Although we have had a few frosty mornings and we have pronounced the tomatoes, summer squash and cucumbers dead, we still seem to have one foot in the summer. Below blackened, twisted, frost-kissed foliage, the fruits of summer still hang, undamaged: eggplant, peppers, and green beans, all still available and abundant. Our other foot is firmly in the fall, as we harvest a growing roster of storage roots, and the hardy greens begin to sweeten as they only do when the temperatures drop.
And so commences our thoughts of winter and the end of the season: Bulk Order sign-ups. In contrast to last year, when we had plenty of potatoes but few carrots, we have ample carrots this season, but our potato yield was meager. We have therefore decided that we will have a sign-up sheet for 25 lb bags of carrots, but will not be offering our usual sign-up for 50 lb potato bags. Instead, we are hoping to have a good number of 20 lb bags of potatoes available off-the-shelf during our last week.
Carrot bag sign-ups can happen in one of two ways:
- e-mail—send your order to info@hutchinsfarm.com. Please let us know how many 25 lb bags you would like
- In person at the farmstand on our ‘official’ sign-up sheets
Orders will be honored in the order they are received, and we will begin accepting them as soon as this e-mail is sent. Bags are $30 each.
Closing day this year will be Sunday, November 3rd, when we will close at 4:30 PM due to lack of daylight after the time change. Carrot bags will be available for pick-up beginning Tuesday the 29th. Weather and supplies permitting, we will likely have produce available self-serve on the porch after we close—check our website after we close for up-to-date information and availability.
The waning of the 2019 season finds us flush with the bounty of the season, without the many shortfalls we experienced in 2018. Broccoli and cauliflower, scarce to nonexistent in 2018, are regulars on our display shelves; Brussels sprouts, absent from our fields for a number of years, have made a triumphant return; parsnips, so conspicuously absent in the fall of 2018 and spring of 2019, are very much present this fall, and presumably will be among the first fresh produce we harvest on that far-off spring day in 2020. Apples, arugula, bok choy, cabbage, carrots and cilantro, to proceed no further than the third letter of the alphabet, all still going strong along with a lengthy list of others.
We hope you will make the time to come in and experience New England’s fall bounty this month, and join us for one (or more) final stock up before the season comes to a close.
-Brian Cramer and the rest of the Hutchins Farm crew
