Boulder Belt Eco-Farm

Greetings,

It's week 20 for the farm share. That's a lot of weeks of a lot of seasonal food. Most CSA programs stop right about at this point but not us. Like the Energizer Bunny we keep on going. I don't know about you guys, but we have been really pleased with the Farm Share Initiative thus far. Before we did this we spent Tuesdays for the last 14 years going to the Tuesday farmers market in Oxford. We loved that market (we had been there from day one) but it was not thriving and we were not making much money-imagine making $200 for 18 hours of generally hard work. And that $200 is split between two people. This time of year was especially hard as Oxford is dead in late July/early August because the university is closed (except for the 4th summer term which virtually no one does because you get only 48 hours of summer vacation-been there done that) and we always have lots of heavy food-water melons, cantaloupe, tomatoes, etc.. Not to mention, it is almost always hot and humid this time of year. So we would harvest crops for market in the heat, clean and bag them in the heat, load up the van with about 3000 pounds of food at 2pm every Tuesday afternoon. Drive to Oxford, park, set up in even greater heat because Oxford is about 5 degrees hotter than the farm. Set up meant taking lots of heavy crates and coolers of food out of the van and onto the lawn about 50 feet away-no selling right out of the van as we do on Saturdays-plus tables, the EZ Shelter and the other things we use to display our produce at market. Maybe there would be other farmers and artisans setting up but the last couple of years it was more common for us to be the only people setting (which was lonely). We would get set up by 4pm and than play the waiting game. Sometimes we would wait over an hour before we got our first customer, especially this time of year. Time would pass, we would get malts from UDF to keep cool and stave off hunger. Than 7pm would finally roll around and we would usually have about 80% of the produce unsold so it got loaded back into the van and we went home. We would get unloaded around 8:30pm, meaning the van would get empty and the fridges would fill up (some items we would compost but most would sit in the fridge taking up space and that meant that when harvest time for the Saturday market came around we would have a cold storage space crisis) and than I would make dinner and our day would end around 10 pm.

With the farm share, we  harvest for a known market (you guys) which means there is virtually no waste. You see when you do a farmers market you have to harvest with the assumption there will be a lot of customers and everything you bring in will sell. So you generally get a lot more stuff than you need. This takes hours and hours to do and it is always a bummer when hardly anything sells in the end. With the FSI we harvest, fill the fridge up with produce and by mid afternoon on Tuesdays the shares are packed and the fridge is empty.

We don't have to leave the farm mid afternoon and return after dark to do an evening market which means a lot more gets done on the farm-basically we have an extra work day we have never had (we started this market the same year we went full time with farming). This has made a huge difference in our stress levels (they are way down) and with the farm's health in general (it's always been good but now it is getting even better). And the other big thing is we are making more money via the FSI than we ever did with the Tuesday market and this too is contributing greatly to the overall health of the farm.

In a nutshell, the FSI (you guys) are taking Boulder Belt Eco-Farm to the next level of success. Our goal is to have a 50 member FSI in two years and drop all outside markets except the farm store. Right now we are at 15 memberships sold and we should pick up another 3 or 4 next month. We were hoping to get to 30 members this year but this has not happened and as it turns out this is good as we have not been planting for a CSA like program right now but rather for farmers markets. There is a difference in how you plan out a market garden between the two. We do grow enough to supply 50 memberships in theory. But in fact we couldn't have done 30 shares all 32 or so weeks this season as we were not set up to do this in spring to do so. We did have enough to easily do the 12 or so shares that we sold back in April  but we needed more hoop houses for the leafy greens and other early items to get up to supplying 30 shares. And we needed to adjust what we plant a bit-we need to drop some of the crops we attempt to do early but generally fail such as melons and cucumbers (between it being too cold and the voles devouring most of the seedlings in April most years it is a wash trying to do summer crops in spring) and do more of the crops that will do better in early spring like cilantro, scallions, lettuce, arugula, radishes, etc., etc.. Next season we will be much more prepared to do this program so we can easily take more members. And with your help we can get more members. We need you to help us recruit new members. We realize several of you have already done this and we are very grateful for your efforts. But if we are to reach our goal of 30 members for 2010 we need to get the word out and there is no better endorsement than people who are already members telling their friends, family, coworkers, etc.. Not to mention, you can better than us describe what it is like to be in the Boulder Belt FSI. We have never been in a CSA program, all we have done is run them on and off for the past 12 years so we have no idea, really, of what your experience is like.

