Happy January…err, I mean November! Can you believe it was in the 90s a month ago? Our plants are as bundled up as they can be, and we’ll see how they make it through the week. We use season extension techniques like row cover and these nifty little mini-greenhouses Kevin built over some of our raised beds, as well as heating our main greenhouse when needed, but those additions only do so much. Fingers crossed that we will still have some herbs and greens for a while this winter.

No matter what the weather does at this point, we still have our canned and dried goods! I’m making more Ginger Marmalade this week, as I know many of you have been stocking up for gifts.

Things are trucking along here at Dandelion Ridge Farm, settling into the autumn rhythm. We don’t have to water so much these days (thank goodness!), and are doing our best to keep cold sensitive plants like ginger warm enough. Greens like kale, collards, romaine, and dandelions are thrilled with the cooler weather, though—summer heat is not their friend! We hope to keep greens and herbs going throughout the winter.

We will have very limited quantities of tarragon, lemon thyme, and marjoram this week. These plants are young and not producing much yet, but I think we can manage a small harvest. Tarragon can be a challenge to get established, but its licorice-y flavor adds so much to a dish. Lemon thyme has a fun, citrusy brightness against thyme’s savory background. And marjoram has similarities to oregano, but is more subtle, sweet, and nuanced. Stop by our farmers’ market booth on Saturday to try some!

Today, I went to a workshop at one of the University of Kentucky’s Horticultural Research Farms about agricultural high tunnels. We got our tunnel this spring, and while it has been wonderful to grow in a more protected and controlled space, it is definitely an adjustment, with its own tricks and challenges. We always benefit from these educational opportunities and I certainly learned a lot from the experts today!

Kevin’s presentation at the Hudson Valley VegFest in Kingston, NY this past weekend was a hit! He spoke about our journey into farming, from harvesting and weeding in his parents’ subsistence garden as a kid to learning about more sustainable practices as an adult; from our meager first harvests from our raised bed garden in Asheville, NC six years ago to this year’s harvest of 4,300 pounds and growing! Kevin discussed the array of problems with the current corporate food system and the need for each of us to do what we can to break with the industrial model and engage more fully with the food that sustains us.

In the kitchen, I’ve been playing around with different ways to preserve ginger, including dehydrating both the roots and the stalks and leaves. I’m also working on an intense Ginger Marmalade made with apple cider, so stay tuned for that! I think it will be a great addition to a holiday menu!
Update: Try it in this Sweet Potato Hash with Ginger Marmalade for a perfect holiday side dish!

I hope you are staying warm in this cold snap! Our ginger and sensitive herbs are bundled up under blankets or tucked in the greenhouse as needed. This guy is enjoying the tropical environment among the ginger foliage, too!

Now that autumn definitely seems to be here, the kale and collards we planted for the fall are coming on and we will have our first small harvest this week! We will also have dandelion greens and romaine in the next few weeks.

We have another exciting new offering: upon popular request, we are now offering a very limited supply of Dandelion Ridge Farm dried herbs and pepper flakes! We carefully dry the best of what we grow for your enjoyment year-round. We’re offering epazote, thyme, sage, oregano, and rosemary, as well as ground jalapeño peppers and crushed habanero flakes for you heat-lovers out there!

We’re staying active with events this week, too! Kevin is on his way to New York’s Hudson Valley to present at the Hudson Valley VegFest, where he will hopefully inspire folks to move along the continuum from passive consumers to active food producers, whether it be starting a farm, learning to cook, or growing a few herbs on a kitchen windowsill.

We were also pleased to be part of a World Food Day celebration at Community Action Council’s Wilburn Center in northeast Lexington on Wednesday. Community members got to watch food demos, taste dishes from diverse cuisines, and take home fresh vegetables, including Dandelion Ridge Farm sweet potatoes.

We’re digging up a storm this week at Dandelion Ridge Farm! We harvested our sweet potatoes this week–much to the chagrin of this toad, who was living amid the jungle of vines! Curing sweet potatoes at 80-90 degrees for a week helps them to store better and brings out their sweetness, so we set up a curing tent in our greenhouse to keep our sweet potatoes at a steady warm temperature during this period.
 
We also started harvesting our baby ginger! It’s a rare variety called Bubba Baba from the renowned Hawaiian organic ginger seed producer known as “Biker Dude!” Fresh young ginger is more tender and milder than the mature ginger available in stores. It lacks the thick cuticle and fibers that mature ginger have, so there's no need to peel it. Add it to smoothies or stir fries, candy it or use it in sweets, but try this beautiful delicacy while you can! The stalks and leaves make a delicious tea or stock for Asian soups—just put leaves in your cup, muddle, and steep.

We’re going to use some to make Kevin’s Ginger Miso Sauce to have over stir fry tonight! Find the recipe here.

We went to a hugely informative field day last week put on by the Organic Association of Kentucky (OAK). Held at UK’s Horticultural Research Farm in Lexington, the field day was on soil fertility and cover crops. In addition to information-packed presentations from Drs. Rachel Rudolph and Krista Jacobsen, we got to see different types of cover crops UK’s Horticulture Department is trialing.

