Spinach loves cold weather and December spinach is some of the best.
Greetings, farm friends!
We hope that this almost-winter season is treating you well, and we wanted to reach out with a few quick bits of farm news. First, it's with a bit of amazement and some satisfaction that we report that there are still fresh greens in the farmstore! We stretched our growing deeper than ever into late fall and winter this year, and we've been reveling in the luxury of fresh spinach salads, Swiss chard to sauté, and deep green tatsoi on top of everything. The farmstore is currently stocked with spinach, Asian mix, boc choi, tatsoi, and very tender small-leafed green chard, plus the very last harvest of arugula for the year. There are of course the storage crops too: squash and pumpkins, potatoes, garlic, carrots, beets, and cabbage, as well, but it may be the greens that are the most exciting.
Some of the late season plantings were to make up from our midsummer losses to hail, but some of it has also been about learning and testing. And that includes both learning about the best cold-weather varieties and techniques, but also about how we feel about winter growing. We've been finding ourselves drawn to the additional challenge and puzzle, and the extra satisfaction of providing fresh food to our community (and our table!) over a month past the end of market.
But having fresh greens into December has also re-confirmed our need to create an adequate space for washing and packing what we manage to grow, if we want to provide that winter produce. People often ask what we do during the winter, and much of the answer is research, learning, and planning. A number of consults with farmer-friends and advisors are on the schedule for this month, as we try to work out the best way to not only grow, but also harvest and prepare, year-round local veggies for you all. In the meantime, we'll try to harvest whenever we can run water in liquid form, and keep you posted on what is available in the farmstore! And when necessary, we have put up signs to let you know that spinach is un-washed and will need a rinse at home. Thank you for your patience with our developing systems, and above all thank you for continuing to support local farmers by not forgetting about us in the wintertime! It has been so exciting to realize how many of you will keep coming and buying whatever is green, as long as we can keep it coming. Thank you!
Zukes is a farmer's winter role model, the most accomplished and luxuriant sleeper on the farm. He still works hard, but boy does he rest up in cold weather.
And then there are the chickens and the eggs. Have you noticed a bit of mobile chicken-barn congestion around the farmstore parking area? Or maybe done a double-take when a whole new chicken barn seemed to appear out of nowhere, overnight? While Noah is getting fast at building these, the second barn that is currently front and center is not brand-new, but "just" a remodel. You may not have seen it in a while, as it was on pasture far to the back of the farm all season, with the oldest flock of laying hens, who are now stewing hens in various freezers.
There's a big re-allocation of housing going on right now, as that barn gets a major remodel and becomes home to the current laying flock, so that the 230 rapidly growing chicks can be split between our two biggest barns, one of which currently houses the current laying flock, which will move into the new remodel. If that got confusing, you're not alone; slotting everyone into good spaces with the least amount of wintertime building, remodeling, and investment, is practically a poultry version of a Rubix cube, but Noah has it all under control. He estimates that this round of building and upgrading of barns is the equivalent, in both cost and person-hours, to building one of our 30 x 60 high tunnels, which we have gotten own to about 200 hours of labor each. Egg production, at least egg production of the quality and style that we hold our farm to, is a major investment in infrastructure, which is part of why we haven't been able to magically and instantaneously keep up with the customer demand for our eggs.
With winter conditions and minimal lighting on the current 1.5 year old laying flock of around 90 hens, we get only about 5 dozen eggs a day (and if you do the math, it's actually a really good rate of laying), compared to the 10-12 dozen in late summer or early fall, before the oldest flock shut down. This means, fundamentally, that we cannot produce enough eggs to meet demand until the 9-week-old flock starts to lay in mid to late February. We currently do not recommend coming to the farmstore if eggs are the only item on your list. Your odds of success are low, so please only come if you are looking for vegetables, but are happy to add eggs as well if you happen to get so lucky.
We also currently do not recommend asking Mary "are there any eggs?" as it is likely to be the tenth time she's had the question that day, which often makes her grit her teeth and give chickens dirty looks. You can ask Noah, but at your own risk, as he's likely to talk you into buying a stewing hen instead. There will be more eggs in February. In the meantime, how about a lovely baked potato with spinach on top?
As the true start of winter approaches, we expect to have at least a few more weeks of fresh greens, and for roots to stay stocked in the farmstore well into winter. We'll be here too, whether you see us or not, as we delve into planning next year's crops, getting that seed order in, and maybe even getting a little bit of rest.
With wintery gratitude and never enough eggs,
Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm
It's not a modern art installation, it's the latest chicken-barn upgrade, and the poultry mastermind at work.