Boulder Belt Eco-Farm

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

It's the first day of fall-we have made it through spring and summer and for us farmers it is all down hill from here. Most of the fall planting is done. Next we start cleaning up the market garden so it can be put to bed for winter. This means ripping out old spent plants and making several compost piles with their corpses, taking up the landscape cloth we use for mulch and storing it for the winter than putting in cover crops of annual rye or oats to feed the soil. Cover crops are often problematic for us as they go in late (we still have a lot of crops that won't be ready to take out until after frost) and more often than not we do not get adequate rainfall in the fall (which seems to be happening this year) to get the seeds to germinate and grow a bit before they go into winter dormancy.

The other big job we have is erecting hoop houses over the beds that have our winter crops. We will put up at least 3 this fall and we may have to build a 4th from scratch so we can get everything covered that needs it. In the past we have made do with less but have found that crops protected with just row cover rarely make it past December no matter how hardy they are. Leeks are an exception to this-they will make it through winter but they look bad and are hard to harvest when the ground is frozen. Leeks in a hoop house do much, much better over winter.

This past week we started harvesting dried beans and peas. These will mainly go for seed purposes, though we think the Blanton's peas (more like a black eyed pea than a garden or English pea) will make great soup and we do have a lot of these. Now all we have to do is thresh them and clean them up so they can be used. years ago we grew dried beans as an actual crop but found that they took up an awful lot of space for low yields and we could buy certified organic beans for less than what it cost to raise them so we pretty much quit growing them. You really need to grow acres and acres of them to make it worth the time and effort involved. But growing so many means there is no way they can be harvested and threshed by hand so that means we would have to invest about $50K in a combine (and that would be a used combine, a new one cost $1/2 million) and buy more acreage. So we have decided not to do that as it would bankrupt us.

The Winter Share program will start Nov 11th. I need to know if you are in or out ASAP. Just a simple yes or no will suffice. I have heard from several members already so you guys do not need to respond again.

Pick-up is after 4pm. As there are tomatoes on the list there will be two bags this week. One on the table by the fridge and the other in the fridge with your name on both.

Recipe

Roasted Peppers

You will need a grill (wood is best but propane or charcoal will do the job) a paper grocery bag (do NOT use plastic for this) and as many whole peppers as you can find. get the grill going and when it is hot with some flame put the peppers on. Cook them over the flame turning occasionally until the fruit is blackened and the skin is flaking off, about 10-to 15 minutes. remove from heat and put into the paper bag ASAP. Let the hot and charred peppers sit in the bag for about 15 minutes than take them out of the bag and remove the blackened skin from the peppers. I find it is best to do this over a sink as you will need to rinse them off. Also remove the seeds at this time. now you can either use these smoky tasting peppers right away in your favorite dish or on their own as a side dish/appetizer. or you can cut them into strips, put them on a cooking sheet and freeze them for later use. When the peppers are fully frozen put them into a plastic freezer bag and back into the freezer. These are great in salsa and chili, among other things.

What's In the Share this Week

Mistui Rose radish-AKA water melon radish because it is green on the outside and red inside. These are best used for cooking but can also be eaten raw, though I find them a bit on the fibrous side. I have not had the greens but they are quite edible and i am sure like most greens this is where most of the nutrition is. I would treat them like chard or spinach if you cook them. You get a bunch of three
Tomatoes-likely the last week for these. A few pounds of mix maters, many of which may not be in the best shape. late tomatoes are full of cracks, dings and late blight. Just cut around anything that looks bad.
Dill-an herb we should have had months ago but are just now able to harvest. Dill is a versatile herb that goes well with most veggie, cheese and fish dishes.
Parsley-a nice bunch of Italian Flat leaf parsley
Raspberries-a 1/2 pint box of raspberries this week. they just get better and better.
Red Turnips-a bunch of red salad turnips. these are meant to be eaten raw in salad, like radishes. That's right I am sending you radishes that need cooking and turnips that are best raw, confusing, huh?. The greens are also excellent (I like these and dislike all other kinds of turnip greens).
Potatoes-a couple of pounds of mixed taters. I do not know what we have harvested but there should be red, white and some different fingerlings.
Sweet Peppers-Some purple peppers and at least one red or orange ripe pepper. there would be more ripe ones but once a year Miami University (my Alma Mater) does a local foods dinner for the students and they ordered red peppers and pears for us so I have to make sure I can fill their order. seeing as how we have over 150 peppers plants full of ripening peppers this should not be an issue. But the peppers are ripening sloooowly and unevenly so it has become a small issue. In the coming weeks I will likely overload you guys to some extent with ripe peppers. These are super easy to freeze. Just cut them open, take out the seeds and cut off the white ribs and than cut the peppers into the shapes you want (I dice them) and put into a freezer bag (be sure to get out all the air) and into the freezer for winter/spring use. I suggest you do this with them when you get an overload.
Beets-The beets are back for fall. You will get a bunch of red beets with greens. Like the other root crops with greens this week, these too are edible and tasty and where all the nutrients are.
Green Beans-You will get a pound of either the Haricot verts (long and skinny) or Blue Lake (not so long or skinny) depending on what is producing today and Thursday. It looked like on Saturday that there would be a lot of Haricot verts Tuesday and lots of Blue Lake by Thursday. Of course we were also expecting a couple of inches of rain and not the drizzle we got most of Sunday that resulted in about 1/2" of rainfall. At any rate these beans will be far better looking than the beans you guys have been getting as we have switched from picking old beds to brand new beds.
Copra Onions-These are the best yellow cooking onions ever and that is why we grow them (I am a bit of an onion fanatic). If you want to use them raw just know that they will burn your guts. These do not need to be refrigerated
Garlic-a couple of corms of garlic. I believe you will get Chesnok Red (AKA Shivlisi) this week. This is our strongest garlic and originates in Georgia (Russian GA, not US GA)



