What’s in the box?

salad turnips
arugula
spinach ML only
Winter Squash - butternut squash and farmers choice (delicata, black futsu, or pie pumpkins)
onions
scallions
potatoes M and L only
carrots
swiss chard
brussel sprouts
garlic

Notes on the box.

This is it for the main season! So if you have a small, medium, or large share this is the last delivery of the season! Thanks for joining us for this growing season! If you have an Eat Like a Farmer/ Vegetarian Farmer share or have a Season Extension, you'll keep going for 4 more weeks. Oct 25th will be the last delivery. Eat like a Farmer shares will continue to get eggs and cheese. Season extension won't continue to get eggs and cheese.

Take the potatoes out of the plastic bag for storage. Store in a paper bag in a cool dry place out of the fridge.
Onions, Garlic, and Winter Squash should also be stored out of the fridge.
Remove the tops from the salad turnips. They are edible and are good cooked with the turnips.
The stems of the rainbow chard are edible. Chop them and add them when you are cooking the onions. Add leaves later as they cook much more quickly.
Winter Squash should keep for many weeks and makes a nice fall decoration until you are ready to eat it.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

Finishing the main season with a cheese made this Spring, Deneb, our gouda style. And a favorite of many many folks, our quark. This one flavored with celery and sweet onion. Great on crackers, but also with roasted potatoes or carrots or even on broiled salmon or s steak! Or if you are like Sadie you can just dig in with a spoon!

Recipes.

Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna

Roasted Potatoes and Brussels sprouts

3-4 potatoes
2 cups brussels sprouts
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary or 1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary
1 clove minced garlic
black pepper & salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash potatoes (do not peel) and dice into 1/2″ cubes. Wash brussels sprouts and cut in half (or quarters if they’re extra large). Toss all ingredients in a large bowl and place in a single layer on a pan. Roast 30-35 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.

Braised Hakuri Turnips and Choy Sum with Miso and Butter (adapted from Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison)
1 bunch Hakurei turnips
1 bunch choy sum
3 tbsp butter at room temp
2 tbsp mirin (or rice vinegar or dry white wine plus a 1/2 tsp sugar)
3 tbsp white miso (or any miso)
1 tsp black sesame seeds (or white), toasted in a dry skillet until fragrant
3 green onions (or 1 green garlic), white parts plus an inch of the greens, slivered
Sea salt
Remove greens from turnips and chop roughly. Also chop roughly your bunch of choy sum. Section the turnips into quarters. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat, add the mirin, then the turnips, and cook, allowing them to color, for several minutes.
White the turnips are cooking, stir together the miso and the remaining butter. When the turnips are tender, add the greens and add the butter miso mixture and allow it to bubble up, coat the turnips and greens, and just heat through. Transfer to a serving dish, finish with the sesame seeds and green onions, and serve. This dish probably won’t need salt, taste to be sure. Nice with brown rice.

On the Farm.

So grateful to all who came out to the Harvest Party. Hope you liked the barn theatre and the kebabs. We really enjoyed all the food that folks brought to share! We didn't get as many hay rides as we'd hoped. But I think most of you got to go. We hope you had a good time. We really enjoyed ourselves and Otto and Sadie were so happy to make some new friends!

Land Stewardship Project made some great connections with our membership, hopefully it was news to some of you that they are out there lobbying for small family farms and rural communities. Commodity farmers, both organic and conventional, have been dealt a hard last 5 years. Processors and multinational corporations are making record profits while farms continue to go out of business and consolidate. Small and medium farms are swallowed up by larger farms. Setting aside all farming practices and the environmental impact that industrial sized farms have, I want to consider for a moment the social impact of the loss of small family farms. For the last 5 years WI has lost an average of 500 farms per year. All of them medium to small. This year WI may loose over 700. A lifetime of farm knowledge gone. A farm family with kids in school, or contributed to 4H, or drove a school bus, or was a coach. Potentially forced to move for another job. Then there’s the brain drain. Some of the best minds that want to farm are now persuing other options like drone technology or genetic engineering. Not inherently bad ideas, but the reality is that no well intentioned teacher, father, mother, or family members would suggest to their child to go into farm ownership as a career right now. (I know mine sure didn't like the idea) Sure- fly a drone or crop duster, drive a tractor, learn to fix the machines, but don't farm… We hosted Ag teachers from this area this Summer. We kind of blew their minds when we said we didn't work off the farm (most years) and we only farm 80 acres. You could see how excited they were to offer up a ray of hope for students who want to farm.

It will take a generation or two to weave the kind of farming we do (small, diverse, Organic, direct to the customer) into the fabric of our community. It will take time to have it viewed as a legitimate part of agri-culture in our community. We've seen positive changes, we keep pushing for more. We can only do it because you allow us. Thanks for another good year. Next year will be the 10th year of Turnip Rock Farm! We are so honored to be able to be your farmers. THANK YOU!

If you want Cosmic Wheel Creamery cheese this Winter, come to one of the Mill City or Neighborhood Roots farmers markets this fall and Winter. We will send out an email when CSA signups for next season become available. Thanks again!!