May 5, 2022 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Horseradish Whips and Sunchokes!

 

Cooking With This Week's Box

by Andrea Yoder

Ramp Pesto

Wild Ramps:   
Egg Noodles in Ramp Horseradish Cream 

(See Below)

Ramp Pesto 
Ramp Butter 

Overwintered Spinach: 
Creamed Ramps & Spinach 
Spinach Quiche 
Spring Spinach Chop Salad with Creamy Buttermilk Ramp Dressing

Overwintered Parsnips: 
Parsnip Latkes with Apple Chutney and Horseradish Yogurt 
Parsnips with Brown Butter, Pecans & Maple 

Overwintered Sunchokes: 

Photo from: www.seasonedbysilvie.com

Sunchoke, Potato and Horseradish Soup (See Below)
Spiced Sunchokes with Masala 
25 Ways to Use Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes) 

 Chives: 

43 Chive-Packed Recipes 
Chive Bacon Ranch Dressing 
One-Pan Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce 

Red Potatoes: 

Creamy Chive Potatoes 
Roasted Potatoes Tossed with Ramps 

Horseradish Root: 

Prepared Horseradish 
Sunchoke, Potato and Horseradish Soup (See Below)
Egg Noodles in Ramp Horseradish Cream (See Below)
Parsnip Latkes with Apple Chutney and Horseradish Yogurt

Welcome to the 2022 CSA Season!

This is our weekly Cooking With the Box portion of our blog.  Each week you can come here to find inspiration, recipes and ideas for ways to put every item in your box to use!  I try to include a mix of new suggestions as well as reminders of recipes we’ve published over the years in our newsletters.  Within our membership we have a mix of members who may be joining us for the first year or are relatively new along with seasoned members who have been with us for a decade….or more!  Hopefully there will be something for everyone along the way. 

Of course, I also want to remind you that we have a private Facebook Group for our CSA members.  This is a great place to share recipes you have tried with other members, ask questions, and interact with our community of like-minded eaters!

I hope you enjoy this journey through the seasons. Get ready, we’re going to have a lot of great meals this year!

 Chef Andrea 

Vegetable Feature: Horseradish Whips and Sunchokes

by Andrea Yoder

One of the exciting parts of participating in CSA is learning to eat with the seasons.  In our northern climate, spring can be a challenging time to grow vegetables.  Over the years Richard has learned how to work with Mother Nature to figure out how we can eat locally and seasonally during these sometimes challenging times of the year.  In the spring we turn to perennial crops like the chives in this week’s box along with asparagus, nettles and sorrel which we hope to include in the next few weeks.  We also employ strategies of overwintering vegetables in the field that are then available for harvest early in the spring.  This includes root vegetables such as the sunchokes and parsnips in this week’s box along with our crop of overwintered spinach.  The other way we work along with Mother Nature is by foraging wild vegetables.  Every spring we look forward to harvesting wild ramps from our wooded hillsides.  We also hope to harvest watercress which grows in our spring-fed creeks.  So while some of the vegetables in this week’s box may be unfamiliar to you, we hope you will embrace this opportunity to partner with Mother Nature in this season.

Every week throughout the season we’ll feature a vegetable in your box.  This is your opportunity to learn more about vegetables you may be less familiar with, but we also use these articles to share information specific to this year’s crop as well as offer suggestions for ways you might prepare them.  So, hopefully there will be helpful information for everyone from our newest members to our seasoned veterans! 

This week we’re going to focus on the Horseradish Whips and Sunchokes.  These crops are unique because they can both be stored for long periods of time in refrigerated storage, but they also can be overwintered in the field.  Here’s how this works.  We plant both of these crops from our own seed stock that we harvest in the fall.  As we do our fall harvest we carefully select pieces to replant for the next year’s crop.  Nearly one year later we harvest a portion of that crop to put into cold storage so we can wash and pack it for CSA boxes and wholesale orders throughout the winter.  We also leave a portion of the crop in the field and return the following spring to harvest in March or April.  This is one way we can work with Mother Nature to have food available throughout the winter, but also to have fresh things to harvest very early in the spring!

