Boulder Belt Eco-Farm

Welcome to the last farm share newsletter of 2009. This also means this is the last pick up for most of you (The members that are NOT going month to month have one last pick-up next Tuesday). It's been a wonderful season. We have had great growing conditions, few insect problems (too cool I think) and a lot of interest in the Farm Share Program. We will be doing the FSI again next year though there will be some changes that I will let you all know about when I have them finalized. If you have any input on the FSI let us know, especially negatives, as this will allow us to improve. Though the on farm pick-up will not change this coming year. We had bad experiences with delivery in the past. We want to know what kind of produce you would like us to grow, if the days/hours of pick up are okay or could be better, that sort of thing. A lot of CSA type farms send out a survey to find this kind of thing so consider this request a survey of sorts (a very badly written one)

Already we are thinking about what to plant next year and we will have our seed order finalized and in the mail before Christmas. This year and all the past years we have grown food for Farmers market sales (and other sales such as to restaurants and small natural food stores) and not foe CSA sales because in the past we either did not do a CSA or it was so small and weak it did not matter how we planted we almost always had more than enough food to supply that and all other markets. But interest in the FSI and the farmers markets we do is growing. Plus there should be a new co-op in Oxford, the MOON Co-op opening next summer that we will supply (we have been members of this yet to exist co-op for 6 years and have planned on selling some of our food there for as many years). So all this success means we have to rethink what we are growing as our markets are changing and we have to tweak things to keep up with the times. Oh, an as a side note if you are in the Oxford area or go to Oxford at all and you are not a member of the MOON CO-OP (I realize we have several incredibly hip members who are members already) You must join. This is an amazing group doing an amazing thing in Oxford that will be a huge support for the local foodies, farmers and food-shed. But they need more members to add to the almost 500 they have now. It costs $150 to join and they have flexible payment plans. More information at http://www.mooncoop.com. You know you will shop there when it opens as it sounds like it will be a mini Jungle Jim's (it will have everything) only with a lot more local foods and hipper people running the place.

Okay, back to future plans at Boulder Belt. Right now we are seriously thinking of dropping almost all the tomatoes-we grew something like 450 plants this year with over 21 varieties. We have found that there is a tomato glut at the farmers market from July through September so we are not selling as many as we have at the farmers market and I am guessing that you, our members, do not want 12 pounds of tomatoes a week for 8 to 10 weeks. We did donate hundreds of pounds of tomatoes to a food pantry in Oxford and chickens ate a lot of them but we still had too many. Next year we think it will be around 100 plants most of with will be grown for the farm share and our own use. These will be replaced by more alliums-onions, leeks, garlic, shallots, etc. We will also do more root crops of other kinds as well because they are food and they store well and we really want to do more winter share stuff and get our members more deeply entrenched in locavorism. Part of that is getting it through people's heads that it is possible to eat a nice variety in winter in Ohio from local sources (granted, it is far easier for omnivores than vegans to do so). So we have to grow for winter to do this.

We will be doing a lot more greens as well. This year we planted a lot but had several failures over the year. This is happening now which is why you are not getting spring mix and lettuce in your shares as often as I think you should. The stuff is spotty and growing slowly so we often can cut only 4 to 5 6 oz bags which will not cover all the members. So it goes to the farmers market. Of course every year brings different growing conditions and we may find we are way over planting next year if the conditions are perfect for greens

Of course we will not know what to grow until we have an idea of how many FSI members we will have next year. And you guys probably won't know if you will join until I figure out the dates, cost, etc.. I plan on finalizing the details before mid December and will post this on the Boulder Belt website as well as sending everyone who has been a Boulder Belt FSI member a notice


Recipe
Root Roast

Garlic
parsnips
potatoes
carrots
turnips
leeks
onions
etc..
Olive oil
Salt

Winter squash is also good in this as is celery and tomatoes. Pears and apples might also be good

Wash, peel and cut the roots into 1 to 2 inch chunks. The garlic you want to keep the corm whole and cut off the top 1/8 inch so that the tops of the cloves are just exposed. Toss everything into a roasting pan (or baking dish you cover with something like aluminum foil), drizzle the oil over top and salt to taste and put into a preheated 350F to 400F degree oven for about 30 to 40 minutes.


