Brrr!  It was cold enough this morning to send me to the thermostat to turn the heat on! 

Our summer crops are done - some years we can keep the peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant going right up til early November.  This year there just hasn't been enough heat and light to keep them productive.  We have more beans tucked into our greenhouse, where they'll hopefully stay warm enough to keep producing 'til Thanksgiving or so.  Even chillier weather is forecast for later in the week.  Which means it's time to tighten up the greenhouse, unearth the row covers from the back corners of the shed, and keep our fingers crossed for the first frost of the season by the weekend.

I am not a fan of cold weather.  If it stayed a balmy 85 degrees year-round, I'd be the last person to object.  But I do look forward to those first few frosts in the fall because the cold really sweetens up our leaf and root crops.  It also means slightly shorter work days: in addition to fewer daylight hours, this farmer is enough of a cold-weather wimp she refuses to work outside below the 40-degree mark unless absolutely necessary.  And best of all, those first couple of frosts happily zap what's left of the annual warm-weather weeds, and sends a good number of the insects to death or dormancy.  Nothing makes me happier than to walk outside 24 hours after a good frost, to find the cold has taken care of much of my weed-pulling and bug-squishing chores for me!

Here's the recipe for our Pie Day entry at the Midtown Market for all those who asked:

Savory Sweet Potato Pie

• 3 lbs Sweet Potatoes
• 4 tablespoons unsalted Butter
• 1/4 tsp Orange Extract
• Salt & Pepper
• 4 Eggs
• 1 lb Cooking Greens (I used Tuscan kale, any favorite cooking greens like Kale, Collards, Chard, or Tatsoi will work)
• 1 bunch Scallions, minced
• 3 cloves Garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh Ginger
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup White Wine
• Salt & Pepper
• Pre-prepared 9" Pie Crust

Instructions

1. Peel and cook the sweet potatoes until very soft.  Add 4 T. butter, orange extract, and mash until smooth.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Let cool, then add the eggs and mix well.
2. Heat 4 T. butter in a large skillet or saute pan over medium heat.  Add the greens, scallions, garlic, and ginger.  Saute until almost tender.  Turn the heat up to medium-high.  Add the white wine, and stir continuously until all of the liquid has evaporated.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Take half of the greens mixture, half of the potato mixture, and combine.  
4. Assemble your pie:  Put the greens mixture in the bottom of the pie shell.  Top with the half-and-half greens and potato mixture.  Top it off with the remaining potato mixture.
5. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45-60 minutes, or until the crust looks golden, and the potato topping is set.

Notes and Alternative Pie Varieties!

Gluten-free version: Layer the greens & potato mixtures in reverse order into a buttered casserole dish.  Top with a cornbread batter, and bake until done.

Cheese-lover's version: add a handful or two of goat cheese, feta crumbles, or blue cheese to the greens mixture.

Meat-lovers' version: Add scrambled sausage (sweet or spicy) to the greens mixture.

The nitty gritty on when, where and how you can continue to purchase our produce November through March, while the farmers markets are closed:

• The Midtown Farmers Market continues to host an off-season pick-up on Saturdays, beginning November 2.  We will not set up tables full of produce for you to choose from - you'll need to pre-order any items you'd like to pick up.  To place an order, just reply to this email and send me your shopping list.  We will be on the Commons at North Hills from 10am-12noon with your orders.  We accept cash, checks, or you can pre-pay by joining our CSA and not have to worry about finding an ATM or remembering to bring the checkbook.
  
• We will have a mid-week pick-up at Harmony Farms in Raleigh, just north of 440 at Creedmoor & Millbrook.  This is a "drop and run" location for us; we will not be there to hand over your orders, so you'll need to be a CSA member in order to use this location.  Pick-up hours are 3pm-8pm on Wednesdays, beginning October 16. 
• And you can purchase from us here at our farm in northeastern Johnston County (we're about halfway between Kenly and Middlesex).  We do not have an on-farm store or roadside stand, so you'll need to pre-order the items you'd like in advance.  Again, we accept cash, checks, or you can pre-pay by joining our CSA.  Pick-up hours are on Wednesdays and Fridays 4pm-7pm, Saturdays 2pm-5pm.
  