Horseradish whips are the thin pieces of roots that grow off the main root.  You will likely never see whips being sold in a grocery store, which is quite a shame as they are very usable product!  In fact, I prefer them because I can use a small portion at a time if I want to, but also because they don’t need to be peeled.  Horseradish is a bold, pungent vegetable, so you do need to take care when working with it.  The powerful plant compounds in horseradish that give it its peppery flavor have the ability to attack cancer cells and boost our immune systems, but they also can sting your eyes as you’re working with it!  Thus, the less you have to handle it, the better.  To get the most value out of horseradish, you do want to capture its pungency.  To do this you need to either incorporate it into recipes, dishes, etc. in its fresh form, or you can make what is called “prepared horseradish.”  To make prepared horseradish you simply need to grate or finely chop the horseradish.  You can do this by hand if you like, but when you are using the whips I think it is easiest to just chop them into 1-inch pieces and blend them in a blender or food processor.  Once the horseradish is finely chopped you can put it in a jar and fill the jar with vinegar to fully cover the horseradish.  The vinegar helps to stabilize the compounds which will otherwise volatilize into the air and your horseradish will lose its flavor.  You can store prepared horseradish in the refrigerator for quite awhile and just use it in small quantities as you need it.  Horseradish is a great accompaniment for roasted meat, especially beef.  It also goes well with a lot of vegetables including beets, potatoes and sunchokes.  We like to grate fresh horseradish into our soup bowls before we fill them with hot soup.  The flavor of the horseradish will infuse into the soup and the flavor is excellent as its at its peak.  This is a good technique to use when serving hearty beef or vegetable stews, split pea soup or other hearty bean soups.  In its raw form, it will store for quite awhile in the refrigerator, so don’t feel like you need to use it all within the next week or two.  It will store for a month or more.

Now on to sunchokes.  Sunchokes are an indigenous vegetable to North America and one that the native peoples that inhabited our lands before us included in their diets.  Sunchokes are also called Jerusalem artichokes, earth apples and sunroots.  They have a nutty flavor and may be eaten raw or cooked.  When people ask me what you do with a sunchoke my answer is always “You can do anything with a sunchoke that you can do with a potato, plus you can eat it raw!”  Sunchokes have a higher moisture content than most potatoes, which gives them a crunchy, juicy texture more similar to a water chestnut or jicama when eaten raw.  They are excellent when roasted as they get crispy on the outside and are fluffy on the inside.  They are also delicious incorporated into soups, stews and pan-fried.

Sunchoke Field

Now, we do need to discuss one important piece of information about sunchokes.  They contain a non-digestible fiber called inulin.  Inulin is found in other fruits and vegetables including asparagus, onions and bananas, however sunchokes have higher amounts than other foods.  Inulin is an important prebiotic nutrient.  It is an important food source for beneficial probiotic bacteria in our bodies, specifically in our large intestines.  There are many benefits that stem from the synergistic effects of consuming prebiotics including improved nutrient absorption, enhanced immunity, better digestion and overall improved health and well-being.  Unfortunately, the good bacteria produce gas as a byproduct when they feed on the inulin.  As the host in which this is taking place, this means you may develop symptoms of gas and bloating when you eat them.  So, my suggestion is to eat them in moderation as your symptoms will likely be dose-dependent, although some people don’t have any symptoms!  If this is your first time trying them, just have a small portion and see what happens.  I personally only eat about a ¼ cup serving at a time and feel just fine.  When choosing how to use sunchokes, I like to use them along with other vegetables or in preparations where I’ll be eating them more as a condiment than as a main ingredient.  For example, if you are making sunchoke soup, use a small portion of sunchokes along with potatoes.  Several years ago I developed a recipe for Chile & Lime Sunchoke Salsa which is used as a condiment and eaten in smaller quantities.

Egg Noodles in Ramp Horseradish Cream

Yield:  4 Servings

Photo from: www.diaryofamadhausfrau.com

1-12 oz package of egg noodles

3 Tbsp butter

6 ramps, cleaned, trimmed and cut into bite sized pieces

1 small onion (or additional ramp bulbs), diced

1 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1 cup vegetable broth

¾ cup heavy cream

3 Tbsp prepared horseradish, drained

1-2 tsp lemon juice

Pinch of sugar

Chives, minced for garnishing

1. Cook the egg noodles according to the ingredients on the package.  Drain and place back in the pot, cover with a lid to keep warm.
2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
3. Add the ramps (bulbs and leaves) and onions and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are transparent and the ramps have softened. 
4. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the mixture and stir to combine. 
5. Add the cream and the vegetable broth to the skillet.  Bring to a boil.  Turn down the heat to low and let the mixture simmer until it thickens.
6. Stir in the horseradish a tablespoon at a time.  Add a teaspoon or 2 of the lemon juice and the pinch of sugar.  Season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
7. Place the noodles in a bowl and pour the sauce over them.  Toss to combine, then garnish with chopped chives and serve.

Recipe sourced from diaryofamadhausfrau.com.

