Harvest Week 20 - Fall Mode

THIS WEEK’S HARVEST

In a nutshell: Lots of long-maturing, frost-kissed, heading veggies — we’re in the pocket in Fall mode.

Mustard Mix, Little Gem Lettuces, Curly Endive, White Russian Kale, Green Magic Broccoli, Romanesco, Beets, Napa Cabbage, Celery, Sweet Peppers, Poblano Peppers, Romance Carrots, Bonbon Buttercup Winter Squash, Elsye Onions, Harvest Moon Potatoes

U-PICK

  • Albion Strawberries: 1 pint per share

  • Herbs: Only the hardiest of the herbs remain in small quantities: Parsley, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Oregano, Thyme, French Sorrel.

  • Flowers: The flowers have also been kissed by frost, so expect only a smattering of the hardiest blooms.

HARVEST NOTES

  • Curly Endive: While it may look a lot like Frisée, we find this variety of Curly Endive much more delicious for individual eating. It’s succulent and mild enough to be used as a salad green on its own, particularly when matched with bold flavors, like the Easy Ceasar Dressing recipe below, or pickled beets and blue cheese, for example. Also great braised or cooked as you would any chicory.

  • Bonbon Buttercup Winter Squash: In your farmers’ opinion, the best squash ever bred. Ultra sweet and flaky, this squash is like a dessert all on its own. Also great for use in any of your favorite Winter Squash dishes.

With last week’s frosts nipping most of the garden flowers, we look back with nostalgia and wistfulness at an amazing year of flowers. Thank you Kayta and our garden & greenhouse manager Paige!

Easy Ceasar Dressing

From Smitten Kitchen

We’ve been obsessed with this super-simple, easy Ceasar dressing that Rose of Pink Barn Farm introduced us to last winter. It comes together really quickly and provides a perfectly sharp counterbalance to hearty greens like this week’s Curly Endive, and White Russian Kale. We’ve scaled the recipe up here to make a full pint of dressing — enough for several days of generous salads, but if you’d rather make a smaller amount, check out the recipe link above. As with all dressing recipes, using high quality ingredients — particularly olive oil and mayonnaise — will make a big difference.

  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise

  • 4 small garlic cloves, minced

  • 4 teaspoons worcestershire sauce or 1 to 2 anchovies, minced

  • 4 teaspoons smooth dijon mustard

  • 1/4 cup lemon juice or champagne vinegar

  • 1 cup olive oil

  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Whisk all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until smooth, or measure directly into a pint jar and shake til smooth. Don’t skimp on the salt and pepper; they’re going to wake the whole thing up.

WINTER SISTER FARM CSA SIGN-UPS NOW OPEN!

Winter Sister Farm’s 2024 Winter CSA program is now open for registration! Winter Sister Farm, right next door to us, was started by our dear friends Anna and Sarah Dozor. Their CSA has a late-start option for WCCF members, running from December 30 through May 15th. Their CSA is a 24 weeks of the highest quality specialty winter veggies, flowers, herbs, and more — all picked up free-choice market style, on their beautiful farm here on Cooper Rd! Sign-up today!

Freehand Bakery’s Last Week!

We’re sorry to say that this Tuesday will be Freehand Bakery’s last week of the season, as the bakery space they rent will be unavailable for the next couple months. Make sure to stock up, and look forward to eating more of their incredible breads and pastries at Winter Sister Farm this winter!

FARMER’S LOG

FALL MODE

Another busy week in the fields! This week, like the last few, had at its center bulk harvest, harvest, harvest and cover cropping!

Last Saturday we had a big team led by Anayeli and Alberto out to help us finish harvesting the last third of this year’s magnificent potato crop and our popcorn and Hopi Blue corn. The corn is now drying in the greenhouse for late-Fall shares, and our hoard of 12,000 + lbs of potatoes is piled high in the big cooler.

On Wednesday and Thursday our amazing core crew worked hard to get in the very last bed and final gleanings of the potatoes (another 1,000 lbs!) as well as the Watermelon Radishes, Beets for storage, and 100 ft of Bolero Carrots, whose tops are sugar-sweet from last week’s frosts.

Tristan was racing the coming rains by hustling to plant cover crop on the last big field blocks vacated by the corn, Jack-O-Lanterns, and Potatoes. His cover cropping efforts are really starting to show and bless the farm with their green promise a delicious 2024.

Cover crop sprouting happily next to the drying Hopi Blue corn stalks.

For our cover crop, we seed a nitrogen-fixing, organic-matter-building mixture of Magnus Peas, Dundale Peas, Crimson Clover, Vetch and Triticale on pretty much every inch we planted this year. You can see the hyper-green fuzz of early cover crop sprouts out in Centerfield and Farfield. If we have a relatively mild winter (i.e. not an excessive amount of flooding) this fuzz will be let to grow into a waist high sea of green. This crop will feed, enrich, and build the soil for 2024’s bounty, and for many years to come. (A healthy cover crop stand can generate over 8,000lbs of biomass per acre. It's like growing a huge pile of compost out of thin air — right where you need it!)

In Sonoma County, it is best to plant your cover crop seed in low spots by mid-to-late-October… early-November at the latest. Any later and you risk colder temperatures and soggy soil inhibiting the germination of the cover crop seed and your fields laying relatively naked through the winter. So, this coming week, we will say farewell to the tomato trellises and the frying peppers and the spent flower beds of summer — they must now make way for a dense, lush, life-giving cover crop.

On the fresh harvest today we looked out at our bank of happy Fall crops in Farfield, chilling out there in this cooler weather — and brought in some amazing Broccoli, Romanesco, and a new (to us) Curly Endive that was so delicious we couldn’t stop tasting it as the harvest knives sang.

Enjoy the frost kissed bounty!

See you in the fields,
David & Kayta