Okay on that note here is what you will get in your share this week:

Parsnips-You should have gotten these for the past couple of weeks but they never seemed to be dug in sufficient quantities  (and they are a bitch to get out of the dirt-it takes about 4 minutes to coax one out vs carrots which take about 15 seconds to dig up). But yesterday we went and got a bunch-about 15 pounds and it only took 1.5 hours with two of us digging. At any rate these are delish. they look like a white carrot and are related. best roasted with other root veggies
Tomatoes-the tomatoes plants died a couple of weeks back including the late crop we thought would do well in a hoop house but we were able to harvest a lot of green tomatoes and now have some ripening. You should get 3 to 4 maters in your share.
Kale-a big bunch of kale. It should be sweeter than last week as it has been hit by two frosts since Friday
Herbs-I have herbs that need to be used you will get a bag of one of them. There is tarragon, sage, dill, cilantro, parsley, rosemary and oregano to choose from. if you have preference tell me before  noon today (if you are picking up Tuesday), otherwise i will toss one at random in your share
Garlic-2 corms of garlic
Onions-about a pound of red and yellow onions. The yellow onions are best cooked as they are hot, hot. The reds have tended to be hot as well
Peppers-3 to 4  peppers, mostly green because that is what we have.
Leeks-a couple of Lincoln leeks
Red Turnips-around 3/4 of a pound of these turnips. Make a dish of mashed turnips for Breast cancer awareness month (they will be pink)
Mitsui Rose radish-AKA Red meat radish. This is a cooking radish but can be eaten raw if you like a pungent radish. More importantly they are beautiful
Pears-8 pears for eatin'. these are getting sweeter as they get older
Potatoes-You will get a variety of fingerlings this week-the red with gold flesh are French Fingerling and the white with yellow flesh are Russian Banana (I do not name these things). these are excellent for roasting or soups and stews but not good for mashed taters

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

The first and last newsletter of the month. Weird, but true because the month of October starts mid week. To all of you who have done this all season, congrats, you have made it almost all the way. In my experience as a CSA farmer this is somewhat rare. In past years we have had up to 50% of our full season members drop out by now. This would start by a few missed share usually in July and by mid September the member(s) would pretty much quit coming to farm (or when we did drop points, the drop point) to get their food. Sometimes they would would let me know what was going on but most of the time they did not. This meant we were making shares that would not be used by the intended people. Very frustrating. I am so happy this has not been the case at all this season. On that note I need to hear from the following people ASAP about next month; Kristan/Earlham, Heather Kardeen and Bea, -Are you in or out for October? Let me know no later than this evening (Tuesday).                       

Life of the farm just keeps going and going. We put up the first of several hoop houses yesterday. It will start out life protecting tomatoes and green beans but by December it will be too cold for those crops and they will be cleared out and something will go in probably in late winter as it is about impossible to get a crop started in an unheated hoop house in December, unless it is warmish and sunny during December. Than we can start spinach or spring mix for March/April harvests. Those maters in that hoophouse should be ready to harvest the end of October and definitely by November, same with the green beans.

The summer season is pretty much over for us-we still have peppers and eggplant in the ground and producing but the melons and tomatoes are pretty much over (except for the maters in the hoop house which have yet to produce anything. Oh, and the tomato volunteers that are covered with green and just now ripening fruits but may not make it through a 36 degree night). I suspect the basil will be gone after a night in the mid 30's (the prediction for Wednesday night/Thursday morning). But cold weather is fine with us as we have shifted to crops that can take the cold and still produce well (as a matter of fact most of the leafy greens prefer cold nights). And if it gets a bit too nippy we have frost protection for the more tender crops still in the ground. the mid 30's will be hard of the peppers which are too numerous to put hoop houses over and too large for row cover so I believe the plan there will be to harvest as many peppers as possible and hope for the best. in past years the peppers have been able to deal with some near freezing temps without too much damage and it may not get nearly as cold as they predict. I note that this morning it is is the low 50's and it is supposed to be in the low 40's so they were off by about 10 degrees (in our favor).

Yesterday evening we spent time digging taters. We got in Pontiac Reds (the potatoes you guys have been getting most weeks for a couple of months, now), Russian banana, a yellow fingerling spud, great for roasting or salads. not great for mashed taters. And German Butterball. The Butterballs are a wonderfully round yellow spud that is a nice all purpose potato. It also is a potato we have grown for only 2 years now and have discovered that if you do not get these spuds out in a timely manner they decide to put out roots and leaves and make more taters. This would be wonderful if we had another 3 months of frost free weather ahead of us but now that is is firmly autumn and winter is on it's way these taters don't stand of chance of producing a crop (actually they do as Eugene has collected all the sprouting butterballs and will plant them in a hoop house where they just might be able to over winter). At any rate, this has never happened to us with any other variety of potato we have grown (and we have grown around 10 to 15 different varieties over the past 15 years) and I guess in the future we will have to remember to get these tubers out of the ground ASAP after they are ready. You see with potatoes, most can be left in the ground for weeks after the plants die back. As long as the ground does not freeze or get water logged (flooded) the taters should be alright (grubs are another factor-they will eat any and all taters they can get too). but we find the butterballs if left in the ground for more than a couple of weeks after the plants die back will try to make babies. All potatoes will eventually do this but most need to be left in the ground for several months or over winter to go into the reproduction mode. Actually the second reproduction mode as the plants make seed balls during the summer that will also turn into potato plants if planted. It is through the seed balls we get new varieties of potatoes. Yukon Gold was developed this way. Some day Boulder Belt may come up with a new variety of spud that is commercially viable as we do plant the seed balls to see what we get. So far we have gotten nothing new or unique. But we keep trying because we find plant breeding fascinating.