Sunchoke, Potato and Horseradish Soup

Yield:  4 Servings

Photo from: www.neantog.com

1 pound sunchokes

4 Tbsp olive oil 

1 onion, finely chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp sea salt and a pinch of black pepper

2 cups vegetable stock

1 medium potato, diced

1 Tbsp freshly grated horseradish

2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives

4 Tbsp cream

Spinach pesto, or any other pesto you have available, optional

1. Heat the oven to 375°F.  Cut the sunchokes into large chunks and drizzle with about 2 Tbsp oil.  Toss to combine and spread them out on a baking sheet.  Bake for 30-40 minutes until tender.  Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
2. Meanwhile, add 1-2 Tbsp olive oil to a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the onions and sauté for 4 minutes, then add the garlic and cook an additional minute.  Add the stock and potato, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
3. When the sunchokes are cooled slightly, transfer to a food processor or blender.  Add some of the cooked potatoes and a little of the vegetable stock and process until smooth.  If you want a perfectly smooth soup, blend all of the portion of soup that was cooked with the potatoes in the saucepan.  If you prefer a more coarse, rustic soup, just puree enough to blend the sunchokes.
4. Return the processed mixture to the saucepan and heat gently.  Stir in the freshly grated horseradish and season with salt and black pepper.  Simmer for a few minutes before tasting and adjust the seasoning to your preference.
5.  Ladle the soup into bowls and top each with a tablespoon of cream.  Drizzle each bowl with pesto if you are using it and garnish with fresh chives.

Recipe sourced from www.neantog.com.

April Farm Update…..Ramps, Overwintered Spinach and the start of a new CSA Season!

By Andrea Yoder & Richard de Wilde

Rows of gorgeous Green Garlic!

Spring is here and we’re just 3 weeks away from the first CSA deliveries of the 2021 season!  Every day we see a little more green filling our valley as our wooded hillsides come out of winter hibernation.  Despite the fact that we’ve had a quite chilly week with temperatures in the low thirties overnight, we would still describe this as an early spring.  Things are changing quickly and the growing season is starting to take shape.  Here’s a little glimpse of what’s happening on the farm.

Remember those gorgeous sunny, warm days back in March?  Those were the days that jump started the garlic crop and we had to strip back the cover and loosen the mulch to make sure the sprouts could push through!  The green garlic looks quite nice and we are planning to start harvesting some next week.  Richard can’t remember ever putting green garlic in the first CSA box of the season, but it will be in the first boxes this year!

Unloading our first ramp harvest this week!

You cannot talk about spring happenings at Harmony Valley Farm without talking about ramps and overwintered spinach.  These are two crops many people, ourselves included, look forward to every spring.  We started harvesting overwintered spinach last week and yesterday we did our first ramp harvest!  We know everyone would like to receive these two items in the first few CSA boxes in May, and we hope we’ll be able to include them.  Unfortunately, we’re at the mercy of Mother Nature and the season for both of these crops is starting a little early this year.  So if you are one of those people who needs to get your fill of ramps and overwintered spinach before their short season is over, we encourage you to head to your local food co-op and stock up on these items now!  If we are still able to harvest ramps in May, they will certainly be in your box.  And that overwintered spinach?  We are doing our best to manage the crop and hope to be able to time it just right so we can do a second harvest off these plants for the first few CSA deliveries.

Antonio hand-harvesting
Overwintered Spinach

We are also happy to report we had a very good harvest of overwintered parsnips and sunchokes.  The parsnips are so sweet and delicious, they need nothing more than to be tossed with oil, salt and pepper before roasting them.  Our spring sunchoke harvest was very plentiful and we’ve been staying busy washing and packing them for our wholesale partners.  Not only are they an important part of our spring diet, they also help us financially while we’re getting the season underway.

Last week we did our first plantings of salad mix, baby spinach, arugula, cilantro, radishes, baby bok choi, dill, hon tsai tai and baby white turnips.  While we plan to plant these crops in the first week of April, we seldom have the opportunity to actually do so!  The radishes are already up and we’re crossing our fingers that they will be ready for the first week of deliveries!

While we are anxious to plant more crops, it takes awhile to get fields ready in the spring.  Over the past two weeks the guys have been working hard to spread compost and minerals, subsoil, rototill and shape beds for planting.  This year we partnered with a new supplier for our compost and we’re very pleased with the product.  We had to pay a little more for it, but it is well-made, easy to spread and for the first time in many years we have had favorable conditions to be able to spread compost on all of our fields in the spring!  We also invested heavily in mineral applications, including trace minerals.  Adequate fertility in the soil is a key to producing delicious vegetables, but it’s also important for producing healthy plants that pass their nutrients on to us!  We were also able to put minerals on our pastures where we graze our animals as well as the fields where we grow hay to feed them in the winter.  Just like humans, animals can taste the difference and always favor the mineral rich parts of the pastures.  I guess you could say they are grass connoisseurs and definitely have discerning palates!

Germ testing beet seed in the
greenhouse to test seed quality

As we finish preparing fields, we’ll move on to planting.  We hope to see warmer temperatures next week which will be more favorable for direct seeding beets, carrots, parsnips, chard and possibly even the first peas.  We did start transplanting onions a week ago.  It takes quite awhile to plant all of our onions and we hope to finish them today.  We are anxious to transplant more crops including the first broccoli and cauliflower, kohlrabi, cabbage and leeks.  We are also anticipating a shipment of strawberry and asparagus plants today, purchased from Nourse Farm in Massachusetts.  It’s already time to plant next year’s strawberry field!

