It’s finally feeling like winter now. Cold weather is actually very important for a lot of our winter crops as well as spring crops. The winter crops need the cold to keep them from going into seed production ahead of schedule. Also cold weather disrupts the pest and disease cycle of summer and fall. And many spring crops like peaches and blueberries will not bloom and fruit well without a certain number of required chill hours (hours below 40° F). Do although warm winter days are enjoyable, we need to be thankful for cold that brings balance to nature and farm.
Two crops added this week: American groundnut and Gilfeather turnabaga. Read about these amazing little-known historic crops in our highlights below.
SPECIAL REQUEST: We kindly urge you to consider adding at least one of our own Bradford Farm grown crops to your weekly orders. We are working with quite a number of other farms to bring you the best access to regional flavor that we possibly can, but the heartbeat of our farm is our homegrown crops. We can’t exist without moving our own crops too. So please review the crops we offer under Bradford Farm Crops below and consider adding one or more of them. It helps us a ton.
Important Info
- NEW American Groundnuts (Slow Food AOT) available now for a limited time! See more in highlights
- NEW Gilfeather Turnabaga (SlowFood AOT) coming this Tuesday! See more in highlights
- Purple Top Turnips (SlowFood AOT) available now from Ricky James’ Farm
- J Mac Small Summer Crowder Pea from Johnny McNair (fresh frozen)
-
Local Brussels Sprouts available now from the Parkers at Hickory Bluff Berry Farm
⚠️ **Highlights of the week**⚠️
American Groundnuts (Slow Food Ark of Taste)
Here’s Henry Thoreau speaking fondly of the groundnut:
“Digging one day for fishworms, I discovered the groundnut (Apios tuberosa) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which had often since seen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same. Cultivation has well nigh exterminated it. It has a sweetish taste, much like that of a frostbitten potato, and I found it better boiled than roasted. The tuber seemed like a faint promise of Nature to rear her own children and feed them simply here at some future period. In these days of fatted cattle and waving grain - fields, this humble root, which was once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten...” Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Apios Americana, or American Groundnut, is an indigenous foodway of eastern North America. The sprawling perennial vine produces a chain of potato-like tubers below ground that are harvested after a killing frost. They are denser than potatoes and have 3 times the protein which makes them more versatile, yet because of their starch content they can do anything a potato can. They are round in shape which makes them far easier to work with than sunchokes or ginger with all those crevices.
Now we’ve made tremendous progress on increasing the tuber size to make them easier and quicker to work with in the kitchen. The tubers have reached 2-4 times the size they were in 2025, on average the size of a golf ball. Although sizes do vary - some a good bit larger and others just a tad smaller.
They are fantastic fried as chips, mashed like potatoes, shredded like hash browns, added to soups, and oven roasted. But my favorite way is Groundnut Hummus. Better than chickpeas!
They are traditionally a wild foraged crop with sporadic availability if at all. But I’ve been developing an agricultural method to cultivate, select for productivity, ease of harvest, and scalability for the past 10 years to give this wonderful native food a chance in the spotlight for local chefs. Each year we have a modest crop that sells very quickly. I have a long way to go with this crop, but it’s a plant that I believe is truly worth it.
Available by the pound.
Gilfeather Turnabaga with Tops (Slow Food AOT) available beg. Tuesday 1/20
We are thrilled to announce that this rare heirloom root crop is ready for harvest!!! This precious variety began with the extraordinary breeding efforts of John Gilfeather of Vermont in the early 1900s. Thanks to the efforts of a couple of savvy seed savers, it is now the state vegetable of Vermont and has been boarded on the Slow Food Ark of Taste. Sweetest of all rutabaga and turnip varieties, with a mild flavor and crisp texture. We’ve had them sliced into rounds and stir fried with the greens in our home and they take on a fluffy, light texture with a nutty-potato like flavor. They hold their texture when cooking well. You can mash em like potatoes, fry em, put them into soups and stocks or puree them. A truly versatile winter ingredient for the kitchen, it’s completely phenomenal. The green themselves at the size we’re harvesting them are sweet, tender and packed with deep brassica flavor.
Here’s a snippet from Mother Earth Gardner article “…when Wardsboro farmer John Gilfeather began bringing the bulbous, sweet turnips to market. They became so popular that it’s said Gilfeather would put notices in newspapers to announce his crops were available for sale, advising they should be preordered because they were going to sell out. There was nothing else like it…”
Full article here:
https://www.motherearthgardener.com/profiles/gilfeather-turnip-zemz18fzsphe/
We are saving seeds this year to ensure a longer availability for next year. This is an introduction crop for our farm and is available in limited amounts for a few weeks.
Key:
** - limited availability
*OUT- currently out of stock
*OFS- out for season
NEW- recent addition
(SlowFood AOT)- appears on the SlowFood Ark of Taste for its exceptional qualities, flavor, story, and historical significance and/or usage.
✅ Bradford Farm Crops: ✅
-NEW! American Groundnuts (Slow Food Ark of Taste)
-NEW! Gilfeather Turnabaga with Tops (Slow Food AOT, heirloom)
-Taylor Turnip Tops (heirloom)
-Feaster Mustard Greens (Slow Food AOT, heirloom)
-Candy Roaster squash (SlowFood AOT)
-Scotch curly kale
-Dutch Fork butternut pumpkin (SlowFood AOT)
-Bradford collards bagged/chopped
-Bradford collards whole plant
-NEW! Fall Charleston Wakefield cabbage (SlowFood AOT)
-Hybrid green cabbage
-Purple cabbage
-Shredded hybrid cabbage
-Shredded purple cabbage
🤝 Partner Farms: 🤝
-NEW! Purple Top Turnips (heirloom, SlowFood AOT) - Ricky James’ Farm
-Stampede Sunchokes - Craig Weiner and Clem’s Organic Gardens
-Brussels Sprouts - Hickory Bluff Berry Farm
-Broccoli - Hickory Bluff Berry Farm and others
-Watermelon radishes - Clem’s
-Baby Appalachian Gold Potatoes - Clem’s
-Rainbow Daikon Radishes - Clem’s
-Parsnips - Clem’s
-Pecans (fresh, shelled, halved) - Johnny McNair
-Appalachian Gold Potatoes - Clem’s Organic Gardens *RESTOCKING
-Apples - Lively Orchard
——Pink Lady
——Granny Smith
——Stayman Winesap (new)
——Cameo (new)
-NEW! J Mac Small Summer Crowder Pea, fresh-frozen- Johnny McNair Farm
-Green butter beans, fresh-frozen- Johnny McNair Farm *Limited stock*
-Speckled butter beans, fresh-frozen- Johnny McNair Farm
-Pinkeye field peas, fresh-frozen- Johnny McNair Farm
-White Acre field peas, fresh-frozen- Johnny McNair Farm (SlowFood AOT)
-NEW Fall (iron & clay) peas, fresh-frozen - Johnny McNair Farm (SlowFood AOT)
-Zucchini
-Yellow Squash
-Kirby Cucumbers
-Green Bell peppers
-Red Bell peppers
-Grape tomatoes
-Red round tomatoes
-Roma tomatoes
-Tomatillos
-Pee Dee sweet potatoes - Dixon Farms
-Beets, Golden
-Beets, Red
Coming soon:
-
Gilfeather turnabaga (SlowFood AOT)
MORE COMING SOON
….let us know if there is something else you are interested in that isn’t on our list