Oh boy it was a busy week on the farm! Last week’s main focus was getting our tomatoes trellised and our caterpillar tunnel moved. 

For those who don’t know, a caterpillar tunnel is a greenhouse that’s intended to be moved each year. It’s comprised of metal hoops that sit on pieces of rebar that have been hammered into the ground. Plastic gets draped over the hoops, and is secured with string. It sounds simple, but it’s a task that requires lots of hands, precise measurements, and little to no wind. Despite it being the warmest weather we’ve had this season, our amazing crew got it all moved and reassembled in two days. 

We choose to grow some varieties of our canning tomatoes (those more susceptible to disease) in the caterpillar tunnel because it not only extends our growing season, but it also protects the plants from disease and harsh weather.

When we weren’t working on the caterpillar tunnel, we were pounding in posts to start trellising tomatoes. We trellis our outdoor tomatoes using the Florida Weave method. 

This involves twine being looped around posts, and pulled tight against the plants. The twine works to not only stabilize the plants, but also lifts the leaves and fruit off the ground. We prefer this method over standard cages because it takes up less space, costs less, and is faster to maintain throughout the season. 

Thanks to all the rain we got recently, our crew will spend much of the upcoming week weeding and hoeing.

We’ve had a few people ask about hail–yes, last Monday’s storm did include quite a bit of hail here at the farm! It was a fortunate time for it though, and we seem to have gotten by without a lot of damage. The crew had harvested Thursday’s Bok Choy just before the storm hit or its brittle leaves probably would have been shredded. You may notice some slight damage on the broccoli heads as well. Our main long-term concern is for the onion crop; their leaves have quite a bit of bruising on them. That can reduce their ability to size up fully and can also introduce pathways for disease to infect the plants. All in all, we’re grateful that the damage wasn’t more significant. 

In your share this week:

Garlic Scapes – Napa Cabbage – Beets – Lettuce – Cucumber – Carrots – Kale – Green Onions

This heat wave makes me want salad after salad, but sometimes I want to spice it up. This Napa and Kale Slaw is the perfect salad for this week’s box. It combines crispy napa cabbage and earthy kale, with chickpeas and breaded cauliflower. Then everything is tossed in a creamy and spicy jalapeno ranch. Adding cucumber, carrot, or green onion to this would be delicious. If you aren’t a fan of cauliflower, try swapping it for chicken, shrimp, or tofu.

If you aren’t a fan of eating beets, but like enjoying an adventurous cocktail, check out these 7 beet cocktail recipes. Some are sweet. Some are earthy. Some are spicy. All of them feature beets in a creative way!

Garlic scapes can be used just like you would regular garlic. Some of my favorite ways to use them are in scrambled eggs, on top of pizza, or in this scape and white bean dip. This dip is wonderful with fresh veggies (like those carrots and cucumber in your box), crackers, or warm bread.

It is officially Summer, and Mother Nature is bringing us the heat this week. We are excited for the plants to get some warm weather and rain. 

With the heat and rain coming, our crew was extra busy last week trying to get as much field work done as we could. The big project for the week was getting mulch on all of our onions and tomatoes.

Each year we grow two types of crops: cash crops and cover crops. Cash crops are all the vegetables that end up in your share boxes. Aka: anything that we grow intending to sell. Cover crops are things like rye grass, clover, or buckwheat. We don’t intend to make money off of these. They are planted to cover the soil to prevent erosion, smother weeds, help with both harmful and helpful pests, and to put beneficial nutrients back into the soil. 

The cover crop we use the most is cereal rye. This is a really great cover crop because it’s deep roots work to loosen compacted soil, it grows quickly which helps to smother weeds, it’s great for sequestering nitrogen, and it makes amazing straw. 

Each Spring/Summer, once the rye has matured but hasn’t set seed, we chop it up and use it as mulch. It’s a lengthy process that requires specific timing, but it saves a lot of time later in the season. We put down mulch between all of our onion beds, and around all of our tomatoes. This not only helps to cover bare soil so weeds don’t grow, but it also helps to retain moisture in the soil. Over the years, we’ve streamlined the process so it goes much faster. However, from chopping to spreading to completion, still takes about 2-3 days. 

