Boulder Belt Eco-Farm

Wow! We have one week and a half left in this farm share (the full season Tuesday folks go into November). Hopefully we will have October weather instead of the mid November weather we have "enjoyed" the past week. The prediction is for warm clear weather for the next 3 days than rain Friday and Saturday. This mens if you are picking up food you might want to give yourself an extra 30 minutes and take a walk around the farm. If you do so the entry is the red gate between the store and the barn. If there are dogs about they are friendly and like you (and your kids) already. The big guy is Nate and the smaller long haired dog is Danny.

We got our first freeze, finally. All the tomatoes, peppers and other summer produce that was not protected is done for the year. So now we have a market garden full of sorry looking dead plants. Over the next several weeks we will remove the plants and either burn them or compost them (some things got diseased and need to be burned and not composted.) Than we take up the ground covers and drip tapes and plant winter rye as a cover crop in some beds if it is not too late and other beds will be left open for late winter/ early spring plantings of things like spring mix, leeks, onions, scallions, parsnips, spinach, arugula, etc..

The freeze means it is finally time to plant garlic. We started the process yesterday by doing the final prep (raking for 4 and tilling for 3) on the 6 to 7 beds where the garlic will be planted. Than we counted just how many seed corms we have (okay, I did this several weeks ago. After all the garlic had been cleaned I than separated the big ones from the smaller ones) and than figured out how many cloves of each kind we should have. It turns out we have enough garlic to do 11 50' x 4' beds (450 garlic plants per bed). But we will do only 7 beds at most and 6 beds are more likely. The rest we sell as seed garlic at $3.50 a corm.

Okay, back to garlic planting prep. The next step is to separate the garlic cloves, thousands of them. Than when that is done it is planting time. Hopefully by mid afternoon today we will have several hundred garlics in the ground and by the end of the month we will have our 3000 or so cloves all tucked into the soil. than we wait for the greens to poke above the soil surface this fall. than they will die back over winter and in early spring the greens will reemerge and by late June we will start pulling green garlic and in July will harvest the crop, cure it and sell it all summer, fall and winter as we have done every year for the past 13 or so years.

Recipe
Pear Ginger Cobbler

(I take this from the New Basics Cookbook. If you do not have this cook book buy it!)


8 ripe pears, peeled and cut into 1/4" slices
11/2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons white sugar (I accidently used a cup of sugar the last time i made this and it was just fine-and i generally cut 1/3 to 1/2 the sugar in recipes)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (i.e 1 medium lemon)
finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup vegetable shortening (I use organic lard from Morning Sun farms in W. Alexandria, OH. Crisco and all other vegetable shortenings are the dreaded hydrogenated fats so avoid. Since I am out of the loop as far as vegetable fats perhaps there is a non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening out there if not use all butter)
1 egg
1/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 425F. Butter a large (14" long) baking dish or casserole or a 21/2 to 3 quart souffle dish

Combine pears, ginger, lemon juice, lemon zest and the sugar (except the the 3 tablespoons) in a large bowl and toss well to combine. Put this into the prepared baking vessel

In another bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and 1 TBL of the sugar. That add the butter/shortening and start cutting the fat into the flour mixture with either 2 forks or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles corse crumbs-do not over do this. Lightly beat the egg and milk together and slowly add this to the dry ingredients. Lightly kneed the dough adding more flour if needed to make a smooth not sticky dough

break off portions and place them on top of the fruit pressing lightly and flattening the dough. Cover entire surface with dough pieces to give a "cobbled" effect

Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the dough and bake until well browned 35 to 45 minutes (set your timer to 35 mins as 45 mins is usually way too long)