While we’ve completed about three-fourths of the plantings on our greenhouse plan for this year, we still have plenty of greenhouse work to complete over the next few weeks.  Next week we’re scheduled to plant our first tomato seeds in the greenhouse and we hope to plant zucchini before this week is finished.  It’s also time to transplant the herb packs we’ll deliver for you in mid May!

Leonardo, Antonio and Isidro
transplanting peppers 

So who is doing all this work?  Good question!  We welcomed back 24 of our field crew who comes from Mexico on agricultural guest worker visas.   We were happy to see them on March 29, but from a distance as they had to quarantine due to their recent travel.  Thankfully they had an uneventful quarantine period and everyone remained healthy and well without so much as even a cold!  While we all wish the pandemic would move into the past, we also acknowledge it is still very much a concern at present.  Our crew members understand the importance of how our individual choices impact the work we’re able to do at the farm and they did their part to minimize their risks of exposure both before they departed their homes as well as during their travels.  Their efforts were clearly effective and we are thankful they are all in good health, ready and eager to work!  We are looking forward to welcoming another group of workers the last week in April and have our fingers crossed that they will arrive without any delays.  We are also grateful for the opportunity to work with Family Health La Clinica, an organization that offers mobile health services to migrant workers.  They have been an invaluable resource for our farm as they have helped us navigate managing our workspace throughout the pandemic to keep our workers safe.  They will be coming to the farm to administer vaccinations to any crew members who would like to receive it.  In the meantime, we continue all of our precautionary practices to do the best we can to remain healthy so we can all keep farming!

We’ve received several emails from CSA members inquiring about the use of plastic liner bags in the CSA boxes this year.  Just as we are continuing our precautionary practices on the farm, we will also continue to take a precautionary approach to CSA deliveries as well as with CSA pick up procedures.  While we hope that we’re collectively making forward progress in moving past the pandemic with vaccinations, etc, we also feel that we need to continue to be precautionary and would like to continue to offer a safe pick-up option for all our members knowing some of you are high-risk individuals or live with high-risk individuals.  We realize the concerns for transmission of the virus on touch surfaces may be less than we thought one year ago, however using the plastic liner bag in the CSA boxes serves other purposes as well.  We want to limit the time each member is in the site and continue to ask that only one member enters the site at a time.  The use of the bag also helps achieve a quick in and out pick up.  Thus, we will continue to use the plastic liner bags for now.  We’ll certainly reassess as the year goes on and if at some point we feel it is appropriate to discontinue using them we will do so.

Repurpose CSA bags as covers for
storing artwork!

In the meantime, we do ask all CSA members to continue to follow the pandemic procedures we laid out last year to facilitate a quick, safe CSA pick-up.  This includes wearing a mask when you go to pick up your share, physically distancing at the site and only one person enters the site at a time.  As for the bags, we encourage you to find ways to repurpose them in your own homes or communities.  Last year we compiled a list of ways you, our members, were creatively repurposing them in your homes.  You can view that list HERE, and we ask that you continue to send us your creative ideas as you find more ways to repurpose them.  If your collection goes beyond what you can use in your own home, you may also consider checking with other organizations in your community such as your local food pantry, schools, community centers, etc.  They may be able to use them for projects, etc. in their organizations and might appreciate the donation!  At the very least, the bags are recyclable.

Transplanting onions one week ago....
just before it started to rain!

This certainly is not everything we are doing on the farm, but at least it gives you a snapshot.  We are looking forward to growing food for you and your family this year and hope you are ready to start cooking and eating some tasty meals!  We do still have room to accept more sign-ups for all of our delivery areas, so if you haven’t signed up yet we encourage you to do so!  If you have a friend, neighbor, or know of someone who is interested in joining, please refer them to us.  We will keep adding members until we’re officially sold out!

Enjoy the rest of April and we’ll see you in May!

Fall is Here!

We started harvesting sunchokes earlier this week

This Friday marks the official transition from summer to fall and on Sunday, September 24^th, we’ll celebrate this year’s harvests with our annual Harvest Party shin-dig.  We’ve been talking about this seasonal transition now for several weeks as things have started to change in our fields.  This week however we are feeling it more than ever.  We’re harvesting purple top and sweet scarlet turnips, sunchokes, daikon radish, fall carrots and we will be packing Soup Mix before the week is finished!  The leaves are starting to change colors, hickory nuts are dropping to the ground, and we know it’s just a matter of time before we get our first chilly, frosty night.  We hope you are planning to attend the party this weekend so you can see our valley and fall crops for yourself!