Once all the onions and tomatoes are mulched, any leftover rye gets baled. These bales will be stored in the barn to be used this fall when we cover our garlic for winter, and next spring to mulch our greenhouse tomatoes. 

Now that mulching is done, we can give our outdoor tomatoes a whole lot of love. Soon the crew will begin putting up the caterpillar tunnel to cover some of our tomatoes. They’ll also start adding support strings as a way of trellising the tomatoes. 

In your box this week:

Carrots – Radishes – Lettuce – Broccoli – Green Onions – Pac Choy

If you aren’t a fan of bok choy (also called Pac Choy), or are new to the vegetable, try out this Bok Choy pesto. I made it last week and enjoyed it on shrimp tacos, on top of a tofu bowl, and as a dip with crackers. Bonus: this recipe is also great if you swap out the bok choy for spinach, so save this for later. **The recipe calls for 4 small bok choy which would be equivalent to the one regular sized bok choy in your box**

This recipe for broccoli and cheese galette requires a bit of a time commitment, but I think it’s worth it! The crust is flaky. The center is cheesy and gooey. The broccoli is still crisp and tender. It’s perfect for a rainy night curled up on the couch. If you want to try a faster version of this, you can use store bought pie crust which will considerably cut down on the time. Just note that a store bought crust is usually only 9 inches, and this recipe is assuming your crust is 14 inches.

It was another week of dodging rain, and enjoying all the sunshine mother nature offered. 

This has been a very strange Spring. The zucchini, winter squash, and melons haven’t done much growing thanks to repeated nights in the 40s. A few of our melon plants have a flower or two on them, but the plants are too small to support fruit if it gets pollinated and decides to grow. On the other hand, our cool weather crops like bok choy have gotten so warm during the day, some of them are starting to flower. You’ll see some of those in your share this week–the flower stalks are actually delicious! 

In non weather-related news, the crew worked really hard last Tuesday to get more of our storage cabbage in the ground. This year has been exciting getting to plant with our new-to-us carousel planter. It has significantly decreased planting time. However, there is a lot more stopping and adjusting as we continue to learn about and navigate the new planter. We think we’re finally figuring it out, and it will hopefully be smooth sailing for the rest of the season. 

When we weren’t planting, the crew was giving the crops some much needed love and attention. Our greenhouse tomatoes have baby fruit on them! This marks the time when we start removing bottom leaves from the plants to increase air flow and help the plants avoid disease. The Colorado potato beetle is already showing up in large numbers. Our crew spent a few hours hunting for adult beetles, and searching for their eggs. The sooner we catch the eggs, the less damage the potato plants will endure. 

This time of year marks what I call “maintenance season”. We still have a few crops to be seeded and planted, but most things are already in the field. Now our focus shifts to keeping the plants alive and happy. We will do lots of weeding, hoeing, pruning, fertilizing, and pest inspecting in the coming weeks. 

In your box this week:

Lettuce – Baby Bok Choy – Beets – Greens Mix – Broccoli – Green Onions

If you’ve been around for a while, you probably know that I love shakshuka. This Root to Leaf Beet Shakshuka is the most fun version I’ve tried so far. It’s lighter and less acidic than a traditional tomato based version. This one uses every part of the beet, which is a great way to use up the beet tops if you aren’t sure what to do with them.

This Bok Choy Salad makes a great side salad. It’s bright, light, crisp, and very refreshing. I like serving this alongside salmon, pork, or chicken. The recipe calls for 8 heads of baby bok choy. You can scale down the recipe to use the amount of bok choy provided in your box, or you can substitute some of the bok choy for greens mix. A lot of our greens mix is asian style greens, so the flavors will go really well in this salad.

Mother nature gave us some much needed rain last week. The plants, and unfortunately the weeds, are looking very happy.

The rain gave us some time to catch up on indoor activities. We potted up a variety of vegetables. To save space, we usually start up to 450 seeds in a flat tray. Once the baby plants get their seed leaves (their first set of leaves), we transfer them (aka potting up) to a tray with 72 cells. These 72 cell trays are where they will continue to grow until they are ready to be transplanted to their forever home in the field or greenhouse. 