What's in the Share this Week

Beets-mainly red beets but you might get some golden beets in your bunch as well. the beets are on the small size but tender and sweet
Radishes-a nice bunch of either Easter Egg or D'Avignon radishes
Garlic-2 corms of garlic
Carrots-a pound or so of orange carrots. These will be much nicer that previous carrots as we are now harvesting the fall carrots and they are the best carrots of the year for us.
Celery-more celery this week. I was going to do celeriac this week but since we had to harvest all the celery before the freeze we have a lot and it will not keep for weeks and weeks like the celeriac. So into the shares it goes
Leeks-2 leeks
Spring Mix-a 6 oz bag of our spring mix. Make a salad this week
Kale-a half pound or more of kale. Since we have had a freeze this should be really sweet and yummy
Ginger-yes ginger! We tried to see if we could grow it and had some success. This is the tropical looking item with the skinny greens and the knobby roots. You can do one of two things with this-eat it (remove the leaves and peel and use as you would any ginger) or plant it and get more ginger next summer (it takes 10 to 12 months to get a crop. The plant wants temps above 60, full sun in the winter and morning sun in the summer. Put it in a larger pot that you think it needs so it has room to expand)
Pears-2 pounds of our Kieffer pears
Winter Squash-2 to 3 pounds of squash, probably a mix like last week. Acorn is dark green, butternut is beige and delicata is yellowish with green or orange stripes. All cook the same way-350F over. Cut in half, remove the seeds and cook face down on a cookie sheet 20 to 35 minutes.
Peppers-several red/orange/yellow/green peppers from the great pepper stash

Shares will be ready for pick-up after 4pm Tuesday and Thursday and any time Friday. We will likely be gone after 4pm Tuesday (today) to run errands so if you need us that will be a problem. The shares will be on the table by the refrigerator as they usually are.


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

We are firmly into autumn. The trees are turning, the summer birds have either left or are now leaving (though, for some reason, the red winged black birds are back after leaving in September). We have had our first frost warning which came to nothing but did cause us to work 12 hours this past Saturday (see http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com/2009/10/frost-warning.html for my take on that). I do not know why I still believe the weather people when they predict anything. They get things wrong far more often than they get things right. Still it is always a good idea this time of year to get one's market garden buttoned up for the cold weather and now we are ready so when the next frost warning comes we are ready.

This means we have really shifted away from summer fare. You will continue to see peppers in your share, hopefully, through the end of this month and into the first couple of pick-ups for the winter share. You may even see some ripening tomatoes in your shares through mid November. Like the peppers we had to pull a lot of green tomatoes off the plants so they would not freeze and get ruined. We found out years ago that tomatoes ripened off the vine do not suffer in the flavor realm. Good flavor is caused by good soils rich in clay and loam. Florida, Arizona and California, where most of the tasteless red orbs come from all have sandy soils, not good for great tomato flavor. That said, because these maters matured in September/October they will not have the flavor of a mater that matured in July/August but they will have far better flavor than grocery store maters. And you will not see tomatoes this week.

One thing you will see are melons. We had watermelon plants set a second round of fruit back in August. We have never had this happen before so we let the fruits stay on and mature to see what we would get. And what we now have are small melons with decent flavor. They need 14 hours of  daylight and heat to get great flavor. In the fall they get under 12 hours and down right chilly conditions. So we get small melons. Not all of you will see water melons (I believe we have a total of 9 and there are 11 members), some of you will get charantais melons/cantaloupes that did the same thing-set fruit a second time. Cantaloupes will do this second setting thing much more commonly than watermelon. And cantaloupes are more forgiving of low light and colder conditions. Thus the loupes are pretty darned good tasting, even if they are small. And if you are doing the winter share expect to see melons the first couple of pick-ups as we are growing them in a hoop house and they have set fruit which gets bigger daily. So barring an attack from the local mice and vole population (which, unfortunately, is likely, even with traps all over the place) we should have a late crop of melons in early November.

The fall crops are doing decently. The fall planted broccoli is beginning to make heads. The fall planted cabbage got attacked by green caterpillars and most of the heads are not forming well at all so we may not get a fall crop at all. The fall rutabagas are looking fabulous. The 'bagas, because they will store for months, would have traditionally been a very important crop to our ancestors. These would have been one of the few veggies available come Feb. (along with leeks and a few other things). The fall carrots are also very nice-sweet, on the large side and pretty much free of maggot damage (which we get a lot of in the summer crop). We have a lot of spring mix planted. The mix I am currently cutting is not growing well. But we had a nice rain the end of last week that seemed to help it a lot. But because it is not growing well you won't see it this week but should next week and on into winter. Strangely the arugula bed that is just a few feet from the spring mix is doing well (and the spring mix beds do have arugula in them that is only so so). I dunno if we have a soil problem that is very localized (we have noticed this phenomena on our farm-little areas of either  great soil or horrible soil that snake through the top and bottom areas). We have several other later plantings that are coming along well so far. but they will not be ready to cut for several more weeks at the earliest.

