Surviving Fall Crop Share

This week starts the Fall round for our crop share.  Have you had a chance to sign up?  If not, you still can at the first pickup.

I wanted to put up a brief post about this round.  It's different than the summer rounds that we just finished.  During those rounds, most members try to "keep up" eating what's in the box each week.  It's not so hard to do, since tomatoes can be made into a million different things and we don't get bored of them.  Fall, however, requires a different mind set.

Fall crop share is meant to "store up" for the winter.  Lots of things will get ripe, and much faster than we can eat them.  One week, there may be numerous butternut squash or several acorn squash (or both) in one box.  While I really, really love winter squash (particularly butternut), nobody can eat them at that pace.  The intention is that you eat one, and put the others away for later in the winter.  Trust me, that butternut squash soup is so, so much better when the wind is howling and the snow is deep.

Summer fruits and veggies have to be preserved (i.e., canned) in order to be shelf stable over the winter.  Not so with many fall fruits and veggies.  If you have a cool, dry shelf in your basement, putting a dozen squash down there, or half a bushel of apples, is all you need to do.  Periodically, look through what's on the shelf and see if any are moldy.  Get rid of the ones that are so that they don't contaminate the whole lot.  That's it.  So in a couple of weeks when we get a big box full of Virginia apples, you can put some up and they'll be perfect to make your pies on Thanksgiving.

Every few days this blog will have an entry with ideas on using what's in the box that week, just as it always has.  But there will also be tips on how to store each of the items so that excess will last you through the winter.

It's fall!  It's an exciting time for the crop share, and I sure hope you're still coming along for the ride.