August 27th, 2019

What’s in your share?

• Carrots

• Butterhead Lettuce

• Arugula

• Red Bunching Onions

• Potatoes

• Sweet Peppers

• Basil

As we start moving towards fall, the time comes to start thinking about how we can eat a local diet all year long. As Wisconsinites, this may seem like a difficult task, but with thoughtful planning and some knowledge of how to best preserve crops, we can extend the harvest to last until the first spring vegetables are ready to harvest!

Many of the crops that we grow have a surprisingly long shelf life. But the key to preserving the life of the vegetables is all about how they are stored. This process starts in the field. On each harvest day, we begin harvesting early in the morning, before the sun gets hot. Harvesting when the cool morning dew is still on the plants helps them stay crisp and fresh as they make their way to your table. When a vegetable is harvested, it is full of what we call “field heat”. When a plant is no longer connected to the soil, the field heat needs to be removed quickly. Immediately after harvesting, we submerge, soak, or spray the crops with our cold well water to release field heat. We then put the crates of harvested vegetables in our walk-in cooler, and return to the field to harvest everything on the list for that day.

We take a great deal of time making sure that your produce comes to you as clean as possible. This is not only to provide you with a clean and tidy box, but thoroughly cleaning each crop with very cold water helps to keep the veggies as fresh as possible. As we hand the them over to you, we wanted to provide some tips for keeping their vitality as long as possible.