Happy New Year! We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season, and 2026 is off to a good start.

On the farm, vegetable packing has slowed down a little now that the food holidays are over. This has given our winter crew some time to take inventory, clean up and organize the pack shed, and even spend a little time off the farm to enjoy the beautiful days we’ve been having. This month, the crew will start washing more carrots so we can continue selling them for the months to come. Back in the Fall, we washed about half of our carrots and stored the other half straight from the field. Thanks to the community’s love for our carrots, we have used up almost all our clean carrots so this week we’ll begin the process of sorting and washing the rest.

Janaki has also been very busy with a lot of behind the scenes work. Two weeks ago we ordered all of our seeds for 2026! It’s a lot of seeds, but we are so excited to try some new varieties and start planning for the growing season. January also marks budget season. Janaki has been hard at work creating a new budget for the upcoming year. This means using his crystal ball to predict both income and expenses for 2026. Part of planning the budget means planning a price and release date for 2026 shares. We don’t have an exact date yet, but keep an eye out because the site should be up and running for orders by the end of the month. 

I recently read a quote by Josephine Neuse that says, “Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the Spring and ends in the Fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with the dream”. We are dreaming big over here on the farm, and we can’t wait to share all those dreams with you really soon!

In your share this month:

Orange and Purple Carrots – Onions – Beets – Parsnips – Rutabagas – Red and Russet Potatoes – Delicata and Winter Sweet or Tetsukabuto Squash

We know that rutabaga can be a controversial vegetable. People either love it or they hate it. If you’re someone who normally isn’t a fan of rutabaga, or just want a fun way to use this month’s rutabaga, check out this recipe for Swede (rutabaga) cake. I know this recipe might seem a little out there, but trust me, it’s really good! The flavors are very similar to a carrot cake. Lots of warming spices, a slight earthy flavor from the rutabaga, and an overall moist cake. If you want the flavor to really match a carrot cake, the recipe has an option to swap out the brown butter frosting for a traditional cream cheese frosting.

We hear from most of our members that many of their carrots rarely make it home before being eaten. If your carrots make it home, or you find yourself wanting a recipe that uses some parsnips, check out this Carrot, Parsnip, and Ginger soup. This soup is filled with ginger and cinnamon to warm you up on Winter’s coldest days. The coconut milk makes the soup extra creamy, and a little thicker. The sweetness of the carrots pairs well with the earthy flavor of the parsnips. If you want to get really wild, I’d suggest topping this soup with crushed nuts (peanuts, cashews, or pecans would all be great choices), toasted coconut, and/or some fresh cilantro.

After the holidays when I’ve done a lot of cooking, I want an easy dinner that tastes delicious without all the hard work. This Creamy Squash Pasta is an easy dinner with minimal effort, but tons of flavor. The longest portion of this recipe is roasting the squash in the oven. If you want to make it even faster, you can look up ways to cook the squash in your microwave. This recipe calls for Kabocha squash (Winter Sweet and Tetsukabuto are both types of Kabocha), but your Delicata would be great in this recipe as well. If you use Delicata, I would suggest omitting the brown sugar since it is naturally very sweet.