Harvest Notes - Week 22

Adamah Fellow Robert harvests beets from our High Tunnel. Growing veggies in unheated greenhouses like these is one of the strategies we use to continue delivering CSA shares when frost covers the ground outside. Our other key methods include planting enough cold tolerant veggies like kale, bok choi and parsley for late-season harvest and maintaining quality storage conditions for crops we harvested before the weather turned so cold like onions and winter squash.

We've been seeding cover crops to protect the soil and add organic matter to areas like this one that grew turnips and radishes this year.

The process marks a fond "See you later" to the ground that offered up so much food this season.

Curly Kale I made the crispiest batch of kale chips with these curly leaves last week- my trick was to make sure the leaves were completely dry before massaging a little olive oil, salt, and nutritional yeast into them. I spread them out in a very thin layer on a baking sheet without allowing any leaves to overlap. They took about 25 minutes to crisp up at 300 degrees in the oven.

Parsley Don’t forget- you can always dry your parsley if you don’t use it fresh. Hang it upside down in a well ventilated area and- Wallah!

Radishes Give a bit of a bite to your salads or stir-fries.

Purple Top Storage Turnips The turnips you received earlier in the season wouldn’t store for more than a week and they were easy to eat raw. In contrast, these are best cooked (thick slices roasted in the oven with a little oil and salt, blended into soups, etc.) and they will literally store all winter!

Onion These are storing well and should last for months.

Salad Mix This mix is heavy on lettuce and arugula with just a bit of the more diverse mustard greens.

Beets The greens can be used just as you would chard or spinach and the roots of these cylindrical heirlooms are sweet and juicy. Grate them for raw salad, make them into borscht or other soups, steam them top a bed of salad greens with them, or roast them for candied vegetables.

Bok Choi All parts of these big bok choi heads are delicious so you can use the crunchy ribs as well as the dark leafy greens.

Butternut Squash This classic squash stores better than the rest. Its particularly smooth texture lends itself well to blended soups and the flavor combines well with sweet ingredients or curries.