Spinach
Yellow Onions
Butternut Squash (not grown on our farm. See note below.)
Napa Cabbage
Fennel
Celery
Arugula
Head Lettuce
This Week's Fruit Share Extension:
Autumn Apple Sampler - Honey Crisp, Red Delicious, Empire & Golden Delicious
The fruit share extension ends next week. We'll end the season with concord grapes, bosc pears and granny smith apples. Mick would like to thank everyone for their support of his farm this season!
This Week in Photos
Reid, Kim and Jesse ride on the hay wagon as the celeriac harvest is brought in. Our crew is busy harvesting winter storage vegetables such as celeriac, beets, turnips, kohlrabi, carrots, cabbage and rutabaga. 
Meanwhile, your tender greens are loving the warm, protected environment of the hoophouses. We use hoophouses to provide you with spinach, green onions, bok choy, and lettuce in November and December when it's too cold to grow those crops outside in the fields.
The pumpkins and squash arrived last week from Vicki Westerhoff's farm, Genesis Growers, in St. Anne Illinois. Vicki is one of the growers we collaborate with in the fall in order to bring you as much variety as possible. Over the course of the coming weeks you will also receive sweet potatoes and parsnips from Harmony Valley Farm in Viroqua, Wisconsin and Yukon Gold Potatoes from Igl Farms in Antigo, Wisconsin.
The garlic field is now ready to plant. As soon as we have a stretch of suitably dry weather, we'll start planting garlic cloves about 6 inches apart in rows about 12 inches apart. The garlic will sprout this fall and send up little green shoots. The plants will grow enough roots to help them survive the winter, and once spring comes they will start growing like crazy. The entire crop will be harvested all at once in July.
In this photo Jesse is laying a protective fabric, called row cover, over a bed of parsley. We use this fabric in the late fall to protect crops such as parsley, swiss chard, arugula, lettuce, bok choy, napa cabbage and hakurei turnips from being damaged by frost. With the use of row covers we can continue to harvest these crops even when temperatures dip down into the mid-20s as they did this weekend.Notes from the Farm Kitchen
This week's butternut squash was grown by Vicky Westerhoff of Genesis Growers in St. Anne, Illinois. Butternut squash is a very versatile vegetable. It tastes great prepared in both sweet and savory ways. I like to use it in place of canned pumpkin when making pies and sweet breads. Store winter squash in the refrigerator.
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Braised fennel is a wonderful accompaniment to seared or grilled fish as well as roast pork, beef or chicken. Use the following technique for braising fennel. Trim the stalks to within 3 inches of the bulb. Cut the bulb lengthwise into 6-8 slices. In a heavy saucepan, melt a tablespoon of butter over moderate heat. Add fennel and toss to coat with butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add enough water or stock to cover the fennel. You could also throw in a little bit of wine. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cover. Braise for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the fennel is tender.
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Much as some of us try, celery grown by Midwestern farmers is not mild and watery like the west-coast celery you buy in the supermarket. For this reason, our celery is well-suited to using in soups, stews and other recipes, but not so good served on a crudité platter. When using your celery this week remember that you can use the whole thing--leaves and stems. (The leaves are trimmed from supermarket celery because they deteriorate quickly. If the leaves weren't removed, shoppers would be able to tell just how long most supermarket celery spends on trucks and in warehouses.)
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This Week's Recipes
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Next Week's Harvest (our best guess)... potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, rutabaga, spinach, leeks, spinach, lettuce, bosc pears, concord grapes, granny smith apples and more!
