The fall to do list

Dottie and I helped Casey wash pumpkins and squash for this week’s CSA share. Dottie thought seeing pumpkins in a tub was pretty funny.

I remarked in a letter to a friend recently (yes, a letter! A real one!) that I loved fall tasks because when we mark something off our list this time of year, it is almost always done for the year. There’s a sweet sense of completion with every task that is unique to this season. Even though the whole rhythm begins again in January, we still get the satisfaction of finishing the work of this year.

For fun, I’d thought I’d share some of our fall to do list with you, including the items that have been done (and marked off with a hoorah!):

• Plant strawberries
• Weed strawberries
• Sow over-wintering greens and related leafy veggies
• Sow over-wintering fava beans
• Harvest winter squash
• Harvest potatoes
• Harvest storage carrots
• Harvest storage beets
• Sow winter cover crop
• Pick apples
• Plant garlic
• Transplant green onions
• Fertilize next year’s veggie fields
• Brood chicks for next year’s laying hen flock
• Determine 2016 CSA details and begin sign-ups
• Organize final details for pumpkin patch open house and host
• Update bookkeeping of farm expenses and reconcile accounts
• Update website with 2016 info (definitely hasn’t happened yet! soon!)
• Order new high tunnel
• Build new high tunnel
• Take turkeys to slaughter
• Move animals to winter-friendly pastures/sheds/paddocks
• Thanksgiving Holiday Harvest
• Christmas Holiday Harvest

So, I’d say that definitely not a totally exhaustive ‘to do’ list, but that does represent the bulk of it. Casey and I each keep a notebook with extensive lists, including daily lists, weekly lists and big picture lists. Sometime soon here, we’ll probably sit down to make our Big List for winter 2016-16. That’s when we take a few days to write down in a computer document everything we hope to accomplish during this slower season of the year. To be honest, in the busy summer months, we really have much less to think about. The weeks take on a very clear rhythm of work (most of it in the fields planting, weeding, and harvesting). We feel almost pulled along by the momentum of it all.

But as we close those rhythms in the fall, as we are doing now, we simultaneously gain some more time in our weeks and lose some of that easy momentum. The winter is a perfect time for attending to all those nagging projects and ideas that come during the summer only to be set aside to make room for the urgent field work. BUT! As fall quiets down, we find we have to become very intentional about truly addressing all those deferred projects. It is much easier to mentally lose track of those kinds of odds and ends. That’s why we make the Big List every year! It has bullet points and sub-bullet points, and we usually try to organize it by urgency and immediacy. Writing everything down like that can feel daunting at first, but it’s amazing how much can be accomplished over several weeks if we just work through our list diligently.

Perhaps I should add “Make Big List” to our fall list!

But, not yet. Now we’ll focus on finishing this season out. It’s good for the mind and body to have a sense of completion and rest before tackling the next big round of projects. Today’s gray rainy weather brought a welcome feeling of deep quiet and calm to the farm. After many warm sunny days, it feels like a return to fall.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Casey & Katie Kulla

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Pumpkin Patch Open House coming up! Join us on the farm for our CSA Pumpkin Patch open house! It will be Sunday, October 25, 2-4 pm. CSA members will get a pumpkin; we’ll have an apple variety tasting, and Casey will give a farm tour at 3 pm! I’ll include directions in next week’s newsletter!

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Apples — Liberty apples. These are a favorite apple for us to grow. They produce prolifically, are very disease and pest resistance, and taste great! What more could you ask for, really? They have red skin with white, firm flesh inside. Suitable for cooking or eating fresh.
• Pears — Bartlett pears. European pears do not ripen well on the tree (they get grainy in that context), so we picked these while they were still hard and have been ripening them slowly in the cooler (which makes for a smooth texture). When you get them, they should either be ready to eat or almost ready to eat. If they are still firm, you can put them on your counter for a few days.
• Salad mix — This week’s salad mix is a special fall mix of non-lettuce greens: baby chard, castelfranco (a chicory related to radicchio), red cabbage, and parsley. Mixed green salads like this are best enjoyed when tossed with a dressing before serving. We love our creamy dressings that we make with our immersion blender using olive oil, red wine vinegar, and one raw egg.
• Kohlrabi — The first of the fall/winter kohlrabis! We think this is the best season for this vegetable. Grown at this time of the year, they are smooth and sweet inside. Our favorite way to eat kohlrabi is to chop it fine and toss it with dressing (like a cole slaw). It’s also delicious fermented.
• Pie pumpkins — October is here! Time for all your favorite pumpkin deserts! Pie pumpkins are pumpkins that have been bred especially for the fineness and tastiness of the flesh (whereas Jack O’ Lantern pumpkins have usually been bred for size and don’t often taste as good!). Baking/cooking with real pumpkin meat is super easy if you remember to cook the pumpkin ahead of time. We just pop the stem off (usually by knocking it on the side of our counter) and bake the pumpkin whole on a pan at 350°. It is done when a paring knife goes into the flesh with ease. The pumpkin will cool faster on the counter if you cut it open. Often we’ll cook our pumpkin well before we plan to bake/cook, so then I just put it in the fridge for later. Once cooked, it is very easy to scoop out the pulp/seeds from the inner cavity, and the flesh lifts off of the skin easily too. Just mash up that flesh and use it in any recipe calling for pumpkin!!! This is my all time favorite pumpkin muffin recipe (it is grain-free, using almond flour instead of wheat flour).
• Delicata winter squash — The last two weeks we gave out BIG delicata. Now we’re giving out some of the smaller ones that we set aside as we sorted for the big ones. Then we’ll have big ones again!
• Sweet peppers
• Hot peppers
• Tomatillos
• Roma tomatoes
• Kale
• Beets
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Yellow crookneck summer squash
• Leeks

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And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

• Stewing hens — $3.50/lb ~ Many of you have already ordered a few of these hens, and you can pick them up tomorrow! We took extra as well, so if you didn’t have a chance to order them beforehand, you can still buy them. The meat on these birds is amazing. We ate some tonight after stewing them all day in the slow cooker. I look forward to making soup tomorrow with the broth.
• Eggs — $6/dozen ~ So, unfortunately our laying flock just shrunk some in size (see above item!). We still have eggs, but supply is growing more limited as the season ends and our flock gets smaller. We are excited to start fresh with young birds in 2016. They are already pullets (juvenile birds) and ranging in our greenhouse, looking beautiful and happy! They should be laying reliably by the start of the CSA in January.
• Ham — $12/lb ~ Nitrate-free ham made by artisan butchers from our pasture-raised hogs! Buy some now for your holiday meals! I’ll be putting at least one of these in the freezer for eating on Christmas morning. What a treat that will be.
• Porkchops — $12/lb
• Lamb — All the cuts are in! Shanks, roasts, grind, chops! Prices vary!
• Beef bones — $3/lb ~ This is the perfect season to make bone broth for all your fall soups.
• Ground beef — $7/lb ~ Maybe you won’t grill hamburgers outside this week, but meatloaf and roasted squash with a side of kale sounds like a great dinner to me!