Moraine Farm CSA

The Moraine Farm CSA farmers (Gretta, Amy and Rebekah) have  put together a November share that we think you’ll like.  In designing the share we looked at the storage crops we have in abundance, the vegetables that will be in the fields in mid-November and imagined a meal we would love to prepare and eat.

November Share Details

Cost is $45 

Distribution day is Wednesday, November 16

Pick up time is from 1:00 to 7:00 pm

Location: 735 Cabot Street, Beverly

To purchase a November share fill out this brief sign up form (http://tinyurl.com/MFCSA-NovShare) and mail your payment to Moraine Farm CSA, 733 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA 01915.

Here is what we plan to put in the November share:

Beets, butternut squash, carrots, celeriac, cipolinni onions, escarole, kale or collard greens, leeks, lettuce, onions, parsley and sage, parsnips, pie pumpkin, potatoes, purple top turnips, radicchio, spinach, sweet potato, and winter radishes. There might be a few fun surprises, like the cauliflower and parsley root that are taking their sweet time to size up. Remember, we are working with mother nature, so there may be other surprises as well!

Here’s the meal we would prepare with these veggies

Roasted Roots: beets, carrots, parsnips, onion, leek, purple top turnips, celeriac tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley to season

Caramelized Cipolinni Onions

Risotto with butternut squash and leeks

Radicchio, brushed with olive oil and topped with Harmony, a Valley View Farm cheese, placed under the broiler for two minutes

Sauteed greens- (escarole, collard or kale) and garlic sautéed in olive oil, add dash of balsamic vinegar

Lettuce and spinach salad garnished with sliced winter radishes, carrot and beet shavings

Sweet potato pie

Mashed potatoes with leeks

It was fun to plan the share around what’s available at the farm mid-November and a menu we like. We’d love to know how you plan to use your share - send me your menu ideas and recipes!

Gretta

P.S. 2012 Moraine Farm CSA shares are now on sale. Check out TTOR's Moraine Farm page for details: http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/csas/moraine-farm/about-moraine-farm/

Cooler than usual nights and a frost warning, had us scurrying squirrel-like about the farm last week, bringing in tons of crops and making room for them in the greenhouse and barns.

All of our winter squashes (delicata, kabocha, butternut and buttercup varieties) are out of the field and curing in the greenhouse or in the Ag Barn. Except for the delicata, our winter squashes will benefit from a period of curing (holding at room temperature for 10 to 20 days). Curing increases storage life and sweetens them up.  Winter squashes, including pie pumpkins, will appear in the farm share later this month.

Fearing that frost would prematurely end our tomato and pepper harvests, we picked as many of these as we could. They will slowly mature in the safety and warmth of the old red barn and will be distributed in the shares this week. Our paste tomatoes, which were meant to be harvested at the end of this month, will be protected with row cover if the temperatures drop again.

Our cool-season crops are happy as pigs in mud. Our fall plantings of broccoli, collard greens, napa cabbage, arugula, leeks and spinach are practically singing with joy.  We have some seriously beautiful veggies to harvest for the CSA this fall.

The organizations that own and steward the land at Moraine Farm are hosting an Open House on October 1 from 10:00 to 3:00.  There will be tours of the CSA fields, Project Adventure’s Challenge Course, and the Cape Ann Waldorf School.  The CSA will have a little farmstand in the old Red Barn at which we will be selling produce grown on the farm – winter squash, leeks, carrots, beets, whatever else we have in abundance. A National Park Service Guide will give a presentation on this Olmstead landscaped property at 11:00 and 1:00.  We encourage you to bring a picnic and spend some time on this lovely piece of land. This first Open House promises to be a wonderful event and a great way to be introduced to the entire property. I hope you can make it.

 

 

Hello All!

I don’t usually write on the blog but allow me to introduce myself. My name is Rebekah and I am one of the apprentices at Moraine Farm this year. On this rainy morning I have the wonderful opportunity to tell you about the flowers we have available for sale in the CSA distribution area. Perhaps you have seen their array of colors waving at you in the wind as you drove up to pick up your share?

 I have always enjoyed flowers and was able to plant zinnias and sunflowers in an empty bed this year.  Their wildly vivid colors have attracted swallowtail butterflies, bumble bees, and the occasional hummingbird. Though I could just sit and watch them all day that would be a bit selfish. That’s why we are going to be offering cut flowers for sale by the stem. You can pick out your favorite hot pink zinnia for a thin-necked vase or gather up a whole bouquet to fill your home with color. Whichever way you choose, the flowers can only add to the appreciation one has for our natural world.

