This is about as simple as it gets this with a stove and a pot: turnips, simmering in water with a little salt. There’s a quite a bit, and I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with it afterwards, besides eating it—maybe freeze some. Possibilities, possibilities. They’re from Shannon‘s farm, harvested last fall—ironically, for local food, it made a 1500 km (930 mi) journey from field to table, but that was with me along for the ride. Anyhow, stretching the stored food while waiting for a new season’s fresh harvest!
Veggies
Winter persists
Wintry-looking winter is hanging around for a bit, with a little more snow adding to the fairly massive fall a few days ago. It’s already clear that we can expect anything, any time, from the weather, still, I was hoping for a bit of a warm and summery winter, like last year! Oh, well. The main stacks of firewood split last spring have been pretty much burnt down to the ground in all the cold snaps. Now, snow everywhere but not so cold. It’s an in-between feeling month of February, waiting is in the air…
Snowstorm
Just snow. At least a foot down in the last few hours and still falling, fast and blowing a bit, but far from what I’d call a blizzard. Pretty! Next, warm and raining forecast for a couple days from now to take it all away. Up to a couple of years ago, I still hung on to the idea of an annual schedule for when to start and stop watching the daily weather that would mark the beginning and end of the growing season. Now, it’s take it as it comes, any time. Always exciting! (Where did the woodpile go?)
It’s crispy out there
It’s crispy out there. The latest crazy weather trick seems to winter acting like…winter. Except colder. And with less snow. Still, the sun is getting higher, the days are getting longer, another season in the field…comin’ up! I’m quite excited!! (In the pic, next year’s firewood is a real wood pile, a motley assortment of softwood, hardwood, and the occasional bits of lumber, gathered from around the farm, and so much of it that it was easier to cut, split and pile for a while and sort and stack later.)
Winter market: third week!
Third week of our first winter farmers’ market and it’s going great. So far, the weather hasn’t been bad, so it doesn’t seem entirely radical to have freshly harvested greens and carrots this late in the season, but it’s still quite a novelty at our market. One other small farm is doing the same season extension stuff for the first time this year, which is cool, it makes the idea of fresh, local food well past the usual outdoor season seem…doable. Which it obviously is. After the last few years of ending the market, outdoors, on the last Saturday of October, being up and running this late in the year feels excellent, and going till Christmas will be fun. Only downside of being indoors here is the rather ghastly lighting, but like most things, you get used to it, and warm is good. On the stand today (and almost sold out by mid-morning): carrots (Nelson), spinach (Bloomsdale), mizuna, mustard, arugula, everything harvested yesterday.
Garlic goes in again
Yep, like just about every year, the new growing season starts here with fall garlic planting. Miserable, damp day, though not so cold. Andrea M (close) and Rochelle (far) are working on different sections to hedge bets on which areas of the field dry out first in case of a disastrously wet spring. Crafty! The little metal pails, paint pails that happen to be from…Home Depot, turn out to be perfect for this job (they’re useful all over the place). Handy!