Hey, I realized this past Sunday should have been pot-luck Sunday. With all that is going on this month we forgot about it. It don't see how we can fit this in this month so lets shoot for a September 20th pot luck and farm tour. We will offer a couple of our pastured chickens for dinner, probably roasted to perfection. This month we are having a big farm tour (sans pot luck) on the 30th from 3 to 6 pm in conjunction with the Innovative farmers of Ohio. This event is free and open to the public. I expect a couple of hundred people will attend. If you want to see how we conduct a formal farm tour or if you have not come to one of our potluck dinners/farm tours I suggest you attend

Recipe
Potato salad
This is an old family recipe, from my paternal grandmother, maybe great grandmother.

1 pound of taters washed, diced and boiled until soft but not falling apart
6 hard boiled eggs, deshelled and sliced
1/2 cup sweet onion sliced thin
1 green pepper sliced thin
1/2 cup parsley chopped fine
1 TBL dried rosemary or 4x that amount if fresh
1 cup mayo
1/8 cup mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Put everything in a large bowl and mix together. Let sit in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.


What's in the share this week

Charentais melon-these are exquisite French melons. Hard to grow and very limited
Bright lights Chard-chard is back again this week
Arugula-we have arugula again. We planted a new bed back in July and it is now harvestable. generally this is hard to grow in August because it is so hot and dry but this summer has been cool and the past 3 weeks reasonably wet
Potatoes-A couple of pounds. These may have some holes in them due to voracious grubs that can eat a big tater in less than 2 hours. Simply cut the hole out of the tuber with a paring knife. These are the kind of taters we eat all the time (we rarely eat the top shelf produce-that goes to you guys). Normally I would not foist second rate produce on you but we have a lot of these and have to move them as they will not store well and we cannot eat that many spuds. oh and the biodynamic calendar sez not to harvest today (tuesday)
Basil-another big bag of basil. the plants are going nuts right now and that means great bounty. If I were a FSI member i would make pesto and freeze it sans the cheese.
Tomatoes-okay you will be getting a lot of maters this week. the pale yellow ones are actually a white tomato called great white. The browns are either Paul Robeson (big and ugly) or Nyagous (small round). The huge orange beefsteak is Dr Wyche's yellow. The cherry tomatoes are a mix of Sunsugar (orange) and Cherrywine (pink). The reds will be Early Girl (biggest) and Matina (smaller but not as small as the early crop was). The weird shaped yellow and red striped ones are Boulder Belt Striped. You may get some pink/purple maters, I have no idea what they are but they are excellent. Expect at least 7 pounds, probably more. Make a ratatouille with 'em, that should use at least 4 pounds for one meal.
Onions-2 pounds of Ailsa Craig sweet onions. these are best raw but do cook well enough
Carrots-a bag of our rainbow mix-the yellow is a French heirloom Jaune D'uabe, the red are Purple Haze (is in my mind...) and the orange are Bolero.
Cukes-this may be the last week for the cukes. The plants are definitely on the wane. like last week you get 3 different kinds, poona Kheera, Lemon and Telegraph
Garlic-This week several corms of Persian Star-this stores well so you might want to hold one back for later use. start a garlic collection for winter
Eggplant-a mix of purple and black and maybe some of the small purple striped fairytail (the cherry tomato of the eggplant world)
Peppers-several green and purple peppers. It will be another couple of weeks before the ripe red, yellow and orange peppers start to come in


Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com

It's a new week and there are gonna be some new items in your share-yay!

We survived the yard sale-ended up with around 6000 people coming through and 6 people set up to sell their stuff. It was a very successful event. But it left us with little time for farming so the farm has gotten a bit behind and needs a good mowing badly-the weather has dealt us a bad hand rain wise-mowing was going to happen right before the Yard sale but we got 3" of rain on Tuesday last week which made it impossible to mow until Saturday at the earliest and by than we were simply too busy with the sale. The same is true with weeding-we have a lot of beds with newly germinated crops and a lot of weeds. The soils are too wet to hoe and hand pulling will take far too long. Hoeing a bed takes about 15 minutes, hand weeding takes about 1.5 hours and we have about 25 beds that need attention. So we prefer to hoe as we can get far more done

I think today it may be dry enough to hoe by this afternoon (if we do not get more rain, which is predicted, this afternoon). I thought mid August was our dry season. It's a mixed blessing to have rain in August-makes it possible to get a good fall crop started but it also brings on the weeds which normally we do not have much problem with this time of year. Usually we are just trying to get enough water to the fields to keep things alive. This is one of the things that makes farming fascinating-you never know what the weather will do. one year you won't have to do any mowing or weeding because it is droughty but you will have to pay close attention to irrigation. The next year the opposite

Despite the weeds, things are growing. The tomatoes are beginning to ripen. I do not believe you will see a lot of different maters this week, but next week there should be orange beefsteaks and some black maters added to the mix and by the end of the month most the 21 different kinds should be ripe. Like most of the eastern US we seem to have late blight on the maters and eggplant but we should still get a decent crop, though probably by late September the tomatoes will be over except for the late crop we planted in July to get us through October and maybe into November.