As for the logistics of these flowers-for-sale, they are $.25 for 1 stem (for now we are only offering the two zinnia varieties) and will be located in white buckets near where you pick up Appleton Farm’s meat. This year is the trial run for these flowers as we are hoping to develop the flower side of our CSA next year. As such, we would greatly appreciate any thoughts, questions, and opinions you may have about your flower-ful experience. Thanks so much for your support and see you around the farm!

Rebekah Zimmerer, Moraine Farm CSA apprentice

Dear Shareholders,

Good job with sending those wishes for rain out to the Universe. The farm really needed some moisture. We have enough now.  You can stop asking for rain, at least for a week or so.

Your very wet farmers,

Gretta, Amy and Rebekah (Kim's on vacation this week!)

The share this week includes some very wet (and muddy - sorry!) lettuce, Swiss chard, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, herbs, slicing tomatoes, sungold cherry tomatoes and sweet, sweet melon -canteloupe or an Asian specialty melon called Sun Jewel. Watermelon are almost ready! Raccoon have found the corn, so it looks unlikely that we'll see any more of it in the share.

Apprentice Amy Cook approached me last week, in some distress, saying, "Belle isn't okay. Something's wrong with her. She just dies when I step on the clutch."

Those of you who know me well, know that I'm very fond of my 33 hp Massey Fergusson tractor, Belle. Very fond of her. After a year of managing a one-acre market garden with a walk-behind tractor and two carpel tunnel surgeries, Belle came to my rescue, making it possible for me to continue to farm. This year we're using her at Moraine Farm. The thought that she might be disabled was troubling, so I headed out to the Ag Barn to take a look at her.

I looked her over, opened the hood, jiggled wires, opened the air filter, checked the oil, inspected the fuel line. Started her up and drove around. Revved her engine. Let her idle. Raised and lowered the bucket to see how she did under a load. Fine. She did just fine.

Hmmm. Hmmm. I turned her off. Walked around her, gently kicked one of the tires and talked with her. "Amy doesn't make things up, Belle. You weren't working for her. What's up? What's your problem?" No answer. I got back on Belle, turned her on and sat there thinking. "What was Amy doing when you stopped?" I turned to look over my shoulder, as Amy would have when she was attaching the mower to Belle. I looked down. Belle sputtered.

Oh. I couldn't stop grinning as I drove Belle out to where Amy was weeding the parsnips.

"Amy, no worries. Belle is just fine, but you need to eat more ice cream. A lot of it."

Although big in spirit, Amy is one of the most petite farmers you'll ever meet. When she lifts up just a tad to look over her shoulder at the three-point hitch or to push the clutch in, just enough of her weight comes off the seat to make Belle think she's gone. Belle is wired to shut down when she thinks the farmer has left her seat.

So, Amy needs to eat more ice cream. A lot of it. And to that end, we will be getting a freezer in the Ag Barn this week. Donations in support of Amy's farming career will gladly be accepted.

(P.S. We'll soon be selling Appleton Farms grown beef - the real reason for the freezer! Stay tuned for more news about this new venture.)

See you at the farm,

Gretta

A yearling doe has discovered that she can jump through the strands of our electric fence and help herself to a tasty meal of local produce. She's eaten the small planting of green beans in the S. Raspberry field and started to nibble on tomatoes. I surprised her in the cherry tomatoes Thursday night around 9 PM. She seemed offended, and disbelieving, when I yelled at her to get out. Upon my first holler, "Get out! You can't eat this food, it belongs to others!", she bounded away from me about 30 feet. Then she looked back as if to ask, "Are you sure this garden isn't meant for me?" I yelled again, "Out! Out! Out!" and ran towards her. Graceful as could be, she leapt through the electric fence without even brushing against it.

Moraine Farm farmland seems to be a corridor for deer moving from the wooded area around the lake and the J.C. Phillips Nature Preserve. The sight of deer running across the fields, the road, down to our pond and out toward Cabot Street is a common one. We've grown used to driving cautiously down the farm road, knowing that deer may come bounding across it at any time.

