Grains – Great Day Gardens

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

It is crazy to think it is already Thanksgiving! If you are as surprised as us, chances are you still have some grocery shopping to do! Before you run to your local chain store, take a look below to see what we have to offer! We have tons of products to help you make this Thanksgiving one of your best yet, with a little local flavor! Order by Tuesday at 9 pm and pick up at one of two locations on Wednesday. No crowds to fight, no crazy traffic, no hour-long self check out line, just good, local food, ready to enjoy!

There can’t be Thanksgiving without vegetables!

With the addition of our two high tunnels, this Thanksgiving we are able to offer you more vegetables than ever before! Whether you need locally grown produce for your dinner or for one of the many other meals you are likely to prepare throughout the week, consider shopping with us. Check out the list of produce we will have available below to see if you can mark a few things off your grocery list with the click of a button!

Look for an asterisk to see what we have on sale!

Black Radishes
Bok Choy
**Carrots
Cilantro
Curly Kale
Dill
**Green Tomatoes
Head Lettuce (buttercrunch, red)
Kohlrabi
Lacinato Kale Lettuce Mix
Mighty Mix
**Nappa Cabbage
**Purple Top Turnips
Red Mustard Greens
**Red Radishes
Red Russian Kale
**Salad Turnips
Scallions
Swiss Chard

Recipe of the Week: Why Settle for One?

french onion gratin soup french onion gratin soup french onion soup stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

sauerkraut Woman making home fermented sauerkraut. homemade sauerkraut stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

Great Day Grains

We have been mentioning our farm-grown wheat and corn products for several weeks now and we are excited to announce they are now available for sale in time for your holiday baking!

Our products are derived from our “Cateto Sulino” corn and “Turkey Red” wheat we grew using ecological practices and harvested this summer. We cut, shucked, threshed, shelled, and cleaned all this grain before taking it to our friends at Deep Roots Milling where they were ground using a water-powered stone mill! This means our products have been passed through very few hands before you take it home with you.

We should add that both of these are open-pollinated heritage varieties. This means they are more like what your great-great-grandparents ate, 100% non-GMO and non-hybrid.

We are especially excited about the corn products, which have a deep orange-yellow color and a delicious flavor. Keep this in mind when you are planning your cornbread, stuffing, and cookie recipes this winter!

Here’s what we have:”Turkey Red” Whole Wheat Flour”Cateto Sulino” Cornmeal”Cateto Sulino” Polenta”Cateto Sulino” Grits

Saying Goodbye to the Tomatoes

After nearly a year, we have finally taken down our tomato plants.

They worked hard for us, producing nearly 700 pounds of tomatoes throughout this season. Arden started the seedlings in February, using our heated greenhouse to allow the seedlings to grow, despite the still frigid temperatures. In April we planted four rows of those Hyloom (hybridized heirloom variety) tomatoes in the same greenhouse. A thick layer of straw and the plastic of the greenhouse helped to protect these tomatoes from pests, disease and changes in temperature. We used the “lean to” system in order to allow them to grow upwards of 16 feet. Throughout the season we harvested these tomatoes two to three times a week, distributing them to our CSA and our two markets.

Unfortunately, tomatoes are an annual crop and would struggle through the colder winter months. We began to notice the tomatoes were not ripening as quickly, nor was there much growth. With the need to plant new crops under the protection of the greenhouse roof, we clear harvested (picked every tomato, green or otherwise), took down the clips keeping the plants attached to the string, and used our walk behind tractor to mow them down.

It will take us a while to get used to the open layout of the greenhouse. After all, it had looked practically jungle like for eight months but we are excited to show you the new plants soon to take up this ever-changing tunnel! We still have a lot of tomatoes to sell both green and ripened, so don’t forget to stock up while you still can!