Broccoli is Back!

We’re back in broccoli business! The fall variety you’re receiving is called Marathon, and it’s aptly named: last year we were still harvesting broccoli sideshoots for our own dinners until March! The onset of fall broccoli also marks the beginning of other fall Brassica harvests. In the coming weeks you can look forward to Romanesco (the lime green spiraled minaret cauliflower that so many of you love), Brussels sprouts, cabbage, giant kohlrabi, turnips, radishes, and pac choi. Fall food is here!

Bread!

Seth will be at the Coos Bay, Bandon and Port Orford pickup sites this week to sample and sell bread. For folks who pick up at the farm, Seth can’t be at the Coos Bay site and the farm site at the same time, so he’ll catch you next week – or come to the farmstand on Saturday. He’ll be there.

Red Onion Upset, Winter Squash Breakthrough

Storage crops like onions and squash can be tricky. They mature at the onset of Fall, right when the weather starts to get iffy. The problem is that they need good stretches of warm, dry weather to cure properly – usually in late September and early October. Some years we get lucky and the sun shines for us right when we need it to. This year has been a different story, with ample rain the past few weeks literally dampening our efforts to get critical storage crops out of the field. It can be a stressful time, with so much invested in thousands of feet of winter squash and onions.

A week ago it became very clear that the weather was not going to cooperate for squash harvest, so we improvised. Fortunately, I had purchased 200 stacking harvest bins from a winery earlier in the summer, which turned out to be the perfect container for indoor curing of squash (as opposed to curing them in the field). The sun broke through last Monday, and again on Thursday, enabling us to harvest three of our seven winter squash varieties. We loaded them into the totes, drove them to town, and unloaded them in tall stacks into the insulated shop at our house. I plugged in an oil heater and we suddenly had the 80 degree, dry conditions that we needed to properly cure the squash. Who knows what our electric bill is going to be this month, but hopefully it’ll be a small price to pay for a winter’s worth of squash for everyone. It was a relief to realize that we had back-up options, for those years when the weather doesn’t do our bidding.

The red onions are not such a happy story. They like to dry for up to 3 weeks with their tops and roots on before getting cleaned. We don’t have enough covered space to keep them, so we usually spread the harvest out on pallets in the shade of one of our big myrtle trees. This season they only got a week of curing time before we cleaned them, due to a threatening forecast. As a result, they didn’t dry 100% and we’re now seeing extensive mold and rot at the base and tops of the onions. We’ve been sorting them for the past two weeks and donating boxloads of them to the foodbank. I fear they won’t last many more weeks. This is why you’re seeing red onions again this week, instead of yellow onions or shallots (both of which seem to be storing better than the reds). I decided it was better to give out the red onions quickly and then switch to the better-keeping varieties later in the fall.

The long-term solution to our onion challenge is going to take the form of stacking drying racks. Once I replace my stolen tools, we’re going to build a bunch so that next season we can cure the onions under cover, in vertical stacks that won’t take up as much of a footprint in our limited shed space. Losing a whole crop like this is motivation to invest in a drying system that will help stave off future storage crop disappointments.

In your share this week:

• Head Lettuce
• Carrots
• Red Onions
• Parsley
• Sweet Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Lacinato Kale
• Potatoes
• Broccoli

Kitchen Tips

Don’t forget to visit the Recipe Wizard to find ingredient-specific recipes, or go to the Recipe Exchange if you have a recipe you’d like to share with everyone!

Please note: all of our produce is field-rinsed, not washed. We recommend you wash all of your produce before eating it.

Lacinato Kale

A beauty of a kale, and the most beloved in Italy, lacinato kale carries many different names: dinosaur kale, cavalo nero, black tuscan kale, and more. But what's in a name? That which we call lacinato kale by any other name would taste as sweet.

And sweet this kale can be, especially after a frost. It hasn’t gotten cold enough yet for the sugars to fully develop in the kales, but the flavor is excellent nevertheless. One of my favorite combos using lacinato is this: sautee onion or leek in butter or olive oil until soft and caramelized; add chanterelles (or other mushrooms) and slices of beets and cook until soft; then add sliced red peppers and ribbons of lacinato. Sautee until everything is tender. It’s simple and exquisite. Great on pasta, or with rice, or as a spread on Seth’s bread. Or all on it’s own.

Storage: in a plastic bag in the fridge. Will hold for a week or two. Or, put it in a vase of water and let your kale do double duty as décor and dinner.