End of the Growing Season
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Towards the end of the growing season I’m often asked, “Are you done with the garden?” I usually shake my head and mutter something about turnips and mustard. But that’s not all. The farm relies heavily on the fall garden.
We are still going, and growing, strong. The van and trailer are filled to the brim every Monday for the Nashville delivery. Here’s the list of what our customers received on November 22nd.
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Lettuce – We cut a few hundred heads of several different varieties. From tall Romaines to heavy Bibbs, from light green Batavias to red Grand Rapids, there was something for everyone’s tastes.
Bok Choy – The three kinds we grow are Prize Choy, Mei Qing, and Yukina Savoy. The first one gets huge and can weigh up to five pounds. Mei Qing is a baby one that is a pale, light green with a perfect vase-like shape. Yukina Savoy is a very dark green, almost the color of spinach.
Napa cabbage is also referred to as a Chinese cabbage. The barrel shaped heads are a light green and very crisp. All of these Chinese vegetables make a good salad, stir fry, or can be fermented into sauerkraut called kimchi.
Parsley comes in two varieties. Curled parsley is a little more tender and better for salads. Italian Flat Leaf is larger and is more sought after by the chefs.
Argula is really pungent. You don’t need much of this strong flavored herb. It’s unique taste perks up a salad or defines a soup, and is also used for seasoning chicken.
Mizuna has thin feathery leaves and a mild flavor. It lightens up a mesclun salad mix. We are experimenting with a purple mizuna this year, too.
Radishes come in all shapes and colors. We have fields full of them, mixed in with the cover crops. Misota red and green are the prettiest and tastiest. China Rose is red with a crisp white center. A round and a long Black Spanish are two new ones for us.
Potatoes have no need for introduction, and every time we send the vegetables to Nashville, they are on board. Potatoes are a staple. We grow Kennebec and Red Pontiac, primarily, and they are storing well in our new root cellar.
Butternut Squash are the tan, shapely variety of winter squash which store the best. We’ve gone through all of the acorn, delicatta, sweet dumpling and spaghetti squash, and only have butternuts left. I use them for a smooth pumpkin pie.
Sweet potatoes are a prolific and our customers can have as many as they want. Ours is the Golden Nugget, a yellow orange one that is dry and sweet. It’s been grown in Macon County for over a hundred years and we offer slips for folks to plant in the spring.
Garlic is another popular item. We are planting more this year than ever. I hope to be able to offer it every week next year. This is another plant we offer seed of.
Kale also comes in many varieties, but we just have one. The cows got in and ate the curly kale patch in the upper garden. Our flat leafed kale lasts all winter under a row cover, making it the hardiest green. We’ve been saving seed from it for 30 years, and have plenty of extra seed.
Swiss chard is a relative of beets, comes in red and yellow colors, but we’ve decided the green one called French Swiss chard is the best tasting. It comes back after cutting it so we’re picking leaves from plants that were sown back in April.
Celery isn’t grown much around here. It likes the cool fall weather and tastes better now than it did during the hot summer. We break off the outer stalks and the plant keeps growing more of them.
A week ago we sent the last of the tomatoes and peppers. It was a great year for them, and it’ll be a long while before we have them again. We also harvested some watercross growing down by the creek.
The fall garden allows the farm to keep production up and running almost to Christmas. With a few more row covers we’ll try to keep green’s alive throughout the winter. Oh, I almost forgot. We have over an acre of other fall vegetables. If anyone needs mustard or turnips, let me know.