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

Greetings and Salutations,

It is Tuesday and that means a new week of farm share has commenced, week 15. Things got a bit exciting here on Saturday. First we got home from a spectacular farmers market-the best July market we have ever had thanks to having more raspberries than you can shake a stick at. And we noticed that the floor in the bathroom was sopping wet. There was a leak somewhere. Due to being exhausted from the farmers market we turned off the water to the bathroom, attempted to dry things up than took a nap. Eugene got up from his nap before me and was groggily wandering around outside by the barn when he noticed a a dipwad in a pick-up truck wearing a tuxedo had hit our signs and was about to leave the scene of the accident. Eugene got in front of the truck and confronted the guy (who said he was not leaving just turning around so he could go to the front door and tell us about it, riiight). Long story short, the guy would have cut us a check for about $100, the damage was about $600 (we know the exact figure when the insurance adjuster comes out to look at the damage.) we have a bent yellow sign that is useable but damaged and the bigger permanent sign is missing a leg. we have plans to replace that sign in the next few weeks with the sign that is sitting on the porch of the store. but now we are thinking maybe putting that one in the same place is not smart as this is the second time the signs have been hit in the past 18 months. So that was our Saturday.

Other than dipwads in tuxedos harming our property, things are going well on the farm. It should look fabulous for this Sunday's potluck dinner as long as the mower does not break yet another belt. We have been busy getting beds weeded as well weeded beds are so much easier to harvest than weedy beds. Eugene has been doing a lot of tilling for fall and winter crops (for those of you new to Boulder Belt we are season extension junkies-it's our thing to grow as much as we can in winter using simple hoophouses that are unheated. Most winters between the hoop houses and what we root cellar we generally have a lot available through early Feb and than again come mid March through the rest of the season). Along with tilling beds for upcoming plantings we have also been ripping out, mowing  or harvesting the spring/early summer crops that are either mature as in the case of beets. Peas that no longer produce get ripped out and things like spring mix and lettuce get mowed than tilled in except for the lettuce we allow to got to seed so we can save seed from it. When you come to the farm tour potluck you will see all of this progress. it sounds like the weather will be absolutely perfect. Also this is something very few people get to do-tour a working farm and talk to the farmers. we do offer this to the public for $25 an hour and you get it as a perk for being a farm share member. I strongly suggest you take advantage. Plus it is a lot of fun and you meet other locavores from the area and thus we build stronger community.

Oh and speaking of progress, only two members have sent an RSVP about this potluck/farm tour coming up THIS SUNDAY. I need a response from the rest of you either yea or nay so I have a head count. if you do come bring a dish to share and things to eat and drink from. I will make a salad that has lots of maters, cukes and likely arugula and we will supply cider from Downing's fruit farm (not organic but raw and excellent), distilled water from our well (this is the best water you will ever drink) and perhaps a few home brewed beers that Eugene makes. Feel free to bring your own libations. the Fun starts at 6pm

I also need to know of all you monthly members if you are rejoining in August. I have a lot of people interested in joining in August but give current members first shot as spots in the farm share Initiative. I have heard from two people already and need to hear from the rest of you who are joining one month at a time. I believe we  have 2 spots open for August and September if everyone rejoins for next month.

Remember we will take back all you bags, boxes, rubber bands, etc that come in your share. And if you have reusable bags bring 'em out and I will pack pack your shares into those and not plastic

Recipe

Pesto
1 cup basil
1 cup italian parsley
2 or more cloves of garlic
1/2 cup walnuts or toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt to taste

In a food processor put in the peeled whole garlic cloves and pulse a couple of times than add the nuts and cheese and pulse again than add everything else and process until smooth.

What's in the share this week:

Beets-a nice bunch of beets with greens. These were harvested Friday in order to clear out two beds for fall planting and also so the deer could not eat any more of the greens. they had started to ravage the beets last week so we had to get them out all at once.
Cucumbers-2 nice cukes, again be sure to peel the skins
Arugula-probably the last of the arugula until fall
Raspberries-a couple of boxes of raspberries. These are waning so this may be the last of them until the next type comes in in mid to late August
Strawberries-1 box of yummy strawberries
Basil-a nice 1/4 pound bag of basil
Garlic-a couple of corms of one of the 3 kinds we grow.
Potatoes-a pound or so of taters, likely Kennebec white and Yukon Gold
Scallions/green onions-a mixed bunch of true scallions and green red onions (or red green onions if you are a fan of the Red green Show)
Cabbage- a head or two of sweet tasty cabbage
Parsley-A nice bunch of Italian parsley
Tomatoes-A pound or so of a mix of Yellow Taxi and Matina tomatoes. Many are not quite ripe but will ripen up over the week (thursday folks yours will probably be ripe)