December 30, 2019
The Last One!
by Farmer Dana

Late Fall Harvest #8 (Week B) should include cabbage, napa cabbage, rutabaga, purple daikon radishes, potatoes, spinach, lettuce mix, garlic, carrots, beets, and watermelon radishes. Some items will be a choice.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/The-Last-One-2426/

December 30, 2019
Thank You, Members!
by Farmer Derek

Welcome to the final week of the 2019 Late Fall CSA! This week we'll get to enjoy an abundance of lettuce mix and spinach, as well as all those other veggie staples we've been sharing for most of this season. We hope you are currently immersed in a pleasurable holiday experience and are excited to flip the calendar this week. Calendar year 2020 will hopefully be a good revolution around our star, the sun. Let's plan for continued friendships and community development, a further connection to our home planet and local environment and neighborhood, acknowledgement of and constructive discussions regarding current and upcoming issues, and a movement towards an enlightened future. Small steps in the right direction is what I perceive.

On the farm we're well underway towards planning for a great 2020 growing season. Most of our wintertime work is spent organizing and planning for crop success and hopefully member satisfaction. Every season brings a few updates and changes based on the experiences of past seasons. Some varieties of crops get nixed, new varieties get trialed, some crops we give up on completely, new longterm crops are established, new methods of growing are tried. We hope for a season with reasonable weather and no extreme events, though we continue to take steps planning for and dealing with the outliers.

Happy New Year, Happy Increasing Daylight, Happy Respite, Happy Vacation, Happy Holidays!

Thank you Members, we love you!

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Thank-You-Members-2427/

December 30, 2019
Winter Flash Sales!
By Derek McGeehan

We're going to take a few weeks off from farm work and the farm but will plan some 'flash veggie sales' at the end of January and February. We'll announce via e-mail.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Winter-Flash-Sales-2428/

December 23, 2019
Penultimate Harvest
by Farmer Derek

Late Fall Harvest #7 (Week A) should include cabbage, napa cabbage, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rutabaga, purple daikon radishes, watermelon radishes, beets, garlic, lettuce mix, spinach, greens mix, and kale. Some items will be a choice.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Penultimate-Harvest-2423/

December 23, 2019
Thu/Sat Pick Up This Week!
by Farmer Derek

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/ThuSat-Pick-Up-This-Week-2424/

December 23, 2019
Merry/Happy Everything!
by Farmer Derek

This is the final week of pick up for Week A Half Shares. Next week will be the final week for Full, Medium, and Week B Half Shares. Thank you for joining us on this little Late Fall CSA ride! I think it's been a pretty good mini-season, and I hope you're satisfied with the bounty, flavors, freshness, and variety. Every year is a little bit different mostly due to the outside weather conditions during autumn, and this year was a pleasant dry contrast to last year's excessive moisture. By the time it turned wet again in late October we had already retrieved from the fields all of the sensitive crops. For the most part the tunnel crops can tolerate the extreme weather just fine.

One of our initial goals when offering the Late Fall CSA was to have a diverse array of crops to offer in the pick up room, especially fresh tender greens, and not solely rely on the hardy outdoor kales and storage root crops. I find cabbages to be a great middle ground, and love eating them all winter, but they fall victim to continually saturated soils and succumbed in 2018. It was great to have a cabbage/napa cabbage choice for the 8 weeks. Now that we have 4 tunnels to use for extended harvests of greens, and because we're not running a legit January/February winter CSA, we wanted to carefully distribute everything from the tunnels by the end of the Late Fall season. It seems that the 2.5 pounds of greens per week has just about kept up with production. We're now using about two times more indoor growing space then our first few years which gives us the ability to have these fresh greens through the entire season. Fall carrots were also something we didn't do in the beginning, mostly because we were just getting our feet under us during the first few years at Anchor Run and carrots are a difficult crop to grow in our soils. Timing of seeding for fall harvest is crucial because germination and early growth is much slower than their competitor, the weeds. Sow too early and weed and heat pressure is too great, so too late and they won't mature in time. We have since found the right time to sow and as long as moisture isn't too excessive a good crop is now reliable. I think this was the best harvest of fall carrots.

