This Week's Vegetable Harvest: Baby Kale Summer Salad Mix Parsley or Cilantro White Kohlrabi Beefsteak Tomatoes Basil Napa Cabbage Tropea Onions and Shallots Italian Sweet Peppers Spaghetti Squash - Amish Community Growers, Platteville, WI  Sweet Potatoes - Amish Community Growers, Platteville, WI  This Week's Fruit Harvest (from Mick Klug Farms, St. Joseph, MI) Honeycrisp Apples Bosc Pears Empire Apples Fresh Apple Cider

What's New at the Farm Stand

Napa Cabbage - We've had a successful Napa Cabbage season, and we're happy to share at the farmstand for all of your cooking and fermenting projects. The farmstand is open year-round with hours daily, 7am-7pm.

Reserve Your Local, Pastured-Raised Thanksgiving Turkey Note: We are taking reservations until the end of October or when we sell out, whichever comes first!   Reserve a local, pasture-raised turkey for Thanksgiving dinner from our friends at Jake's Country Meats. The farmers at Jake's raise their turkeys on pastures with pride and respect. Each bird enacts their natural instincts out on the pasture foraging for grass, bugs, and more. Jake's does not use any antibiotics and they are fed a NON-GMO diet of farm-grown grains. The natural environment promotes the best flavor and highest quality meat for your Thanksgiving holiday feast. Turkeys will be available for pickup on the farm on Saturday, November 18 and Sunday, November 19. Place your reservation here. Thank you for supporting local farmers!

Farm Journal

Good evening from your farm!

With the holiday on Monday, we took time this week to acknowledge the land we care for and the care of the indigenous stewards that came before us.  Prairie Wind Family Farm exists on land that was part of the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Odawa, Anishinabeg, and Potawatomi nations. Many other tribes—such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Meskwaki, and Menominee—also called this area home. We recognize that indigenous peoples are the traditional stewards of the land that we now occupy which was acquired through theft and exploitation. Acknowledgment of historical injustice must live side by side with gratitude for our privilege. This inherent tension pushes us to learn more, challenge our understanding, and engage with openness and non-judgment.

To do this, we must first listen. Mother Nature is providing us with a season cue to pay attention, as frosty mornings arrive.

We are actively watching crops and temperatures, and making preparations for fall flooding, just in case. The team spent recent days covering tender lettuces and closing monitoring hoophouses, opening when warm, and closing before the sun sets to hold in the heat. Dressing in more clothing and warm drinks in thermoses are now regular sights around the farm.

The team harvests to protect frost-sensitive crops like squashes and celery root.

We've removed tools we used to grow summer crops like zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes and peppers from the field, and Jeff is seeding cover crops each day to take root before the real cold arrives. The human pace has slowed just a bit, as the animals and insects scurry to prepare their bodies and homes for winter.

The balance of the farm changes each day and we are fortunate to experience the change as one community. Thank you for caring and supporting this farmland, as well as the people, animals and natural systems who have stewarded this land over time.

Next week, we will begin to provide for Fall members. Thank you again to all of our Summer Share members, and please enjoy this week's harvest and our beautiful Midwest transition to fall!  Your farmers, ~ Jeff, Jen, Gavin, David, Cleto, Miguel, Anacleto Learn whose native lands you live on including their history and how you can support them at native-land.ca.

Notes from the Farm Kitchen

As is the tradition in late summer, we are again including a favorite in fruit shares this week -- Mick Klug's apple cider. The Klug's cider is nothing but apples and UV-treated for safety. This cider can be enjoyed fresh, heated, mulled, spritzed or spiked as you like! Fruit shares also include a variety of the Klug's apples and pears to close out the fresh fruit share season. Honeycrisp are, well, most kids' favorite! They are perfect for eating as you carry your shares to your home. Empire apples and Bosc pears are both great for eating and since they hold their shape well, they are great for baking as well.

The spaghetti squash comes to us from Amish community of growers located in Platteville, Wisconsin. These farmers use traditional, farming techniques and work collaboratively across farms to combine multiple family harvests. Spaghetti squash has a nutty flavor and the spaghetti squash flesh separates into long, thin strands when cooked, creating long squash “noodles.”  Cook the spaghetti squash whole in the microwave or oven, then remove seeds and scrape the flesh with a fork.  Substitute spaghetti squash for noodles in pasta dishes, or simply saute with olive oil, garlic, and some cheese for a simple side dish.

In another experiment, we wanted to make our late summer salad mix a bit more hardy this season. So, this week's salad mix is a mixture of our traditional salad mix and a variety of baby kales. Together, these greens create a satisfying green salad alongside your favorite warm soup or as the base for roasted vegetables.

Seasonal Recipes in the Farm Kitchen How to Cook Spaghetti Squash and Spaghetti Squash with Parmesan and Garlic Autumn Kohlrabi Slaw -- try with the addition of fresh herbs and shredded napa Kung Pao Chicken with Bell Peppers Whole Wheat Apple Muffins Drying Herbs for Winter

• Tags: Apple Cider, Apples, Basil, Kohlrabi, Parsley, winter squash

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