Braising Greens are a Wintertime staple for our farm.  A mix of various types of Kale, Collards, typically Chard and a few other odds and ends that put on smaller, sweet little leaves heading into the cold months are a versatile component of many salads, soups, smoothies and frittatas between now and Spring.  And you wouldn’t know it by looking at the pristine basket you see above, but this year’s crop of greens has really taken a hit thanks to the infamous January deep freeze.  By Mark’s estimation, about ¾ of the leaves out there in the Kale, Collards, Cabbage and Brassicas are damaged by at least 10%--which is his way of letting us know the plants are alive but most of the existing growth is toast and that it took a whole lot of fussy harvesting to arrive at this week’s Braising Mix.   What we’ve got looks and tastes fantastic, and the crew has done a phenomenal job of making something beautiful of a harvest day that was otherwise a real pain.  But, it just might be that the plants have given us all they’ve got for now, and we may have to wait and see what these plants give us in terms of flowering Raab by early Springtime.  Thankfully, there we have plenty of lovely Winter vegetables stored up, like Purple Daikon and Autumn Frost Squash, to counteract any dearth and drear. Ditto, seasonal organic citrus that is making its way into the farmstand—Tangerines, Blood Oranges, Meyer Lemons and specialty varieties of Navel Oranges are at their peak.  And after several weeks of patient waiting, I have picked up fresh batch of ferments from Olykraut, so come on by and stock up!

January is winding to an end, and I’m surrounded by telltale signs—the boxes of seed deliveries arriving and piling up in the usual corner of our living room, the stack of filing awaiting me after finishing payroll taxes and last year’s books, and last but certainly not least, some goofy adolescent rooster crows erupting from the chicken yard out back at all hours.  The chicks are growing up, and while we may be tight on eggs this week, by early March, there should be plenty.

I’m glad the deep freeze is behind us, even if it means we’ll be a soggy mess for a while.  One of the biggest questions I was fielding last week was, “What’s this going to do to your crops?!?!”  I didn’t know how to answer, but I knew it wasn’t going to be great.  That was one of the toughest and most uncertain weeks we’ve experienced farming on this coast, but as we anticipated, it roughed things up a little.  I can say with honesty that we and our crew did the best that we could heading into the extreme cold, given the constraints of our time and storage space.  (We’ve got hopes and plans to address the latter this year, but for now, we’re aching from the growing pains).  It was a real bummer to walk out this morning after several days of thawing to find that our January cabbages had frozen all the way down to their cores, decaying from the inside out.  (It wasn’t what we’d hoped for, but I was luckily able to source some from other organic producers in our region this week to make up for our loss).  And with a little more time, much of what remains planted in the open field has a chance to bounce back in time for our anticipated harvests of braising and flowering raab.  It appears that at least some of our greenhouse crops held on as well. Thank goodness!