Cover crops of various types play important roles in regenerative farming: some feed the soil with nitrogen and organic matter, while others aerate soil and break up compaction. They minimize erosion, suppress weeds, and can balance soil nutrient levels. In addition, many provide habitat and food for beneficial insects. Here is our fall mix of cover crops—rye, peas, vetch, and clover—doing its thing in our high tunnel, preparing the soil for next spring’s crops!

OAK is an incredible resource for both farmers and consumers in Kentucky, providing educational opportunities and materials for anyone interested in sustainable agriculture. They just unveiled their Find a Farm Database that allows you to search for local sustainable farms--including Dandelion Ridge Farm!--by crop, county, or zip code.

This week, we’re bringing out the butternuts and candy roasters that we’ve been curing in the sun for a few weeks. The curing process brings out the squashes’ sweetness and helps them hold up for a longer shelf life.

If you’ve never tried a candy roaster, you’re in for a treat!  These long, curved, pastel-pink squashes are the size of a baseball bat with blue-green tips and rich, sweet flesh. You can store them for months, and they get sweeter as they age. This means they will be in fine form around the holiday season, ready to become pumpkin pie, winter squash soup, or risotto! The skin is very thin, so I don’t bother peeling them—I just cut them in half lengthwise, scoop out the large seeds, lightly oil the exposed flesh, and roast in the oven.  “When roasted with a little bit of fat,” Atlas Obscura says, “its orange flesh caramelizes to a creamy, candy-crunchy exterior with a burnt-sugar, buttery nuttiness.” Yum!

You can use candy roaster squashes in most recipes that call for butternut, such as Butternut and Red Lentil Curry or Roasted Butternut Hummus, but they have a little higher water content than butternuts, which can affect baked recipes like Butternut Sage Biscuits.

Last week, I shared a little bit about our mint varieties. Now I’d like to tell you about another of my favorite herbs: lemon balm! It is a member of the family Lamiaceae, as are mint, basil, and many other aromatic herbs. Its flowers attract a plethora of butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. It has a wonderful bright but soft lemony scent and flavor that shines in many of the same ways mint does, in both sweet and savory dishes. You can really use lemon balm anywhere you might use lemon; its flavor is just more subtle, herbaceous, and delicate.

We love infusing water with lemon balm—as with mint, just crunch up a bunch of it in a pitcher of water and keep it in the fridge, replenishing the water as needed. You can also dry it and use it to make tea. It is delicious in a salad dressing, or just chopped and added to a salad. Summer squash sautéed with minced fresh lemon balm, chives, and maybe a little dill makes a fantastic quick side dish, or add some chickpeas for a complete lunch! And it is amazing with fruits or in sweets, like these addictive lemon balm cookies!

Can you believe it’s August already? We’re still swimming in tomatoes at Dandelion Ridge Farm, and have been struggling to keep up with harvesting and processing them all, so we called in GleanKY for help. GleanKY is a non-profit based in Lexington, KY that tackles hunger and food waste by gleaning excess fruit and vegetables from farms, grocery stores, and farmers’ markets and redistributing this produce to more than 100 local feeding programs. In addition to their grocery store and farmers’ market gleanings, they send volunteer crews to harvest produce from local farms and deliver it to soup kitchens, food banks, and other organizations to help the hungry. We’re enthusiastic supporters of the important work they do! A couple of folks from Glean came out to the farm one morning this week and harvested about 350 pounds of tomatoes and delivered them to recipients in need. It felt good to know that those beautiful tomatoes are going to make a lot of people happy! If you want to know more about GleanKY, including volunteer and donation opportunities, go to gleanky.org.

Hope you’re enjoying this break from the heat—we are, and so are our plants at Dandelion Ridge Farm. We hilled up the soil around our ginger this week to give the rhizomes more room to grow, and the plants are looking beautiful (as you can see in this picture)! We plan to harvest the ginger in the fall. We harvested our small garlic crop and have it drying in the greenhouse  for use in our canned sauces. Our kale and collard plants are feeling the heat and reaching the end of their lives, so we took them down for the season.

Our edible flowers—marigolds, nasturtiums, and bachelor’s buttons at the moment—are starting to bloom and we’ll bring a few to market this weekend. They add a touch of elegance and a pop of color to any special dish!

We’re still harvesting tomatoes and tomatillos every day, and canning them every chance we get! We’re unveiling our Roasted Tomatillo Salsa this week. We make this Southwestern salsa verde using Dandelion Ridge Farm tomatillos, jalapeños, and parsley. We roast the tomatillos until slightly charred to deepen their bright, tart flavor. Related to the tomato, tomatillos grow inside elegant paper husks and have a tangy, slightly fruity flavor. You’re most likely to find tomatillos in Mexican and Central American cuisines, but you can also stir-fry them, use them in curries, or even try them in a Bloody Mary! Try a sample of our salsa at the market this weekend, and take home a jar or some tomatillos to make salsa yourself!

Our okra is now in full swing, and we’re harvesting a pound every day or two. If you’ve never seen okra growing, the plants are beautiful and tropical-looking, with stunning pale yellow flowers with burgundy centers . Okra, a relative of the hibiscus plant, was brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans. It is popular in Indian, African, Caribbean, and Creole cuisine. While I know some people object to okra’s texture, try roasting or grilling it to avoid any sliminess, or use it in soups and stews, where it can add a silky texture.