Speaking of growing things into late fall/winter, I need to get a handle on who is interested in doing a winter share? We will do on farm pick up twice a month, cost will be $100 a month ($50 a share). The shares will be larger than a summer share and will mainly be food that can store for months like taters, winter squash, onions, carrots, parsnips, a few canned goods, garlic, pears, dried herbs, leeks, etc.. If the weather is good to us, leafy greens (arugula, kale, spring mix, lettuce) and other things from the hoop houses will also be included throughout the season (we will certainly have them the first 2 or 3 pick-ups). This will start Wednesday November 11  and go through Wednesday January 20 for 3 months/6 pick-ups. Unlike the summer shares, we require people to pay the $300 for the entire winter share upfront, no month to month shares. We will have 12 shares available this year.

We did this winter share thing last year at the last minute (this is what got Boulder Belt back into doing a CSA program) and it went really well and I was surprised at the diversity of food we had to offer through the end of January. Shares had up to 20 different items. And to top it off, the weather did not get bad until the day after we shut down for the season, it was karmic. I figure it will be even better (if that is possible, it went off without a hitch last year) with a couple of months of prior planning.

So let me know sooner than later about this as we have to get plans nailed down in the next few weeks and I want to give current farm share members first crack before I go through my list of folks who were in it last year but not in the farm share initiative currently. I can guarantee we will sell out. Getting local winter food is hard to do around here as scant few of us farmers grow through winter. Not to mention, growing on the back side of the calendar has some major challenges not found in spring, summer and fall.

Thank you everyone who has brought in reusable bags. This is a big help to the environment. Off the top of my head we have 9 out of 14 members who have supplied us with reusable bags. Hopefully that number will be 100% by the end of the month (hint, hint). And thank you all for bringing back all the container items we use to pack shares.

You all will get two bags of food this week. There are large items and I need to start keeping the tomatoes out of the fridge as coolness kills the flavor and shortens the shelf life of maters. In other words, one should never refrigerate whole tomatoes. So look for a bag in the fridge and a bag outside the fridge (which will be a plastic bag unless you have more than 2 reusables here at the farm, than I will use 2 of those)

Recipe

Ratatouille

1 med eggplant, diced
1 pound tomatoes diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 pepper diced
1 medium zucchini diced
1 to 2 cloves of garlic either finely chopped or put through a press
1 TBL dried basil (if you use fresh add when you add the garlic and parsley and use 1/4 cup)
2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh parsley chopped
freshly grated parmesan cheese to taste
2 TBL olive oil
salt to taste

Prep vegetables while the pan heats over medium heat. Add the oil and than everything but the garlic and fresh parsley. Cook over medium to medium low heat for about 30 minutes stirring occasionally so things don't stick. At about the 20 minute mark add the garlic and parsley and cook another 10 minutes or so. Serve over pasta

Cantaloupe-you get either 1 big melon of 2 small melons. These have been so good this year
Kale-either the curly winterbor or the heirloom lacintino
Ailsa craig onion-2 pounds of sweet onions, some you may get onions that weigh a pound each
Garlic-3 corms of Chesnok Red this week
Green beans-a pound of blue lake green beans
Zucchini-mostly yellow patty pans this week
Cucumber-mainly lemons and poona kheeras this week-the long green cukes are not producing well at all so I do not think I will have enough for everyone.
Parsley
Eggplant-you will get a purple one and a black one
Tomatoes-about 4 pounds of a mix of cherry tomatoes and mainly red heirlooms, though you may find a few other colors this week that are not yet ripe
Green and purple peppers-the purple peppers are in fact green and will ripen to a beautiful red
Delicata squash-aka sweet potato squash. This is the first of the winter squashes to come in. Unlike the later squashes these do not store all that well but are sweeter than all the others. This is easy to prepare, simply cut in half length-wise, scoop out the seeds and bake in a 350F oven for 20 minutes

It's a new month and that means we have a several new members and several returning members-welcome/welcome back. New members, there is a good chance that we won't be out in the store when you come to pick up your shares. Your shares will be in the fridge in a bag with your name on it.

If you want to see past newsletters go to http://www.localharvest.org/blog/330/. I have posted all of them here. For you brand new members this should be quite informative

Thursday folks-Remember this is Yard sale week and you should pick up your shares after 4pm on Wednesday unless you have made other arraignments with us. Things will probably be busy here Wednesday afternoon as we have several dealers showing up to sell over the weekend. this is not a normal rinky dink multi-family yard sale, this is a part of the largest Yard Sale on earth and we are doing a bigger and better event that we have in past (and those have been crazy busy for 3 days with literally thousands of people stopping at our farm to shop)

As I write this a series of severe thunderstorms with dangerous lightning are rolling through the farm. Hopefully there will be no hail with these storms. hail is very bad for crops. So far so good. I also hope these storms get out of here before 10 am so I can harvest chard, basil, scallions and a few other things. I don't mind harvesting in rain but ground to air lightning is something else.

