The Heartbreak of Fall Beauty

THE WEEK

Driving the small radius of our Midcoast footprint this week, I’ve had to pull over several times to admire the view: it’s a sort of heartbreak of fall beauty. With three long rows of frost-sweetened carrots left to harvest, we’ve been adding our earth-bound share to the orange glow. If our daughter’s enthusiasm for carrot harvest is any indication, there’s primal satisfaction in yanking a carrot out of the ground, dirt-flocked, and eating it, field-side. After last week’s frost, the carrots have sweetened nicely—the upside to losing our zinnias, which fell from youthful beauty to brown decrepitude in an evening. Such is life. There will never be time enough to pick or gather all the bounty, so we grab it by the fistful while we can.

Saturday’s pizza night was a beautiful bookend to harvest season, and a chance to gather under a near-full moon, aside the darkened field. Looking back to May, it’s hard for me to compute the thousands of plants that have been seeded, tended, planted, and harvested over the course of the season. None of it would be possible without the capable hands of the Tenderwild crew, and we are ever grateful to Lindsay, Bella, Sam, Alex, Bo, Marie, Keariel, Lana, Bennett, and Abby for keeping us on track.

This is our last full week of Tuesday-Saturday hours (9-4) at the farm store, before we pivot to our winter market. Starting this Sunday, November 1, our online store returns, with orders placed on Sundays for pickup or delivery the following Friday.This year we’ve added more pickup locations—in addition to the farm, you can opt to pick up your order at CMCA in Rockland or Symmetry in Camden. We’ve partnered with Penobscot Island Air to deliver to Matinicus, Criehaven, Vinalhaven, North Haven, and Isleboro. And we offer local home delivery to residents of Camden, Rockport, and Rockland. Please see our FAQS to learn more.

New this year is The Farm Box, a changing weekly selection of 5–6 seasonal organic vegetables available as a one-time purchase for $36 or a weekly subscription for $33. Alongside our own organic winter greens, carrots, and microgreens, the online store will feature a wide selection of organic vegetables from partner farms, pantry and grocery staples, dairy, eggs, and freshly baked local bread from Brazen and Demetra. The barn store will be open on Fridays for regular in-person shopping (12-5:30).

There is deep satisfaction in being able to provide food to our community in the leaner months. Online ordering is open from 7am to midnight on Sunday, and we'll send a reminder when the store goes live.

For those of you who spend the winter out of town, we’ll be offering several gift boxes for the holidays, stocked with some of our favorite goods from Maine makers and producers, and available to ship. More on these soon.

If you have pie on your mind, we have Cortland and Macoun apples and excellent Shenandoah pears in from Hope Orchards, and sweet Seckel pears in from John Bunker. We have lots of leafy greens (collards, kale, chard), great lettuces (I’m eating as much as I can before snowfall), microgreens, leeks, scallions, carrots, radishes, onions, garlic, and shallots. From partner farms, we have winter squash, potatoes, beets, fresh ginger, and more.

HAPPENINGS

10/30, 9-12-harvest carrots with us! The weather will be beautiful on Friday—upper 60’s and sunny—the perfect day to come help us get our last carrots out of the ground. Join us anytime between 9-12 for harvest. We’ll be serving free coffee to volunteers and you’ll leave with a cache of excellent carrots. No registration required, all ages welcome.

10/31 from 10-11:30-Mask Making: CMCA’s art-lab will be at the farm on Saturday for felt-mask making! This is free and open to all, but please sign up so we can get a headcount.

WEEKLY

Wednesdays…… Demetra Bread @ 11

Fridays………. Demetra Bread @ 11

Saturday… Camden Farmers Market 9-12 (last market this Saturday!)

FROM THE PANTRY

MORNING DEW FARM PAPRIKAS: We are lucky to live in an area where people are growing and making wonderful food. Several members of our farm crew returned from Common Ground with rave reviews of MorningDew Farm’s smoked paprika. Locally grown just a bit south of us, and carefully smoked, these paprikas are perfect for adding depth and nuance to soups, stews, roasts, and more. We have the spicy and sweet (not spicy) versions available.

ON OUR TABLE

With a pile of carrots at hand, I’ve been roasting, grating, folding into cake, and generally finding ways to put them to use. This is a lovely, simple carrot soup, untainted by ginger (easily detected by young palates) and a great weeknight dinner.