Honeynut butternut squash curing in the greenhouse

A lot has been happening in our fields over the past few weeks, so we wanted to catch you up on our activities with a field report.  We said goodbye to watermelons, melons, zucchini and cucumbers over the past few weeks, but there were more crops entering the stage as these summer favorites dwindled.  We are nearly done with winter squash harvest.  We have harvested and cured most of our winter squash and will go back to harvest the last few loads remaining in the field before the end of the week.  We’re planning to start packing winter squash in your boxes possibly as early as next week.

Our first planting of tomatoes is nearly finished, but the second planting still looks pretty good and continues to produce.  We have been having pretty cool days and nights, so the tomatoes have been ripening slowly.  We’ll keep picking right up until the first frost.  We’ve also been hitting our pepper field pretty hard with harvests.  There isn’t a whole lot remaining at this point.  Our orange Ukraine plants are pretty much done.  They produced a lot for us, but there isn’t much remaining on them.  The Orange Italian Frying peppers are still producing and we’ll be able to pick for this week and next, but I’m not sure how much will remain beyond that.  We’re planning to deliver mini-sweet peppers in next week’s box, but these plants don’t have a lot of fruit remaining on them. 

Celeriac with green tops freshly washed!

This week’s featured vegetable, celeriac, comes to you with its green top still on.  This is another sign of the transition point in the season.  While we’re still harvesting them as green top, we’ve already started to mechanically harvest these roots for storage.  They’ll all need to be harvested within the next few weeks as they will not tolerate more than a touch of a frost.  This marks our transition in cooking as well.  Soon we’ll all be enjoying more root-focused soups, stews and braised dishes to warm us up on the cold days. 

 Scarlet & Purple Top Turnips harvested last Saturday

There are some vegetables that make their appearance in the spring and then return in the fall.  Fall is a special time in many ways for some of these crops as the cool fall days and nights help to intensify the colors of vegetables and the flavors of some things mellow out and are sweeter.  We’re harvesting a beautiful crop of fall fennel right now and just started harvesting our fall crop of baby white turnips.  Next week we’ll be resuming baby spinach and salad mix harvest.  The color on these crops is always very impressive this time of year.  The green colors of spinach are more intense and the red lettuces are stunningly gorgeous! 

At the farmers’ market we’ve already been getting inquiries of “When will Brussels sprouts be ready?” Well, they are making sprouts and looking pretty good, but this is one of the brassica crops that benefits from a few frosty nights before harvesting.  All brassicas undergo changes in flavor in cold weather.  Their flavor becomes more sweet and well-balanced.  So the best estimate I can give you for when we’ll harvest them is after it frosts.  We also have our eye on the sweet potatoes and will be harvesting those before too long.  We’ll have to do a sample dig at the party this weekend to check the progress in growth and gauge just how much longer it will be before we’re ready to pull the trigger and do the big harvest! 

Jicama, sweet potatoes, squash and more coming soon!

Newly planted escarole and radicchio plants

Next week we’ll be delivering jicama in the boxes.  It’s in the process of being cured right now to set the tender skins.  This year’s crop looks pretty good!  We’re still learning how to grow jicama but I think we’re making progress!  We did harvest some that don’t look so pretty.  If you come to the party on Saturday, we’ll share those with you.  They don’t look good but they are still good to eat!  We also have a crop of tat soi slated for a late season harvest and we’re trying a new growing method for some late season chicories.  This week Scott, Simon and Jose Antonio finished planting escarole and radicchio transplants in our cold frame greenhouse.  We did a pretty good job of growing head lettuce in the cold frame greenhouse this spring and delivered it in the May boxes.  We’ve never grown escarole and radicchio in a greenhouse, but thought we’d give it a try and hopefully they’ll be ready for some of the last boxes of the season in November and December.  They are more cold hardy greens that can take cold weather and frosty nights and their flavor actually improves in cold weather.  In the field they can sometimes get damaged when the nights get really cold, so we’re hoping the more protected environment of the greenhouse will allow us to get the benefit of the cold weather but gain the protection from deep frosts.  Wish us luck!

In addition to harvesting crops,  we’ve also managed to stay on top of planting cover crops.  As we finish harvesting a field, we move right into preparing it for  winter and includes establishing a cover crop.  Did you read last week’s newsletter regarding the importance of regenerative farming methods related to mitigating climate change?  Well, we’re trying to do our part by getting cover crops on bare ground so they can capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.  How cool is that?!  We’ve also finished putting up stored hay for our animals to eat this winter and we’ve returned to some of our woods management projects.  The high winds we had in July along with the rains took the tops off of a lot of our trees in the woods. We’ve been scouting the woods identifying where the damaged and downed trees are.  We’ll focus on salvaging what we can this fall.

Despite the challenges of the July weather event, we’re gearing up for a bountiful fall harvest and we’re hoping Mother Nature will be cooperative!  There are still a lot of delicious vegetables remaining to experience this season as we continue our journey in our seasonal eating adventure.  I’m already starting to look forward to some favorite winter dishes such as Turnip-apple quiche, sweet potato casserole and rutabaga mash!  We hope to see you at the party this weekend and hope you enjoy the last few months of vegetables!

