Harvest Notes Week 16

​Kale These bunches are from our fall planting of kale and they herald the return of cool weather greens season. The leaves are tender and excellent for massaged kale salads, sautéed greens, soups, and so on.


Carrots We had a group of kids out to the farm this week from Salisbury Central’s after school enrichment program and I can’t even describe their joy at yanking on fresh carrot greens to reveal the orange below. We hope these carrots bring you as much joy as they brought to the kids!


Sweet Peppers Try roasting these if you haven’t yet. The flavor concentrates and it is super yum. Overwhelmed by all the peppers? Consider freezing them to enjoy this winter when a fresh sweet pepper is a distant memory. Just slice and bag in a freezer zip-loc. When you pull them out of the freezer they go well into stir-fries and soups.


Cayenne The small red peppers are spicy cayenne. The seeds are the hottest part so if you just want to add a little spice to a dish, try using just the red flesh.


Potatoes We don’t wash the potatoes so they’ll store well for you. If you don’t want to use them this week, simply put them in a plastic bag and keep in the fridge until you are ready to use them. They’ll store for months that way since they haven’t been washed yet!


Dill Potato salad? Creamed spinach with dill? Persian dill rice? Or maybe just a simple salad dressing with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and dill.


Onions These are strong- they’ll definitely make you cry when you chop! They may have some aesthetic problems on the skin but they are yummy and should store well on your counter top.


Paste Tomatoes The narrow, oblong shaped tomatoes are often referred to as paste tomatoes or sauce tomatoes. They aren’t as juicy as slicing tomatoes and thus are more often used to make sauce since you don’t have to boil them down as long to get that concentrated tomato flavor. They are also often used for pico de gallo to get a firmer tester with less juice. That said, I make sauce out of slicing tomatoes all the time and salsa too and it’s all delicious! We grow two varieties of paste tomatoes, San Marzanos (a classic Italian type) and Speckled Roman (a gorgeous and delicious heirloom with golden stripes).


Cucumbers Our fall succession of cukes keeps valiantly putting out a small number each week!


Slicing Tomatoes The round tomatoes in your share are classically thought of as being suited for salads, sandwiches and, if you’re my seven year old, simply being sliced up and salted for raw consumption. Remember that there is a range of ripeness among your tomatoes so you can eat the ripest first and keep the less ripe ones on your counter top for a few days.