Farm Newsletter October 29, 2020: Super Greens Harvest for Good Health

Just when the weather cools off and the winter season is getting close, mother nature gives us greens. These green vegetables come in all shapes and sizes, but they all like the cold, and if we had more sunlight, they would flourish through the winter. The greens are where the photosynthesis happens, and the green leaves have the most antioxidants because of the chlorophyll that turns the leaves green.

This week our green vegetable harvest included rainbow chard, Brussels sprouts greens, spinach, and rutabaga tops.

In root vegetables like the rutabagas, the greens are creating energy to store in the root. Where we are in California, we won’t get a freeze cold enough to kill the greens. In regions that experience a more frigid winter, you can harvest the greens before a hard freeze. The root can stay in the soil until just before the ground freezes.

Rutabagas are a cross between turnips and cabbage. When cut up and roasted, they taste a lot like roasted broccoli. The roots can be eaten raw, and the skin is edible if you purchase them directly from the farmer. When picked for commercial sale, they sometimes have wax applied to the root to last longer.

The tender greens can be sautéed like spinach or chard. They should be removed when you get them home because the greens will continue to suck water from the root even after harvesting.

Spinach and Rainbow Chard

The spinach and chard are both in the same vegetable family, Amaranthaceae, related to amaranth. We harvested both of these today. The spinach leaves are cut so that they grow back in a few weeks. The chard was pulled out completely. These plants had been in the ground through summer. Next week, we will harvest chard from a new planting we did just a few weeks ago.

Acorn Squash

We sent out all of our acorn squash today. That will leave us with spaghetti squash for the next few weeks and then butternut for Thanksgiving. Harvesting these squash ahead of time and having them ready to go is refreshing on our busy packing day.

Sweet Potatoes

We dug up a few more sweet potatoes today and sent some to everyone. The ground is doing a better job of storing them than we would. We don’t have the facilities to cure them after harvest, so the moisture evaporates into the air, and the sweet potatoes become soft.

Carrots

Our first fall carrots were pulled today. We had a mixture of purple, red, and orange carrots that were ready. These heirloom varieties are not always as crisp and tender as a regular carrot, and they cook better when roasted.

I learned this week that carrots were originally white. The orange carrot was developed in Europe in the 1500s.

Brussels Sprouts Greens

We sent out another round of green leaves from the Brussels sprouts plants. These will continue to get picked, although we don’t have to send them out. By picking the leaves off, we allow the plant to give more energy to producing the sprout.

Green Onions and Garlic

We had a young planting of green onions to pick from this week. Then we also sent another head of garlic to everyone. Next week, most of the remaining garlic heads will get planted in the ground and become the seed for next years’ harvest. We will sell the garlic we don’t need.

Planting

This week we planted more and more brassica plants. This family includes broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale. They take up a lot of space since each plant is about three feet tall and three feet wide. Considering each head is just a small fraction of the plant, once we harvest the cauliflower or cabbage, the plant won’t produce another.

Strawberries

We also transplanted the runners from our strawberry row. These plants propagate themselves. We started with just 25 plants last spring, and now we have over 200. We moved 100 of the runner plants into the row next to the old row. The plants will establish roots in the ground over the wet winter and give us a good harvest come April when the weather changes again.

Have a Great Week,

Julie Moreno