All this rain is becoming too much of a good thing. It is making is difficult to harvest the onions-they really need to be dry when they are pulled or fungus problems will develop. Tomatoes tend to split making them unsellable (but I can make tomato juice from them if they are ripe enough when they split). ripening melons need dry weather to develop good flavor and too much rain on a full size cantaloup or water melon will cause them to split open making them absolutely useless. But things like basil, growing winter squashes, kale, chard, cucumbers, zucchinis, parsley and eggplant love all the rain.

We can't really complain it's been a great season thus far, even though we have been short on rain up until 10 days ago, it's been cool enough to keep the plants from stressing much. And it has been delightful for us humans that have to work outside in the weather. Though the down side is our heat loving crops such as melons are not ripening as fast as they should-but they are coming along slowly but surely. The other things that are not "ripening" as they should are the pest insects. We have seen hardly any Japanese Beetles and the cucumber beetle population is way down. But we have seen a lot of different beneficial insects and spiders around the farm helping to keep things in balance. So I guess cool weather does not impact the hunters as much as it does the herbivore insects.

New and returning members (and anyone else who has not done this yet) we would love it if you could supply a couple of reusable shopping bags so we do not have to use more plastic. We want to keep plastic bag use down to a minimum. The larger the reusable bag the better as you shares will tend to have large objects such as water melons. We also would like it if you would return all bags, rubber bands, boxes and other materials used in packaging your shares. We DO NOT want things that were not used in your shares as we cannot use produce bags you got from other sources.

We have a pot luck dinner/farm tour coming up August 16th. I canceled the last one due to lack of interest and will do so again if we get fewer than 3 member families RSVPing Yes. This is a very busy month for us what with the 127 yard sale this week and a huge farm tour we are doing with Innovative Farmers of Ohio at the end of the month plus doing farmers markets, farming, etc.. I am seriously considering canceling this aspect of the farm share initiative as there seems to be very little interest and these take more time than you would imagine to set up. We have already cancelled 2 out of 4 due to lack of interest.

Wow, I had to suspend writing this for an hour as a severe storm rolled through dropping over 2 inches of rain, lots of extreme lightning and some hail. Please excuse any holes in your chard and basil from the hail stones


Oh yeah, we have a beautiful new farm sign so it will no longer be a mystery as to who we are and what we do. You can read all about it and see pictures on our blog http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-farm-sign.html


Recipe
Apple Sauce

All the apples cored and cut in half or quarters. Be sure to remove all brown spots
at least 1/2 cup brown sugar (do this too taste. Some like a tarter sauce, some like it sweet)
1TBL lemon Juice
1-tsp (or more) cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

In a large pot cook the prepared apples in a bit of water, 1/2 cup should do it, until they are soft over low heat, stirring occasionally. When the apples are soft put them through a food mill to remove the skins and any seeds (if you do not have a food mill than peel before cooking and mash with a potato masher). Put the sauce back into a pot and put over medium low heat and start adding the sugar, lemon juice and spices until it tastes right to you. Now it is ready to eat. This will store in the fridge for at least a week

What's in Your Share This Week

Green peppers- You get two this week
Chard- A half pound of chard
Scallions- A bunch of green onions
Apples- These are from our trees. They are McIntosh, they are ugly but make wonderful apple sauce or pie filling. You will get about 2 pounds. it is almost impossible to get clean organic apples in SW ohio. we are blessed with over 450 different pests and diseases that hit apples. So without spraying some pretty nasty fungicides and pesticides several times a week throughout spring and summer they tend to be ugly but the flavor is still wonderful
Golden Beets- these are sweeter than the red beets and far less messy as they do not "bleed"
Tomatoes-a mix of two kinds of reds, matina (small) and Glick's Pride (larger) and some cherry tomatoes
Rutabagas-these are a close relative to the turnip  but with a richer flavor. I use these in soups and stews. These will store for several months in your fridge
Sweet Onions- a pound of sweet, heirloom Ailsa Craig Onions
Potatoes-over a pound of mixed taters-white, red and yukon gold
Cucumbers-a couple of cukes. You will get some combination of Poona Kherra, a gold to brown cuke from India (be sure to peel and de-seed these or they will be bitter), a green burpless cuke and/or lemon cukes (round and yellowish, no need to peel or de-seed these)
Haricot verts-you get 1/2 pound of french green beans. Slender and tender these need far less cooking time than their fatter American cousins
Basil-a quarter pound of basil. Make some pesto (but leave the cheese out) and freeze it in ice cube trays for winter use


Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com