Dear Farm Friends,
Have you noticed the brilliant gold of the cottonwoods along the riverbank? The streaks of larch on the hills? The aspen, if you are lucky enough to have a favorite grove? We have appreciated them more than ever this October, because this is the first fall in the last three years that the weather has turned gradually enough to give the trees a chance to prepare In 2019 and in 2020, sub-zero winter weather arrived in mid-October after a very mild fall, and leaves froze green, dropped brown, and quite a few of our (and many others’) fruit trees did not survive the shock.
Crops covered in frost cloth, moody October skies, and trees actually turning.
We survived those freezes, of course, but we do bear the scars. The keen memory of trying, as a last-ditch effort, to secure row cover over a block of carrot beds, as 30-mph winds drove snow sideways and ripped it from our hands. The aftermath that failure, hours spend cutting the freeze-damaged top two inches of of hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of carrots (critical to our winter sales, since that was also the season that hail smashed summer crops). The beds of beets, frozen in the field, all of this after having pushed so hard for so many days to bring in as much as we could. Our niece Kayla cutting the entire bed of mint in a wet snow. Those two Octobers will probably haunt us for the rest of our farming days, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Even short-handed this year, we were braced, always, for the possibility of those deep freezes. We started the push to harvest storage crops early, squash and potatoes in September, beets, carrots, a constant drumbeat of “we have to bring it it…have to bring it in.”
And somehow, this year, with a nice succession of gentle frosts and freezes starting in August, we are remembering how lovely fall can be. There are still some crops out there, attempting a little bit of bulking up, or tempting fate a tiny bit, as we juggle various other tasks—a few more carrot beds, the leeks and scallions, the slowest of the storage cabbage varieties, all on the docket for harvest next week or as soon as possible, one eye always on the forecast. There are still haunting fears too—of whether and how we’ll get to the finish stages of that packshed build, especially knowing the fall field cleanup and crops still to come in. But we are reminding ourselves that we have had, compared to the last few years, a much gentler transition this year.
These greens could be yours in November and December!
You might think, with all of that easing towards winter, we’d have given you a long lead-up to signups for our winter farm membership, but frankly we focused first on bringing in the food, and trusted that the people would follow! But, with the first pickup of winter food just two and a half weeks away, we are just now opening the gates for signups for the winter eating. Farm members had first shot at signups over the last few days, and have excitedly filled up about the first 30% of the 75 memberships. At this point, sign-up is open to everyone, and we do hope many of you will join us. Last year the winter shares filled up quickly, so we encourage you to get in soon if you want to lock in that winter eating.
If you want all the details, or if you know you are ready to enroll, you can jump right to the simple web form here, and get yourself signed on!
This is only our second year of winter memberships, so we continue to grow our winter program slowly, as this is the new frontier of growing and eating for us. It still feels like a bit of a big deal, farming in winter in Montana. But can I tell you something amazing? Last year we never ended up using the frozen kale and spinach we put up….because we had it fresh all winter long! This year we have space for 75 farm member households, but we have carefully calculated what it will take to feed those members with storage crops like cabbage, squash, potatoes, beets, carrots, radishes, onions, and garlic (literally labeled and set aside for certain weeks of the membership), as well as weekly harvests of fresh greens like spinach, tatsoi, winter salad mix, kale, chard, and more. The first winter term, 7 weeks long, costs $275, and will run from November 10th to December 22nd. We’ll decide the parameters of the second winter term in December, based on how the greens and storage crops are holding out.
Winter kale and chard, with newly moved caterpillar tunnel.
If a membership isn’t quite a good fit for you, don’t worry; there is plenty stored up and planned for stocking the farmstore too. Even after these last two weeks of market are over, you’ll be able to drop by the farm to load up on produce.
More winter greens than ever…Tunnel 1: baby leaves for mild winter salad mix.
Farm members: this Saturday marks the start of the final week of your feedbag membership! It’s been 6 whole months, 27 weeks of filling, and we do hope you have loved it. Be sure to visit us at market, or at the farm this week for your last bag-fill of the main season! Market friends, we have this and one more Saturday, with the market pared down to one block, but complete with (we think) the very best of the farms…SweetRoot, MGVC, and Ian and Ellen will snuggled a little closer together this Saturday, but all still close to our usual positions on Bedford street, and hopefully joined by some other hardy vendors. The farmstore, of course, continues to be open as always!
However you get the veggies, keep on eating!
-Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm