Farm News October 18, 2022
Please note our Fall Farmstand Hours:
Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday: 2 - 5:30 PM (closing an hour earlier)
Saturday: 9 am - 12:30 pm (opening 1 hour later)
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Conventional wisdom has it that during drought years, the fall foliage will lean more toward the brown and drab side. If that’s true, then the rainstorms of late September must have given the fall leaves a push toward the colorful side. We’ve had several of those days that start out cool and misty and then ripen into clear and pleasant, which really make the foliage display pop.
Shell catches Dana assiduously hunting out the best lettuce when it was not in abundance. We’re back in business now, and lettuce is once again on sale!
We’ve made good use of the fall weather by picking up the pace on the fall root crop harvest. We are experiencing one of our best fall carrot harvests ever this season, along with plenty of beets and leeks. Parsnips, which are tricky to grow and generally not our best crop, are debuting this week, sweetened by frost and tasty as ever. The butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and Koginut squash have finished curing with full sweetness and flavor. Be sure to give the Japanese sweet potato Murasaki a try; we’ve grown more this season due to popular demand. Brussels sprouts have joined our fall kale, lettuce, escarole, and spinach harvests, making autumn’s arrival official.
(Above) James and CJ put in the last of 2022 lettuce in greenhouse 5, where it will live out its days in warmth and splendor. (Below) Meanwhile, the high tunnel lettuce is shaping us nicely.
Even though hard frost warnings are on the short-term forecast, we are still planting spinach and lettuce in our greenhouses for late-fall and early-winter harvest. This week the garlic cycle begins all over again. We’ve put aside the biggest, fattest bulbs for planting in our field. But first we’ll need to spade in the oat and pea cover crop and add lots of compost to the soil. We lock in the fertility in the fall, which will feed the plants when they push up in early spring. Garlic planting shows that we’re never fully present in one season, but always considering what’s ahead when we embark on in the weekly tasks at hand.
We hope you enjoy the harvest,
Paul, Rebecca, and the Fort Hill Farm Crew
The dahlias are in their glory, and we’ll try to save them again this week. Stay tuned for our winter dahlia tuber store opening.
Fort Hill Farm Store Feature:
With Elliott taking the lead, we’ve ramped up our Farm Store offerings this year. We’ve sourced a number of local delicacies that are otherwise out of reach. We hope these specialty crafted items are adding joy and value to the fresh produce you pick up at the farm.
Cross Culture Kombucha
Husband and wife team Ian and Liz Ceppos first got turned on to kombucha during a distinct move toward a healthier diet and lifestyle. This led to their extensive exploration of the fermentation process, in which bacteria and yeast are cultured into a healthy tea. Their passion has blossomed into a thriving business and a kombucha taproom in Danbury (CT’s first)! In addition to being delicious, kombucha is celebrated for promoting beneficial gut bacteria and immune support. We have a two of their “booch” varietals in the barn this week.
You can check out their website - https://crossculturekombucha.com
Featured veg:
Murasaki Japanese Sweet Potatoes: These are simply delectable. Their burgundy skin belies white flesh underneath, which turns golden when cooked. The flesh is both dry and creamy - dry, that is, in a good sense - they are firm enough to stand up to roasting and crisp up better than the orange sweet potatoes we know and (also) love. And the sweetness …. yum! Try them out in the recipe below.
Parsnips: This quintessential New England fall crop and white member of the carrot family has a candy-like sweetness when roasted. Also yummy shredded raw into slaws or cubed into soups. It’s not widely grown because it takes nearly a month to germinate, giving the weeds a big head start, needs exacting thinning to produce a nice root (crawling on hands and knees), and also has phototoxic leaves! This means a full body suit is required for harvest, notably on a cloudy day. Stores for over a month in fridge crisper drawer.
Also available:
Head lettuce (on sale again!), arugula, salad mix (limited), pea shoots, carrots, red and French Breakfast radishes, curly and lacinato kale, rainbow chard, escarole, radicchio, cilantro, parsley, chives, rosemary, oregano, sage, thyme, red, Chioggia, and gold beets, red and yellow storage onions (farmstand only), green and red cabbage, garlic, jalapeño, poblano, & shishito peppers, limited sweet peppers, heirloom beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes (limited), Kennebec, Blue Gold, Dark Red Norland, and Satina Gold, Magic Molly blue fingerling, & gold fingerling potatoes, sweet potatoes, Butternut, Koginut, & Honeynut squash, Carnival and Starry Night winter squash (at farmstand), speckled swan gourds, leeks, Brussels sprouts on stalk, fresh ginger and turmeric!
Coming Soon:
collards
Pick Your Own:
~Perennial Herbs:
chives, oregano, sage, and thyme
~Flowers:
We will continue to try to protect the dahlias from frost…
Recipes
Suggested by Rebecca Batchie
For more recipes, check out the Fort Hill Farm Recipe Database
Burmese Chicken Aloo Curry with Japanese Sweet Potatoes
From Sunbasket - Serves 2
1¼ pounds boneless skinless chicken thigh pieces
1 yellow onion
2 or 3 Japanese sweet potatoes
Sunbasket lemongrass paste (lemongrass - olive oil - fresh ginger - fresh garlic - turmeric - salt)
1 teaspoon Marash chile flakes (optional)
¼ cup red miso paste (contains soy - optional)
2 cups diced tomatoes
1 cup coconut milk
½ teaspoon ground cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
Fresh cilantro
Instructions
Wash produce before use
1. Prep and brown the chicken
Cut a small corner from the chicken packaging and drain off any excess liquid. Transfer to a plate; pat dry with a paper towel. Season generously with salt and pepper.
In a large sauce pot over medium-high heat, warm 1 to 2 tablespoons oil until hot but not smoking. Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned but not yet cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Do not clean the pot. While the chicken browns, prepare the vegetables.
2. Prep the vegetables
Peel and coarsely chop the yellow onion.
Scrub or peel the sweet potatoes. Trim the ends and cut the potatoes in half lengthwise, then crosswise into ¼-inch-thick half-moons.
3. Cook the aloo
In the same pot used for the chicken, if dry, add 1 teaspoon oil and warm over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add the onion, season with salt, and cook, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot, until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the lemongrass paste, 1 cup water, as much Marash chile as you like, and the miso paste, if using.
Add the sweet potatoes, tomatoes, coconut milk, ground cloves, and cinnamon sticks and cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the chicken and 4 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sweet potatoes are tender and the chicken is cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes.
4. Chop the cilantro; finish the aloo
When the aloo is almost done, coarsely chop the cilantro.
Remove the aloo from the heat and stir in the cilantro. Season to taste with salt. Discard the cinnamon sticks. Transfer the chicken aloo to individual bowls and serve.