The parsnips are looking great. We dug a few last Friday to see how they are and they are nicer than last year ( they were spectacular last year). I expect that parsnips will start showing up in your shares in the next couple of weeks and will be a staple of the winter shares. If you have never had a parsnip you are missing out. They look like a white carrot (they are a relative) and are quite sweet. Not many people grow them because they take about 7 months to grow and must be planted in late winter or very early spring because the seeds need cold soils to germinate. We plant them in March for October/November harvests.

We can use any and all clean plastic or paper shopping bags you no longer need. In a week we can go through several hundred. pick up is after 4pm-if you come earlier you may have to wait. of course that is a wonderful excuse to wander around the farm. Remember access to the farm is one of the unique perks of being a Boulder belt FSI member. We may not be having an October potluck/farm tour but you can still walk about the farm. And there really is no better time of year to do so. It is pretty much drop dead gorgeous out here right now. You really should take advantage before the weather gets nasty and the prettiness goes away.

Recipe
Oven fries

A pound or so of taters, julienned
salt
olive oil

You will need a roasting pan with a lid or cover with aluminum foil. take the julianned taters and cover them lightly with oil (do not use too much) and than salt lightly. put into a preheated 350F oven and cook for about 15 minutes. Take out and stir (some will stick, that is all right) and put back into over this time with cover off. Stir again in another 10 minutes and cook another 5 to 10 minutes after that until the fries are nice and crispy. If you like your fries less crispy than cook for less time

What's in this Week's Share

Radishes-a nice bunch of mixed D'Avignon (long red and white) and Easter Egg (round purple, white and red/pink)
Winter squash-either one largish squash or a couple of small ones. This will be either butternut, delicata or Acorn (or some of each)
Chard-This past weekend we got had a message left on our answering machine from a long time very dedicated customer raving about the beauty of our chard. She went on for at least 2 minutes about how wonderful the chard is. I have no idea if she got past the beauty of the chard in order to cook and eat it. For those of you who may be new to chard, we grow a mix called Bright Lights which has 5 to 7 different colors and can be quite spectacular looking. this is easy to cook-wash, chop and steam in about 1 to 2 inches of water. the left over water will turn purple and is tasty and full of nutrients.
Arugula-this is usually used as a salad green though Italians love to put this on pizza (it is not cooked with the 'za, but rather, put on right before eating). We grow some of the best Arugula in the USA according to people who would know so enjoy.
Cilantro or parsley-I plan on putting a nice bunch of Cilantro in every share but frankly I do not know if  I have enough. If I don't you will get parsley. If you have a preference (I know some hate cilantro) let me know before 11 today/Thursday so you can get your choice
Peppers-a couple of ripe peppers and perhaps a green or purple one as well
Garlic-2 corms of garlic
Carrots-you will get a 1 pound bag of either orange carrots or our rainbow mix of red/purple, yellow and orange carrots
Celery-we grow celery, it is not like grocery store celery in that it is smaller and stronger. Very good for cooking, not so great, IMO, for raw munching
Shallots-shallots for fancy cooking (okay for ANY cooking)
Melon-as mentioned either a watermelon or cantaloupe-our choice
Potatoes-I do not know what kind of taters you will get this week but they will be new potatoes. FYI new potatoes has nothing to do with size. What most people think of as new potatoes are actually "B" potatoes meaning they are small in size. A true new potato is one that is freshly dug. It can be any size and any color/variety. You find such taters have brighter flavor and are crisp as they are full of moisture. The "new" taters you find at the store have been cured which changes everything and that means they are certainly not "new". You may have noticed this over the months we have put taters in shares as I don't believe you guys have gotten potatoes that had been allowed to cure for more than a couple of days (taters need about a month to cure properly). So really, all your potatoes have been new.


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

It the first full week in October and we have a couple of returning members and a couple of members who have left leaving us about at the same place as last month member-wise. It seems all things, including Farm Share initiatives, seek equilibrium.

