Still Life with Pears

Too beautiful to eat.Too tasty not to.Everything about pears seems decadent.

Winter What?

We're often asked what the difference is between wintergreens and Winter Sun Farms. First, the similarities:

• We are both Hudson Valley C.S.A.s, focused on getting people fantastic local food, and supporting our local farms.
  
• We are both winter C.S.A.s, working to extend the season of local eating.

And, the differences:

• wintergreens is tiny, and focused on Beacon. Winter Sun Farms has 1500 members this year, and distributes from Albany to Brooklyn. They now also have a C.S.A. in North Carolina.
  
• Winter Sun Farms costs $118 for four distributions over the season, wintergreens costs $240 for 12.
  
• Winter Sun Farms primarily uses freezing as their preservation method, though they may introduce a root cellar this year. wintergreens combines many preservation methods (fermentation, root cellaring, four-season farming, dehydration, and yes, freezing). wintergeens makes use of ancient food preservation methods from around the world, and distribution includes items like sauerkraut, sundried tomatoes, popcorn, and dried beans, all from locally grown vegetables.

wintergreens is interested in making food available for all. We accept food stamps, and hope to be able to subsidize shares for those who can't afford them. We want to plant fruit trees in town to create free food, and we've harvested unused fruit and nuts from those that already grow here, to avoid waste. We want to bring the eating of mulberries and black walnuts and dandelions back into vogue. We dream of seeing unused patches of land turned into food producing gardens. We want every individual to know how to grow food and store it themselves. The best scenario is that we come together and share all our knowledge on the forgotten methods and skills that fed people through winter before refrigeration and long-distance shipping, eventually making wintergreens obsolete. Until then, we hope you'll join us!

Based on similar principles, our friends Winter Sun Farms are doing good work. Please support them if their model works better for you for financial or logistical reasons.

Of Rodents and Roots

Just as some leaves are beginning to turn, and wildflowers are getting leggy and shedding their petals, sunchoke flowers are just opening. They are bright and shiny, face south to get sun on their faces, and cheer me up as the days get short.

They seem extra special this year because of the takeover.

I've never minded groundhogs and deer sharing in my crops. They seem to prefer mostly weeds to eat, with some green bean and squash vines thrown in, and there always been enough for them to get their fill, and me to get mine. This year, a small groundhog took up residence under the garage, and chewed on my elderberries and sunchoke plants with particular focus and rigor. I'd see her in the compost bin sometimes, enjoying scraps of melon and rotten tomatoes, but more often, I'd see her on her hind legs, bending tall plants down to where she could reach them, and ridding them of leaves up to their ten foot high tops. The leafless plants would have been no more concern than usual, except that these are perennials, and I plan to have producing plants for years to come. A wipeout of this crop would mean a wipeout for years.

A lot of farmers and homeowners go to battle with groundhogs, deer, rabbits and other animals. I refuse. They were here first after all, they don't have anyplace better to go, and everybody's got to eat. Instead, I pile tree trimmings in stacks for burrowing and chewing, respect the holes that lead to their burrows, and leave them alone when they're eating out of my garden.

I get flack for this from neighbors and friends, who think I'm a bit nutty. This year, for the first time, I had a moment of wondering if they're right.

But the sunchoke leaves always grew back, and now there's a mess of flowers to prove that sharing is a fine and sane way to garden. The groundhog, now grown up and rotund, will be going into hibernation soon. I realized that even if there had been a complete wipeout, I still wouldn't displace the groundhog—I'd just replant in another spot.

What these sunchokes blooms mean to me is that when it comes to "our" garden (the groundhog and I), it can get eaten, and we can have it, too. There will be chokes for us both again next year.

Seed Saving

Friend of wintergreens (that's "f.o.w." to you), Ken Greene of the Hudson Valley Seed Library, has a post on Civil Eats, about this "ripe" time of year. I'm so absorbed in the frenzy of planning for winter, that I haven't at all considered something as far away as next year. Thank goodness for seed savers!Hudson Valley Seed Library is also have a farm tour and seed saving celebration on October 11. Forget where your food comes from—where do the seeds come from that become your food?


All beautiful images greedily grabbed from the Seed Library site.

Math

If you plan to go the apple-a-day way through winter, you're going to have to do just that: plan. Sure, wintergreens will be storing apples for you in the root cellar, but a minute of math tells me there's no way we can keep enough apples to keep all members in apples every day. If you'd like to eat local apples through spring, it's time to look around your house for a place you can keep a bin of your own. Ideal apple storage is just below 40 degrees farenheit, with high humidity. Put a thermometer in your unheated porch, attic, basement, stairwell, or closet, and see if any of them will do the trick.

Wrap apples individually in sheets of newspaper, to keep one rotting piece of fruit from ruining others. Put a pan of water nearby to keep the air humid. And keep eating apples.

That's all. It's that easy. Cool, moist, with air circulation and some padding: root cellars demystified.

Nuts, It's Fall

Black walnut trees are one of the first to lose their leaves. I can attest to this because it's only September, and my porch needs serious sweeping. But you really know it's fall when, with regularity, you hear the thud of walnuts falling off the trees.

Few humans seem to be using these flavorful nuts, but it's still a race to collect them, since squirrels know their value: there are already nuts "hidden" in every flower pot and nook.

It's dangerous to collect black walnuts. When they're plentiful on the ground, they're also still falling. These babies dent cars, and don't feel great when they bonk you on the head.

The truly fun part is still to come, when hands and clothes are forever stained black while peeling the fruit away from the nuts so they can dry.

Once dry, the nuts store well in their shell. And then you try to crack them. Put away your nutcracker shaped like a squirrel! You need a vice grip or a specially designed nutcracker to get into these super hard kernels.

A lot of work, to be sure. The exquisite black walnut flavor promises to be worth every minute!