Beets are a choice with the tasty French breakfast radishes this week, and turnips and daikons are in the share too. These fennel bulbs in the background will keep growing a little bigger for one more week, when they’ll join carrots and more sweet potatoes! We are in a bountiful moment for roots, with just about every color, shape, and flavor hitting the bench in the next two weeks!
This Week’s Share:
Beets or Radishes
Butternut Squash or Pumpkins
Kale or Collards or Chard
Mixed Salad Greens
Bell Peppers
Shallots
Purple-top Turnips or Daikons
Caraflex or Napa Cabbages
Recipe:
Top 8 Turnip Recipes
I know turnips are easily bypassed and avoided, so instead of just one recipe this week you’re getting a list of 8 ways to eat turnips! Purple top turnips are pretty different from their relatives, the small tender Hakurei. While those are great raw in salads, these are ideally roasted or boiled and mashed, and their skin is thicker. They are a great storage food and will not mind being left in the crisper drawer for a month. When you’re ready for beef stew, hearty soup, or a mashed side they will be ready.
Field Notes:
Caraflex cabbages have a unique conical shape, with the same thin flat leaves with crunchy stems that you expect from a typical green cabbage. We like to grow familiar vegetables with alternate colors and shapes to keep cooking fresh and interesting, and to learn the strengths and weaknesses of all different types of crops. If these aren’t your jam, try the Napa cabbage again this week for Asian slaw, stirfry, kimchi, or a fresh salad.
What’s on U-Pick?
Final moment for peppers before the frost or the mower takes them! Hot chilis were mowed to make way for cover crop, but the field beside the high tunnels is still producing the last poblanos, shishitos, and sweet Italian frying peppers.
In field G: large marigolds, gomphrena, zinnias, tulsi basil, dill, and lots of parsley continue. Watch your step and try not the trample the tiny scallions working to grow on the far right side of the field (they are labelled).
In the raised brick beds, also known as the Cleeland Garden:
These are still going strong and will not be mowed. These plants will be available until cold weather kills them! We just planted a little more dill and cilantro seedlings in the raised bring beds. They aren’t grown up enough to pick yet but we may have them as fresh herbs in the final share.
Marigolds, Mint, Oregano, Parsley, Sorrel
Thyme, Sage, and Lemon Balm (to allow for healthy growback for these plants, pick the largest leaves from the outside, do not cut from the stem of the plant!)
Reminder that U-picking hours are Monday-Saturday, 8am-6pm. Please do not come to the farm on Sundays, as we do not have staff on site who can be available in case of an emergency. If the main gates are closed when you arrive you can follow the paved road to the right, and then follow the curve of the road back to the left. This will take you in a loop around the main deer-fenced area and up to the wash station/parking lot.