Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Life on the Farm, November 19

Two years ago nearly to the day I had a visit from a dear friend who was my university room-mate way back when.
Our lives intersected at that time because maybe that was what we both needed. I was leaving a marriage and she was trying to cope with an injury and job stresses.
I'm lucky to have that friend and I was so happy to fly out to the Maritimes over the last weekend to have a too-brief visit with her.


We picked up where we left off and I finally saw her home, her town, her loves and her life.
I'm so glad I did and I'm so thankful for her friendship. We've come a long way since pub crawls, french language dreams and so much laughter from so much silliness.
But I'm glad this new part of our lives still means we're friends.
Thanks, my friend, for everything.

Today however I was back to reality and back to picking in rather chilly weather. It just figures. The sun burst through the clouds as I was doing my deliveries, rather than in the morning when I needed it to warm me up a bit.
Every week there are fewer things in the garden and more greens growing in the greenhouse as they should be.

Beets and carrots are still in the garden in good quantity and appreciate the frosts to make them a bit sweeter. There are more Jerusalem artichokes, radishes, lots of herbs and greens.
In the hoophouses we have pac choi, a good number of different mustard greens, some mild and some peppery, chard, kale, arugula growing well and a bit of a surprise-still a few tomatoes.


You must admit that summer tomatoes, fresh picked off the vine taste fabulous. But do we appreciate them as much as we should when there are so many of them and you knw they'll keep coming for a while? I don't know.
But when I lifted my row cover in the hoophouse and found tomatoes, ripe tomatoes on November 19th? Whoo-hoo! Those tomatoes taste extra special, perhaps I think, a marketers dream. Limited edition fresh organic heirloom tomatoes. (Get them while they last and they won't last long!)
The baskets today showed a lot of colour-green in particular. Black was there too though, and a true black it was, not black as in a black tomatoes. I'm talking black. As in black winter radishes black.




I always tell people that they are super pungent, which they are so you could eat them the way Russians do. Grate them and add them to sour cream as a spread for your rye bread. Follow with a shot of vodka. Or not.
Failing that, dissipate the pungency by cooking them and they'll end up tasting a whole lot like rutabagas. It's fun to use  vegetable peeler and peel strips of the black off so that you have a black and white striped vegetable. You may be the only person on your block who has that!
Also in the baskets today were baby pac choi, a good assortment of mustard greens, carrots, garlic, celeriac, rosemary, thyme, sage and apples.


One of my CSA customers passed along an idea for organic apples that I had never heard of that I thought was pretty amazing. It turns out that the whitish film on apples is actually a wild yeast that can be used to make a sourdough for bread. Who knew? I sure didn't. Check it out here
Thanks, Leigh for passing this along.



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