Winter Farm Share: Thanksgiving Special

Important: Different pick up day and times for Thanksgiving share. Please read!

Just a friendly reminder that, in order to get your veggies to you before Thanksgiving day, we will be delivering your shares on Tuesday next week (11/24). See the table below for an estimate of when your share will arrive. If you’re a home delivery member, you can guesstimate your arrival time based on the business drop closest to you. These revised times are for the Thanksgiving share only; this week's Winter Shares will still be delivered on their usual day and time this Wednesday and Thursday (11/18-19).

This week’s newsletter comes to you from Packshed Manager, Sarah. I’ll be guest writing off and on this winter. Many of you know me from the farmer’s market last year, or you may have seen me dropping off your summer shares. 

With winter setting in and field harvests coming to a close, we’re able to spend more time in the office, reflecting on the past season and planning for the next.  This crazy year certainly threw a ton of curveballs our way (along with the rest of the world), kinda sorta to the point where one was left to wonder if the pitcher even knew how to throw a normal ball.  First there was Covid, which resulted in major changes to our marketing and staffing plans, among other things. Then there was the hailstorm. Intermixed among all those things was an ever more voracious deer population, who proved magnificently capable of tearing down and destroying all of our deer-proofing barriers (I think the end of season win/loss tally was something like deer 500: farmers 3). And there were new pest or disease issues with a number of crops.

But you know what? We made it! We’re thankful to have a tremendously supportive community who helped us out in so many ways this year. Thank you to all of our previous farmers’ market customers who converted to farm share members. And thank you to CSA members from past years who rejoined, as well as to those joining us for the first time. Thank you to the many people who donated money or time to help us out after the hailstorm, something that has made it possible for us to continue growing produce for you, as well as to enter next season ready to farm. And thank you to the DNR, who we’ll be receiving a grant from to help us build a massive 10 foot tall fence around our fields, hopefully keeping the deer out for good (future tally deer 0: farmers 5 million…...fingers crossed). And we’re thankful to have a talented young farmer, Justin, newly on board to fill our hybrid tractor operator and harvest crew position next year. He’ll be starting later this week and helping me out this winter with harvesting and preparing your farm shares, among other random winter farm tasks.

Wishing you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving-  

Notes on items in this week’s share

Spinach, the frost-hardiest of greens, will still be coming from the field this week. It will have outstanding flavor and medium to large size leaves that will work raw (you may choose to cut them up a bit) or cooked. This will be the final field harvest of the season, so grab it while you can!

Sweet Potatoes this week will be large, similar in size to what you typically find in grocery stores. 

Butternut squash was grown at our neighbor’s farm, which the hail storm mostly missed this summer. You may still see a few small, healed hail pocks, but they won’t impact usability or storage life.

The garlic variety this week is German Extra Hardy from our friends at Grinnell Heritage Farm, who provided this beautiful organic garlic for us since our own crop wasn’t sufficient to meet the needs of our members this season.

Watermelon Radish- Available as a swap-in item. Have you tried roasting these? They come out sweet and bright pink in color. It’s a great way to add color to a roasted root medley. Or try them shaved onto a salad (peel first) for a splash of color and mild radish flavor.