Late Summer Farm Update

By Farmer Richard  

     Wow! That was a hot one! July was the hottest month ever worldwide! Aside from a few hot days, it really was not so bad here. We did have two days when we changed our work schedule and started an hour early, but we worked carefully, drank lots of water, and all did fine.  Even Jack, The Dog, survived….and he is one furry creature! He did learn (unintentionally) how to turn the air conditioning on in our new field truck. Easy, push the button! Turning up the fan speed is a little more difficult, but he asks nicely and I oblige!
     The rains and storms have definitely kept us on our toes. We expected drought, at least that was what the prediction was for the summer. Instead, we got rain after rain…and even as I write this article the rain is falling again. Many of our crops get a fertilizer boost of fish/seaweed and other natural minerals through the drip irrigation system when we water them. This year many of these crops have had little need for water, but they still need the nutrients. It takes “discipline” to set-up and pump even minimal water just to deliver the nutrients. Nonetheless, we have persevered, have some nice crops still to come and are thankful for the decided turn to cooler fall weather. The weeds have slowed down, we’ve been able to do timely cultivation and the fall crops look great! Sweet potatoes are looking very nice and the winter squash will be ready to harvest soon. We already have a few specimens setting on the kitchen counter, and we’ll sample them soon! The onion crop was fantastic this year, and we’re thankful we got it all in. The week we harvested onions, we raced against the threat of rain. The crew finished the harvest and had the last few crates tucked away on the wagon just as it started to rain!! They are still curing in the greenhouse, but we take advantage of the wet days to work inside, trimming and cleaning onions.
     We’ll continue to pick peppers, tomatoes and eggplant, but we’re approaching the point in the season where summer and fall collide. It’s nearly time to start making the shift to fall leeks, potatoes, celeriac, turnips, sweet potatoes and winter squash. Some of the fall brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli Romanesco, etc) have succumbed to wet and heat and you likely won’t see much of these in your fall boxes. Thankfully, the broccoli still looks good! We just started planting salad mix again last week and added spinach to our planting plan this week. We’re looking forward to a short run of fall greens in September and October, our favorite time of year to grow these crops. Yes, they grow a little more slowly, but the colors are intense and the cool temperatures lend to a sweet, pleasant taste. Our fall fennel and head lettuce crops look great as do the fall radishes.
     We’re hoping to dig the remainder of our potato crop later this week. Despite the fact that we reduced the acreage we planted, the yield looks to be quite abundant! Our fall carrot field looks great, rows and rows of beautiful green tops. Even our crop insurance adjustor commented on how good they look and snapped a few pictures to show his wife! Needless to say, we love fall!

Sunchokes standing tall & blooming

     Every year of farming holds both triumphs and disappointments. Last week we had a short, yet violent, storm that managed to flatten our last two crops of sweet corn. There aren’t as many ears in your box this week, but the corn has been so good this year we didn’t want to count it as a total loss! It’s a little more challenging to pick, but we managed to salvage the good ears and hope you will enjoy the last few tastes of fresh sweet corn this summer. The edamame field experienced a similar fate, and about 40% of a beautiful sunchoke crop lays with flattened stalks and exposed roots. Neither are a total loss though…there are still 60% of fantastic looking sunchoke plants standing proud and tall in all of their 12 foot glory! The edamame is slow to pick, but the pods have filled out and the beans are sweet and delicious. “Hope springs eternal!”
     We win some; we lose some. That’s just the game of life for farmers. We put forth our best efforts, make the best decisions we can, work diligently and proactively, and try to play the hand Mother Nature deals us as gracefully and successfully as possible. In the end, we always consider ourselves very blessed and always have plenty to keep us busy. When we have done all we can in the fields, we go to the woods to pick hickory nuts, clean up dead trees and turn them into beautiful things such as bowls and furniture we can enjoy. These are the late season projects I look forward to.
     We just started to get our loads of fall compost this week with the first few arriving today. We’ll take advantage of every dry moment to spread compost and plant cover crops. Yes, it’s time to put the fields to bed for the winter. As we wrap up one season, we’re already getting ready for a new year!

Overwintered Sunchokes...A Vegetable With Unique Characteristics

by Andrea Yoder


I admit, I didn’t have a clue what a sunchoke was when I first started cooking at Harmony Valley Farm.  I only knew I was hungry for the exploration of new vegetables and embraced the challenge of cooking with the seasons.  Within the first few weeks I was here, I made a delicious sunchoke chive soup and crispy roasted sunchokes with chili & lime that I served for crew lunch (both recipes are on our website).  It didn’t take long for Richard to pull me aside and gently request that I lay off on the sunchokes for crew lunches.  That’s when he explained the beauty of a sunchoke to me.  Some people love them and others are not quite as fond of them for reasons I’ll explain in just a bit.  But first, let’s explore the basic of sunchokes.

