Weekly news from the farm!

Greetings Everyone,

We’re happy to have once again hosted some amazing guests who have us believing that we are heading down the right path!!!  This week the path seems a little obstructed, but we’re planning to continue plugging along in this direction.  It is one of those weeks where we’re exhausted as we begin cleaning up the fields in preparation for planting cover crops. Normally we have much of our cover crops planted by mid September, but since we aren’t able to pay for help, we’re a little behind in getting that done.  We had the sweetest family stay in the barn loft and as Julie was providing a tour, they inquired about how many folks were working the land, to which Julie replied only she and her husband.  They were astounded that we were “trying” to take care of this entire farm ourselves. Julie was incredibly thankful to them for staying, because she commented that she has hope in one day being able to hire out some of the work as more folks choose to stay at MHO.  It was one of those questions, where you step back, look around at all the chaos and think to yourself that selling the farm seems like it would relieve a lot of the workload.

You will probably need to white list our email to receive correspondence from us because we have changed our email from farmer@MountainHarvestOrganic.com to Farmer@MountainHarvestOrganics.com (our email is organics plural).

Your Farmers (and cleaning staff),
Carl and Julie

NOTE: Your’re receiving this eNewsletter because you’ve either been a subscriber to MHO in the past OR if you’ve registered for our newsletters from our website.   Feel free to unsubscribe if you no longer wish to receive this eNewsletter!

CSA Shareholders: You can access our online store using this link, if using a desktop you will log in by clicking the icon of the person in the top right hand side of the web page, if you are using a phone click on the menu icon and choose the login option. All orders need to be placed by Thursday at 8 AM so that we will know what to harvest for your share! Please return your boxes because we re-use them. All orders need to be placed by Thursday at 8 AM so that we will know what to harvest for your share!   Please return your boxes because we re-use them.

This week’s Farmer’s Choice Share includes: (share contents are subject to change based on our actual harvest.)

We’re offering both a Farmer’s Choice Veggie and Farmers’ Choice Veggie & Meat Share.  Items common in both shares are listed first, followed by items specific to the veggie share the finally the veggie/meat share. The Farmer’s Choice Veggie & Meat share normally has smaller portions of vegetables. )

• Lettuce:  Red/Green Oakleaf bunches!! Great for making salad mix, but we also enjoy these leaves on sandwiches.
• Collard Greens: Super tender and packed full of nutrients!!!.  Please don’t cook these collards for 3 hours, since they are tender, we simply chop them and saute them up with onions, fresh ginger and perhaps a hot pepper.
• French Filet Beans: These are incredibly tender!!!.  Maybe you’ll want to simply steam them this week.  We are hoping to harvest more for your share next week if they keep growing.
• Carrots: These are smaller that usual but so sweet!!!.  Don’t peel them
• Radishes: Red Round.  Perfect sliced for salads or buttered for a snack.  The groundhog has been grazing down the tops.
• Onions: We’l be including a mix of red bulb onions and yellow bulb onions so you can mix and match these for your salads.
• Basil: We are including small bunches of mixed basil varieties.  We thought we’d harvest all the basil, because once the temperatures fall below 50 degrees, the basil doesn’t hold.
• Scallions: Great for soup toppings, tacos or dips.

The following are included only in the veggie share:

• Greens: Napa Cabbage.  We use this cabbage in salads like we do lettuce!!
• Eggplant: Globe Guests have been grilling this wonderful veggie.  Now that fall is officially here, we’ve been enjoying our eggplant in curries which is especially delicious with the fresh basil and cilantro.
• Butternut Squash :   Great sliced and grilled or roasted.  This season the groundhog ate most of the large squash but left a few for us. I guess we’ll take what we can get. Store in a dark place like your pantry. You will not want to put this in the refrigerator.

The following are included only in the meat share

• Sausage: Ground Chorizo:   We’ve been using this in tacos with peppers and collards. Isn’t it crazy to think about loading your taco with collard greens?

In between rain showers, our guests have been enjoying walking through the fields and especially admiring all the butterflies on the flowers. Our guests have also been enjoying the fresh food that we are stocking their refrigerator with so we hope to continue doing that next year, but as our season winds down earlier than in seasons past we realize we don’t have the storage crops that we normally have this time of the year.  We’re still hopeful that we won’t have to buy meat or vegetables before crops begin maturing next year. 

Felix loves to supervise us while we are cleaning vegetables.  Here she is telling us that we left a spot of dirt on the carrots!!!  That means you’ll have to scrub your carrots a bit before using them for your meals.  

Since we are a little late getting around to cleaning up the fields, we’re going to seed cover crops that are cold hardy and will germinate in cooler temperatures.  We are hoping to be seeding cover crops early next week.  That means, in between doing laundry and cleaning accommodations, we’ll also be “cleaning” the fields.  We’re pulling up spent plants, removing landscape fabric and plastic mulch that was used for weed prevention, drip tape, pulling out rocks that were used for holding down floating row cover, etc.  We’re considering planting Austrian Winter Pea and Cereal Rye.