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thanksgiving market

11/17/2014

undercover cabbages

January weather coming up the next few days - just in time to put all your Thanksgiving-day veggies at risk - no! We have everything covered up as best as possible under many layers of fleece row covers or in the greenhouse. Keep your fingers crossed that it's all enough to keep from freezing out!

Some changes to our regular winter schedule over the next few weeks due to the holiday:

The Midtown Farmers Market's Holiday Market is Saturday, Nov. 22, 10am - 1pm. This is a full 'regular' market, and we'll bring as much as we can to fill up the tables one last time before next spring. We have a pretty good supply of most vegetables, but if there is something you have your heart set on for your Thanksgiving meal, feel free to send us your shopping list by Friday morning, and we'll have it packed up and ready to go for you.

Next week we will be delivering to Harmony Farms for CSA members on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 25, not Wednesday. Pick-up will also be available at the farm on Tuesday the 25th. I'll try to get next week's availability list to you a bit earlier, so you have a little extra time to get your orders in.

We'll be taking our usual post-holiday break for about a week while you finish up your Thanksgiving leftovers or travel back home. There will be no pick-up or deliveries between Wed., Nov. 26th and Thursday, Dec. 4th. We plan to resume our regular winter schedule the weekend of Dec. 5th and 6th.

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egg sabbatical

11/10/2014

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It's our egg-less season again. Bummer, I know, but it's just the natural course of things in a hen's annual cycle. By October the girls start to molt, a roughly month-long process wherein they gradually lose their old feathers, and grow out a shiny new set for the winter. Feather-growing requires a lot of energy and protein, which means their egg production drops.

By November we see another significant drop in production. Chickens are highly photosensitive (some of us humans feel pretty unproductive through the gloom of winter as well), and as the days grow short and dark, they lay even fewer eggs. Right now we're picking up about one quarter the number of eggs we gather every day as when they're laying at their peak in spring.

Some farms get around this glitch in egg production by purchasing new chicks every month or two, in order to have continuous fresh new layers, or the farmer will install artificial lights in the chicken coops to trick the hens into thinking the days are still 15 hours long. I don't have the space for a new flock every month, nor do I want to crowd that many birds into the space we do have available. To do that would make the operation not much better than a factory egg operation. I also don't want to push production artificially with supplemental lighting, for the health of the flock. If you gave birth nearly every day for at least half the year, wouldn't you want a little break, too? We all need our winter rest.

And so our ladies are on their annual vacation until about February, when the days start to get noticeably longer. We have a very limited number of eggs to sell. We will limit eggs for the next few months to one dozen per order. We try to fulfill our CSA member's requests first, then fill out additional requests as we receive them. Please remember that this is a mainly vegetable-producing farm!

That said, the produce list is admittedly a little light this week. We're letting many of the veggies rest and bulk up a bit in anticipation of all your pre-Thanksgiving orders next week. If you're already starting your holiday menu planning, in addition to the list below, we should have lots of cauliflower, cabbage, spinach, leeks, fennel, and possibly some early winter celery. Don't forget that the Midtown Farmers Market's Holiday Market is Saturday, Nov. 22, 10am - 1pm.

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winter schedule

11/5/2014

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A big thank you to all who came out to the last full Midtown Farmers Market last Saturday, on what felt more like a raw, wet January morning than a typically brisk November morning. The last Raleigh Downtown Market is this Wednesday, November 5th.

You can still get our produce through the winter months. Beginning this Saturday, all winter long until the regular season resumes in April, the Midtown Farmers Market hosts space for us and other vendors to set up for an off-season pick-up. This is a pick-up location only, not a full market. We only cut produce to order during the winter to minimize waste. To place an order for pick-up, just reply to this email, and send us a list of the items you would like, including the quantities you want. You do not need to join our CSA to order, you can just pay each week as you pick up. We will be on the commons at North Hills, near Ben & Jerry's, from 10am - 12noon with your orders, all packed up and ready to go!

The schedule for pick-up on the farm or at Harmony Farms does not change.

We do need all orders for the weekends no later than 9am on Friday, whether you plan to pick up in Raleigh or at the farm. Especially as we get deeper into colder weather, we often end up with just a few hours in the middle of the day when we can harvest vegetables. All of our season-extension methods through the winter are solar-powered. We often have to wait until mid-morning for the temperatures to warm up enough to get into greenhouses or under row covers. We then we need to get everything buttoned up and tucked in again a few hours before dark (which happens an hour earlier now) in order to build up enough solar heat under the covers to get through the long chilly nights. Should we try to get back under covers or into the greenhouse late in the afternoon, we risk losing the whole crop to go cut one more of something.

We saw our first frost of the season this morning, which means all those greens are sweet as can be from the cold! Down to the last of the romaine and bok choy for a bit, though both will be back in time. We picked the pepper plants clean this weekend before the frost - last chance for green or purple peppers this week, and we've dropped our price a bit in the hopes you'll stock up! Peppers will keep for a few weeks in your fridge, or you can freeze some for the winter - just chop the peppers, pack them into containers, and pop in your freezer.

Thanks so much for your business, eat well, and have a great week!

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thanksgiving market

egg sabbatical

winter schedule

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