CSA Newsletter for October 11, 2014

Farm Update

The hard frosts we had this week
have ended the green bean season,
but we still have plenty of good
stuff out in the fields.

 Hello everyone!  We are entering the penultimate week of the 2014 CSA season!  There are just two more weeks of veggies left, with the final drop-offs being October 20th-24th, depending on where you pick up your veggies.  Things are definitely winding down at the farm.  We had a few hard frosts this week, which have effectively killed off the last of the green beans, but all of the cool season veggies (primarily green leafy stuff and root vegetables) are still plugging along.  The pigs are also nearing the end of their lives, and just as well, really.  They have gotten very big in recent weeks, and they now realize how powerful they actually are, so they have taken to trying to escape their pasture with varying degrees of success.  Between a striking lack of pork in our freezer, and how hard it is to control the pigs these days, butchering day can't come soon enough.  But alas, two more weeks.  Fred harvested a bunch of apples yesterday as well, so there will be apples in the shares again this week, mostly Ida Reds and Golden Delicious.  Also, I'm starting my 2015 membership list, so if you are interested in signing up for the CSA for next year, just let me know!  It has been great having you all in the program this year, and we'd love to have you back for the 2015 season!

What to Expect in This Week's Share

Cabbage is one of the vegetables that actually thrives after the
first few heavy frosts of the year, because the cold
temperatures help concentrate the natural sugars in the plant,
 making it sweeter. 

• Choice of carrots or apples
• Choice of potatoes or tomatoes
• Choice of lettuce, spinach, or cabbage
• Choice of sweet potatoes or Brussels sprouts
• Broccoli for everyone
• Choice of beets, kale, or bok choy
• Choice of celariac (celery root), chives, or baby head lettuce

Veggie Spotlight: Sweet Potatoes

When sweet potatoes are grown in hot climates, they get to be
big and thick like these ones.  Sweet potatoes grown in a cooler
climate (especially when the growing season is on the cool side
of normal like this year) have a tendency to be thinner and longer.

Every year around this time, we start to have sweet potatoes coming out of the fields.  These quintessentially fall vegetables are perennially popular, and with good reason.  Their sweetness and high nutritional value makes them a favorite of many people in all age groups, despite some people’s unfortunate penchant for mashing them and topping them with marshmallows at Thanksgiving.  So read on to learn more about this wonderful gem of the soil, the humble sweet potato!

The sweet potato plant seems to have originated somewhere in 

Central America, and was found to do well in many areas of the world with warm temperatures.  It was recorded to have been in Polynesia around 1000AD (where it also thrives), which leads us to believe that there were some travels between these two far flung areas of the world even early on.  The sweet potato is now found in many warm weather parts of the world, and makes up a major part of the diet in many cultures. Total yields in these hot weather climates are much greater than here in Michigan, because many of these tropical places can grow the same vine out for many years just taking newly formed tubers as needed.

There are actually many different colors of sweet potatoes grown in the world, but the orange-fleshed type that we grow is presumed to be the most nutritious because of the large amount of beta carotene. Sweet potatoes are probably the best food you can eat to get the valuable beta carotene (despite the fact that we usually think of carrots in conjunction with that nutrient), and interestingly the full amount of beta carotene is best absorbed into our body with fat intake of some kind (such as olive oil, butter, and other animal fats). Also, like regular organic potatoes, organic sweet potatoes are better for us because they do not have a chemical sprout inhibitor applied to them. If you see conventional potatoes or sweet potatoes in the grocery store, almost all of them have the active chemical on or in them to decrease the chance they would start sprouting in the store. For this reason, if you are storing our sweet potatoes, it is better to have them wrapped in newspaper in a dark place with higher humidity, which will have the same anti-sprouting effect.

Once harvested, a lot of the sweet potatoes are
kind of scraggly or broken.  This is an old
picture of last year's piggies reaping the
benefits of some grade B sweet potatoes.
This year, our grade B sweet potatoes are
being sold to a man who makes them into
organic dog food.

On our farm we buy our sweet potato plants in from another organic grower on the East coast. These plants come as partially rooted stem cuttings wrapped in bundles. We plant them by hand, which is a three man job.  Fred slowly pulls the transplanter behind the tractor while two of our field guys, sitting close to the ground in the transplanter, plug the sweet potato plants into the ground.    The stems are just pushed into the ground through holes in raised beds that have a black plastic mulch. These cutting are then watered through our dripline irrigation system, and then they begin to root and put on shoot growth. These shoots turn into long vines that creep out quickly, eventually becoming a dense carpet of vines and triangular leaves across the raised beds in which we planted them.  The raised beds are covered with black plastic, which absorbs sun and creates more heat around the vicinity of the plant. Ironically, sweet potatoes generally like sandier, less fertile soil.  We actually had trouble with the plants in the rows that were planted on our richest black soil, but they thrived in the really light soil in the southwest corner of our farm, which isn’t ideal for pretty much anything else.  When it is time to harvest the sweet potatoes in late September, we cut the vines off at the soil line and then use our tractor-pulled undercutter (a big heavy metal blade) which digs underneath the potatoes loosening the soil around them.  This makes it easier to pull the sweet potatoes out of the loose soil.  We then box them up with the dirt still on them and put them in our greenhouse to cure for 7 to 10 days.  This curing process helps them heal from any cuts and creates a firmer skin that enables longer storage.  They are then washed and brought to the CSA drop-offs.

If you are planning to keep your sweet potatoes for a while, the best place to store them is where the temperature is below room temperature but above 50F. Most basements or closets furthest away from the thermostat would be good.  Because it is a tropical root, it doesn’t do well in the refrigerator for an extended period of time, so they are best kept out on the counter unless you are storing them for the long term.  We hope you enjoyed learning more about sweet potatoes and how we grow them at the farm!

Recipes

Roasted Sweet Potato Coins

There are so many great things to make with sweet potatoes!  If you have never had the Scottish Dollars at Stucchi's/ College Corner here in Alma, march yourself over there and get some!  Or you could make your own similar Roasted Sweet Potato Coins.  These are a little thicker than the Scottish Dollars, but they are equally yummy, and really easy to make.

Another good option is this Paleo Sweet Potato Chili.  I am a huge fan of soups, stews, and chilies this time of year, and this has the added benefit of leftovers, which are great to just heat up when you need something quick!