This week our spicy arugula is available in one pound bags at a 20% discount, but you must reply to this email to special order this item! Spicy arugula is great in salads, and the larger leaf is also especially suited to quick cooking. “Wilt” with garlic and olive oil for 1 or 2 minutes, but start the garlic first. Add to soups, stuffing, any pasta dish or make a great pesto with walnuts or use a sweeter nut like almonds or cashews.

We also wanted to let you know about our delivery service this winter. Please see below.

What’s Available This Week

The following items will be available at Hattie’s Garden on Thursday, October 23, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday, October 25, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Historic Lewes Farmer’s Market (HLFM), now located at the Shields Elementary parking lot.

• Spicy Arugula – earthy, nutty, spicy arugula makes a delicious, peppery addition to salads, sandwiches, wraps, pizza, pesto, beans and much more!
• Arugula – combination of a spicy, more mature leaf and our young arugula. Both can easily be used as salad ingredients, but the mature leaf is especially suited for cooking and bags are somewhat larger.
• Loose Leaf Lettuce – always a hit, this lettuce is tender and young, but not so young as to be flavorless!
• Mesclun – a nice mixture of young loose leaf lettuce and bit of arugula.
• Daikon Radish – We have had very good response to this delicious, large root crop. Please see last week’s blog for information on how to prepare daikon.
• Red Russian Kale – always a nice kale and very different from typical curly kale. Curly kale has more of a bitter taste while Red Russian kale is mild and sweet.
• Beedy’s Camden Kale – silvery wide leaves with a sweet delightful taste. Also very tender. We like this new-to-us open-pollinated kale from Beedy Parker in Camden, Maine.
• Toscano Kale – also called Dinosaur Kale, Lacinato Kale and Cavolo Palmizio. Toscano kale has a long tradition in Italian cuisine, especially Tuscany, going back centuries. It is a traditional ingredient in minestrone. Dark blue-green leaves have an embossed texture with a taste slightly sweeter, earthy and more delicate than curly kale.

  

  This may only be available at the garden Thursday depending on supply. It grows very slowly and we do not want to “overharvest,” as there are still a couple weeks before the diminishing light slows its growth even more.




• Fen Jen Chinese Cabbage – a very light Chinese “cabbage,” fast cooking, tender and sweet, perfect for stir-fry.
• Hakurei Turnips – these delightful gourmet “salad” turnips are sweeter still when cooked and the greens are some of the best turnip greens you will ever eat. The flavor improves as the weather cools. We may only have a couple more weeks of harvest for these beauties.
• Carrots – we are harvesting a section of carrots now that are delicious, but limited. Buy them here at the house or come early to market. Lots more carrots are growing, but will not be ready for two more weeks or so, depending upon the weather. All of them are getting sweeter by the day.
• Tomatoes – yes, we continue to pull tomatoes from our high tunnel! I have cut down on their water so they are small, but still very sweet and just delicious for sandwiches and salads. There are still just a few cherry tomatoes as well.
• Peppers – the habenero peppers have decided to ripen…finally. A colder than normal summer for us had us thinking they would never ripen, but they have surprised us. There are a few of nearly every pepper we planted and especially different hot peppers to add a bit of heat to your cuisine.
• Flowers – we will be cutting just a few stems of Lisianthus, Zinnias, Ageratum and Gomphrena. These flowers are cut and conditioned to last all week for you and come with a packet of flower food, but arrive early if you would like a bunch.
• Herbs – last week we offered an herb pack with cilantro, parsley and dill along with a couple of nice sticks of lemongrass. What a great hit they were. For those of you who came too late or who need more, we will have them again this week. A great way to get several very healthy herbs in quantities you will actually be able to use. You will get nearly one ounce of each herb – enough for most any culinary adventure. For a description of these herbs and some of their many benefits, please see last week’s blog.

What’s Ahead: Hattie’s Garden Delivery Service

This Saturday will be the fourth fall market day for HLFM at Shields Elementary and the last one in October. In November, we will have four more, with the finale on Saturday, November 22, the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving.

Then what? Well, Hattie’s Garden has a plan!

After the Thanksgiving week, Hattie’s Garden will begin the off-season delivery service once again. I began this wonderful service almost as soon as I arrived in Sussex County about 10-years ago. The delivery service supported me during the barren winter months and grew to include other vendors as time went on. It has grown “organically”, through word of mouth and casual conversations with vendors and customers. Then last winter I scaled back and did a modified CSA with my own produce so that I could tackle other projects. I missed the delivery service so much that we are back!

Beginning Saturday, December 6 we will deliver produce and goods from several HLFM vendors, including Hattie’s Garden. With good planning, a vegetable grower can harvest well into the colder months, especially if they have a high tunnel or two. In addition, there are other vendors we work with to provide a rounded menu for you including things like bread and cheese. Stay tuned as we work out the details during the month of November and provide you with a full list of participating vendors, vendor products, and talk about how it will work.

The delivery area will cover Milton, Lewes and Rehoboth Beach and customers are also welcome to pickup at Hattie’s Garden. We expect to deliver at least through December and January.

Yours at the market and garden…