Winter CSA

CSA Farm Share Fair in Arlington

/ Gretta

I’m helping to organize a CSA Farm Share Fair in Arlington. It will be a nice opportunity to meet the farmers who grow your food. Our three-person team of volunteers (one of whom is headed to Africa for a month!) needs help spreading the word about the Fair. If you’re willing to put flyers around town, forward e-mail announcements about the Fair to friends, or if know how to set up and use Facebook or Twitter to spread the word, we would love to have you help us!

Last year’s Fair was terrific, in spite of gale force winds and pounding rain. I’m sure this year’s will be even better! I think Rob and/or Meghan from Riverland will be at the Fair on behalf of Shared Harvest.

Rob & Meghan at Riverland Farm

Rob & Meghan at Riverland Farm

I heard a rumor that Jenny and baby Jesse will be attending also.
Jenny and Jesse Wooster, leading 2010 Farmer Training Tour at Picadilly Farm

Jenny and Jesse Wooster, leading 2010 Farmer Training Tour at Picadilly Farm

December 11 share

/ Gretta

Saturday was the last distribution of Shared Harvest CSA’s three month winter share.

Shared Harvest CSA Share, Dec 11, 2010

Shared Harvest CSA Share, Dec 11, 2010

Everything in the photo, except the cookbooks and brewing hard cider, was in the share. Here are the details.

Picadilly Farm
Parsnips, 2 pounds
Butternut, 7 pounds (2-3 pieces) and ‘bonus’ squash – acorn in this share.
White potatoes, 6 pounds. One pound of these potatoes was packed with the celeriac.
Celeriac, 2-2.5 pounds (it is small! the drought this summer really took a toll on the celeriac!) Here’s a picture of celeriac, along with a nice recipe for it.
Beets, 3 pounds

Riverland Farm
Carrots, 6 pounds
Green cabbage, 1 head
Leeks, 1 bunch
Onions, 2 pounds
Popcorn, 1 bouquet. Tips from Rob Lynch, Riverland Farm, on how to pop popcorn.
Turnips, 2 pounds
Sweet Potato, 4 pounds

Watermelon Radishes & Purple Top Turnips

Winter radishes, 1 pound. The radishes in the share were watermelon radishes. I think there might have been a few black Spanish winter radishes in some of the shares. The links have photos of the radishes as well as recipes.

Moraine Farm
Baer’s Best Beans, one pound.

Busa Farm/Brookwood Farm
Lettuce, three heads OR two bags of kale & carrots. Dennis Busa grew lettuce in his greenhouse. We’d hoped to be able to harvest kale, but the temps didn’t get above freezing on Friday, and veggies harvested frozen have zero shelf life. The last twenty Lexington shareholders got the kale & carrots from Brookwood Farm, as did all shareholders who picked up in Canton. The extremely cold temps in Canton last week did in some of the December greens, so the Brookwood crew substituted with carrots they dug on Friday.

November 20 CSA Share

/ Gretta

Besty, Ben, Darry & Kristi unloading shares

Today was the first distribution of our two month winter share. What a lovely day for a CSA share distribution – sunny skies and crisp temperatures. Lots of folks came to help unload the truck and set up for the distribution — thank you!!!

Here’s what was in the share.

Picadilly Farm
Potatoes, 5 pounds. Store out of bag, in a cool dark place.
Carrots, 4 pounds
Hakurei salad turnips, a bunch
Parsley, 1 bunch
Parsnips, 2 pounds
Spinach, 2/3 pound
Winter squash, butternuts, 7 pounds
Leeks, 1 bunch
Sweet potatoes, 4 pounds. These will store well at a temperature of 50 degrees. A basement, attic, or even sitting on the kitchen counter would be a fine choice– just remember to take them out of their plastic bag.

Riverland Farm
Broccoli or cauliflower, 2 pieces
Brussels sprouts, 2 stalks
Bok Choy, 3/4 pound of red, green or both
Garlic, 1/2 pound
Yellow onions, 2 pounds
Cabbage, 1 head, red or green

Busa Farm
Three leafy greens, some combination of:
Lettuce, green (Boston or leaf variety)
Lettuce, red (leaf variety)
Greens, Swiss chard, tuscano kale, escarole or two heads of endive.

Moraine Farm, Baer’s Best Beans
Jacob’s Cattle dried beans, one pound. This heirloom variety typically has a lot more white on it, but we think that the extreme heat and lack of water combined to leave them almost completely purple this year.