Sunchokes are a tuber that grows underground on a plant in the sunflower family.  They are native to North America and were actually an important food for our early ancestors who called them sun roots.  In fact the Effigy Mound Builders who lived on our land 1500 years ago grew and ate sunchokes!  The other name they are most commonly known by is Jerusalem Artichoke.  This is a bit misleading as sunchokes don’t have anything to do with Jerusalem or globe artichokes!

The sunchoke field in full bloom

Richard started growing sunchokes in his quest to grow as many seasonal vegetables as possible in a Wisconsin growing season.  Sunchokes help us push the limits on our season both as a late fall harvested crop as well as a spring-dug crop.   The stalks of the plant grow to an impressive 10-12 feet tall and when in bloom with yellow sunflowers, the field is a work of art.  Most varieties of sunchokes don’t even start developing much for tubers until after the first frost in late fall.  After the first frost they are able to translocate the energy stored in the stalk to the base of the plant for the purpose of developing the tubers.  Sunchokes are cold hardy and, as long as the ground isn’t frozen, can be harvested very late into the fall.  In fact, last year we did our final harvest in December!  Sunchokes are one of a handful of crops we are able to overwinter in the ground and harvest in the spring.   In fact they continue to grow slowly and are actually larger in the spring.  Sunchokes also store very well throughout the winter which is just one more reason why sunchokes are a good fit for a seasonal Midwestern locavore’s diet.

Sunchokes are a tasty vegetable with a crisp, crunchy texture and a thin skin.  They have a mild, pleasant, slightly sweet and nutty flavor.  They can be eaten raw or cooked, and peeling is a matter of choice.  When cooked, keep in mind that anything you can do with a potato you can do with a sunchoke.  Sunchokes make excellent smooth soups and are delicious when roasted.  Because of their high water content, roasting makes them fluffy on the inside and crisp on the outside.  Sunchokes can also be stir-fried, pan-fried, added to stews and eaten raw in salads.

Sunchokes are really a pretty cool vegetable that are quite tasty.  Now, here’s where I need to interject an important point.  Sunchokes contain a non-digestible fiber called inulin.  Some people may experience abdominal discomfort, gas and bloating if they eat too many sunchokes at a time.  There are some individuals who have a bad impression of sunchokes because no one ever told them that they may be best consumed in small quantities.  As a result they may have eaten too much and experienced some digestive discomfort that they have not yet forgotten.  In fact, Richard and I have our own sunchoke stories that led us to form a pact upon which we agreed that despite the fact that we grow them, we never have to feel obligated to eat sunchokes.  Within the last year I’ve noticed their popularity amongst chefs really opening up.  I started to think maybe I was missing out on something by choosing not to eat sunchokes.  So, after many years of not eating them, I cooked them again and realized how much I really do like their taste!  I also did a little more research about inulin and realized I am missing out on some important health benefits by choosing to exclude sunchokes from my diet.

Ok, so lets talk a little bit about inulin and why it’s good for our bodies.  Inulin is a non-digestible fiber known as a prebiotic nutrient.  Many of you are probably familiar with probiotics which are beneficial bacteria that live in our digestive tract and contribute in positive ways to our health and well-being.  Probiotic bacteria are found in fermented foods such as sauerkraut, yogurt, kefir, etc.  They help maintain good digestive health by keeping our digestive bacterial populations in check and preventing the overgrowth of bad bacteria that can make us ill and inhibit proper digestion.  Probiotic bacteria do many other amazing things for our body, so don’t be misled by this very simple explanation of their function.  Prebiotics, such as inulin, actually serve as an important food source for probiotic bacteria with most of their work taking place in our large intestines.  Essentially, prebiotics are fertilizer for beneficial bacteria in our gut.  There are many benefits that stem from the synergistic effects of consuming prebiotics and supporting healthy bacterial populations throughout the digestive tract.  Some of the benefits include improved nutrient absorption, enhanced immunity, and better digestion which is important as a basis for our overall health and well-being.  The bacteria in our large intestines in particular use inulin as a food source which helps them thrive and keep healthy populations.  Unfortunately the good bacteria produce gas as a product of their digestion and that is where we have the potential to develop symptoms of gas and bloating if we eat too many at one time.