We spent our weekend racing around setting out the last big round of our winter crops, moving the hens over to new and greener pastures, and generally getting the farm ready for some much wetter and cooler weather heading this way.  Herding chickens (like trying to herd cats) isn't necessarily how I prefer to spend my Sundays, but it's good to know everything is tucked in and planted out as the winds are picking up and rain rolls in.

Our summer crops are definitely winding down; the season feels like it's changing, and quickly.  The peppers are suddenly done.  There's still a bit of eggplant and basil, and plenty of beans.  The fall crops are taking over now.  It seems every week we have a few new things to add to our harvest list, and this week is no different - fennel and escarole, and carrots and beets in three colors each!

We are getting close to the end of the farmers market season.  The Midtown Farmers Market ends in just three more weeks on 10/26, and the Raleigh Downtown Farmers Market ends in just four more sessions on 10/30.  We do grow year-round though, and here's a reminder of when, where, and how you can continue to purchase our produce November through March:

• The Midtown Farmers Market continues to host an off-season pick-up on Saturdays, beginning November 2.  We will not set up tables full of produce for you to choose from - you'll need to pre-order any items you'd like to pick up.  To place an order, just reply to this email and send me your shopping list.  We will be on the Commons at North Hills from 10am-12noon with your orders.  We accept cash, checks, or you can pre-pay by joining our CSA and not have to worry about finding an ATM or remembering to bring the checkbook.
• We will have a mid-week pick-up at Harmony Farms in Raleigh, just north of 440 at Creedmoor & Millbrook.  This is a "drop and run" location for us; we will not be there to hand over your orders, so you'll need to be a CSA member in order to use this location.  Pick-up hours are 3pm-8pm on Wednesdays, beginning October 16. 
• And you can purchase from us here at our farm in northeastern Johnston County (we're about halfway between Kenly and Middlesex).  We do not have an on-farm store or roadside stand, so you'll need to pre-order the items you'd like in advance.  Again, we accept cash, checks, or you can pre-pay by joining our CSA.

And yes, we have a new permanent home for our mid-week CSA pick-up!  Pullen Place Cafe has been wonderfully accommodating, but is now closing at 5pm, which I realize won't work out for many of you.  We will make our last Wednesday drop at Pullen Place Cafe this Wednesday, October 9.   Beginning Wednesday, October 16, we will drop off your CSA orders at Harmony Farms, on the corner of Millbrook and Creedmoor in Raleigh.  Pick-up hours will be from 3pm - 8pm.  Harmony Farms is also Raleigh's only grocery that offers only 100% organic items (and they have an awesome juice bar) so it makes for an easy one-stop-shopping trip to fill out your weekly needs from their shelves while you pick up your CSA box!  Many thanks to the extremely friendly and overly enthusiastic folks at Harmony Farms for hosting our CSA pick-up on Wednesdays.

Cooking with local, seasonal produce means getting comfortable with making a lot of substitutions in your favorite recipes.  Just about any dark leafy greens can stand in for whatever a recipe calls for; I change them out depending on what's hanging around in the kitchen or left over from the markets.  Running short on lettuce?  Add some arugula or tatsoi to fill out your salad bowl.  Cabbage not in season yet?  There's bok choy aplenty - which can make just as good a slaw as a regular round cabbage.  Love your beets for the greens more than the roots?  Swiss chard was originally a beet plant, bred for better quality greens instead of big sweet roots.  I think it's helpful in the kitchen to have a little general garden know-how, and familiarize yourself with the basic plant families.  What grows alike tends to cook alike.  Very often other members of one group can easily stand in for the one vegetable you're looking for, that may not be available at the moment.

Onions always seem to stump people the most.  I use onions in almost everything I cook, but those familiar bulb onions are only in season for a few months of the year in late spring and summer.  (It doesn't help matters that the majority of our onion crop rotted away in flooded fields this spring).  Most years we have some sort of allium (onion-family plants) year-round, and all are generally interchangeable.  I would not try to make a French onion soup with scallions, but I have done so with fabulous results using leeks.  Hundreds of recipes start with a chopped, sauteed onion, but there's no reason you can't use scallions - just cook tender green onions for a shorter time, or throw them into your dish at the end.  Get creative, and think outside your recipe box!