We still have a few openings (5/five) for the winter share. Let me know ASAP if you want to keep getting local food through January. Cost is $300, payable by Halloween for food every other week. I wanna give you members first crack at this offer before allowing non members to sign up. Thanks to those of you who have already let me know, yes or no, about the Winter Share Program

We can always use you clean, not full of rips and holes, plastic and paper shopping bags-got a big wad of them taking up space in your home and you don't want to landfill them? We will happily take them off your hands. Other things we are looking far are pint and quart canning jars (no lids needed). If you have any that are just taking up space bring 'em to the farm. If you can and need the jars keep them-oh and on that note if you do can and ever need widemouth lids (no rings) we can supply you with 'em for free as we have about 1500 new unused lids we got from a friend (and there is more where those came from). Anyhoo, if want some let me know and I will toss some in your share. And the final thing we are looking for are dogs and cats-we have lost one old dog and have another close to death and we really need a minimum of 3 dogs to keep the crops safe from deer, groundhogs and other critters. We also need a good mouser or two. If you know of any medium to large breed (mutts are best but preferably no Chow or Pitbull mixes) puppies up to 6 months old that need a good home let us know. Same with kittens.

                                           
Dressing/Stuffing
1 loaf of bread cubed and allowed to go stale over night. If you did not give yourself enough time pop the cubed bread (put it on a baking sheet) into a 350F oven for 10 minutes to dry out. It will take more than 10 minutes to dry the bread but it should be stirred every 10 minutes until it gets to where you want it.
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock or water
1 medium yellow onion chopped
3 (or more) ribs of celery chopped
2 to 3 apples chopped
1 or 2 pears chopped
1 cup of nuts, chopped (walnuts are best but any will do)
1/2 cup of raisins
2 cloves of garlic minced (more or less-to taste)
1/2 pound mushrooms sliced
1 tsp fresh sage (can use dried)
1 tsp fresh rosemary (can use dried)
1/4 cup fresh Italian/flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup melted butter or olive oil
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

In a large frying pan melt 1/2 the butter (or oil) and saute the onion, mushrooms, garlic and celery until tender. In a large mixing bowl put together the bread, cooked veggies, herbs, salt and pepper, fruit,  melted butter/oil and liquid and mix together. At this point you can either stuff your holiday bird or pork chops or put the dressing into a greased baking dish, cover and bake for about 45 minutes and than serve

What's in the Share this Week
Blue Lake Green Beans-these will be on the big side but will still be tender and delicious
Butterball potatoes-expect about a pound of these plus Russian banana fingerlings (the not round taters).                                                                                               should be good mashed or boiled. I really have not used a lot of these as we are just now doing a real harvest and last year was the year to build up seed stock so I did not get a chance to cook any. not to mention it was a really bad year for them last year so... The Fingerlings are another one that we have grown for only a couple of years but these i know about because we have grown another type of fingerling, French Fingerling, for over 10 years and all fingerling taters have a waxy flesh that is perfect for roasting and boiling for salads.
Spring mix-This is the crop that got me into market farming. I was looking for a decent salad mix after using a local organic mix at a restaurant where I cooked for several years. I could not find a commercial salad mix that was at all decent (not even the organic mixes) so I decided to develop my own spring mix 15 years ago and I gotta say you will find none better. if it were not for spring mix I would not have become the locavore farmer I am today. Enjoy.
Kale-a nice 3/4 pound bag of White Russian Kale (there seems to be a Russian Theme developing with this share)
Radishes-A small bunch of D'avignon (long red and white) and Easter Egg (round red, white or purple) radishes. perfect for your salad
Red Onion-a couple of medium red onions. These are a beautiful all purpose onion.
Sage-herb of the week is sage. This is great for poultry dishes as well as pork. It is a strong herb so use it sparingly and unlike many much more delicate fresh herbs it can be used at the beginning of cooking and hold up. It is also good in herbed bread and biscuits.
Peppers-Last week I warned you all that there will be a future pepper explosion. that time has come. Expect a minimum of 4 huge ripe peppers in your share this week. Perhaps more. Remember these are super easy to freeze and would be great for stuffing.
Eggplant-I expect this to be the last week for eggplant. Aubergines do not like cold weather at all and will either die outright when temps get into the 30's or at the very least pout and refuse to produce more fruit.
Pears-2 to 3 pounds of Kieffer pears, yum yum.
Garlic-I dunno what kind will be in your share, one of the 3 kinds we grow, but it will be good as always.
Winter Squash-You will get 1 to 2 winter squashes in you share. I am not sure what kind at this point but it will either be Butternut (beige) Acorn (dark green), Delicata (oblong, ivory white with green or orange stripes) Sunshine (round and orange) or Cushaw (large, white with green stripes. All of them cook the same way-cut in half                                                         lengthwise, remove the seeds (which are wonderful roasted) and bake on a baking sheet in a 350 oven for 20 to 45 minutes depending on the squash and its size. Squash is done when it is no longer hard to the touch.


Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://www.boulderbeltfarm.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

We have reached week 24. You will notice that there are changes in your share as we go from summer items into more fall like items. The main crop of tomatoes are about over for the year. We still have some but the yield is way down. On Friday it took me about 20 minutes to harvest tomatoes for market. The week before it took about 1.5 hours and the week before that about 4 hours. This is what happens in September. We did plant a fall crop of maters back in early July and the small plants do have small green fruits on them. We expect that this crop will be ready in mid October through mid November. We will put a hoop house over the beds in a week or two to keep the tomatoes reasonably warm and happy. I have been busy putting up tomato juice, tomato sauce and salsa for use this winter and next spring. I hope you all are not disappointed about not getting 10+ pounds of maters in your share (okay, those of you who started this month may miss 'em but the members who have been with us all summer or the entire season have to be sick of the maters. It was a bit of overkill, but I could have easily distributed 3x to 4x as much some weeks)

We are in the thick of winter squash harvest. It has been a good year for acorn, butternut and sunshine squashes. back in July the butternut looked really bad. The beds got fairly weedy and the weeds hid the developing squashes. So for several weeks it looked like we would get nothing. Than it seemed like over night that the squash foliage died back revealing lots and lots of medium sized squashes. You will not see any butternuts for several weeks in your share as these must cure for 3 to 5 weeks to bring out the sugars in the flesh. Newly harvested butternuts (and this is true of all winter squashes) will have a rather insipid taste. The other reason you won't see a lot of winter squashes in shares (there will be some) is because these are grown for winter markets and shares. Marketing the produce we grow in winter has become a bit of a specialty for us. We do both season extension using row covers and hoop houses and we grow for root cellaring

As has been mentioned several times in past newsletters we are offering a winter share (which has 7 openings, down from 9 last week-if you want our food this winter I suggest you tell us sooner than later) and we got to most of the monthly winter markets in Oxford (3rd Saturday of the month starting in December). Selling at an outdoor market in the depths of winter is pretty hard core (we have sold in ice storms, heavy snow, sub zero temps and, a couple of times, spring like conditions in January). Our goal is to eventually have the winter share program replace the winter farmers markets as there are some down sides to selling outdoors in winter. If the temps are below 25F we cannot take squash or potatoes as they will freeze in about 2 hours. Interestingly, though, greens such as kale and arugula seem to do okay as do parsnips and carrots. So because of past learning experiences such as freezing over 100 pounds of  taters at a subzero market coming home and tossing them in the compost, we know our limitations at such markets. The winter share program has no such limits because the produce stays indoors where it will not freeze and be ruined until members come to get it. And we don't have to stand around for 3 hours in the cold and wind selling (this is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds)

Hey! We have a Pot luck dinner and farm tour THIS Sunday. I have heard from only 4 members out of 13 about this. I need to know ASAP (like today) if you are coming to this event of not. Just reply to this email with a simple yes or no-it's that easy. The festivities will start around 6ish. Meet at the store.

Your shares will be ready after 4pm. It looks like there will be one bag per share this week and they will be in the fridge. Oh and speaking of bags if you have a lot of plastic grocery bags taking up room in your abode we will take them and reuse them (as long as they are clean-absolutely no dirty bags). just bring them with you and leave them on the table where I have been putting the tomatoes all summer.

Recipe
Lamb or Beef stew (if vegetarian leave out the meat). This is a family recipe I learned from my father. He always made beef stew but in recent years I got turned onto stewing lamb and find it is better than beef.

a couple of medium yellow cooking onions, diced
several stalks of celery, diced
4+ carrots (med to large), diced
1/2 pound potatoes diced
1 medium rutabaga peeled and diced
1 large pepper (green, purple or red) diced
1/8 cup fresh sage (or 1-tsp dried)
several sprigs of rosemary (if doing lamb)
1/4 cup of fresh parsley
1TBL dried basil (fresh will not work with this recipe)
2 tsp dried oregano
several cloves of garlic peeled and chopped
salt to taste (at least 1TBL)
2+ quarts of water or meat or veggie stock
Any other veggies you desire such as parsnip, winter squash, zucchini, tomato, leeks, mushrooms, green beans, daikons, etc..
1+ pounds of stew meat (We get ours from Morning Sun Farms which sells it's pastured meat at Oxford, Yellow Springs and West Chester farmers markets)

