5th Week of the Fall CSA season: Week of November 22nd

Nov 18

*overwintered onions mulched with straw, photo by Adam Ford*

CSA Balance Due

If you haven’t already paid, your balance is due this week. You can pay online through your account (with a card or e-check ACH payment), mail a check to Evening Song Farm 48 Nice Road, Cuttingsville VT 05738, leave a check or cash in the CSA cash box at the barn, send money with Venmo @eveningsongcsa, or use EBT. It’s very cool to pay in smaller chunks, just let us know what your payment plan is. Unless you email us with your payment plan, or set up a payment plan on the Farmigo dashboard, please pay for the entire season now. It saves us valuable farm work time to have payments at the beginning of the season or on a planned payment schedule. Thank you!

If you are able to pay with a check, e-check, cash, Venmo, or EBT, it saves us a considerable amount of money compared to card transactions. We know that it’s necessary for some folks to use a card, so don’t feel bad if you have to use that option. Thanks!

*baby kale in the tunnel with only a small amount of chickweed pressure, photo by Adam Ford*

*ah! baby kale in the tunnel with way too much chickweed pressure, photo by Adam Ford*

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have yellow beets, red beets, yellow potatoes, red potatoes, claytonia*, baby lettuce, baby bok choi, green curly kale bunches, lacinato kale bunches, garlic, shallots, leeks, carrots, baby carrots, Painted Mountain grain corn, brussels sprouts, watermelon radish, daikon radish, spinach, mini red lettuce heads, mini green lettuce heads, green cabbage, rutabaga, yellow onions, and Gilfeather turnip.

*Is claytonia new to you? It’s a tender, smooth, baby green, also known as “miner’s lettuce.” It’s used in salads, on sandwhiches, wraps, and our kids just eat it by the handful as a snack. It has a long, crisp stem that is delicious. I personally dislike when greens are stemmy… except claytonia. I really enjoy the textural addition of claytonia stems.

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag

Ordering closes at noon on Tuesdays for Wednesday bags, and at midnight on Wednesdays for Friday bags.

You do not need to fill out the form if you plan to come to the barn on Wednesdays or Thursdays to pick out your items yourself.

CSA pickup and delivery days and times

Farm News

We took advantage of the glorious weather at the end of last week to get all the rest of the leeks harvested and stored in the root cellar. We also got almost all of the brussels sprouts harvested and in storage for the winter. We have two more beds to harvest, and hope that we can find the least of the cold/wet days to do it soon. It’s remarkable how well they keep in the field on the stalk as long as they get a layer of row cover when the nighttime lows dip below 28. Plants are pretty magical.

Growing up, Thanksgiving was possibly my favorite holiday. My parents always hosted Thanksgiving with lots of family coming over, as well as several neighbors from our block. Everyone brought a dish to share, often from their roots of origin, so I have fond memories of non-traditional Thanksgiving fare complimenting the old favorites on the table. It felt like a great adaptation of a holiday with complicated beginnings to pause and celebrate sharing a meal in suburban New Jersey. When growing food started to become a hobby in my life, it was really exciting to have parts of that meal be from something I grew, providing that extra layer of gratitude for abundance. Over time, as growing food became a profession, our Thanksgiving table is lucky to have almost everything sourced from the land we steward. Now instead of it being a novelty one or two ingredients came from my garden (“I grew these potatoes for the mashed potatoes!”)… the anomaly now is more like “the eggs in the cornbread are from a neighbor’s farm, and the salt in the cornbread still comes from the store.” As farmers, our food blessings extend throughout the year, so it takes a little bit more intention to make this holiday special for our kids, since they are so accustomed to getting ingredients from the walk in cooler or the garden to help with dinner.

Hope you all have a nourishing and relaxing Thanksgiving meal, however you may celebrate. We are thankful to be able to run this farm in this community and receive all the support we do (from you!) through having such a vibrant CSA community. Thanks for choosing to get your veggies from this farm. We could not do what we do without all of you.

Have a great week,

-ESF Team: Ryan, Kara, Cindy, Galen, Katie, K2, Taylor, Vanessa, and Tabita (and Sky and Soraya)

Recipe Inspiration for Thanksgiving Week

I love trying something new for Thanksgiving, whether it’s a new side side or appetizer, and I often just sift through the Smitten Kitchen website for new ideas. For this week, I linked below to a few of her delightful sounding recipes for a potential Thanksgiving table appearance.

Schmaltzy Cabbage

Cabbage and Mushroom Galette

Twice Baked Potatoes With Kale

Kale Salad

Kale and Carmelized Onion Stuffing

Leek Toast