Winter CSA Week 2: November 20th

Winter CSA Week 2

Another week to share our veggies has come! This Friday from 3-6 I will be in our greenhouse at 4423 with a bag of goodies for you. Or, Andy will be on his way to drop off said goodies to you! As a reminder, please feel free to reach out if you will have a problem picking up in time.

The snow flurries and early sunsets are having us feel like winter is really moving in to stay! Luckily all that previous nice weather allowed some field crops extra time to grow. This week is a bit more bulky than other weeks as a little Thanksgiving bonus! Thanksgiving can be a strange holiday wrapped in false history but also a great chance to gather with loved ones, be grateful, and FEAST. We hope that whether you can gather with family, a small portion of family, or even just yourself, these veggies will be the utmost comfort food:

This week’s share:

Spicy Mix

Spinach

Fennel

Baby Cabbage

Frisée

Bok Choi

Flat Leaf Parsley

Baby Celery

Delicata Squash

Hakurei Turnips

Frisée and Friends

This week has a few unique vegetables that may be new to members, especially if you were not a part of the summer CSA!

Frisée is a type of lettuce in the chicory family, with a distinct bitter flavor. It’s a great green for hardy salads with creamy dressings or even a quick grilling. It does super well in cold weather.
The “baby” celery is about the thickness of a pencil, but so packed with flavor. I added the stem along with the leaves to a stew last week and the celery pieces were so sweet and added so much flavor. However, it’s really not a “baby” celery, but a regrowth of our spring crop! So maybe like a reincarnated celery?
Hakurei Turnips are the little white roots that were in last week’s share too. They are so tender and smooth tasting that they are great sliced up in salads, dipped in hummus, or cooked up. Turnips greens are also a delicious addition!
Delicata Squash is a really tender winter squash. You do not even need to peel off the skin, and they are so easy to cut through. They cook quickly enough on the stove but can also be roasted in the oven. We also grew a ton of them this season and are just now getting to the end of our inventory.
Spicy Mix (aka mesclun) is a variety of different salad greens in the brassicae family. Our current mix contains two types of mizuna, mustards, two types of tatsoi, and a baby kale blend. I love spicy mix because even when it gets wilty, it’s delicious to cook down for an omelette or mix in some garbanzos and top with a fried egg.

Recipe Time!

I thought this article about frisee was very fun and informative plus had some delicious looking recipes at the end. Frisee and bacon or poached eggs are matches made in heaven!

Field Notes

Wow were those wind storms wild on Sunday! We found ourselves holding our breath with each big gust hoping that the plastic wasn’t ripping off of a hoop house or caterpillar tunnel. We couldn’t do much but watch as our row cover flailed around the fields, luckily still partially tacked down. None of the row covers ripped and none of the crops were damaged, so I would say we made out pretty good from those storms. And we didn’t even lose power this time! The wind storms that seem like the new normal in the fall and spring are not only the most annoying weather to work with, they also feel like a concerning symptom of climate change. It does not seem like our infrastructure (I’m looking at you Detroit power lines) can handle hurricane strength winds in the future. Keep up the good work eating local, we believe that this is one of the most healing acts we can do for the earth!

On a happier note, we’ve been getting creative with sustainable ways to mulch for the winter! The neighborhood of a fellow CSA member is dense with clean tree leaves that we have been collecting for the past couple of weeks to chop up into mulch using our small walk-behind tractor. Originally we just wanted to mulch our garlic with leaves as an alternative to straw, which is messy, hard to remove from the field, brings in grass seed, and is not beneficial to the nitrogen content of the soil. However, leaves will still protect the soil surface from the winter elements and give the beds a boost of nitrogen too! Once we remove the garlic from the field the leaves can be integrated into the beds and continue to be broken down by worms and other microorganisms for plant nutrients. We were able to get so many leaves that we are also using them in other fields as well. We are trying to explore different ways to use local materials that will benefit our soil health instead of relying so much on compost. Soil health is really tricky to master in any environment, but I would argue that the urban setting poses an extra challenge because our “topsoil” is essentially non existent. We’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading about how to utilize regenerative and no-till methods of farming that work for our scale in order to have healthier crops while taking care of the earth. It’s a lot to learn, but we’re excited to make improvements!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving next week everyone! Stay safe and eat your veggies!

Peace,

Amy and Andy