Heron Pond Farm Winter CSA January 27-February 1

  Well, we've sweetened the share a little this week with a January surprise: sweet potatoes! The sweet potatoes were grown at Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA. We are going to take another stab at growing our own this season, but for now you can enjoy these beauties. For those shallot lovers out there you will have a choice of shallots or onions this share. Sweet red russian kale in this weeks' share can be cut for a salad or cooked lightly in a variety of ways. The baby spinach leaves are delicious!

  Although we've had some cold nights recently, the weather has warmed (was it really 55 degrees Tuesday!?) and looks to stay mild for a little. This, along with daylength reaching 10 hours around the 8th of February should mean a greens explosion by later in that month.  

   On a different note, we've had some unwelcome guests in our main spinach house: green peach aphids! Unfortunately, they don't stick to green peaches. Several years ago we had a terrible problem with them on the spinach in March and April. This year we caught the problem early and have made releases of lady beetles, a predator of aphids, and a tiny wasp called Aphidius colemani, a parasitoid. We hope that these insects will help keep the aphid population under control as the days lengthen and our spinach grows.

               Greg

This weeks' share:

4 lbs potatoes

2 lbs sweet potatoes

1 lb carrots

1 lb purple top turnips

1 lb rutabagas

1 lb onions OR 1/3 lb shallots

1/2 lb red russian kale

1 bag baby spinach