In a large heated pot (at least 3 gallons) cook the meat until brown (vegetarians skip this step). When the meat is brown remove it from the pot add some butter or oil to the brown bits left by the meat cooking  (vegetarian style will have no brown bits and that's okay) and  add the veggies, salt, herbs and water/stock. On medium high heat bring to a simmering boil. Once simmering turn heat down to medium low, add the cooked meat cover and let cook for at least 2 hours, checking and stirring every so often. You may have to add an additional quart of so of water during cooking. When the contents are soft (especially the meat-you are using stew meat which takes several hours of stewing to be right) grab a blender and puree about 1/3 of the stew (you may have to add some water). Put the puree back into the stew, check seasonings and adjust if needed and you are ready to serve. This is great with a good bread, cornbread  or homemade biscuits.


What's In the Share

Green beans-big beans from an early planting of beans we though was dead and gone but instead has been silently producing beans. These beans look tough but in reality are sweet and tender despite their robust size
Eggplant-at least a pound of neon (purple) and Nadia (black) eggplant. The 3" rain last week got the plants to start producing something other than micro aubergines
Celery-this is a fall vegetable that could use a bit more time to get a bit bigger. This is best used for cooking as it tends to be stronger than what we are used to getting at the store. Celery is hard to grow around here because it is very susceptible to fusarium, a soil fungi endemic to the midwest. Michigan was the #1 producer of celery until the mid 1950's when fusarium destroyed the industry.
Peppers-Several peppers. Some should be ripe and some will be purple and/or green
Cayenne Peppers-several cayennes. These have a nice heat but are not too hot. For some members, I suppose, they will not be hot enough. We had a great deal of trouble getting the hot peppers to germinate this past spring and had planned on several other types but this is what worked. We did get 6 Jalapeno plants to survive in pots on the back deck but they are not producing enough (we have picked 6 so far) for the farm share so I have been using them for our own salsa.
Garlic-A couple of corms of our hardneck garlic
Sage-a nice bunch of fresh sage
Kale-this is the only green we have going right now and because Eugene direct seeded the kale (usually we start seeds indoors under lights than transplant the seedlings out) we have a lot of thinning to do so the kale plants have enough space between them for proper growth this fall and winter. And you get the bounty. I have noticed a lot of the plants have aphids. I do wash the kale before it is put into shares and that does get about 90% of the aphids off the leaves but some stay on so be sure to inspect and wash the care carefully before using (unless you like a bit of extra protein with your greens)
Leeks-a couple of leeks this week
Pears-2+ pounds of our Keiffer pears. this harvest comes from just one tree that for the past 4 years has reliably produced 15 bushels a years. yesterday Eugene harvested 3.5 bushels just to keep major limbs from breaking off under the weight of the fruit
Rutabaga-a couple of medium or one large 'baga (for the stew recipe)
Carrots-You are getting less than perfect carrots. Since we have lost a good dog and a mousing cat in the past year we are getting more and more damage to the carrots from mice and voles (and likely rabbits). They like to eat the top 5% of the roots and leave the rest. These are perfectly good carrots but they do need a bit of work. Mostly cutting off the top of the roots but there may also be carrot maggot damage towards the middle of the carrot. Either cut that out or use a peeler and peel it away. You will get at least 1 pound, probably more.


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

Greetings,

I am up extra early because today is the day we take our chickens in for processing. I will miss the birds but I will not miss the extra work they demanded, at least 2 hours a day that could have been spent mowing, cleaning garlic and onions, weeding, etc.. After today we will have more time to devote to the produce AND we will have sublime poultry to eat for the next 12 months or so. The chickens were useful for eating all the damaged and beginning to rot produce we had-they went through a lot of melons and tomatoes for us that would have ended up on the compost. Composting that sort of stuff is not a bad thing at all. bad produce makes up at least 50% of our compost. But allowing the chickens to eat that stuff  turned it into chicken poop which is very valuable stuff for our compost piles. I have also noticed things are a lot cleaner, compost material wise, when we have chickens. I guess because it is a lot more entertaining to feed the chickens than a compost pile.

You guys missed a great farm tour we had around 25 people from around Ohio attended and we talked strawberries and raspberries for a couple of hours. Unlike the casual farm tours we dour with you farm share members monthly this one had a moderator who formally introduced us, kept us from straying too far off topic and kept us on time during the tour. We gotten nothing but very positive feed back from the participants. I will admit we give good farm tour. I believe this is the 10th time we have done an official farm tour. There are some photos of the event on our blog http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com and even more on my facebook account-if you do facebook and are not already my FB friend become my FB friend today and take a gander at all the farm tour photos (and lots of other farm photos and video).