The rain also gave us time to cut seed potatoes for planting. If you don’t know, seed potatoes are a specific potato that is grown with the sole intention of it being planted. They look identical to the potatoes we eat, but they are grown under very specific conditions. It is grown in designated fields by specific farmers. These farmers carefully watch the plants to ensure none of them get a disease. If you plant a potato from a diseased plant, you subject your entire potato crop to the disease. We cut the potatoes so each piece has two eyes which ensures a higher possibility of 100% emergence. Once the potatoes are cut, we allow them to sit for a day or two so the flesh can start to dry out and produce a protective callous. This locks in moisture, and keeps out bacteria and bad organisms, which prevent the potato pieces from rotting.

Once the sky cleared up, we spent some time in the fields getting more brassicas planted, doing some weeding, and setting up our trellis fencing for the peas.

This week we will be focusing on getting the rest of our storage cabbage planted in the field, and seeding some of your Summer favorites. The first rounds of green beans and dill will be in the ground by the end of the week!

In your box this week:

Lettuce – Turnips – Green Onions – Spinach – Rhubarb – Radishes

Turnips seem to be one of those foods people either love or hate. Most people who dislike them object to their peppery taste. If you’re one of those people, check out this recipe for Honey Glazed Turnips. Cooking the turnips will mellow out the peppery flavor a little bit. Adding the honey makes most of it go away. This recipe is also great with radishes.

We are sending some big heads of romaine this week. These Asian Lettuce Wraps are a great way to use up some of the romaine, aside from making another salad. This recipe is a summer staple in my house. It’s easy to make, and easy to customize. You can swap out the protein, add more veggies, and top them with an variety of items. Your green onions are a must with this recipe. Also try topping with any leftover radishes from last week, peanuts, or kimchi.

I love a French 75! This one with fresh rhubarb syrup is on repeat every spring. It combines a homemade rhubarb syrup with all the classic components of a French 75. It’s light, bright, and not too sweet. Perfect for a sunny day on the deck. If you prefer non alcoholic drinks, you can mix this syrup with sparkling water and a little lemonade. I like to garnish the non alcoholic version with an orange peel, to add another depth of flavor.

Happy Summer CSA season! Welcome to all of our new members, and welcome back to all of our returning members. We are so grateful that you’ve chosen to spend the next 18 weeks enjoying all of the delicious veggies our crew works hard to grow. 

A lot has been happening around the farm since our last newsletter a few weeks ago. Our crew has been planting, seeding, and weeding like crazy. Our summer squash, winter squash, outside cucumbers, melons, peppers, outside tomatoes, leeks and another round of brassicas were all transplanted to their new homes in the field. Most of those get planted by two people riding on our transplanter that is driven by one of the tractors. It’s a beautiful blend of human power and machinery. However, the peppers and tomatoes (all 1,500 plants), are each put in the ground by hand. It takes a full 8 hour work day to get all of these in the ground. Thankfully they’re really tasty which makes all the labor more worth it.

We made it through our biggest brassica seeding of the year. This seeding includes all of the cabbage that we will store throughout the winter. That’s almost 10,000 cabbage plants that were seeded in two days. Thankfully we have some vacuum seeders that help speed up this process so we aren’t putting seeds into a tray one at a time. This cabbage will be sent to our winter CSA members, Spirit Creek farm kraut, and local wholesale customers.

When the crew isn’t planting or seeding, they can usually be found in the field weeding. We try our best to stay well ahead of the weeding. This time of year is challenging because we have so many things to do and not enough time in the day. Weeding is most important when the plants are small. The baby veggies are working so hard to grow, we don’t want them competing with weeds for nutrients and sunlight. 

This week, the crew will be adding trellis to our peas, mulching our greenhouse tomatoes, transplanting more brassicas, and getting our next round of potatoes ready to go in the field.

In your box this week:

Green Onions – Spinach – Kale – Greens Mix – Radishes – Rhubarb

Happy May everyone!

Summer Share season is just around the corner! We’re planning for the first box to go out in just three weeks, the week of June 8th/11th. This is a good time to remind you that your balance for Summer, Preserving, and Egg shares is due by May 31st. Also, if you’ve been a member for a while, please take note that we have changed where your check should be mailed. All payments can be mailed directly to the Food Farm at 2612 County Road 1, Wrenshall, MN 55797 (or you can log in to your account and pay online). If something has come up and you don’t think you can make your final payment by the end of May, please reach out to Catherine, Janaki, or myself as soon as possible. We are happy to work with you to set up an alternate payment plan.