Cider Hill Farm
Apples, about five pounds

November 13 share

/ Gretta

We’ve got another lovely share to distribute this weekend! Our farmers will be picking the greens and packing Shared Harvest boxes today. They’ll be up early Saturday morning to deliver boxes of deliciousness to us! Marius from Cider Hill Farm will get to the farm first with bulk apples and cider. Then Mike from Riverland, and Ben from Picadilly will arrive.  Kristi, Darry, Brittany and I, along with a small group of shareholders (thank you!) will help unload over — drum roll — seven tons of local produce! Want to join the early morning party? We can never have too much muscle.

Brussels sprouts

Get your cookbooks out! Here’s what we’ve got planned for the share on Saturday. (I’ll add any last minute corrections tomorrow.)

Riverland Farm

Bok Choy, one head
Brussels Sprouts, two stalks
Garlic, 1/2 pound
Yellow Onions, 2 pounds
Herbs (parsley, rosemary, or sage)
Leeks, 1 bunch
Green Cabbage, 1 head
Purple top turnips or rutabagas, 2 pounds
Sweet Potatoes, 4 pounds

Picadilly Farm
Carrots, 4 pounds
Daikon, 1 bunch
Spinach, 2/3 pounds
Butternut Squash, about 6 pounds
Salad turnips, 1 bunch
Parsnips, 2 pounds
Potatoes (unwashed for better storage), 4 pounds. Oops – we’d planned for 5 pounds of spuds in the share; a note from Jenny explains: “we mistakenly packed 4# of potatoes instead of 5. It’s already done (with boxing now in progress), so we send an extra pound in December.”

Brookwood Farm, Canton shareholders (& the last twenty Lexington pick up folks)
Kale, two bunches (red Russian, winterbor and/or tuscano varieties)
Collard greens, one bunch Chard, one bunch

Busa Farm, Lexington shareholders (last twenty folks got greens from Brookwood)
Lettuce, 2 heads
Greens, 1 bunch. Red mustard, kamatsuna, rabi senza testa OR yukina savoy

Shareholder Reminders
Bring grocery bags for your greens.
Use the Swap Box to exchange items you don’t want for items you do want.
Car pool if you can! Check out your Ride Share map to find a neighboring shareholder.
Storage Tips and Recipe Resources are on the web site.

Lettuce growing in the Busa Farm field, November 2010

What’s cooking at my house

/ Gretta

In my household, we have a post-distribution routine that has served us well over the past several years. It actually starts several weeks before the first distribution. We invite friends and neighbors to eat dinner with us on the Sunday evening following the first share distribution. We had a wonderful feast on Sunday: delicata squash, cauliflower, baked potatoes, lettuce salad with beets, carrots, hakurei turnips and red peppers, a roasted chicken from Grace Note Farm (our egg supplier) and of course, several apple pies rounded out the meal. I love to share the fall harvest!

Here are a couple of recipes that I’ll be trying this week.
Sweet Potato, Chickpea & Cumin Soup
Sweet Potato, Apples and Braising Greens

A guide to eating locally this winter

/ Gretta

The good folks at the Belmont Farmers’ Market have published the autumn issue of Roots & Sprouts. It is full of excellent information about eating locally year-round. Winter CSAs, veggie storage techniques and some of our favorite winter veggies are highlighted. The Belmont Farmers’ Market is open for a few more weeks. It’s a nice market, very friendly with a nice diversity of vendors. Check it out: Thursdays through Oct 28, 1:30 to 6:00 PM in the Belmont Center parking lot.

Shared Harvest in the news

/ Gretta

Brookwood Community Farm, Oct 2010

Here’s a nice article about Shared Harvest CSA in the Canton Journal. Check out the photos of the cold-hardy greens, some of which will be in the upcoming shares.

Jason McCartney, Simca Horwitz, Judy Lieberman, Brookwood, Oct 2010

I dropped by Brookwood last week and found Judy, Jason and Simca harvesting the last of the sweet peppers. Here they are, bundled-up against the cold, searching for peppers.

Hungry?

/ Gretta

Can we eat yet?

(updated November 5) Shared Harvest Winter CSA  can supply the veggies for many tasty meals this winter! Lots of A few two month shares are still available. Pick up is at Busa Farm in Lexington or Brookwood Farm in Canton on Nov 13 & Dec 11. Picadilly Farm and Riverland Farm grow the majority of veggies for the share, with smaller farms like Busa, Brookwood and Moraine adding the finishing touches. Email me (use the Contact form) if you are interested in getting one of the few remaining shares.