The cold weather we are having this week does have have an effect on the crops. We re covering a lot of the warm weather crops and may be out of basil after 3 nights in the 40's. the basil has a double cover on it but I have not looked at it since the cold has arrived and it likely will have black spots all over. All we can do is hope for warmer nights (like in the 60's at the lowest) and cut back the plants and hope they can grow out of it. We may be in luck and find there has been very little damage done because they have been protected but in the past 48F has brought on damage to even protected plants. Now while the warm loving crops are not all that happy with this cool weather the cold loving crops are quite happy (though they would like some rain instead of irrigated well water)

It's a new month and we do have some new members and some old members that have decided to drop out. Reminder that pick-up is after 4pm on whichever day you opted to use (Tuesday or Thursday) in the store. the food will be in the fridge and/or on the table by the fridge (sometimes there are bags of things like tomatoes which should never be refrigerated).

The monthly potluck dinner and farm tour will be Sunday, Sept 20th starting at 6ish. RSVP about this (yes or no) in the next two weeks so we have a head count.

If you have not brought us some reusable bags it is by no means too late. If you are new to this we ask members to drop off at least 2 reusable shopping bags (bigger is better) so we can pack your shares into something other than plastic shopping bags. Please write your name on the bags.  Oh, and if you have a pile of such not very reusable plastic shopping bags sitting around your house or dorm we will take them as long as they are clean and reuse them at the farmers market and in our store for customers that do not bring their own.

Recipe
Potato and Leek Soup

2 leeks cut into 1/2" rounds
1 pound taters cut into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 or 2 cloves of garlic either put through a press or chopped very fine
2 cups milk ( you can replace this with water if you are a non dairy drinker or use soy milk)
5 strips of bacon (vegetarians omit this ingredient and replace with a tablespoon of olive oil)
salt to taste

In a large pot (at least 3 gallons) put on med heat and let it heat up. When hot add the bacon and cook until crisp. when bacon is done remove it and drain it on paper and add the leeks and cook those in the bacon grease over medium heat. If using olive oil than put the oil into a hot pan and cook the leeks in that fat. While the leeks are cooking boil the potatoes in a separate pot. the taters need to simmer for about 10 minutes, which is about how long the leeks have to cook to get soft. When the potatoes are soft add them AND their cooking water to the pot that has the cooking leeks. About 3 minutes before this happens add the garlic to the leeks.

Let the leeks and potatoes cook for about 10 minutes than add the milk, thyme and salt and cook another 15 minutes. For a nice thick soup I put about 1/3 of the soup through a blender or food processor right before serving.


What's in the Share This Week

Potatoes-around a 1.5 pounds of mixed taters
Eggplant-black and purple and probably some of the mini white and purple striped aubergines
Green beans-about a pound of blue lake green beans
Tomatoes-a pound of mixed cherry types and fewer than 4 pounds of the big maters. I am giving you guys a break from tomato overwhelmation.
Leeks-2 leeks this week. the leeks are huge and wonderful, the best fall leeks we have ever grown.
Onion-two pounds of a mix of red onions and sweet onions.
Raspberries-A 1/2 pint of yummy red raspberries from our everbearing heritage plants, as opposed to the summer bearing latham plants that gave us such abundance in June and July
Mystery Greens-these are coming up in the fall white Russian kale. We have no idea what they are or where they came from but they are tasty-they seem to be a very mild mustard and would good either raw or lightly steamed
Thyme-a small bunch of thyme
Arugula-at least 1/4 pound of arugula this week, probably more as we have two beds producing it at the moment.
Garlic-3 corms of our hard necked garlic
Peppers-mostly purple peppers this week as the green peppers are beginning to ripen and I want to leave as many on the plants to get ripe as possible

Greetings,

It's Tuesday once again-time to begin another farm share cycle-week 21.

It's busy here at at the farm-lots of harvesting, weeding, tilling and planting going on to get ready for fall/winter growing/sales. I have had several folks ask what we will have this fall. it seems way too many people assume once school starts (which is now the start of autumn, even though school starts earlier and earlier each year and is actually starting in late summer-Fall comes the last 10 days of September) that we small farmers stop producing and roll up our fields and go somewhere for the winter. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is come fall we have more food than at any other time of the year. Not only will we have all the summer items until the first frosts of the season kill them (and even than we should have tomatoes, peppers and a few other warm weather crops thriving in our hoop houses until November or even December-season extension is one of our specialties, after all) but we will add to that all the things we had in spring plus winter squash, parsnips, leeks, celeriac, celery, pears, etc.. The variety of food we will produce from mid September through late November is pretty amazing-around 45 to 50 different kinds of food
lots of food