Overall I'm very pleased with how this Late Fall season has shaped up and I hope you've enjoyed the food. Please let us know if you have any ideas for future years.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/MerryHappy-Everything-2425/

December 16, 2019
Fresh Continuation
by Farmer Derek

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Fresh-Continuation-2420/

December 16, 2019
Holiday Pick Up Schedule
by Farmer Derek

During Late Fall harvest week #7, Week A (12/23-12/29), Wednesday's pick up is on Thursday, December 26, 1-8pm. Saturday pick up is still 11am-1pm.

During Late Fall harvest week #8, Week B (12/30-1/5), which is the final harvest week, pick up takes place as scheduled (Wed 1-8pm and Sat 11am-1pm).

Please e-mail us if you need to temporarily switch your pick up to an alternate pick up day.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Holiday-Pick-Up-Schedule-2421/

December 16, 2019
2020 Vision
by Farmer Derek

Seeds and plants have now all been ordered for the 2020 growing season. I seem to forget and/or underestimate the amount of time it takes me to assess, reflect, analyze, and decide what varieties of what crops in what quantities to grow. Because we're such a diverse farm and grow 100s of varieties of crops over a 10-month growing season on 25 acres with several different soil types there are many factors, variables, elements, and conditions to consider and goals and ideals to entertain. Every line item in our crop plan deserves attention. This is pretty much the best and only time of year to fully adjust or modify then codify plans for next season. Once the tractor gets rolling and seeds get sown there's not enough time to plan, though occasionally adjustments do get made depending on weather and other variables. Since we've now farmed here for 11 seasons there's a pretty firm farming foundation but we hope there's always room for improvement and a tweak to enable greater crop growing success. I occasionally envision that by the time we're ready to retire perfection may be established and no further modifications will be needed but that's probably not realistic. Plus it's fun to revisit and redesign some of the systems we have for growing. There's also a lot of other qualified small scale growers out there also trialing systems and finding their own successes and some of those are worth incorporating here. Not to mention new pest and disease pressures and ongoing challenges from adverse weather and climate change. As farmers we enjoy a close relationship to nature and the cause/effect domino that exists in the world, leaving us hopefully feeling slightly more positive that adequate planning and implementation can result in increased tenacity, tolerance, and resilience. A legit cold winter offseason provides us with a clean slate each spring.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/2020-Vision-2422/

December 9, 2019
Rousing Rutabaga
By Linda Dansbury

Another new root veggie will be in the pick up room this week - the little known and underappreciated rutabaga.

This sort of dumpy-looking veggie with a purple top and beige bottom, may not look very alluring, but there’s a lot more to this winter vegetable than meets the eye.

Underneath its woody-looking exterior, rutabaga’s butter-yellow flesh is sweet and earthy. Rutabagas are the result of turnips crossing with wild cabbages in the 1600s, and while they contain the genes of both veggies, they’re considered a part of the cruciferous family of vegetables (cousins include broccoli) and pack similar health benefits.

Just one cup of rutabaga contains approximately 50% of your daily value of vitamin C. They’re also rich in fiber, vitamin B6, potassium, and magnesium — and low in calories. An entire medium-sized rutabaga has only 145.

Mashed or roasted, either alone or in combination with other root veggies; rutabaga make delicious oven fries - toss in oil of your choice, salt and add herbs and spices you like and bake at about 375 for 30 min or so.

Slice thin and make into your favorite gratin recipe, or, instead of using potatoes make rutabaga Hasselback. Peel and add to your favorite soups and stews - yum!

Do you like Carrot Cake? Use rutabaga instead!

Anyway, make sure you add this little known veggie to your winter repertoire!

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Rousing-Rutabaga-2416/

December 9, 2019
Rooting for Rutabaga
by Farmer Dana

Late Fall Harvest #5 (Week A) should include cabbage, Napa cabbage, radicchio, potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, rutabaga, beets, watermelon radish, purple daikon radish, hakurei turnips, lettuce mix, greens mix, kale, and arugula. Some items will be a choice.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Rooting-for-Rutabaga-2417/

