Greetings Country Valley Farm Members,
This is week 20 of the season. For our 30-week members, we continue to distribute shares until the last week of Autumn (December 18th).
For folks that signed up for less than 30 weeks, and want to extend their share, we welcome extensions and can coordinate with you if you are interested in doing so.
If you currently pick up your share but would like to add home delivery, we can do that also. Just let Adam know.
What’s going on at the Farm:
We have had 2 frosts and are expecting an actual hard freeze tonight. All of the bean rows on our farm were already impacted by the cold and did not come to fruition. While this is a big loss in terms of the amount of work it took to prep those beds, plant the beans, and cultivate them towards an expected harvest; it is all part of farming in Michigan and we accept it. Also, beans are nitrogen fixing legumes, so while we didn’t get a harvest we are getting a soil health benefit that will support the spring crops that will grow in those beds next year. We also are getting greens beans from Cinzori Farm that will be included in this week’s shares.
The lettuces are doing well and all of those beds are covered and should continue for another few weeks or so.
The fall radishes and other baby greens are growing well and will hopefully continue so they can be harvested in coming weeks.
We will have cilantro in the shares next week. Our second planting of dill has not reached a cuttable size yet, we expect tonight’s freeze may end that crop before it’s time.
The tomatoes are done, there was a lot of fruit that we had hoped would ripen, but it didn’t like the cold and split and cracked and isn’t harvestable.
We cut all the pepper plants in advance of the freeze, and will have baby sweet peppers in the shares next week.
The broccoli is slow to head up. We planted 256 plants some time ago so we’d have a fall harvest for the shares. A few plants made crowns already but not enough to include in the shares yet. Broccoli is very cold tolerant and we are hopeful that more plants will produce crowns soon.
The fall turnips are doing great and will rotate through the shares in the coming weeks.
We have lots of potatoes and garlic left.
Other herbs like rosemary, sage, thyme, and lavender are also somewhat cold hardy and will be in the shares in the coming weeks.
We are still harvesting kales and collards, and those will also be in the shares in the coming weeks.
Cinzori Farm will be providing us with lots of varieties of hard squashes, onions, cabbages, root veggies and fall greens, and other items in the weeks to come.
Almar Orchards is reporting this is a good apple year, and will have plenty of fresh apples for us to get through the season in a good way.
We will likely resume including Microgreens and Sprouts from Gardenworks once the lettuce is done for the season – to keep things fresh and exciting.
We are planning to start to plant our garlic crop soon and hope to have it all in the ground before the end of this month. In past years we have planted it in November, which is okay but is really cold to be bending over thousands of times as each clove must be hand planted one at a time 
.
The asparagus beds are almost done being weeded. We will amend those beds with organic inputs this fall and look forward to a nice crop next spring.
This week’s small shares contain the following items:
- Red romaine lettuce – 1 head from our farm
- Cortland apples – 4 from Almar Orchard
- Orange large sweet peppers – 4 from Cinzori Farm
- Red long of tropea onions – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm
- Acorn squash – 2 from Cinzori Farm
- Green Beans – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm
- Medium shares will receive extra apples, peppers, and squash
- Large shares will packed as 2 small shares.
Some preparation and cooking tips:
- Red romaine lettuce – we hope everyone is enjoying the lettuce. It is different than store bought lettuce, more tender and much fresher, with a more complex flavor.
- Cortland apples – a wonderful heirloom variety, these apples are excellent for fresh eating and famous for making apple sauce, also great for baking
- Orange large sweet peppers – a nice thick walled, non-bell sweet pepper. Great raw or cooked.
- Red long of tropea onions – an heirloom cylindrical shaped onion originally from the Mediterranean. These are nice and sweet and have a shorter storage life than regular onions.
- Acorn squash – a standard favorite among hard squashes. Safety tip – you can wash and cook the squash whole and then cut it after it has cooked and cooled some. Remember to roast the seeds for a healthy locally grown fat and protein source and yummy snack.
- Green beans – this will be the last week for this summer favorite.
Check out our website and peruse old newsletters for additional cooking tips and recipe ideas: https://countryvalleyfarm.com/newsletter/
That’s all for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon.
Adam Mitchel
Country Valley Farm