We still have Winter shares available if you haven’t claimed one yet. Those payments aren’t due until the end of August. We will send out a reminder as it gets closer to the deadline.

Now onto the fun stuff! We have been busy on the farm the last few weeks getting things prepped, fertilized, seeded, planted, weeded, cleaned, inventoried, and everything in-between. It’s always amazing to me how much gets done before the first Summer box ever heads out the door.

We welcomed new baby chicks who will help produce eggs for all of our egg shares. Ellis took great care of introducing them to Zuko (the livestock guardian dog), making sure they got water after their adventure, and getting them settled into their new home. Baby chicks means Spring has officially arrived on the farm, even if mother nature hasn’t gotten the memo yet.

Last week our crew worked really hard getting lots of plants in the ground in the field and the greenhouses. Thousands of onions, thousands of potatoes, and hundreds of brassicas all went into the field last week. Hundreds of tomatoes and cucumbers were transplanted into the greenhouse as well. Our crew members are feeling it in their muscles that haven’t been used for a while. This week we planted the first round of lettuce in the greenhouse, and the second round of brassicas went into the field. The second round of brassicas was extra fun because we got to test out our new transplanter. Thanks to a grant we received, we were able to purchase a new to us carousel planter. This new planter does a lot of the work for us, so our crew can plant faster and more efficiently. We still have a few kinks to work out, but we are really excited to see all this new transplanter can do for us.

With the new season starting soon, we are welcoming a few new faces to our farm crew. This week we have Emily and Nolan joining us for the full growing season. We are very excited to meet them, and have a few extra hands as we get the growing season into full swing. We are also having two interns, Sydney and Tabitha, from UMD join us for the Summer months until school starts again. Sydney and Tabitha will each be with us 2 days a week. Part of their internship is working with the Duluth Center for Women and Children to salvage and glean extra produce. Those veggies are used to put together meal boxes that are sent to families in the area who need a little help putting food on the table. We are so excited to welcome all of these wonderful people to our crew!

If you want to get a front row seat to the action, we love having volunteers join us on CSA harvest days, any Monday or Thursday, from June – October, from 9am-1pm. Volunteers get to meet the crew, see where the farm, and harvest and box veggies that end up on your table. Grab your gloves and a sun hat to come join in the fun! If you want to know what’s happening but prefer to stay inside, we post weekly newsletters on the website that detail what the farm crew has been up to, and any events on the farm (these usually include less physical labor than CSA days).

We are so grateful for all of your support! We wouldn’t be able to do this without all of you. We’ll be back in 24 days to kick off the Summer season.

Happy Spring! I both can’t believe it’s already April, and that it’s only April. Winter hung around for a long time this year, but I can’t believe this means our Winter CSA is officially over. Both the baby plants and our crew members are grateful to get some warmer weather and sunshine.

Before I update you all with what’s been going on, I want to let you know that we have fewer than 10 Summer Shares left. If you or anyone you know has been thinking about signing up for a share, I would recommend doing it soon before they sell out. We still have plenty of Winter shares and preserving shares, so make sure you sign up for those too if you haven’t already.

Now back to what you all came here for, farm updates. Our potting shed has been filling up with onions, leeks, shallots, the first planting of brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, and kale), greenhouse tomatoes, and peppers. This time of year, the germination chambers are rarely empty, and the stacks of seed starting trays diminish quickly. 

Catherine has been busy getting our greenhouses ready for the season. Last fall she planted rye in all the tunnels to help the soil replenish nutrients and to support the all-important soil life that keeps our crops healthy. Once it gets to be 4-6 inches tall, we place black tarps over the top of it for about 3 weeks, to help kill it with a minimum of tillage. After the three weeks are up, we use various tools to prep the soil for planting. Our first round of greenhouse carrots, beets, and green onions were all seeded last week. Our greenhouse tomatoes are set to be planted by the end of the month. Broccoli, onions, and shallots are scheduled to be planted, OUTSIDE by the end of the month. Fingers crossed mother nature cooperates with our planting schedule. 