So after learning more about the health benefits of sunchokes, I decided to change my tune and figure out what an appropriate serving size is for my body.  I’ve learned that I can comfortably consume about a ¼ cup portion.  So that led me to rethink how I’m using sunchokes in my cooking.  For those of us who need to consume them in smaller quantities, we have to find ways to eat them more like a condiment instead of the main ingredient.  By approaching sunchokes this way, we get to enjoy the taste of the sunchoke as well as their health benefits without experiencing any discomfort.  The good news is that sunchokes do store very well, so if it takes you a month or two to eat a pound of sunchokes it’s no big deal.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.  First, check out the recipe for Chile & Lime Sunchoke Salsa in this week’s newsletter.  It’s super-simple to make and very tasty.  It can be eaten in small quantities as a condiment to top off tacos, seared fish, chicken and pork, or added to salads or sandwiches in quantities of just 1-2 tablespoons at a time.  Here’s another idea, the next time you are cooking a burger, add a few slices of thinly sliced sunchokes to the pan and fry them until golden and slightly crispy and add them to your sandwich.   One of my favorite ways to eat sunchokes is by simply roasting them.  A portion of roasted sunchokes may not be a good idea, but why not mix them in with other root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips and potatoes?  You can spin-off on the idea of roasted vegetables by making sunchoke croutons to eat on a green salad.  Cut the sunchokes into small cubes, toss with olive oil and season to your liking with salt, pepper and maybe a few pinches of smoked paprika or garlic powder.  Roast until golden and crispy.  You can also shred sunchokes and mix them with potatoes or sweet potatoes to make potato pancakes or hash browns.  I mentioned earlier that you can stir-fry sunchokes as well.  If you add a small handful to a stir-fry near the end of cooking, they’ll retain their crispiness and will taste similar to a water chestnut.  Lastly, add diced or shredded sunchokes to quiche, frittatas or egg casseroles.

For those of you who may be trying sunchokes for the first time, I hope you enjoy your first taste of them and find simple ways to include them in your meals.  If you have tried sunchokes previously and (like me) have been avoiding them, I hope you’ll reconsider ways you might include sunchokes in your diet again.  And as a side note…..Farmer Richard has also reconsidered his avoidance of sunchokes and has willingly been eating and enjoying sunchokes again with no negative recourse.

Chile and Lime Sunchoke Salsa

by Chef Andrea Yoder

Yield: 1 Cup

8 oz sunchokes (about 4 medium tubers)

4 green onions

3 Tbsp lime juice

¼ tsp chili powder

2 tsp honey

Salt and black pepper, to taste

1. Shred the sunchokes using a food processor or a grater.  Place shredded sunchokes in a medium mixing bowl.
2. Separate the green tops from the base of the onion.  Finely mince the white portion of the onion.  Thinly slice the green portion.  Add both the green and white of the onion to the sunchokes.
3. Add the lime juice, chili powder and honey.  Season with salt and pepper and stir to combine.  Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before serving.  Prior to serving, adjust seasoning as needed with lime juice, salt and pepper.

Serving Suggestions for Chile & Lime Sunchoke Salsa:

• This salsa is an excellent topping for tacos or quesadillas.  
• Serve on top of seared fish and grilled chicken or pork.  
• To make a quick salad, toss a few tablespoons of the salsa with spinach and chunks of avocado.  Top with cooked chicken or fish if desired.  
• Use this salsa as a garnish for creamy soups such as corn chowder.

Sunday Afternoon Field Trips Resumed.....

Every Sunday afternoon Richard and I take time to check out the fields and make plans for the week. We obviously take the winter off, but looks like it's time to resume our Sunday field tours! It's a beautiful, sunny day in our valley and here's a glimpse of what we found.

SUNCHOKES: We left some of the sunchokes from last year's crop out in the field to overwinter. Here's what the field looks like above the ground.......dried stalks that we'll have to chop. Richard dug a few tubers to see what is happening underground. The report is they look just fine. We're going to try them out for dinner tonight. I'm thinking roasted sunchoke soup with a pickled black radish salad. If all goes as planned, we're hoping to dig sunchokes later this week.















RAMPS: We couldn't resist. We carefully crossed the little foot bridge to cross the river into the ramp woods knowing it might be a little early to find anything, but we got lucky!! The sprouts are just starting to push through, but we found them. The forecast this week is for a pretty nice, warm week. If the weather holds, we could be looking at starting our ramp harvest in 4 or 5 weeks! If you are trying to find the sprouts in the picture, look for the purple sprouts....green leaves will come soon.



GARLIC: The garlic field looks really nice covered in it's blanket of mulch. But what is going on under that blanket? A lot has been going on under that mulch and the bulbs we planted last October are doing their thing pushing down roots and pushing sprouts out the top. We even found an area where the sprouts are pushing through the mulch and peeking out. Look at the end of Richard's finger if you are having trouble seeing the sprouts in the picture.

Looks like this will be a busy week ahead of us. We still need to finish pruning the currants and the crew has just a little more pussywillow to trim and bunch. The celeriac in the greenhouse started to push through yesterday so it's time to move it off the heat table and put the first round of brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and cabbages) on the table. The ginger and tumeric seed arrived last week.....and it's gorgeous!!! We'll put that into flats tomorrow, put it under the tables and wait impatiently for 4-6 weeks for it to do something!