Aloha!

First Winter Market this weekend - Saturday at the Opera Galleria in Old Town, Fort Collins!

Aloha Folks,

It is so handy to have a word that means both hello and goodbye and I find it perfectly acceptable to borrow from another culture or language when they seem to be onto something.  It is appropriate for this particular situation because this letter is both a greeting and a farewell.  We have successfully turned all of your CSA money into produce and this past week was our last week of our "summer" farm share program.  We hope you have all enjoyed this 24 week farming adventure, and I do mean adventure.  You all have survived a late May snow storm, an August hail storm, an early October snow and now for the grande finale you will be with us as we try to harvest all of our winter carrots in the next 12 hours in order to avoid some ugly weather that is heading our way next week. We so appreciate all of your support, kind words, and enthusiasm throughout this challenging weather season and know that local agriculture would not exist without you all.  Stay tuned for details on next year's sign ups, there will be some big changes and we expect to have more info to y'all by January.

We know that we will see many of you starting Wednesday, November 8th for our winter CSA program and we are excited about decelerating the pace a bit and enjoying a beer and a chat you folks.  If you are not signed up for the winter CSA, we will be at the sporadic winter markets that start Nov 4th, at the Opera Galleria, so you can continue to get a limited variety of produce from us there (gotta save all the good stuff for the winter CSA folks).  If you are a farm stand customer, your last day to use your CSA account will be this Saturday, October 28th (same as our market members). If you would like to keep getting vegetables from the stand after that date, please just pay cash.  In other good news, we will be moving one of our coolers from the farm stand down to Me-Oh-My pie for the winter and anyone will be able to keep purchasing produce through the colder months when our stand would normally be closed.  More details on this to come, but we are hoping to have that up and running around the first week of November.

A few house keeping things.  If you have money left on your account, it does not roll over to any of our winter programs or next year's season. As I mentioned early, it has all successfully  been turned into produce and therefore we can't hold a balance for you over the winter; however, we will be donating the rest of your balance in kind to the food bank of Larimer county.  Thanks for understanding. There are a handful of y'all that are extra good vegetable consumers and have a negative balance with us.  Most of you are farm stand customers and so I will be sending out invoices after the last market to all you healthy ones. Please pay these by November 15th.  

Thank you all again for another great season and Aloha!

Katie, Nic and the Native Hill Crew

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This Week's Harvest

Kale

Spinach

Head Lettuce

Carrots

Beets

Turnips

Radishes

Kohlrabi

Celeriac

Shallots

Garlic

Winter Squash

Potatoes

Red and Savoy Cabbage

Broccoli Florets

Possibly a small amount of Cauliflower

Moving closer to the finish line

Farmer Olivia workin' hard out there!

Buenos Dias!

What a beautiful week we are having here on the Front Range!  Every day feels like a gift after the snow and crazy winds of last week and we are making hay while the sun shines here on the farm.  The darker mornings make it harder to get out of bed, but boy are the sun rises on the farm amazing right now. The colors are explosive and the light seems to dance on the blazing autumn foliage. It is good motivation to keep pushing forward on our winter chore list. This week we have been moving giant hoop houses, harvesting and washing storage cabbage, celeriac, and watermelon radishes, seeding late winter greens, and slogging through cold morning field clean up.  

As we move closer to the finish line for our summer program, there is still a lot of great stuff to eat!  Celeriac, or celery root as it is sometimes called, is less of a disease of the intestines and more of a fuzzy, ugly root crop that has a mild nutty flavor and low glycemic index.  It is not actually the root of the celery plant, (although there are times I wish it were so that I could stop trying to explain its odd name), but it is in the same family.  Farmer Nic likes to joke that it is the redwood of vegetables because it is the first thing you plant in the greenhouse in March and one of the last things you pull out of the ground in the fall.  You can use it in almost any way that you use a potato, just peel off the ugly, and proceed from there.  I like to substitute it for any soup recipe with celery as it really highlights its nutty flavor.  Blended with fennel and carrots it makes an amazing soup, but I have also been told that it makes mashed potatoes taste like artichoke dip.  We made some celeriac, leek and apple latkes that were pretty divine.  We served them with a dollop of yogurt and a side of butternut squash with wilted tatsoi and did not feel sorry for ourselves one little bit. 