In the pack shed, Teri and I have been bagging and boxing vegetables for our wholesale customers. The coolers have quickly started to empty out as we finish off pallet boxes of veggies. Once our inventory gets low enough, we start closing down coolers so the spring cleaning can begin. Last week we closed down the first of our three coolers. It won’t be much longer before the second cooler is empty and ready for cleaning. Spring cleaning on the farm means deep cleaning and sanitizing everything in the pack shed after it’s been closed up all Winter. It also means taking inventory of our CSA supplies, farm tools, and seed starting equipment. April is our final chance to make sure all of our T’s are crossed, and our I’s are dotted. Once May arrives, we are in full growing mode until the middle of November. 

Things on the farm have obviously been very busy, so we are incredibly grateful for our wonderful volunteers who showed up to lend a helping hand throughout the winter. We know getting out of bed to put on far too many layers (then add one or two more), drive through questionable road conditions, and stand around in a chilly pack shed for multiple hours, isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. Somehow, we keep finding amazing people who decide getting local veggies into your homes makes it all worth it. Thank you to all of our volunteers who showed up, packed veggies, coordinated pick up, and supplied us with smiles and laughs. We could not have made it through another CSA season without all of you! 

We have lots of cleaning, seeding, planting, weeding, prepping, and dog petting to do in the next 2 months. We can’t wait to see many of you again soon when our Summer season starts in June. Thank you for making this another amazing season! We couldn’t keep doing this without all of your support and encouragement. See you soon!

In your share this month:

Rutabaga – Russet, Yellow, and Baby Red Potatoes – Onions – Shallot – Garlic – Orange and Purple Carrots – Parsnips – Chioggia and Red Beets – Greens Mix

If you’re looking for a way to use up a small amount of a lot of veggies, check out these root vegetable fritters. They’re packed with veggies, cheese, and so much flavor. You can play around with using different colors of potatoes and carrots to change not only the color of the fritter, but also the texture and flavor. I like topping these with a runny egg for a delicious breakfast. They’d also be great as an appetizer, after school snack, or a side dish.

Spring time always gets me in the mood for potato salad. It’s the perfect combination of cozy, comfort food, and bright flavors. If you’re feeling uninspired by your usual potato salad, or you want to try something new, here’s a recipe for Alsatian Potato Salad. It uses white wine, chicken stock, vinegar, and Dijon to make a creamy dressing. If you aren’t a fan of mayo based things, this recipe is for you.

It’s starting to feel like Spring on the farm!

The snow has begun melting, the birds and critters are coming out of the winter hiding places, and the greenhouses are heating back up.

We loved getting to see so many of you at our rutabaga giveaway last month! Thanks to the wonderful turn out, and lots of new faces, we are getting closer to selling out our 2026 summer shares. If you or someone you know has been thinking about getting a share, make sure you sign up soon before they’re sold out. 

The winter crew has been hard at work in the packing shed. They’re boxing up orders for our wholesale partners, local food hubs, and our wonderful members. Each week the coolers seem to get a little bit emptier as we finish off pallet boxes of produce. This is the time of year where we are taking weekly inventory of what we have left in storage. This allows us to make sure we have enough veggies to send to our wholesale partners, and to our members. 

Last week marked the first seeding of the 2026 season. Last week, we seeded all of our shallots. Today, half of the onions will be seeded. Next week, the other half will be seeded. Most home gardeners seed all of their onions at the same time, no problem. On the farm, we start so many onions and shallots, that we have to split it up into three different weeks because our germination chambers aren’t big enough for all the trays at once. Our largest germination chamber can hold 70 trays, and our smaller chamber can hold 10 trays. We plan to seed over 200 total trays of onions and shallots. In case you were curious, that means over 800 seeds will be started by the end of our three weeks. That’s a lot of onions and shallots!

Catherine also seeded greens mix, and woke up the spinach we had been overwintering. If everything goes as planned, these two greens will appear in your final box next month! The green houses are really heating up and filling up. It’s a beautiful and exciting time of the year.

This recipe for Braised Garlic Dill Fingerlings is one of my favorite Spring recipes. The potatoes offer the comfort of slower days, while the bright flavor of dill reminds us that warmer days are just around the corner. This is also such a versatile side dish. It’s great with steak, fish, chicken, or meatloaf.

Most people barely make it through their first week before all the carrots are gone. If you’re someone who eats their carrots a little slower, or doesn’t know what to do with them, check out this recipe for Carrot Lox. It’s perfect to add to a sandwich, put on top of a bagel, or add to a snack plate. There are so many creative ways to use this recipe!