This wasn't our first meeting. Since early spring, our doe and a young male companion have have grazed in the field between S. Raspberry and Iowa. I've not seen the yearling buck in the last few weeks, but this doe has been a fairly constant companion during our morning harvests. Occasionally she stands at the northernmost corner of Iowa, watching as we work.  At first I thought she was just curious about us human critters, up so early in the morning, bent over food. Maybe she thought we were grazing.

I found her inside the fence surrounding Iowa three weeks ago. She was nibbling a buckwheat cover crop. I shooed her away and redoubled our efforts to keep the electric fence baited. The goal behind baiting the electric fence -- smearing it at regular intervals with peanut butter -- is to tempt the deer to make contact with the fence with its nose or tongue. A sharp electric shock "trains" the deer that it is best to stay away from the area. If the deer makes contact with other parts of its body, its hide prevents it from feeling a shock.

Since our crops went into the ground, and the deer fence went up, we've been diligent in keeping it baited with peanut butter. We keep the area under the fence mowed so that weeds don't short out the electric circuit.  We keep the fence on except when we are passing through it or working inside it.

What's next? I am searching for someone with a border collie who might help the doe feel unwelcome in our fields and perhaps help her find some other trail to get to where she's going. I think this is going to be an uphill battle. As you know, Moraine Farm veggies are delicious.

See you at the farm!

Gretta (for Amy, Rebekah and Kim)

The cherry tomatoes are ready for picking! Yahoo! The first planting is  variety called "Sun Gold". It's gold when ripe and the sweetest cherry tomato you'll ever taste.

Looks like the first pick will be this week.  We won't know until Monday morning how many cherry tomatoes you'll get to pick. Might just be a taste, but you can expect an abundant harvest soon. Here's what you need to know to take full advantage of our pick-your-own cherry tomatoes:

First, go to the CSA distribution area in the Ag Barn and sign-in. You will find information there about the Pick-Your-Own crop: The location of the crop and how much you can pick.

Location: Follow the signs!

From the Ag Barn, cross the parking lot, walk between the two greenhouses, through the electric deer fence gate (gate will be open and electricity off). Stay on the dirt road until you get to the big grassy road in the middle of the field.

Turn LEFT at the big grassy road. Look for the sign: It will say something like "Cherry Tomatoes!!!!! Pick from these three beds. Please don't stray into other beds of tomatoes or veggies. Please just pick the cherry toms from the three marked beds and don't wander into the other plantings."

Picking cherry tomatoes:  Start at the bottom of the plant - that's where the ripest tomatoes will be. Tomatoes that have just begun to turn gold (Sun Gold variety), or red (Sun Cherry and Black Cherry varieties) will ripen in a day or two.

Eating them: I recommend that you give the tomatoes a quick wash before you eat them. They've been in the company of birds that like to perch on the tomato stakes.

What's the big deal about wandering in the tomato plantings? Glad you asked! The fungal diseases that will kill our tomatoes are carried on clothing (and air, animals, soil ....). To get a good and long tomato harvest this season, the farm crew works hard to minimize the spread of disease. [We never enter a new planting after we've been in an older planting of tomatoes. The older the planting, the greater the likelihood it will have some diseased leaves. We wear clean clothing - clothing that's been washed since it was last in the tomatoes. We never go into the tomatoes when the leaves are wet. We work to keep the weeds down and the tomatoes tied up. This increases air circulation and slows the spread of disease.] We ask that you not wander into other tomato plantings because we are trying to minimize the risk of disease spreading to the tomatoes we have in store for you later in the season.

Hmmm, I bet your thinking, "Jeez, this farmer's kind of particular about her tomatoes."  You'd be right about that. And I'm excited about sharing what promises to be a bountiful tomato harvest with you!

Enjoy the harvest!

Gretta (for Amy, Rebekah and Kim)

I love to read the writings of other farmers. There's a talented bunch of organic growers in Massachusetts, and more than a few of them can write. I spent part of the day Sunday catching up on my farmer reading. Thought you might enjoy adding some of these blogs to your summer reading list.

Amanda Cather, Farm Manager at Waltham Fields Community Farm is a talented and thoughtful farmer and a really wonderful writer. Her writing can be found in the weekly farm newsletter. In her most recent posting she addresses the question that most farmers ask themselves in July: Why do I farm?  She references another article by farmer Chris Y, entitled Why Farm?, a summary of a farmer discussion in 2003.

Dan Kaplan, Brookfield Farm in Amherst, has been farming a long time. It's always worthwhile to see what he's got to say. Check out Brookfield's Shoptalk newsletter.

