for use in curry or soup.

All of us here at Sauvie Island Organics
wish you and your family a very Happy New Year
We look forward to nourishing you in 2016!

In Your Share This Week

• Beets, Chioggia
• Cabbage, Napa
• Carrots
• Fennel
• Kale
• Leeks
• Radish, Daikon
• Shallots
• Winter Squash, Kabocha

Welcome to winter! We are excited to kick off the second year of our winter CSA. We have found that our growing systems, soils, and infrastructure enable us to grow really fantastic fall and winter crops. We have also trialed lots of varieties and have  selected our very favorites over the years- crops with great flavors, colors, textures, and storage abilities. Our goal is to provide you with a share that has as much variety as possible during the winter season; earthy roots, fresh crunchy radishes, aromatic herbs and alliums,  rich winter squash, sweet leafy greens, and juicy cabbages…you get the idea! Look forward to lots of great staples like beets, carrots, and squash, along with slightly lesser-known crops like chicories, kohlrabi, or celery root. Putting together the CSA share is almost like curating an art exhibit and we love it! Happy eating!

Storing Your Bounty

Each week we will provide some tips on how to best preserve the freshness and quality of your produce. Onions, shallots, and squash can stay out on the counter, or live in the pantry or garage. Just monitor them to check for mushy spots that might start to develop. Just about everything else would love a spot in your fridge inside a plastic bag (those are like antiques in Portland by now, right?). If you don’t have space in the fridge for everything, there are various cellaring options that we’ll go into throughout the winter. A bucket or tote with sawdust is a popular way to keep roots firm and moist for a long time (I’ve personally kept roots good this way until APRIL). The real keys here are cool temperatures combined with humidity retention. The ideal conditions are very near freezing and 90-100% humidity; which may or may not be attainable for your personal circumstances, but its a goal to aim for and keep in mind. Whatever you do, never ever ever place root crops, greens, or cabbages in the fridge, on the stoop, in the garage, or anywhere else without somehow wrapping or sealing them to keep the moisture in. Totes, tubs, plastic bags, buckets or the like will keep the moisture content from evaporating.

Another tip is to keep a bag or tub in the freezer for all your veggie scraps and trimming. Leek tops…onion skins…carrot tips…cabbage ends…meat bones…toss it all into the bag in the freezer and when you’ve reached critical mass you can simmer it into some fantastic stock. The only exception is to not load up on too many brassica crops (kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, radish) because it’ll give the broth a bitter flavor that overpowers a lot of the other ingredients. If you’ve included meat scraps or bones, add a splash of apple cider or white wine vinegar to draw all the nutritious marrow into the broth.

Crop Notes

Beets, Chioggia: These are a festive heirloom from Italy.  The pink and white stripes are stunning but alas do not stick around very well through the cooking process. Nonetheless, these beets are a tried and true favorite that always has a spot in our beet plantings.

Cabbage, Napa: We are really proud of how this Napa cabbage came out. We normally grow it in the spring, and this was a inaugural foray into late-season possibilities. We will admit, we were not expecting great things as excessive warm weather and pests took their toll. After proceeding to ignore the Napa for a while, we noticed it had bounced back and actually tasted great! Napa is great for creating kimchi (along with Daikon and carrots), can be shredded and used raw in salads or slaws,  or cooked lightly. Some of the heads have ‘pepper spot’ which is a harmless condition that appears as if the cabbage leaves have little flecks of pepper on them. Its a cosmetic attribute that doesn’t affect its taste or edibility, so you don’t need to worry about trimming it off.

Carrot Mix:  This is a blend of a super juicy and sweet orange carrot along with a French yellow cooking carrot known and Jaune De Doubbs. You can use them all together or select each for different applications. The yellow carrots hold up very well to cooking and turn a rich golden yellow. So if you hate the baby food effect of sometimes overcooking the carrots in soups or stews, give the yellow carrots a try- they really shine in hearty roasted or stewed dishes.

Kale: We put in a bunch of Red Russian and a bunch of Rainbow Lacinato.  Both are selected and refined by the fabulous Wild Garden Seed company. These are bred to thrive in our climate and that they do! We are glad to have lots of hearty winter greens like kale for the CSA…they are so good for you in the winter (or anytime) and go great with just about everything.

Radish, Daikon: These extra jumbo snowy white roots also come to us by way of Japan. I like making a refreshing slaw with an Asian twist by shredding radish and Napa cabbage together and dressing with sesame oil, tamari,  rice vinegar, and a hearty dose of minced ginger, garlic, and chili flakes. Even though its a cold dish, on a gray drizzly day this will get your tastebuds and your circulation hopping! There may be an occasional dark spot along the length of the root- which is evidence of a pest known as ‘rust fly’. It’d be a cryin’  shame for us to discard the whole fabulous root over a little blemish…so if you find that, either give it a quick peel or cut that spot out. These will store for a very long time in the fridge in a plastic bag, so don’t worry about having to eat it all at once.

Winter Squash, Kabocha: This is a really wonderful winter squash that comes to us from Japan. It ripens quite quickly in the late summer/early fall and is always the first to be harvested. It has a dry, flaky texture and an amazing nutty flavor. This is definitely a farm favorite! A classic way to prepare it is to cut it in half, scrape out the innards, and slice the whole thing (rinds and all) into fairly thin slices and roast in the oven. This method really highlights the texture and flavor of this variety.