It was a scurry and hustle around here on Wednesday as we harvested everything we could that we thought would be damaged or destroyed by the 21 degree low forecasted for this morning. Everything, everything that we thought could be saved by row cover got the White Blanket Treatment.

Every winter it’s an eerie thing to gaze in hoop-houses that look sort of snow-covered. It’s mesmerizing. If you stop by our FarmStand (which we hope you do!), you are invited to take a look inside our hoop-houses to see this sight. Note: one of our hoop-houses has a heater (which technically makes it a greenhouse) and we have the heat set to the radical temp of 30 degrees Fahrenheit. In that house, there are no white blankets on the beds of veggies. There’s your dose of Farm Education for the day!

After preparing for this great cold, cloud cover moved in late last night and it didn’t get as cold as predicted. That’s fun news for us. 🙂 We’ll spend today readying vegetables for CSA Shares and markets this weekend. If you are ready for SALAD, there is plenty in our self-serve FarmStand, which remains open 9am-8pm every day.

We have our Salad Mix AND Romaine Lettuce, which are not part of the CDC alert about contaminated Romaine. In addition to knowing with great certainty that the lettuce involved is part of a nation-wide supply chain (of which our farm is not a part), we just started harvesting Romaine in the past week. The people sick in this incident became ill in October. We hadn’t started harvesting Romaine then. Here we were harvesting Romaine on Monday of this week:

In addition to requiring hand washing of our staff, we use food-based (not manure based) compost on our fields, we irrigate with clean well water (that we have had tested) except in cases of extreme drought at which time we use pond water for irrigation, we sanitize our harvest equipment every harvest day, and we rinse produce with clean well water. We remind everyone that consumers should always be responsible for washing their own produce before eating. Thank you for knowing us as your farmers!

THIS WEEKEND:
– We will be at the Farmers’ Market at St. Stephen’s on Saturday morning from 9-12, INDOORS in the fellowship hall.
– We will be at the Over the River Makers’ Mart on Sunday from 10-3 in Bon Air, in front of Perk! and the Buford Road Pharmacy. The forecast is for nice weather! Join us and a whole host of amazing artisans for local and hand made treasures.

– CSA Shares will be at the usual pick up locations for this weekend: here @ the farm, @ Good Health Herbs (for the usual Brandermill Market shares), and @ St. Stephens.

– Farm Share sign up for 2019 remains open until filled! Sign up here for a weekly or bi-weekly share, May through November. (Our Winter Share is already full. Email us if you’d like to be put on the waiting list.) New for 2019 is that shares are customizable, meaning you, the member, get to choose from our weekly harvest what gets included in your share and what doesn’t. Plus – payment by credit card is built in to the new system, and the payment plan is superb.

Saturday’s Farm Share will include:
Salad Mix
Head of Green Romaine Lettuce
Napa Cabbage
Carrots
Turnips
Radishes

Vegetable Notes & Recipe Suggestions…also cataloged on our Recipe Page and see our Pinterest Page  
Napa Cabbage – This style of Napa Cabbage Salad is delicious. We leave out the peas that it calls for and we use our red radishes in place of the daikon it calls for. Or – we like to sub in our Napa Cabbage for Brussels Sprouts in this Brussels Sprouts Salad. It works beautifully. Just slice the Napa very thinly.
Lettuce & Salad – We have a special place in our hearts for this Creamy Mustard Vinaigrette recipe. It’s great with our Salad Mix, of course, but we really love it with crunchy Romaine, for whatever reason. Give it a whirl! Stun your family and serve a big Salad!
Radishes – Remember that our Radish Dip is a fan favorite and very well may work itself into your weekend. Dice the radishes very small (ideally using a food processor). Stir into softened cream cheese with a dash of salt, pepper, lemon juice, and Penzey’s herb blend Fox Point. Voila! Or you can follow this Radish Dip recipe variation.
Turnips – Make a classic: Roasted Vegetables with Balsamic Vinegar. That recipe calls for Carrots, Turnips, and Beets. We planned for Beets for you this fall, and the 800 row feet of beets that we planted were completely ruined by the extra fall rain. We are sad and sorry!

Our harvest for the weekend markets will include: 
Carrots, Chinese (Napa) Cabbage, Cilantro, Dill, Kale, Kohlrabi, Parsley, Radishes, Romaine Lettuce, Salad Mix, Green Tomatoes, Turnips,…and our Organic Hearth Baked Bread (Baguettes, Herb, Whole Rye, Raisin, & Seed loaves for this weekend).
{Our farmstand is open with most of the above items…see here for updated inventory}

Everything remaining after CSA shares are distributed and our farm stand is shopped (plus the bread we bake Saturday morning)… we’ll bring on Saturday to the Farmer’s Market @ St. Stephen’s  and on Sunday to the Over the River Makers’ Mart. Keep an eye on what we have available via the online farmers’ markets: FallLineFarms.com.

~Market Share member? You’re likely looking for this link here. Ordering will remain open until NOON today due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Enjoy ~

Janet, Dan, & the whole Broadfork crew
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