• Carrots
• Red Cabbage
• Winter Kohlrabi
• Red Onion
• Hakurei Turnips
• Delicata Winter Squash
• Kale
• Winter Crisp Lettuce or Bunched Greens

Shifting Into Winter

As lovely as it was to sail through our big Thanksgiving harvest under sunny skies last week, it feels good to hear the rain on the roof today (and, er, watch the clogged gutter spilling over at the edge of the porch....apparently I forgot to clean that one). This is our second-to-last CSA harvest of the year; next week will be your final Harvest Basket delivery before we put the farm to bed for a little winter break. But in the meantime, be sure you pick up your produce this week and next:

• Last pickup for Coos Bay and the Farm is on Wednesday, December 7th
• Last pickup for Port Orford and Bandon is on Saturday, December 10th

Like many farmers I know, I relish winter. After the relentless pace of a long growing season, I fall into winter like a a marathon runner collapsing over the finish line. It's my moment to slow down, delete a lot of weekly reminders off my phone, and to spend time doing other things while the fields lie dormant (goofing with my kids, seeking out the snow, hiking along our beautiful coast, stealing sunny days for horseback rides, having dinner with friends, saying yes to more spontaneity). Perhaps my favorite winter indulgence is that half hour in the evening - after the kids have gone to bed and while the woodstove is still blazing - when I curl up with a good book and give myself a half hour to read while the dog twitches out her mysterious puppy dreams on the rug. 

Winter is also essential for fixing, building, oiling, repairing, tuning-up and finding re-inspiration in the new seed catalogues that have started arriving in the mailbox everyday. We have some significant projects in the works for this winter: a farmstand remodel, a new equipment shed, and an additional walk-in cooler. In the office, crop planning for the 2023 season is already underway and will be my primary focus for the next month, with the goal of having our seed orders submitted by early January. Then, by early February the greenhouse begins to fill up with starts once again and we pop out of Persephone* into the beginning of Spring. Ah Winter, so fleeting....and in all truth, never as "slow" as I imagine it will be. But it's slowER, looser, a little less scripted, and that unto itself offers some rejuvenation. 

*Persephone is the window of time when we have less than 10 hours of daylight, during which plants are mostly dormant. At our latitude, Persephone begins around mid-November and ends in early February (12 short weeks of the year when plants aren't entirely bossing us around). The story of Persephone is one of my all-time favorite Greek myths.