We have one month left in this 31+ plus week affair. That is a long stretch of time for local foods To all you members who signed up for the entire season congratulate yourselves. Most CSA members do not make it so long. As a matter of fact, we had several members who signed up in April drop out, I believe because they were burned out. CSA can be a lot like joining a gym. It is good for you and in the beginning you are very enthusiastic but after months and months of the grind that enthusiasm flags and you look for a way out.

Sometimes I wish we farmers had an easy out. I know getting, often, strange foods weekly in amounts that may be more than you can easily handle gets old. But imagine doing the farming 7 days a week March through November. We have to deal with tons of food-harvest, cleaning, storing and sorting daily. Plus planning, planting, weeding, bug patrolling, feeding, tilling, etc.. farm work tends to be pretty relentless especially may through September. And this leads to farmer burn out. This year is not so bad but in past years we would be so toasty by this time of year that we could barely function well enough to get crops out of the field for marketing, much less being able to think about the next season and get things other than garlic planted in the fall for the following season. This year we are in good shape. Perhaps because Eugene has starting fishing on a daily basis (we have a well stocked pond that we have pretty much ignored for a couple of years). At any rate, he is on top of getting crops in the ground for fall winter and early spring and even planning out where things should go next year.

We still have the massive job of putting the garden to bed for the winter. Thousands of plants need to be ripped out of the ground, fabric mulches need to be taken up, cleaned a bit and stored and than cover crops planted. The plants are piled into what will become compost piles. After the market garden is cleaned up, most of the plants will be run through a chipper shredder so they will compost in 6 months instead of 2 years. Often this job is done in Winter when there is not much else to do. So far about 15% of the beds have been cleaned up (around 45% have active crops in them still and cannot be touched yet). Fortunately, this work can be done between now and when the ground freezes up (usually Late November/early December).

The other fall thing we do is put up hoop houses. If you are picking up this week you will see that 3 have been erected. These will protect various crops through the fall and winter. Right now they are protecting strawberries, zucchini, galia melons, green beans and tomatoes. Later some will be moved over to the leeks and winter greens. Others will stay where they are and we will rip up most of the current crops in them in November/December and plant things like lettuce and spring mix in them to be harvested in March and April of 2010.

Once things are all put to bed in November we can almost take a break-we won't be doing much in the market garden other than harvesting fall/winter greens and leeks for winter markets and the Winter Share members and making sure the weather does not destroy the hoop houses (we generally have 1 or 2 come down during winter due to heavy snow loads or high winds or major ice). But by late December we will have to have our seed orders sent in or else risk either seeds being put on back order or finding they are sold out and by early January (like the second) we will start onion and leek seeds indoors and start the season again.

No recipe this week

What's in the Share
Look for two bags per share this week. Both will be on the table and available for pick up after 4pm

Peppers-This week you get a whole bag of sweet bell peppers. Expect more than 6. I have heard that some peppers are rotting - This happens, I do try to select only peppers that show no signs of damage but my eyes are not the best and sometimes I miss things.
Haricot verts-Pronounced airy coe ver. Real French beans. I snap off the stem end and cook for 10 to 13 minutes in about 1 inch of boiling water.
Beets-You will get a nice bunch of both red and golden beets with greens. the easiest way to cook these is to boil cut up beets in water for about 10 minutes or until soft
Celeriac-AKA Celery root. You get two of 'em this week. This is the ugliest thing we grow (they are the knobby root like things) but really really tasty. Peel off the outer skin and either eat raw or roast, use in a soup or stew like you would use a turnip or potato. They taste like sweet celery. the greens taste like really strong parsley and can be used in soup/ soup stock
Leeks-you get 2 leeks this week.
Kale-A 3/4 pound bag of Kale. Most likely Russian White but I may mix in some Dinosaur and/or Winterbor
Pears-2 pounds of kieffer pears, yum.
Potatoes-At least a pound of mixed taters. Long skinny ones are the fingerlings-bad for mashing great for roasting and frying. The round ones will be either white, red or gold and good for boiling and mashing, among other things.
Red turnips-around 1/2 pound of red turnips. these are actually good raw in salads but also good cooked in things or mashed.
Cayenne peppers-15+ peppers to heat up your life. I find these have a really nice heat and add good flavor to chili, salsa and curries. these may not be hot enough for some of you but should suffice for most.
Garlic-two corms of our hardneck garlic
Spring Mix-A 6oz bag of salad. Please wash before using



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