Looking forward to seeing you all real soon,

Katie

Cold hand season

Hi All!

Cold hand season is back on the farm these days as we keep plugging away towards winter. Early mornings are starting tobe filled with field clean up chores while we wait for the sun to defrost the plants and hopefully dry out the soil.  We have had a lot of moisture this month and the farm is somewhat of a muddy mess. We are counting on some of that Colorado sun to wick some of the moisture from the ground so that we can start harvesting root crops to put into storage.  It is a big chore, one that we will chip away at over the next few weeks, but only if things dry out!  If not, it will be an intense November :)

It got extremely cold on Mondays night with a low of 23 clocked on the farm and although we had some loss (row cover collapsing or blowing off), we were able to keep many of the cold tolerant plants alive in the field. Things that we had to say good bye to, (at least for a little while), are beets with tops and two beds of spicy mix.  After the hail and cold weather, we are unsure about the cauliflower heading up and we will probably have a slight pause on kale, collards, and chard at the stand.  The arugula is thick and spicy this week, so I recommend getting a bag and wilting it in a skillet with some shallots and good vinegar.  A good blue cheese would also be advised, crumbled on top before serving.  Next up on our tour d'peppery Asian greens, we visit tatsoi.  Mild enough to use at the base of fall salad, it pairs well with a sweeter dressing.  You can also just wilt it in a skillet, toss it in a risotto or stir fry, or wilt it for a soba noodle salad.  Japanese salad turnips are back at the stand and can be enjoyed in a variety of ways including paired with carrots and glazed with honey and balsamic, enjoyed with the greens in a turnip soup with local ham, or baked in a gratin with butter and cream...or if you have more will power than I do, you can just eat them raw with or without salt.

We have three more weeks left in our CSA with the last pick up day being Saturday, October 28th.  The end date is the same regardless of your pick-up location so if you are a farm stand member, be sure to get your goodies before then!  If you are running out of money, feel free to keep coming to the market as you don't want to miss out on all the great fall food.  Just be prepared to pay cash, check or credit when you stop by. Finally, just a reminder to come pick up your roasted chilies if you signed up for pick-up today!

Looking forward to seeing many of you soon!
Katie 

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This Week's Harvest

Kale

Collard

Chard

Spinach

Arugula

Japanese Salad Turnips

Baby Bok Choy

Kohlrabi

Celeriac

Head Lettuce

Broccoli Rabe

Bell Peppers

Potatoes

Red, Green, and Savoy Cabbage

Fennel

Carrots

Beets

Onions and Shallots

Garlic

Winter Squash

On the edge of our seat together

 Freshly harvested spicy mix and arugula. Eat your greens!

Hello Folks!

Turns out we are having a real fall here in Northern Colorado, which to be totally honest, I didn't plan for.  As an intensive community vegetable farmer, we try to watch the trends, plan for the "normal" and then deal with whatever we end up getting.  When we first started farming, it seemed that we often got snow in October and had lots of frosty days from mid-September on.  Over the last few years, the trend seemed to change to warm, sunny falls that often just ended suddenly, and seemingly overnight with winter....which is what I had mostly planned for this year.  But here we are, with a cool and wet fall that has seemed to come early and might just arrest my best laid plans.  With snow in the 10 day for Monday and Tuesday, it is anyone's guess as to what we will have available and when we will have it.  Some years are just better than others, but at least we are all on the edge of our seat together.

