No Thursday Pick Up or Farmstand

 

 

 Thanksgiving Share CSA & Turkey Pick Up is
MONDAY, November 25th 4-7 pm.

November Journey CSA Share Week 3!

This was the scene last Sunday at the Indoor Logan Square Farmer's Market.

Lots of different vendors and lots prepared foods.

Everything from fresh fruit and vegetables to eggs, cured meats, beef, lamb, chicken, pork, baked goods, kimchee, sauerkraut, fantastic breads.....

About 40 vendors in all.

Tempel Farms Organics will be there for two more weeks so stop by if you can and enjoy the fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Week 3 of Your November Journey Share!
This is the third and final November Share. There is NO pick up next week.

**MONDAY NOVEMBER 25th is the day to pick up your Thanksgiving Share and Turkey if you ordered these.

Your Autumn Harvest for this Week...

• Mixed Bag of Potatoes (includes russet, carola, blue, and 3 types of fingerlings)
• Lettuce Mix OR Spinach
• Mix of Onions (yellow, red and shallots)
• Watermelon Radish
• Orange and Yellow Carrots
• Mixed Beets (red, gold and Chioggia)
• Celeriac
• Escarole
• Assorted Apples and Pears!
• Crimini Mushrooms
  (from River Valley Ranch in Burlington, Wisconsin.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ***PLEASE NOTE***This weeks pick up and the Thanksgiving CSA pick up will be held at a different address.
  18080 W. Millburn Rd.
   Just one driveway to the west of the usual CSA pick up spot.
  
  
  It will be inside our wash/pack house. Nice and toasty warm so you don't freeze (and neither do the veggies!).
  We will have plenty of extra retail fruits, vegetables, pork,
  dried flower arrangements and a lot more for sale.
  4pm - 7pm
  
  
  Please follow the signs once you enter the driveway.

November Journey CSA Share Week 2!

 

 

  

Welcome to Week 2 of your November Journey Share!

Your Autumn Harvest for this Week...

• Butternut Squash
• Shallots
• Leeks (with pappardelle or some James Beard recipes)
• Big Baker Potatoes (potato pancakes,)
• Purple Top Turnips (mashed with potatoes)
• Lettuce Mix
• Sweet Potatoes (gnocchi)
• Red Cabbage (braised and more)
• Black Beans! (These are from Breslin Farms from Ottawa, Illinois.)
  (Breslin Farms is a father-and-daughter operation growing certified organic row crops on their family farm. ) (simple simmered)

***PLEASE NOTE***
This weeks pick up along with next weeks and the Thanksgiving CSA pick up will be held at a different address.
18080 W. Millburn Rd.

 

 Just one driveway to the west of the usual CSA pick up spot.

It will be inside our wash/pack house. Nice and toasty warm so you don't freeze (and neither do the veggies!).
We will have plenty of extra retail fruits, vegetables, pork,
dried flower arrangements and a lot more for sale.

4pm - 7pm

Please follow the signs once you enter the driveway.

 

 

 

 

Most of the fields have been seeded with a cover crop to hold soil in place,

 scavenge nitrogen and other nutrients and provide

lots of organic matter for the 2014 growing season.

 

 

 



Our apple orchard is showing its autumn colors after a modest
'first fruiting season'.

 

Get into a forest as quick as you can before things really freeze up.
Look up at the leaves of course but don't forget to look down, under the

fallen leaves.
Lots of exciting life down there for sure.



If you don't have a forest right outside your door...

*Lake County Forest Preserves*

*Cook County Forest Preserves*

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Thursday 4 - 7 pm on the farm

 

*Sunday 10 am - 3 pm at the Logan Square Farmers Market









Eat Well, Eat Local and Thank You!

November Journey CSA Share Week 1!

Welcome to Week 1 of your November Journey Share!
Nothin' scary about it, this share is packed with lots of good stuff.

 

 

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

  

• Yellow Carrots* ( Really good raw and great cooked)
• Green Savoy Cabbage*
• Spinach
• Scallions*
• Baby Red and Gold Beets*
• Celeriac/Celery Root* (4 good looking recipes)
• Baby Fennel Bulbs*
• Lettuce Mix
• Sweet Hakurei Salad Turnips* (without greens)
• Curly Green Kale*
  
  
  * = All these items shredded or julienned together could and would make a scarily delicious and frighteningly beautiful coleslaw.

Peter, Tomas, Jesus and Kyle looking pretty darn smiley.
There wasn't enough room in the 4 wheeler for one more thing so Kyle had to

carry the last bunch of Yellow Carrots in his hand.

 

 

Not so happy.
It just aint sweet pepper weather no more.
Our favorite Sweet, Italian Corno di Toro (horn of the bull) Peppers
can take some cool and maybe cold weather but a few frosts and they melt down into mush.
We picked and picked these guys and still they provide more. Truth is, near the end of

their season the peppers produced on the well picked plants start to get smaller and smaller and just don't reach their full size anyway. In the same way but different,(?!) tomatoes, when left on the vine till the cold weather comes, start to have an 'off'' flavor and though they may be plentiful, are really not that enjoyable to the taste buds.









 

Do you see the future?

