Hello from Portland Maine!

We were gifted a long-weekend stay in a friends condo in Portland, and we've managed to sneak away. Yesterday we walked 7 miles, ate donuts, burgers and sushi, went bowling and took a ferry to Peaks Island for a beach visit only a wild child could love. (It was so cold! Harvey would have stayed until he turned to ice if we didn't pull him away.)

Otherwise, we're gearing up for the growing season. I feel like my body knows now what is coming. As the light returns my urge to eat and sleep increases even more! "No, not yet, you're not done stocking up!" my body seems to be telling me.

So, I'm eating like it's a holiday and letting myself sleep when I can.

We've been taking advantage of the opportunity the winter provides to make plans and improvements, and buy supplies that will help us have a more successful growing season. We've even managed to get to some really satisfying projects like leveling the ends of the high tunnels, putting up tool racks in all the high tunnels, creating harvest totes to go with every truck, restocking the first aid kits . . . and we got every weed out of the tunnels! Well, at least we think we got every weed!

And, we've been dividing dahlia tubers! Our tubers are beautiful. Dahlias tubers actually love rain as long as they don't drown, and we have so many nice, healthy tubers. You can eat them, too! They taste like water chestnuts.

Dividing tubers is a bit of an art/science, as you need to determine where the "eye" or growing point of the tuber is before dividing and it's not nearly as obvious as the eye of a potato. On some varieties we are getting as many as 15 viable tubers from one clump! We plant our own saved tubers, and we will be selling the extras in our online store!

Dahlias are such a joy to grow. Plus, once you practice a little, diving tubers is such a fun, satisfying project. We are really looking forward to our dahlias this fall. We bought about 15 new varieties last year (just a few tubers of each variety, they are very expensive!!) and now we have at least 50 tubers of each of those varieties!

Oh, yes, and as some of you might have noticed, we were featured in the Boston Globe on Wednesday. I had a lovely time talking with Karen Russo, and was honored to host Tony Russo (of Russos in Watertown) at the farm for the photo-shoot and extended interview. He thinks the greens you are all eating are top notch!

Here's a link to the article.

I'll see if I can get permission to share a PDF.

What's in this Winter Share

Choose 8 items: Orange carrots, rainbow carrots, red beets, rutabaga, kohlrabi, celery root, red and green cabbage, sweet potatoes, potatoes, yellow/rosa di milano mixed onions, garlic, shallots, spinach, kale, pea tendrils (the pea tendrils are particularly delicious this week and last a LONG time in the fridge - great with eggs, in salads or added to stir-fry.

#New this week# these options are added and count as TWO choices:

4 pounds mixed roots: rutabaga, celeriac, beets, radishes - this is a great way to get a good mix and match of some of our more interesting storage roots! 1 jar Kimchi - our own!

1 jar tomato sauce - our own!

Customization forms are Due by Sunday at midnight.

If you would like mushrooms this week you MUST order by Sunday at midnight.

We love growing a wide variety of vegetables for our CSA members. We get to grow so many different crops and harvest them just for you. The gears are already in motion for growing our 2024 crops.

Don't forget to sign up for your shares. A part of the benefit of the CSA to us is upfront payments so we can order seeds and supplies and pay our great team!!!

Mushrooms Shares

We are offering a mushroom share that coincides with your current Winter CSA Share. You will receive 1 pound of mushrooms with each distribution.

We partner with Fatmoon Farm in Westford. They grow a wide variety of delicious, certified organic mushrooms including: blue and yellow oyster, shitakii, lions mane, king trumpet, pippino and more.

Each distribution is either one variety or a mixture of varieties based on availability.

We love these mushrooms. You can also subscribe to receive mushrooms with shares for the rest of the season!

If you would like to be added to the winter mushroom share ($64 for the remaining 4 distributions) please email me by Sunday!

Flower Shares Available: They make a great gift!

Spring (Pepperell only): Tuplis and daffodils April/May, 5 bouquets: $100

Summer: 15 weeks aligning with summer vegetable share. Option to choose an every/other week pick up for 7 weeks. $285 every week, $140 every other week

Fall: 4 weeks coinciding with the first 4 weeks of the fall vegetable share. 20+ varieties of dahlias plus lots of other vibrant fall blooms! $100

"The Flower Share that my son and his wife gave me for Mother’s Day is the most wonderful gift I have ever been given! Spectacular is one word for this weekly arrangement. The flowers are simply gorgeous! Every week is more beautiful."

