Winter Harvest #6 (Week B) should include sweet potatoes, garlic, rosemary, lettuce mix, root choice #1 (celeriac, purple daikon, scarlet turnips), root choice #2 (carrots, beets), greens choice (baby kale, spinach), and cabbage (napa, red, green). After this week we will probably say goodbye to sweet potatoes, green cabbage, beets, and carrots but will welcome some new treats starting next week.

Create the most amazing snack for the Super Bowl by slicing your roots into crudités for a healthy hors d'oeuvre! Great raw veggie options include kohlrabi, daikon radish, carrots, and turnips).

We're still enjoying fairly mild weather for the middle of winter. February arrives this week as we eclipse the 10-hours-of-daylight mark. We're also halfway through the Winter CSA and now daylight is going to increase rapidly as we move towards the spring equinox. During these mild winter days we walk around the farm while brainstorming ways to improve the farm for the upcoming growing season as well as farther into the future. Annual produce crops will give us immediate enjoyment this year but perennial crops like asparagus, raspberries, fruit trees, and blueberries will take a few years until they bear fruit. As we fine-tune our crop plan and rotation we realize that due to better yields and improved decision making our growing footprint is actually shrinking, allowing us to use new available land for long-term crops like the ones previously mentioned, or a sustained cover crop fallow period for soil improvement.

Thus, new challenges beckon. Sweet fruits are definite crowd pleasers and we're striving to figure out ways to bring these additional crops to you. As a Certified Organic farm there's probably a bit of a challenge in growing chemical free and healthy fruit which is why you don't see any organic fruit and berries around. We're excited to try. We're hopeful that in the same way we're able to successfully grow high quality organic produce we can slowly add more berries and tree fruits to the mix. There will be some trial by error for sure, and unfortunately the longer term investment might not reveal the errors quickly, but that's what it will take to get it right. We still have a lot to learn, but over the past 3 years we've planted 65 fruit trees, 200 blackberries, and 500 raspberries. This upcoming season we're planting 500 more raspberries and 150 blueberries as well as expanding our strawberry patch. We think diversification is key to a healthy and successful farm. Thank you for your support.

With all the illness going around right now - my hubby included - I wanted to make something easy, delicious, warming and healing. Chicken soup is my usual go-to, but I wanted something a little different and simpler since when I make chicken soup it always starts by making my own broth.

I found a recipe for Star Anise-Ginger Braised Whole Chicken. It was so easy to pull together. You do need a bit of time, as it takes 1 and a half hours, but only 15 minutes is active time. The recipe calls for celery as part of the veggies, but I used celeriac and daikon instead. Celeriac adds a flavor profile very similar to celery since they are in the same family. The recipe on-line says to servce with crusty bread, but I made brown rice since in China, braised chicken in stock is always served with rice. I love using star anise in recipes because it makes the house smell so delicious!

I hope you're enjoying the harvest - I sure am!!