These are some freshly made planting beds for Spring 2014.
We set aside just a few acres for planting into in early spring to get a jump

on the season. This makes the farmer feel much better in case of very extended wet spring weather.
The rest of our fields are planted with a winter rye and/or vetch or oat cover crop.

 

 

 

 

 

Farm Stand and Farmer's Market

Stop by the LAST regular Saturday Farm Stand TODAY

Oct. 26,  8 am - 2 pm.

 

**Stop by the Farm Stand and pick up some of our newly harvested PORK.
Chops, Ribs, Italian Sausage, Breakfast Links, Shoulder Roasts.....
Our naturally cured and smoked pork will arrive in a week or two. Bacon, Hams and Hocks!

**Also we still have lots of hard-to-find apple varieties grown on our farm!
Sweet - Tart and everywhere in between.


We will be open periodically during the winter. Check for future newsletters.

 

 

 

 

 

ALSO...

 

 

Join us for the LAST OUTDOOR Logan Square Farmer's Market of the season!

This Sunday, Oct. 27 , 10 am - 3 pm.

 

 

 

 

Sign up HERE for your THANKSGIVING SHARE

 

 

 

ALSO...

 

 

Sing up here and get an
Early Bird Discount for our

2014 CSA SHARES.

Vegetable, Fruit, Autumn and Thanksgiving Shares.
All CSA pick up sites are encouraged
to sign up before December 31st
to take advantage of the early bird discount.
On-Farm, Lake Forest, Mt. Prospect and Logan Square.
(Starting in 2014 we will be delivering Autumn and Thanksgiving Shares to off farm locations!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eat Well, Eat Local and Thank You!

CSA Week 20!

Hurry!

That is the word of the last few days. We need to get a huge amount of crops in before they get frosted and ruined. A frost or two around this time in October is not unusual but to have it dip into the 20's is a bit much. In the last few days we saved radishes, beets, turnips, lemongrass, escarole, arugula, and we covered quite a bit more in hopes of prolonging the harvest period. Here you see the crew saving some of our fantastic, big, thick and tasty spinach. We hope the crowns of these and other spinach plants live through the long winter to grow again and produce some super fantastic spinach in the spring!
You know, vegetable farm work can be extremely satisfying and fulfilling and it can also be very difficult physically and very challenging mentally. It is certainly not for everybody. Every season we see some well meaning folks fall by the wayside and quit or just stop showing up because they can't handle the heat and cold and ticks and rain and dry, cracking hands and frozen fingers and................
It really helps to have a passion for food, local food, growing plants and animals and very hard work.
We are lucky to have had such a passionate crew this season. Every year our farm products get better and our systems get more efficient thanks in large part to our crew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a FULL SHARES ONLY week...Full Vegetable Shares.

 

Pick up is Thursday, October 24th. 4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for the LAST WEEK of the

                                                             "Full Summer Journey".....

 

• Mixed Fingerling Potatoes (A mix of French, LaRatte and Amarosa)
  (Warm Fingerling Salad)
• Sweet Potatoes- Covington - orange flesh, orange skin and Japanese - white flesh and ruby skin  (sweet potato and sausage soup!) (How about using TFO Italian Sausage in place of chorizo? Also, don't peel the sweet potatoes cause skin is good!)
• Arugula
• Spinach
• Scarlet Salad Turnips (Salad with radishes and carrots.)
• French Breakfast Radishes (OK, let's pickle radishes and dispel a myth.)
• Orange Carrots
• Escarole (Stew! Substitute Escarole for the chard.) 
• Italian Parsley
• Red Beets with Greens

CSA Week 19!

Tania shows off our fall colors.
Purple carrots, yellow sunflowers, crimson dahlias, rosy cheeks and
those ever present orange buckets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is ALL SHARES week...FULL and HALF Vegetable Shares!
Sadly, this is the LAST week for half shares.

 

Pick up is Thursday, October 17th.

4-7 pm at your respective site.

 

 

 

It looks quite tropical in our hoophouse with the GINGER harvest going on.

Ignore the fact that it's about 52 degrees and drizzly. If you close your eyes and sniff though, you would swear you were in the misty hills of Hawaii.
Everybody will receive a 'hand' of baby ginger in their share this week. It's considered baby because our ginger growing season is short by ginger standards. Only about 5 - 6 months!
The ginger in your share can be used without peeling given its tender skin. It will not store very long (about 1 week) because of that thin skin but is so fantastic you will want to use it up right away!

 

 

Your Vegetable Harvest for this Week...

 

Tomas, Kyle and Jesus harvest leeks on this cool mid-fall morning.

 

 

•  Brussels Sprouts (With Pancetta & Caraway)
• Lettuce Mix
• Watermelon/Beauty Heart Radishes (Peel the skin for a milder radish. Keep the skin on for a spicy, crunchy snack.) (Radish & Carrot Salad)
• Sweet Hakurei Salad Turnips with green tops
• Purple Carrots (great raw or cooked)(Thai carrot soup)
• Fresh Baby Ginger (Ginger Fried Rice)
• Fresh Lemongrass (Burmese-Style Chicken)
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Leeks
• Yellow Storage Onions
• Butternut Squash (lots of squash recipes - feel free to interchange squash varieties. There is NO wrong winter squash choice!)
• Blue Potatoes