It’s February. Do you know where your veggies are?

Local link: Kearsarge Mountain CSA
Last year about this time we talked with Warner, NH farmer Larry Pletcher about his new greenhouse and his ambition to sell winter greens to the greens-starved masses of the Kearsarge area (view earlier blog). And in fact, he’s gone and done just that. Imagine! Buying and eating greens in the middle of winter here in Warner, NH. But wait! There’s more! This winter he’s provided some calorie crop veggies to the shareholders of his winter CSA as well: beets, potatoes and a few other root vegetables.

Now, if you are a dedicated localvore, you know that finding somebody in February who’s got winter storage and calorie crops tucked away (potatoes, turnips, parsnips, squash, carrots, cabbage, beets, onions, garlic, etc.) and who is willing to sell them, is the difference between eating mostly local year-round, or breaking your vows and heading for the supermarket.

For some reason, NH vegetable farmers have been a little behind their colleagues in Maine in terms of producing and selling winter storage crops, but Larry is catching up. We visited him in late January, just days after he finished building a new winter storage barn at his Vegetable Ranch on Kearsarge Mountain Road.

Farm manager Stacey Cooper and part-time farm crew worker Beth Thompson were bagging Chioggia beets for the CSA pickup and moving trays of sprouted greens in from the sun porch for the night. Larry will be planting 14 acres this year with a crew of 4 full-timers and several part-timers.

For the past four years Larry, along with Bob Bower and Jennifer Ohler of Kearsarge Gore Farm (go past Larry’s farm on Kearsarge Mountain Road, more or less until you can’t go any more–in your car, anyway), has been running the Kearsarge Mountain CSA for spring, summer and fall crops. But for the past two years he’s offered shares in a winter CSA as well. And next winter, if all goes well, he expects to grow more storage veggies to expand the winter CSA. And if the town gives him the go-ahead, he’ll run a farm stand at the storage barn. Not really a farmstand, he says, but more like a factory outlet for organic vegtables.

I dunno. Maybe we should grow a smaller garden this year and buy from Larry. Let him do all the hard work. For more info, give Larry Pletcher a call: 603-456-3121.

Tagged as: bob bower, calorie crops, community supported agriculture, jennifer ohler, kearsarge gore farm, kearsarge mountain CSA, Larry Pletcher, local farm, local food production, new hampshire csa, vegetable ranch, warner nh, warner nh csa, winter csa, winter storage crops