December 9, 2019
At the Middle
by Farmer Derek

Welcome to Late Fall's midpoint. There are four more weeks of pick up. We're closely monitoring fresh and storage crops to ensure perfect eating conditions while trying to create a well-rounded farm share and attempt to deplete our fields, tunnels, and coolers in order of cold tolerance and storability. Since we're not planting anymore and fresh crops aren't really growing much during this persephone period (less than 10hrs/day of daylight) and all storage crops are in from the fields, we have a finite amount of produce to harvest and distribute. Thus, care must be taken to ensure adequate and reasonable amounts of delectable food are provided to you each week. It's mostly simple arithmetic but there are variables to control to keep crops in peak condition, and then there are also unforeseen occasional crop losses, too. For example, maybe something didn't store as well as we would have hoped, or too much tunnel moisture contributed to plant disease, or a polar vortex dropped temperatures down to -10 unexpectedly. So, we have to leave some margin for error and play it somewhat safe. That said, harvests should remain fairly reliable and consistent through the end of this growing season, albeit a few changes during these final weeks as some crops are depleted and others are cut. For example, we're now harvesting entirely from under cover as curly field grown kale has exited and makes room for delicious 'baby' red russian kale straight from the hoop tunnel. Rutabaga takes the place of onions in the share since we lost more onions than we planned for due to excessive moisture during storage. I guess farming is a game of give-and-take.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/At-the-Middle-2418/

December 9, 2019
Maple Syrup and Honey Sale
by Farmer Dana

Pre-order sale only. Pick up on Wednesday, December 18th, 1-8pm. All orders must be prepaid in advance by either:

#1 Sending a check to:
Augusta Acres Farm
229 Peggy Runway Farm
Beach Lake, PA 18405

#2 Leaving a check for your balance due at Anchor Run Farm PRIOR to pick up date of Dec. 18th

We will be offering the following:
#1. 100% Pure Male Syrup from our farm
$15 Maple Syrup pint
$24 Maple Syrup quart

#2. Local, Raw Honey. Dark and delicious!!!
$15 Honey pint (Sorry, honey not available in quarts)

#3. Bourbon Barrel Aged 100% Pure Maple Syrup!!! Our new product...Handcrafted on the farm!!!
$12 Small (6.76oz) Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple syrup
$20 Large (12.7oz) Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple syrup

Thank you for supporting our small farm! It is very much appreciated. Best wishes to you and yours for a wonderful Holiday season and New Year!!!
Susan and Todd Klikus

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Maple-Syrup-and-Honey-Sale-2419/

December 2, 2019
Let's Eat a Salad
by Farmer Derek

I hope you had an enjoyable holiday and are as excited as I am to eat a green salad as a meal for every meal for the next week. Eating fresh lettuce last night while the outside world was bleak and dreary was heartwarming and reminded me once again to appreciate the wonders of clean healthy food in all its relative simplicity. I love lettuce most of the year, but its scarcity, as well as its flavor, during the winter months really makes me cherish it when it is around and even abundant, especially after heavy holiday meals.

Thanks to three unheated tunnels and one minimally heated tunnel we'll all be able to enjoy fresh greens through the winter (arugula, baby kale, spinach, greens mix, lettuce mix). The contrast of inside and outside the tunnels this time of year is significant, even though they're only separated by a 4mm thick film of transparent plastic. It is plastic, but at least its use is going towards growing organic produce and has an eight-year life, before it's used for something else around the farm, before it unfortunately ends up composted in the bowels of the earth over millennia, or the sun burns it up during its swelling preceding white dwarf phase many years from now.

And now it is winter, depending on which seasonal schedule you follow. It's snowing, which I currently prefer to rain. It also means we can now tally our total rainfall for the March-November growing season: 42.8 inches of rain fell on the farm during that time frame, our 3rd wettest season in 11 years, 5.5 inches above the average. Overall, I think, it was a pretty good season to grow vegetables outside. We endured wet periods but also enjoyed some dry ones (enjoyed once the irrigation infrastructure was in place). My bones tell me next season will be a mix of wet and dry again with a couple extravagant cloud bursts of precipitation. For now, let's immerse ourselves in the pleasures of wintertime!

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Lets-Eat-a-Salad-2414/

December 2, 2019
Early December Produce
by Farmer Dana

Late Fall Harvest #4 (Week B) should include cabbage, Napa cabbage, radicchio, carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, kale, arugula, greens mix, lettuce mix, beets, hakurei turnips, celeriac, purple daikons, and watermelon radishes. Some items will be a choice.

Link: https://www.anchorrunfarm.com/blog/Early-December-Produce-2415/