Fall harvesting

​Delicata is one of our favorite early season winter squash varieties because the skins are tender and edible. It's easy to slice and roast in the oven and it has an incredible sweet flavor. In the early fall, we also love to roast Spaghetti Squash and then serve it with chopped fresh tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and fresh herbs. We wait for a few weeks to start selling our longer storing varieties like Butternut, Acorn, Red Kuri, and Grey Kubocha to give them time to cure. This sweetens and improves their flavor. 

Lisa and Eva use hook tools to cut vines off the sweet potato plants in preparation for harvest. Next steps are to undercut the bed and dig the sweet potatoes out by hand. 

Last week we harvested about 5,000 lbs of beautiful sweet potatoes, our best yield ever! They cure at 80 degrees for about a week to improve flavor and heal the skins. You'll soon start seeing them at market and in your CSA shares!

​Everyone was bundled up to head out for harvest early on Monday morning, but our salad greens don't mind the cold.  Lettuce mix, arugula, baby kale, and spinach are at their best in the fall when there's less weed and insect pressure and chillier temperatures make for outstanding flavor and quality. 

​One of the great things about leeks is they hold in the field late into the fall and can even survive below freezing temperatures! We harvested about 300lbs for our CSA shares and markets last week and still have plenty in the field for later this fall. We hill the soil around the base of the plants several times throughout the summer to grow long white blanched stems on our leeks. 

This week it's easy to support "Share the Harvest", a program sponsored by NOFA-VT to offer reduced price CSA shares to limited income Vermonters. This Thursday, October 1st, if you make a purchase at any one of these Upper Valley restaurants or stores, a portion of your purchase will go towards NOFA's Farm Share Program and will help your neighbors in need get access to healthy food:

Colatina Exit Bradford
The Local Buzz Bradford
Skunk Hollow Tavern Hartland
Cedar Circle Farm E. Thetford
Route 4 Country Store Deli & BBQ White River Junction
Upper Valley Food Coop White River Junction
Woodstock Farmers Market Store Woodstock

We're grateful to NOFA-VT and generous donations from our own members that enabled us to offer 8 new CSA members a reduced price share this season.