CSA Week 14

We are back from our holiday on Prince Edward Island and it is decidedly fall! The trip was lovely and we had a great time exploring the eastern portion of the island. We walked many beaches, ate lots of local seafood, hiked, went apple picking, and visited several on-farm businesses. Now back to the CSA for 5 more weeks!

There are many parts of fall that I love, but cold, rainy harvest days are not one of them. Rainy harvest days in the summer are not ideal but are manageable. Rain on a cold fall day though makes harvesting tough. The biggest challenge is keeping my hands warm. Many harvesting tasks can't be done with gloves and it doesn't take long before cold, wet hands become completely immobile. While I was harvesting for our Mount Forest members today (Monday), I had to make several trips inside to run my hands under hot water so that they would work again! Some years I have gorgeous, relatively warm weather right until the last harvest and other years I'm harvesting in wet snow.

You will see some big, beautiful winter kohlrabi in your shares this week. Unlike spring kohlrabi, you will want to peel winter kohlrabi as the skin is thicker and tougher. Under the tough skin is a juicy, crisp treat. I really like kohlrabi at this time of year as it is a great foil to the heavier, starchy vegetables that dominate. When we are having a fairly starchy supper, I often make a raw kohlrabi and apple slaw to accompany it. If raw kohlrabi isn't your thing, it also roasts up nicely and is great combined with other root vegetables. 

I know many people will be excited to see arugula and spinach making a fall come-back. They are personal favourites of mine and we will see more of them before the season ends. We also have some head lettuce that is sizing up nicely as well as some salad mix, baby kale, and mustard greens. So each of the following weeks will have a nice variety of leafy greens. 

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Our winter squash harvest has been great this year and we will have lots of variety to choose from over the next few weeks. If you find that you don't eat all your squash each week, don't worry: they are cured for storage and will store well into the new year. Never put squash in the fridge or any other cold and/or humid location. Squash store best at slightly cool room temperature. A kitchen cabinet, closet, pantry, or other similar location will be just fine. To remind yourself of the squash varieties we grow, you can read this previous blog post. For squash recipe ideas, visit these sites:

​Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
​​Top 20 Winter Squash Recipes
​Roasted Black Futsu Squash with Hazelnut Sage Pesto
​Soft Pumpkin Cookies