Recipes

Hi! Jessica Girotti here. If you have a recipe that you love that you'd like to share with other members, or if a recipe link isn't working for you, feel free to email me at jgirotti@live.com. (Please note that I can't re-print a recipe from a cookbook that isn't already online.) Don't forget to check out the recipe pages on the Upswing website if you need more ideas.

RUTABAGA & CELERAIC PUREE WITH SEARED SCALLOPS

This creamy root vegetable puree is perfection under the seared scallops. Serve with a side of sauteed leafy greens of your choice.

RED & GREEN CABBAGE & CARROT SLAW

This is a pretty traditional slaw recipe - and by pretty, I mean gorgeous! I love the addition of parsley too.

SPINACH AND ARTICHOKE MELTS

These are a delicious weeknight meal AND a great way to trick your kids into eating spinach. Mine will eat almost anything if it’s covered in cheese.

CRISPY SMASHED BEETS WITH GOAT CHEESE

Tart balsamic vinegar, bright rosemary and creamy goat cheese all combined with crispy beets? Sign me up!

BANH MI SANDWICH

Pickled carrots and daikon radish star in this vegan spin on a banh mi sandwich.

SHAVED CARROTS WITH CHARRED DATES

Rainbow carrots make this side extra gorgeous!

WINTER GREENS BOWL Kale, quinoa, cauliflower and beans served up warm and drizzled with a creamy garlic dressing.

ORDER

The Friday before a pick up you will receive an email that has a link to a form so you can choose the produce you would like in your box. There will be instructions on the form about how much to pick.

The form is due by midnight on Sunday so we have the chance to pick/wash/sort/pack the produce for you on Monday/Tuesday, pack your boxes Wednesday morning. 

If you don't complete the form, we will pack you a farmer's choice share.

PICK UP

Come to the Holliston Community Farm, 34 Rogers Rd between 1pm and 4pm and grab your box! If you can't make it by 4, we will put your boxes in the cooler (white shed, gray door behind the farm stand wagon) where you can grab them after hours.

Please, plan to unpack your box into a reusable bag to take home, or return the box. These boxes are expensive, and have no use if they are torn, so be gentle with them.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO TEAR THESE BOXES TO OPEN THEM.

We are looking into reusable containers for shares, but the limiting factors are initial cost and the cost/time of cleaning for reuse.

If you can't make it to pick up please email upswingcsa@gmail.com to coordinate an alternative pick up. Your best option is switching to Weston Nurseries in Hopkinton on Thursday, or picking up after hours or the next day from the Holliston Community Farm Cooler.

STORE

your veggies to maintain quality.

Sweet potatoes get stored at room temperature, colder than 55 will actually reduce their eating quality and storage time.

Potatoes go in a brown paper bag as close to 32 degrees as possible without exposing them to freezing temps. A cool basement, a garage that doesn't freeze, or a cabinet in the kitchen. They won't start to sprout if you use them in the 2-3 weeks between shares, but if you store them for more than a month at temperatures higher than 40 degrees they may start to sprout.

Onions, garlic, shallots: room temperature, either in a cabinet or on the counter. Again, if you use them in the 2-3 weeks between shares there will be no issue with sprouting. If you plan to try to keep them longer, it may be best to store them in the fridge.

Root veggies: carrots, celeriac, beets, rutabaga, etc should all be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge.

Cabbage: in the fridge

Fresh greens: in the bag they come in, in the fridge. Winter spinach keeps really well, and can last for up to a month. I suggest you eat it up, though, because it is so good for you!

Please email upswingcsa@gmail.com with questions.

Winter Schedule:

Twice/month on Tuesday, 1:00pm-4:00 (after hours pick up available from the cooler)

November 28th

December 12th

January 9th

January 23rd

February 6th

February 27th

March 12th

March 26th

FOR SALE THIS WEEK!

Tomato Sauce: $12

Kimchi: $10, 2 for $18

Hot Sauce: $10

Try all 3 for $30

T-SHIRTS $20

Know someone that would like to receive weekly CSA emails but can't join the CSA? Click Here to add their name to the weekly CSA list for updates on what's going on at the farm, and to get an idea of what we will have available for retail sales!

Your Farmers,

Brittany, Kevin and the Upswing Farm Team

Also, I'm bad at spelling. I am a generalist, so as long as most of the letters are there, and there is good context, by brain prefers not to be bogged down by details. Also, I am frequently typing these emails late at night or early in the morning after or before a big day of work. I promise I'm not making spelling or grammar errors because I don't care. I really, really do care, I'm just no good at copy editing and I rarely have time to send these out for a proof read to Kevin who is still sleeping. I hope you can forgive me.