If you’re looking for a colorful and crunchy salad, try this cabbage and kale Winter salad. It has so much color making it look stunning on a plate. It’s bright from the pomegranate, and the lemon Dijon dressing. It pairs well with just about any protein you can think of. My favorites are pork, chicken, shrimp, tofu, or topping with a handful of walnuts or cashews.

Oh boy do we have big things happening in February!

The first is our much loved and long awaited Rutabaga Giveaway! It’s happening on Wednesday, February 18th from 4-7pm. This is a fun, annual event we put on at the Denfeld Whole Foods Co-op. It’s a time for our members, friends, and general veggie lovers to come by the Co-op and say hi to Farmer Janaki and his family. (Also, you get a free rutabaga!) You’re welcome to bring friends or neighbors who are interested in the farm because we’re opening things up to new shareholders this week (here’s the link to sign up for shares if you want to pass it along)! We love getting to put faces to the names we see each month, so we hope you can join us.

The second is not something we’re doing, but rather something mother nature is doing for all of us. As of today, February 9th, we will get 10 hours of sunlight! Unfortunately, mother nature also likes to play tricks on us, so she chose to make today cloudy, but we all know in our hearts that the sunshine is there. Warmer weather and more sun are on the way.

Also coming very soon, and arguably the most exciting thing of all, is that in less than a month, the first seeds of the season will be started! *cue the happy dance and excited screams* The first week of March marks the start of the 2026 growing season with onion seeds being started. Our new greenhouse manager Catherine (plus her trusty sidekicks Jennifer and Teri) have a lot of work to do to get the greenhouse cleaned up and ready for the growing season. This means getting the bags of soil thawed out, cleaning out the wood stove we use to heat the greenhouse, and getting our seeding plan in place to make sure we know exactly what seeds we are starting and when.

There are many other things happening on and off the farm right now. The winter crew has been hard at work washing all of the carrot boxes that we stored last fall. Once we have all of them washed, we will be able to close down our new cooler for the season so we can begin cleaning it to get it ready for summer. Thanks to the warm weather, Janaki has been able to start tackling some outside projects in-between his office work.

February is also conference season in the agriculture world. Some of our crew members will be busy traveling around to different conferences where they will listen to other farmers present on various topics. Janaki got to present two weeks ago at a conference in Madison where they talked about alternative root vegetables. He shared about how the farm grows parsnips. People got to learn everything from the seeds he selects, how they are germinated, when and how they get planted, how we harvest them, and how they get stored. Other presenters in that session shared about storage radishes and rutabagas. Conferences always give us new ideas, and fuel us with motivation to make the next season our best one yet.

In your share this month:

Delicata Squash – Yellow and Red Potatoes – Yellow and Red Onions – Purple and Orange Carrots – Beets – Parsnips – Green Cabbage – Garlic

If you’re looking for a creative way to use up this month’s beets, check out this Beet and Buckwheat cracker recipe. I made these for the stunning color, but the flavor didn’t disappoint. My nieces loved “the pink crackers”, and they were a big hit at the dinner party I brought them to as well. Can’t get more crowd pleasing than that. They’re great with goat cheese, hummus, or all on their own. I made these a little thicker so they were easy for the little ones to eat, but if you like a really crispy cracker, you can make them thin. Experiment and have fun.

If you’re looking for a new way to use up your cabbage, check out these Miso Butter Noodles. I recently found this recipe when I was trying to find a new way to use up some miso paste I had in the fridge. It worked really well…until I started craving this recipe every few days and had to go buy more miso paste. It’s salty, creamy, earthy, and crunchy. So delicious! I made this plain the first time, but I’ve topped it with an egg, and mixed in ground pork for a more filling meal. It’s also great topped with a little chili crisp for a quick bit of heat.

If you’re staring to think spring, and dreaming about warm weather veggies, this Autumn Ratatouille recipe is the perfect way to use up winter veggies while still getting some summer flavor. This recipe calls for butternut squash, but your delicata will be delicious in it. I would suggest using yellow potatoes if you make this recipe. The red potatoes will work, but the yellow will be less starchy which will pair better with the other vegetables.

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.