tomatoes
peppers
onions
leeks
garlic
chard
kale
spring mix
lettuce
arugula
Mizuna
Red Mustard
a variety of winter squashes-butternut, acorn and others
zucchini
carrots
rutabagas
radishes
 basil
sage
tarragon
oregano
thyme
horseradish
parsley
celery
celeraic
potatoes
parsnips
scallions
snow peas
sugars snap peas
asian greens
broccoli
pears
raspberries
strawberries
popcorn
honey
garlic powder
cilantro
green beans
eggplant
ginger
melons ( if Eugene decides to plant a late crop in a hoop house and it doesn't freeze too badly-about 1 year in 3 we can grow these into late fall/early winter)

And we are not the only farm producing so much in the fall-most farms that go to farmers markets will have lots and lots of produce available at least through the killing frosts and more and more are jumping on the season extension band wagon and have fresh and local produce most of the winter. this leads me to the question any of you want to sign up for our winter share program? I have asked before and would like to know if anyone wants to be a locavore into January?

Onto another subject-we are having a big farm tour this Sunday from 3 to 6pm if you have never been to a pot luck/farm tour here this is one of your best opportunities to learn a lot more about the farm that grows your food. This is a major component of being in a CSA-visiting the farm. Most people (like 99.999% of the eating public) never get a chance to visit any of the farms that supply their food. This has lead to a deep disconnect between eater and farm that has in turn, lead to a more and more dangerous and nutritionless food supply. By joining the farm share program you have indicated that you are well aware of this fact (God, I hope no one is doing this simply because it is "in" right now to be a locavore-that is about the worst reason to join a CSA type program). I feel that farm visits (more than coming to pick up food, though that is going a lot further than most people, at least you can see the farm and see that it actually exists and grows food) are very important. That it is this component more than any other that sets the CSA movement apart from say shopping at a farm stand or farmers market. Add to that,  the fact most farms do not allow the public onto their land for a variety of reasons.  Sunday you have the opportunity to see your farmers in action leading a big regional tour (something we have not done in several years but in the past did well). This will be educational and entertaining. be there or be square

If you have any friends or colleagues who might be interested in trying out our farm share program we have about 8 opening for September/October. Let 'em know what we are about.

Oh yeah before I forget-I was cleaning out a freezer in order to get ready for our poultry harvest next week and found several shrink wrapped ODA inspected cornish hens. We have 5 for sale at $10 ea (they are about 2.5 pounds on average). Yes they are expensive but this will be absolutely the best chicken you have ever had. I also have 1 pound containers of gizzards for a buck a container (makes good pet food) and several packages of chicken backs for $3 each-these are great for making stock or pet food (I use them for stock personally) each package has 4 backs. Let me know this week or before NEXT TUESDAY (the new chickens will be processed next Tuesday and I will need the room by around 4pm that day). To reserve your chicken just reply to this email ASAP, tell me what you want and pick it up when you pick up your share.

Before I forget, September has 5 Tuesdays in it. Everyone who has not signed up for the entire season and paid in full (and picks up on Tuesday) will not get a share Next Tuesday Sept 1st and will resume the following Tuesday Sept 8th

Recipe

Fruit smoothie
various fruit-raspberries, bananas, melon, strawberries, etc..
1 cup orange juice
2 cups yogurt
Honey to taste (probably 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Put everything into a blender and blend until smooth.

If you want to make this alcoholic omit the yogurt and add about 1/4 cup of a good rum and 1 cup of ice. This is even better if you use frozen fruit (if you are going the alcohol route and use frozen fruit omit the ice). Makes about 4 cups.


What's in the Share This Week

Red raspberries-2 1/2 pints of fall berries
Garlic-2 or 3 corms of garlic
Scallions-a bunch of green onions
Melon-I believe you will get a red watermelon but it might be a cantaloupe instead (but I am about 95% it will be watermelon)
Blackberries-1/2 pint of blackberries
Basil-1/4 pound bag of basil
Parsley-1/4 pound of parsley
Tomatoes-week two of tomato madness-expect at least 8 pounds of a mix of heirloom tomatoes, like last week.
Peppers-several green and purple peppers.
Rutabaga-the harvest is in and these are very nice-you will get a nice big one this week
Cucumber-several nice lemon cukes this weeks
Shallots-a hand full of shallots




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

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

It's week 16 of the farm Share initiative for many of you. Many CSA type programs go for less time than that. And here we do our Farm Share Initiative virtually year round. And that brings me to the question, are any of you interested in a winter farm Share? I am thinking charging $100 per month for two pick-ups a month. This would probably run 3 months. The shares would be quite a bit larger than what you get in summer. Something like 50% to 75% larger. Right now I don't know how many members we could supply for this as we are just beginning to harvest some winter items and other have not even been planted yet (that is done August and September) And yet other things like winter squashes are just beginning to set fruit. There is no rush on this as this program would not start until mid November but is something to think about.

