If you're looking for a holiday gift, or just want to support a great organization, check out the Rutland Area Farm & Food Link's online auction. It closes tomorrow, December 11, at 10 pm. There are all kinds of great items and services including a gift certificate to Gildrien Farm! We love RAFFL and we hope that you'll help support their work. Click here to see the auction items.

We're nearing the end of the Stick Season CSA, and the end of our 2015 farming season. With the last of the carrots this week, everything is out of the field except for some kale that we're saving for the final weeks of CSA. There's still a fair lot in storage, especially carrots (pictured above) and onions (in their own cooler). We've already wrapped the farmers' markets for the year, though we're still selling to the co-ops in Rutland and Middlebury and plan to do so through the winter. Cold mornings are making for later start times, and soon we'll be having our annual farewell dinner for the farm employees.

It's been a good year for us! We expanded our wholesale sales though Deep River Co-op, which we expect to expand even further next year, and we had a solid year of market and CSA. We had great employees for the season, and no major epidemics of disease hit any of our crops. We were glad to have our irrigation pond during the dry spring. The biggest disappointment was probably the strawberries, but we're hopeful that the plants that made it through the first winter will be  more vigorous this coming spring. Pretty soon we'll start scheming for next year, but for now, the whole family is looking forward to some downtime as winter closes in.