These beets beat out the cold!
Cold weather crops abound
First things first, we are not attending the Wednesday Ann Arbor market this week. Why? Fall is plunging into a winter preview and we need to make sure to get all the vegetables that won't tolerate it out of the field. Whatever stands a chance will stay out with additional frost blankets. If it was just one cold dip, we know many of the resilient plants we are pulling out of the field now, could take it. But it won't just be a toe in the water. The temperatures will drop to the mid-twenties and then to the low twenties, and carry on dropping and rising like so for a forecasted but unforeseen amount of time. One drop, fine, cell walls, within reason, expand and contract. Consistent drops into colder freezing temperatures are hard on plants. They freeze and thaw and, I imagine the elasticity of their cells declining until they break. (We have to check this hypothesis!) While we don't know exactly what the weather will do, and some of the plants may survive the coming trying times, we don't want to gamble with our winter food security!
To that end, we have pulled in over 3,000 pounds of vegetables out of the field in the last three days! Cabbage, winter radish, turnips, celery root (not as stellar of a harvest as I wanted but still present), turnabaga, rutabaga, and kohlrabi! Today we are working on beets and turnips, perhaps we will get to potatoes too! It is a joy to have the storage container filling up.
In other exciting news, we are now going to be attending Eastern Market on Saturdays! The idea of attending this historical Detroit market has been orbiting our plans but we didn't expect to begin attending so soon! We reached out last week when we realized what an abundance we have and luckily, they responded quickly! Yesterday, two of the markets team came and inspected the farm and invited us to begin this week! So, we're doing it! And very excited about it!
Off to haul vegetables with Lizz!
Helen writing for the Lake Dividers
Fresh From the Field!
Greens:Arugula
Baby Bok Choi!
Head Lettuce- Limited
Mizuna
Mustard
Tatsoi
Tokyo Bekana- Bok Choi lettuce!
Kale: flat leaf, green curly, and red curly
Microgreens: Spicy and mild. -Limited
Shoots: Pea!- Limited
Swiss Chard- frost sweetened and in bags.
Herbs:
Cilantro and Dill
Mint
Oregano
Parsley: The stems of the curly parsley are incredibly sweet!
Sage
Thyme
All manner of deliciousness:
Beets
Broccoli
Cabbage
Celery
*Eggplant: (limited) Roast, stirfry, sandwich- prep breaded eggplant in the freezer!
Fennel: Fresh licorice-y fronds with crispy bulbs.
Garlic
Kohlrabi- beautiful meal sized kohlrabi and tender petite
Onions
Potatoes will be back in a couple weeks once the rest of the crops are safe from the frost
Sweet potatoes at the end of the week!
*Peppers: Limited
*Hot peppers: Hungarian hot wax, cayenne, jalepeno, serrano, and poblano- try pickling!
*Snack Peppers: ( limited) as sweet as peppers get!
Radishes: Classic, White Daikon, Green Daikon, and Watermelon- Try making steamed radish
*Tomatoes: greens- time to make those pickled green tomatoes!
Turnips: Sweet white turnips and purple top roasting turnips
*End of the season for starred crops so stock up while you can!
Markets, always rain or shine!Wednesday: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm.
Saturday: Ann Arbor, Chelsea, and Detroit's Eastern Market
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.
The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.
The Eastern Market in Detroit is located about a mile northeast of downtown. It covers about 43 acres, bounded by I-75 on the West and Gratiot Avenue on the South. I runs year round from 6am – 4pm
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