It is very dry here. We have gotten basically zero rain since July 4th (and that was not a great big rain). The farm still is green and things are growing. I would not say it is exactly thriving at this point but things are a long way from dying. We do irrigate but that is no replacement for a amount good rainfall. Also our pump is giving us problems and kicks off on a whim. This has started happening several times a day and means Eugene must spend about 1/2 hour getting it to run again every time it kicks off. I think we are looking at a new pump in the very near future which will be costly but we can replace the pump we currently have with one that is designed to pump 75K+ gallons of water a day.

Yeah, a small farm uses a lot of water and we are using the most efficient method for delivering water to the plants-drip irrigation under mulch. Imagine how much water bigger farms that use those big sprinklers use. Sprinklers get about 50% of the water to the plants vs drip irrigation that gets 95% of the water to the plants. The rest of the water evaporates into the air. Wotta a waste and yet this is how most farms in the USA irrigate their farms (but the big commodities, corn and soy, are rarely irrigated). Generally, only smaller farms use drip irrigation, probably because of the difficulties of setting up a system for a 100+ acre farm. But this can be done. I was told about 13 years ago that row covers are useless on all but the smallest farms and now they are routinely used on large fruit and vegetable farms. I suspect soon we will start seeing the big produce farms out in California making use of a lot of drip irrigation and other water saving techniques as they are in a huge drought and have been pretty much banned from using what water is left.

So I have a problem with you all (but it's a good problem). It is getting harder and harder to keep your shares down to 8 to 12 items as we are going into the season of great bounty and food diversity. I want you all to sample everything we grow. This week you get 13 items and may end up with 14. I know some of you will welcome an increase in food but I have been doing this CSA thing long enough to know most members have a bit of difficulty using everything in their share and feel great "food guilt"  if they cannot use all of their share. So I keep it limited to no more than 12 to 15 items. If we were to go the route of truly giving you equal shares in the market garden and did not have other markets you guys would be getting something like 150 pounds of food a week and in August that would double (or even triple). And this is with, say, 40 members. The first year did a CSA this is exactly what we did and it overwhelmed our members and everybody quit. I remember the shares generally weighed about 40 pounds. The market garden was about 1 acre and we had no real idea about what we are doing as we had been farming for less than 5 years at the time. Now we know what we are doing, have a lot bigger garden on much better land and are able to produce far more per acre than we could 11 years ago.

Thanks to all of you who have brought reusable bags. I believe we are at about 1/3 of the members now-lets get to 100% by the end of the month.

Recipe
Mashed Taters with Garlic

1 to 2 pounds of pontiac red taters
1/2 cup 1/2 and 1/2
butter
1 to 2 cloves of garlic
salt to taste

Wash the potatoes and cut into largish pieces, peel the skins if you want. Put into a pan of cold water and and bring to a boil. When they are cooked through and soft mash them with a potato masher or a potato ricer if you are lucky enough to own one. Never use a food processor to mash taters, you will get a glue like substance that is pretty inedible. Add the garlic by either putting it through a press or my favorite way using a micro-planer to finely grate it straight into the taters. next add the butter, incorporate, than the 1/2 and 1/2 than the salt. The taters are now ready to serve


Here is what is in this week's share

Tomatoes- you get about 2 pounds of small red and yellow tomatoes, the same kinds as last week
Snow peas-this should be the last of the snow peas. the vines started producing again, i guess because it has been so cool
Garlic-2 corms of hard necked garlic
Strawberries-yummy berries
Zucchini-a mixed bag of zukes from the bright yellow patty pan to the lively green striped Costata Romanesque
Chard-a nice bag of bright lights chard
Red Giant Mustard/kale-The red giant mustard you find in our spring mix, eventually it will insist on growing to full size and that is when I cut it for mustard-this is sweet and peppery, just like a really good Chinese mustard (which it is). Thursday Shares get a kale medley
Ailsa Craig Onion-a wonderful mild sweet onion. This onion is named for the big rock in Scotland which is where the british open was played this past week.  they can get up to 5 pounds in size though it looks like our biggest will be about 2 pounds. This is best used raw in salads or on sandwiches. When cooked they get rather insipid. In a couple of months you will start to get good cooking onions in your shares
Green pepper-you will get a couple of green peppers this week.
Potatoes-1.5 to 2 pounds of  mainly Pontiac red potatoes
Tarragon-herb of the week
Garlic chives-these have a wonderful garlic flavor
Haricot verts-these are a true french filet bean. very delicate. Cook for no more than 7 minutes. You get about 1/2 pound.