Sunday night brought our first hard frost. We had won the race and gotten all of our winter squash and sweet potatoes harvested and safely into their winter storage cooler. By the time the frost came we had moved on from squash harvest to preparing for this week’s meat deliveries, which meant cutting up a few lambs, a couple pigs and two cows. That is right, as a collective group, combining everyone who has a meat share with the farm; about that much meat is eaten each month. The numbers are tiny in the grand scheme of things but for our little farm here they are plenty big.
This is perhaps my favorite time of the year. There is little to stress about with the crops at this point. While we still have much to harvest for the winter, we can see at this point that everything is doing well. Carrots are growing big (as evidenced by the ones in the share this week). Beets are coming along as well as other root crops. We have a ton of greens all growing in the fields which means that we will have plenty of greens coming up in the December and January deliveries. We have planted one of our high tunnels to spinach and will be prepping the other one soon. The heated greenhouse is pretty much shut down for the season, though we are entertained by the rouge eggplants and squash that continue to bloom inside.
And I have to say I don’t mind working outside with the colorful leaves to look at and the chilly air. It makes harvesting storage crops quite pleasant work.
Sweet Potatoes and Butternuts safely in storage