I like reading what Jonathan at the Dover Farm is thinking about. It seems he's always thinking about time and using big, fun words.

Gretta

 

Basil Risotto (uses sage)

Roasted Potatoes with Fried Sage and Brown Butter (scroll down the page for the recipe)

Fried Sage Leaves

Four Parsley recipes: Tabouli, Parsley Pesto, Parsley-Scallion-Dill Dip and Cannellini Bean Salad

If you are new to this herb, you might find this Wikepedia article about Summer Savory of interest. I love to add Summer Savory leaves to beans and fish.

I'd love to hear how you use the herbs in your CSA share!

Gretta

Some of my favorite beets, eggplant, and summer squash:

Beets and Carmelized Onions with Feta

Beet Bundt Cake

Vegetable Couscous, Goat Cheese and Beets (you will find some good suggestions to improve this recipe if you read the reviews)

Vegetarian Mousakka

Zucchini Fritatta

Zucchini Fritters 

Raw Zucchini Salad with Basil and Lemon

Shareholder Joan Johnson sent me simple recipes for beets and chard. As you'll see, Joan likes the Moraine Farm beets!

We hope you are getting as much pleasure from the harvest as Joan is!

Gretta (for Amy, Rebekah and Kim)

 

I've been tasting an ear of corn a day for the last five days to determine if it's ready for harvest. It's one of those onerous responsibilities that comes with being a Farm Manager :-) On Friday, my taste buds told me that our  first batch of sweet corn is ready!

We planted three small crops of sweet corn on May 24, June 8 and July 4. Just enough corn for everyone to have a few ears and for me to see if sweet corn is a crop that we can include in our yearly crop planning. Organically-grown corn is an expensive crop to grow. It requires a lot of fertility (150 pounds of nitrogern per acre!), super-vigilant weed management, adequate water supply and ....... either very tolerant-of-pest shareholders or exceptional luck with pest management.

CEW (corn ear worm) and ECB (European corn borer) are the most frequent pests of sweet corn. Conventional and IPM farmers have an array of pesticides to combat these unwelcome bugs. Those of us growing without synthetic chemicals have a limited arsenal of weapons. Here is a very nice article on the challenges of growing organic sweet corn.

The corn pest management at Moraine Farm includes three releases of the T. ostriniae wasp and applications of corn oil and Bt with a Zea-Later.  In spite of these pest control efforts, please expect to find caterpillars in the tips of your corn. Check the stem-end, too - that where the ECB often enters the ear.

See you at the farm!

Gretta (for Amy, Rebekah and Kim)

Wish I could tell you that's the sound of our drip irrigation system working well, but it isn't. It's the sound of your farmers sweating. Harvest this morning was challenging - the heat and humidity were crazy! Harvest began at 5:30 and ended in record time: your veggies were being cooled by 8:30. By 10:00 we were looking for a shaded place to rest.

Not much good news on the drip irrigation front. The pond from which we pull our irrigation water is very silty. The filter the water flows through becomes saturated with pond goo quickly and stops working. Well, there is some good news: rumor has it that tomatoes grown witihout irrigation are really tasty!

This week our CSA share includes: Fennel, cabbage, carrots, herbs, cooking greens (Swiss Chard, Kale), lettuce, scallions, a choice of roots (kohlrabi, beets, salad turnips). Fennel may be new to a number of you, so here are a few recipes you might consider:

Baked Fennel with Gorgonzola, from my friends Chris and Christy at White Barn Farm in Wrentham, MA. Grilled Fennel and Pasta with Golden Fennel, from the folks at Waltham Fields Community Farm, in Waltham, MA. Couscous with Fennel and Pinenuts, from epicurious.com

Critter Report  There is a lot of wildlife on the farm these days. In addition to the snapping turtles (and incubating eggs!), there's at least one beautiful white egret who makes its home in our pond, two young deer who graze our cover crops, a snake that lives under the farm road in the irrigation pipe and a flock of wild turkeys that roam the fields and forest. We've also got a large number of Colorado potato beetles, cucumber beetles and wire worms.

Our first CSA gathering and work morning is scheduled for this Saturday morning, July 9, 9:00 to noon. Join us at the picnic tables at 9:00. The picnic tables are on your right just as you get to the Ag Barn. Park in our new parking lot next to the Ag Barn.. Bring a picnic lunch if you'd like to dine with us. Please let me know if you plan to join us this Saturday. Just send me an email at GAnderson@ttor.org.