Greens are back in full swing on the farm these days as we got a pretty good frost on Monday night.  Greens and roots get better the cooler the temperatures are, so at least we got that going for us this fall.  You have probably noticed that spinach is back and will be a staple at the farm over the next 6 months.  I love to have it on hand to put in just about anything as it is a versatile veggie that can be eaten raw or cooked.  Baby Bok Choy is also back.  It is great in spicy Asian noodle bowls, put in a stir fry, or served by itself as a side with some sweet garlic chili sauce.  This will be the last week for Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplant, so if you haven't gotten your fill yet, be sure to grab some from the stand.  If you haven't done your kohlrabi duty yet, you have 2 more weeks, so be sure to make room in your fridge to take up the cause. 

We have a few extra cases of roasted chilies that are up for grabs. For those of you who care, they are an Anaheim variety and are a mix of red and green.  I would say they are of medium spice.  They come six bags to a case and cost $30. They are pre-order only and I will have them for folks starting on Saturday.  If you are interested, please email me and I will try to get you on the list. We can do a pick-up next Wednesday also, so let me know which day you would prefer. If you do not come to get your chilies on the agreed upon day, you forfeit them to the next person one the list.  No exceptions.

See you all real soon!

Katie

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This Week's Harvest

Kale

Chard

Spinach

Arugula (Wed only)

Spicy Mix (Wed only)

Broccoli Rabe

Baby Bok Choy

Broccoli

Red, Green and Savoy Cabbage

Fennel

Kossak Kohlrabi

Potatoes

Garlic

Winter Squash

Heirloom Tomatoes

Eggplant

Bell peppers

Beets

Carrots

Salad Turnips

Onions

Head Lettuce

The Prep for Winter Begins

Hello Folks!

With just 5 weeks left in the market CSA season, your farmers are working hard to finish strong and to prep for winter.  We picked hard on Friday and Monday in anticipation of a frost....but it didn't come.  So, although summer stuff has slowed way down, we will still be enjoying fruits for a bit longer.  We are working through roasting our last batch of green chilies for the winter shares and the smell alone is worth the effort. We also did a big storage kohlrabi push...big being the defining adjective there. This season has been punctuated by abnormal maturation times for our vegetable and the kohlrabi fell victim to the trend.  We had to take it our early or else we wouldn't be able to fit it into storage!   

With that lead up, its time to switch from the tomato challenge to the kohlrabi challenge!  It will be at market this week and we need to move enough of it by mid October to make room for other crops.  It looks intimidating but stores well, so pick one up for your family and whittle away at it. If 75% of our members pick up one kohlrabi before winter, we should be in good shape.  The good news is that these babies are really quite amazing vegetables.  They are like a cross between jicama and broccoli and can be eaten raw (my preferred way with a delicious dipping sauce), roasted, slawed, fermented, shaved into fritters and baked or fried, or turned into delicious soup with some good German sausage.  Have kids?  Try cutting into sticks and then breading and baking, my guess is that it is like a healthy chicken nugget. 

Broccoli rabe is back and is one of my favorite fall veggies...mostly because it pairs well with tomatoes and pasta, but it also plays nice with chick peas and eggplant.  The first of the winter squash is ready.  We will have delecata and acorn at the market this week.  Both are great because you don't have to peel them...the skin of the delecatais totally edible and while the acorn is a bit tougher, it makes a nice baking vessel and can be scoop out if need be.  I love roasted delecata as a side to any great fall meal, but it is also great for topping cool weather salads of spicy greens and sharp cheeses or on top of a fancy homemade hummus plate with pomegranate and sliced pita.  Oh autumn.

I have good news!  Your email receipts now show your account balances! Apparently the square folks finally figured out that was helpful knowledge.  If youneed to add more money to your account, you can do so via credit card, cash or check at the market.  Haven't quite figured out how to do it online yet but maybe next year.

See many of your real soon!

Katie

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This Week's Harvest

Kale

Collard

Chard

Arugula

Spicy Mix

Spinach

Broccoli Rabe

Beets

Carrots

Potatoes

Winter Squash

Green Beans

Slicing and Heirloom Tomatoes

Basil

Eggplant 

Peppers

Garlic

Broccoli 

Kohlrabi

Green, purple and savoy cabbage

Radishes

Fennel