Dear Farm Friends,
On a recent Sunday, while Noah made a run to Missoula for some critical building supplies for the crew starting the next morning, I was headed home to ostensibly clean up and detail some of the planning for the week. As usual, the kitchen housed a farmer’s mountain of dirty dishes, dog hair was drifting on the floor, and muddy farm work clothes lurked in piles in unexpected places. But more than anything I was suddenly seized by a wave of fear that if we did not can that 5-pound bag of pickling cukes left over from market, we would absolutely miss our chance and we’d pass a sad pickle-less winter wishing that we had taken the time. The dill was just 100 feet outside our back door in North Block One, there were already farmer grade garlic and peppers on the counter, so I went for it. It was not a huge batch, but a reassuring little section of our pantry now holds pickles, and I’m glad I did it, even if it did mean that much of the mess was mostly still there at the end of the week.
The score: pickles 7, dishes 0.
As the frosts continue to make more regular visits, and get steadily more serious, it’s a good time to remind you that tomato and pepper season doesn’t last forever either. They both made it through last night’s chill (27 degrees here from 5 to 7 am) in their tunnels and we have a mountain for market, but more frosts will be coming. I’m sorry to report that the cucumbers, which were out in the field, are now done. There are many lovely fall crops on the way to take their places, but it’s a good reminder that the seasons are changing. Now is the time to buy those tomato flats and can or freeze your salsa or your pasta sauces!
Our most-favorite method for tomato-based sauces, especially if you have room in your freezer (so you don’t have to follow a canning recipe) is to throw tomatoes, garlic, onion, and sweet peppers, maybe also some eggplant, together in a shallow baking dish or cast iron pan and roast around 350 for a few hours, till everything melts, carmelizes, and concentrates. We then blend it with an immersion blender for a smooth sauce, or leave it chunky, and freeze it in glass containers or ziplock bags after it cools. Pull it out in winter for pasta sauce, or blending with a good broth for a summer-flavor soup. Any fresh herbs you like go in great.
It’s also time for fermenting….if you attended last weekend’s Bacteria Bazaar classes, or got inspired just from hearing about it, we can supply even the most enthusiastic home fermenters right now, with cabbage for sauerkraut, napa cabbage, carrots, radishes, and peppers for kimchi, hot peppers for chili pastes, and more With more fall harvests coming in, and walk-in space filling up quickly, we would *love* to supply folks with bulk deals for putting up and fermenting. We’ll have some huge cabbages at market, perfect for sauerkraut (including the sweet Bavarian pointy ones), and sign-ups for for some other bulk deals—some we can set you up with right at market, like 5-pound sweet pepper bags, ten-pound bags of beets, and flats of tomatoes. Others will be best picked up on the farm during our hosted time on Tuesday.
In other news from the farm, the new packshed continues to come together, bit by bit. It has been rather amazing to watch the progress and Dave, Ed, and Will, supported by Noah’s constant gathering and prepping of materials (and sometimes everyone from the farm team for certain steps), have put together all the pieces of our scattered piles of reclaimed materials into a coherent building. We walk through it in its partially built state, and review the layout that we spent so much time designing last winter: “here’s the farmstore, this will be the path for a rolling cart to go from the walk-in cooler to restock. Next fall, if we have a sudden freeze, we can drop macro-bins of roots in this door, squash over there…” We can picture the smooth layout of the greens washing line, the packing areas. It’s taking shape, though still such a long ways to go. We are excited for it, and also at the very same time exhausted by it. Even with some hired contractors, this build has pushed us just slightly beyond what we can actually handle. It’s not a conventional building project, in any sense of the word and Noah takes charge of all the details with all the experience of years of marshaling many flocks of laying hens. As I write this newsletter, Noah is on his way back from Missoula, where he purchased one of the few stacks of new materials (metal siding for an area that does need to be clean and cleanable). He’ll be sneaking away after market setup again tomorrow, to prep more lumber, cut sheets of metal to length, and various other steps to get things set for the building team to have another productive week.
The same simultaneous exhaustion and excitement, encapsulates so much of fall. The food is so good, but harvests are heavy, the days are still long, and some pushes and deadlines are non-negoatiable. Cold weather is not very open to compromise, so it’s up to us to get creative. Every week from here on out, we work on getting one more block of storage crops in. This week included the first wave of bulk beets (beet picklers and kvass makers, we’ve got you covered), and most sensitive, clipping the winter squash, pie pumpkins, and gourds. Crawling through the dry scratchy vines in 80 degree sun, but knowing the frost was coming that night was such a feeling of conflicting fall. For the first time, for us, we did not pick up the squash immediately from the field as we cut, but piled it into windrows in the field to get some more sun, waiting for the onions curing on the nursery tables to finish their process and make way for squash. It’s a tricky little dance, and we ended up needing to put row cover over three of our beds of piled squash, but it made it through last nights frosts well, and we’ll be getting in to the nursery to finish sun-curing safely, as soon as we can. Later this fall, our new nursery will also start to take shape as part of our “FoodShed (that’s what we are calling this building that has such potential to transform our farm life), and we’re excited for how the expanded space will allow for easier fall curing as well as adequate space for spring seedlings.
A farmstore friend (and Malaya) help break in an outside work area by roasting peppers this past Tuesday.
Squash rows covered for a frosty night.
Meanwhile, in the North garden, plants are doing their own amazing building….bit by bit, fueled by sunshine even as the days get shorter. If you think that new farm center building is quite the feat (and it is), consider this: carrots, beets, turnips, and all the leafy greens are out there in the back field taking those tiny bits of molecules, breaking C02 and re-assembling it into starches, sugars, cellulose to make crunchy leafy bites, all on solar power. They are building your winter fuel for you, all on their own. Sometimes I like to think about how many pounds of carrots one sunny day in fall might add, when multiplied over so many individual plants. They are working for you, those powerful little green collaborators!
Squash by sunlight: one of the most beautiful sights.
And speaking of winter eating, we are finalizing details on our winter farm membership plans as soon as we can—it’s taken a backseat a few times to critical building steps, but watch for details coming soon, first to current farm members, then to everyone on the list.
Please, come on out to market Saturday morning, and stop by the farmstore anytime! And also, mark your calendars for another pepper roasting this Tuesday, from 3-6pm. We’ll take over the loading area of our new Foodshed and take advantage of the new-to-us roof and roast in style.
Wishing you good fall eating,
Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm
Cherry Tomatoes are still going strong!