We hope you are enjoying the harvest!

Gretta (for Amy, Rebekah and Kim)

Looks like there will more choice than ever in the Week 4 CSA share. Thank you mother nature! Here's what we think will be on offer this week: Lettuce; endive; scallions; carrots; herbs; chard or kale;  salad turnips, kohlrabi or beets.

Our carrots are a tiny early season variety called "Mokum". Endive, the curly variety we grow, is a chicory - a bitter green best served with a strong cheese or baked or cooked. I had a pizza last week that was topped with endive and parmesean and mozzerella. It was sooooo good!

Here's a quick plug for a community farm recipe wiki that I've been supporting for a number  of years. The Shared Harvest Recipe Wiki is sponsored by the Newton Community Farm. CSA shareholders from many CSA farms in eastern Massachusetts can share recipes using this site. I love it for a number of reasons.

>It's a collaborative effort, tapping the enthusiasm and resources of shareholders in our farming community.

>It offers a larger experience of community than is available on a single CSA farm. There is a strong and supportive CSA farming community in this part of the state. The Shared Harvest Recipe Wiki offers our shareholders the possibility of community across the farm fences!

 >It provides CSA farmers relief from the work of searching out recipes each week. (Yes, many of us love to cook, but really, we'd rather be farming this time of year!)

So much food! I had hoped to sell 200 CSA shares this year. To date, eighty CSA shares have been sold. A late start and limited time for marketing CSA shares has left us with a lot of produce and a significant revenue deficit. To generate more revenue, I plan to sell Late Summer CSA Shares. These shares run from the first week in August until the last week in October and cost $300 for TTOR members, $350 for nonTTOR members. No, I'm not trying to sell you another CSA share! The Late Summer CSA is simply an abbreviated full-season CSA. If you know folks who missed the CSA boat so far this season, please let them know about this opportunity. Information about it will be posted to our web site and the blog soon.

While I am searching for other markets and ways to meet our revenue goals, I am loath to waste good food. We've begun harvesting produce for donation. The Open Door Food Pantry comes to the farm once a week to pick up produce harvested specifically for their food pantry, mobile markets and food programs. I've chosen to work with them because they have the capacity to use and distribute all the produce we can supply. Their ability to provide boxes for the produce and to come directly to the farm greatly reduces the cost to the farm of these donations. To date, we've donated over $1,300 of top-quality, just-harvested, organically-grown produce to the Open Door Food Pantry. If you would like more details about our produce donations, let me know. 

CSA Community Gathering; Help Needed On Saturday, July 9, come to Moraine Farm at 9:00 AM to meet your farmers and to lend a helpful hand.  Park in the CSA parking lot and join us at the picnic tables for some conversation. We'll get busy on various projects by 9:30 and stop for lunch at 12:00.

There are a number of projects needing to be tackled this season. If you have any of the skills listed below, and are willing to share them with us, give me a call. We have all the equipment that's needed, we're just short on time! Do you know how to:

*Drive a tractor?  I'd like to disk about 8 acres of winter rye and plant some of it to buckwheat now and peas and oats in early fall

*Use a hammer and saw? We need a few more benches and tables built for our CSA distribution area. We'd love a big compost bin, perhaps something built out of the pallets we've been collecting.

*Paint?  The end walls of our greenhouse really need to be painted or stained - it will help to preserve the wood

*Bait an electric deer fence? I'm looking for volunteers to help us keep our deer fences baited with peanut butter. As the demands of the farming season increase, it becomes more and more difficult to find time for this very important task. This involves walking the perimeter of the fence with a jar of peanut butter and a roll of aluminum foil.

*Weed wack? We use a string trimmer under the deer fence. This is a task that needs to be done weekly July through early September.

*Move small rocks? We've still got a boat load of rocks to move from our fields. The tire tracks between rows of eggplant and peppers are littered with rocks that make it difficult to walk safely.

*Move big rocks? We've got at least two big ones that need to be dug out of the field.

Lastly, we're looking for donations to help us with our work. Let me know if you have any of these items and would like to donate them to the farm.

*used back packs (for carrying tomato twine while we tie tomatoes)

*used bikes (2 or 3) for getting around the farm

*five gallon, food grade buckets (great for harvesting tomatoes)

*old single-wheel wheelbarrows with or without the bin

 

That's all the news I've got for now. See you at the farm!

Gretta