And thank you all for making 2009 a great year. We appreciate your support and friendship.
The Wednesday afternoon market at Yorkmont took us by surprise. We got there at 1 pm and were sold out by 2 pm. We brought 50 bunches of collards, two 18 gallon tubs of Tuscan kale, and 22 dozen eggs. All we had left on the table at 2 pm was this giant turnip . We hung around till 3 pm, and then came home.
We apologize to any of you that showed up later only to find us no longer there.
We could of picked more collards if we had only known. The proper term is “cropping” collards, or so I have been told repeatably by Kevin, who was one of my college roommates at WCU and grew up on a truck farm near Orlando “cropping” collards and other greens. He could be right, but I found it hard to take anyone seriously that would break out their fake goose down Florida Gators puffy coat when the night time temps. started hovering in the mid 50’s…
Since I had only been selling 8-12 bunches of collards Saturday mornings at the market, we agreed that 30 bunches would be a good number to pick for Wednesday. Then we picked 10 more. Jenifer started on the Tuscan kale and I picked 10 more bunches collards.
The last 4-5 bunches were hard. It was getting dark, the temp. had dropped into the upper 30’s and my fingers were numb and I was having trouble getting rubber bands around the bunches. What a whiner…
The Great Turnip
The giant turnip showed up in a bed of collards. I don’t know if the turnip seed was in the collard seeds or if it had been hiding out in the hopper on our push seeder.When I saw the turnip, I yelled at Levi to come down where we were. He was up hanging out with the chickens and geese. I showed him the turnip and told him to pull it up. He was like “Whoa!!!” It was almost as big as his head! Not quite, but close.
I don’t know what we are going to do with the turnip. Something weird and odd for sure. Jenifer makes a mean grated turnip salad with, I think, basically garlic, lemon juice, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. It sounds funky and it is. But there is something about the taste. It is not really a side meal dish. Jenifer makes a small bowl of it and it sits in the kitchen and we eat a forkful at a time as we pass by it. But that only requires one medium turnip.
I am thinking turnip steaks, maybe marinated in wine and smoked and slow-cooked on the grill…
Now that we have three pigs, our culinary failures are just a 75 yard walk up the driveway to the pigpen to become swine treats.
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Please give more details on how to make the grated turnip salad. Sounds delish!