18 Aug Tue 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative week 19
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
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
Lucy
07:58 AM EDT
07 Aug Fri 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 18
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
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
Lucy
05:26 PM EDT
31 Jul Fri 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 17
It's week 17 of the farm share initiative and things are going along pretty well here. So far (knock wood) we have had a great growing season. Despite being way down on rain for this year things are growing, likely because the cool temps and many cloudy days have prevented a lot of evaporation of water from the soil. this has meant great crops for a lot of things. I am a bit worried about the tomatoes and eggplant. Both are showing signs of blight. Some tomato plants have succumbed to it already and other likely will. But not all the plants have it and I believe we will get a decent tomato crop despite blight being around. I don't believe it is the type that has been going around the Eastern US thanks to blighted box store maters being sold this spring. I believe it is the blight we usually get which uglifies the plants, does reduce yields (but not enough to keep us all from getting sick of tomatoes by October) and eventually kills the plants. And, for insurance, we have planted a fall crop of maters-about 100 plants that should be ready to harvest the beginning of October.
The eggplant I know we will get some fruits because I see growing fruits. But I can also see that the plants that give us the big black bell type aubergines are hit hard with blight and likely will not produce well and probably will have to be ripped out of the ground in the next couple of weeks. That said, we grow several different kinds of eggplant and the other types seem to be in great condition
We are beginning to get watermelons. You will not see any this week but should next week. Cantaloupes may also be ready next week. Because of the cool dry weather we have not had the insect population of past years so the melons and squashes are doing quite well. Though, because of the cool weather the flavor in the melons may not be the best (or it could be the best ever, you really never know with melons). Generally the best flavor comes from hot dry conditions. We have had the dry but not the heat.
It has been a terrific bean year. We have not had such good yields in a long time (as well as high quality-man the beans are yummy). Yesterday I harvested 2 bushels of blue lake green beans. If you want extra beans to can/freeze we have them for $20 for a 10 pound sack of them. Let me know this morning (before 1pm ) and I will fix you up a bag with your name on it, just leave the money on the counter. I freeze beans and this is easy to do. trim the ends, than blanch for 1 minute in boiling water. Cool ASAP, spin dry in a salad spinner (or blot with a clean towel) and load into a freezer bag and freeze and than in january you can have locally grown beans for dinner and a bit of food security.
It is the end of the month and I need payment from some of you. Leave cash or check on the counter when you pick up your share this week, or send a check to PO Box 593, Eaton, OH 45320
Next week (not this week) we are doing one of our big events-The 127 Yard Sale, The World's Longest Yard Sale. This happens Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Aug 6, 7, 8 and 9. If you pick up on Thursday or Friday you will encounter hundreds of people on the farm shopping at our several vendor's stands, as well as our store. You may want to give yourselves extra time to check out all the vendors and see if there is anything you like. Your shares will be harvested and packed on Wednesday because I will have no time to do this Thursday ( I will barely have time on Wed either but at least I won't have to deal with customers, just set up and dealing with vendors coming in and setting up). The other change will be that your shares will not be in the front fridge. I don't know where they will be but I will definitely be around and will know by the 6th where I have put them.
If you have things to sell we have spaces for $10 a day. We get literally thousands of people stopping over the course of the is event and this year should be bigger than past years as more and more Yard Salers are coming into Ohio and I have gotten the word out about the Boulder Belt Sale on the official 127 Yard Sale websites
Recipe
From member Jim Latham
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
2 tablespoons Hellman's mayonnaise
3-4 cloves of the fresh garlic ( more or less to taste as it can be really hot on the tongue)
2 tablespoons homemade chive blossom, white, balsamic, or red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt - regular works fine
sprig of any of the fresh herbs in the share
Peel the garlic cloves and coarse chop
Place garlic, sour cream, mayo, salt, and herbs in blender or food processor - we use a hand blender and measuring cup
Puree the ingredients together adding the vinegar a little at a time until you get a smooth, slightly fluffy cream dressing
Keeps for 4-5 days in covered jar in fridge
Use over cucumber slices, fresh tomatoes, raw baby squash, fresh salad greens. It is also quite tasty on baked potatoes or a in place of mayo on grilled burgers.
What's in the shares this week
Shallots-3 to 4 shallots
Haricot Verts- true French Filet beans and because of great yields you get a full pound this week
Blue Lake Green Beans-the classic green bean, 1.75 pounds this week. And if you need more for putting up let me know ASAP.
Tomatoes-a mix of mainly reds- Matina (small) and Glick's Pride (bigger). Around 2 pounds or so.
Green Peppers-2 to 3 peppers this week
Scallions-a bunch of scallions
Basil-1/4 pound
Garlic-1 clove of each type we sell for a total of 3 garlics
Chard-a 1/2 pound or better of bright lights chard
There may well be other items in your shares such as lemon cukes or even a melon but I have not been out yet today to see if we have enough ready to cover all the shares.
Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com
The eggplant I know we will get some fruits because I see growing fruits. But I can also see that the plants that give us the big black bell type aubergines are hit hard with blight and likely will not produce well and probably will have to be ripped out of the ground in the next couple of weeks. That said, we grow several different kinds of eggplant and the other types seem to be in great condition
We are beginning to get watermelons. You will not see any this week but should next week. Cantaloupes may also be ready next week. Because of the cool dry weather we have not had the insect population of past years so the melons and squashes are doing quite well. Though, because of the cool weather the flavor in the melons may not be the best (or it could be the best ever, you really never know with melons). Generally the best flavor comes from hot dry conditions. We have had the dry but not the heat.
It has been a terrific bean year. We have not had such good yields in a long time (as well as high quality-man the beans are yummy). Yesterday I harvested 2 bushels of blue lake green beans. If you want extra beans to can/freeze we have them for $20 for a 10 pound sack of them. Let me know this morning (before 1pm ) and I will fix you up a bag with your name on it, just leave the money on the counter. I freeze beans and this is easy to do. trim the ends, than blanch for 1 minute in boiling water. Cool ASAP, spin dry in a salad spinner (or blot with a clean towel) and load into a freezer bag and freeze and than in january you can have locally grown beans for dinner and a bit of food security.
It is the end of the month and I need payment from some of you. Leave cash or check on the counter when you pick up your share this week, or send a check to PO Box 593, Eaton, OH 45320
Next week (not this week) we are doing one of our big events-The 127 Yard Sale, The World's Longest Yard Sale. This happens Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Aug 6, 7, 8 and 9. If you pick up on Thursday or Friday you will encounter hundreds of people on the farm shopping at our several vendor's stands, as well as our store. You may want to give yourselves extra time to check out all the vendors and see if there is anything you like. Your shares will be harvested and packed on Wednesday because I will have no time to do this Thursday ( I will barely have time on Wed either but at least I won't have to deal with customers, just set up and dealing with vendors coming in and setting up). The other change will be that your shares will not be in the front fridge. I don't know where they will be but I will definitely be around and will know by the 6th where I have put them.
If you have things to sell we have spaces for $10 a day. We get literally thousands of people stopping over the course of the is event and this year should be bigger than past years as more and more Yard Salers are coming into Ohio and I have gotten the word out about the Boulder Belt Sale on the official 127 Yard Sale websites
Recipe
From member Jim Latham
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
2 tablespoons Hellman's mayonnaise
3-4 cloves of the fresh garlic ( more or less to taste as it can be really hot on the tongue)
2 tablespoons homemade chive blossom, white, balsamic, or red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt - regular works fine
sprig of any of the fresh herbs in the share
Peel the garlic cloves and coarse chop
Place garlic, sour cream, mayo, salt, and herbs in blender or food processor - we use a hand blender and measuring cup
Puree the ingredients together adding the vinegar a little at a time until you get a smooth, slightly fluffy cream dressing
Keeps for 4-5 days in covered jar in fridge
Use over cucumber slices, fresh tomatoes, raw baby squash, fresh salad greens. It is also quite tasty on baked potatoes or a in place of mayo on grilled burgers.
What's in the shares this week
Shallots-3 to 4 shallots
Haricot Verts- true French Filet beans and because of great yields you get a full pound this week
Blue Lake Green Beans-the classic green bean, 1.75 pounds this week. And if you need more for putting up let me know ASAP.
Tomatoes-a mix of mainly reds- Matina (small) and Glick's Pride (bigger). Around 2 pounds or so.
Green Peppers-2 to 3 peppers this week
Scallions-a bunch of scallions
Basil-1/4 pound
Garlic-1 clove of each type we sell for a total of 3 garlics
Chard-a 1/2 pound or better of bright lights chard
There may well be other items in your shares such as lemon cukes or even a melon but I have not been out yet today to see if we have enough ready to cover all the shares.
Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com
Lucy
05:47 AM EDT
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 16
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.
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.
Lucy
05:43 AM EDT
26 Jul Sun 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 15
Greetings and Salutations,
It is Tuesday and that means a new week of farm share has commenced, week 15. Things got a bit exciting here on Saturday. First we got home from a spectacular farmers market-the best July market we have ever had thanks to having more raspberries than you can shake a stick at. And we noticed that the floor in the bathroom was sopping wet. There was a leak somewhere. Due to being exhausted from the farmers market we turned off the water to the bathroom, attempted to dry things up than took a nap. Eugene got up from his nap before me and was groggily wandering around outside by the barn when he noticed a a dipwad in a pick-up truck wearing a tuxedo had hit our signs and was about to leave the scene of the accident. Eugene got in front of the truck and confronted the guy (who said he was not leaving just turning around so he could go to the front door and tell us about it, riiight). Long story short, the guy would have cut us a check for about $100, the damage was about $600 (we know the exact figure when the insurance adjuster comes out to look at the damage.) we have a bent yellow sign that is useable but damaged and the bigger permanent sign is missing a leg. we have plans to replace that sign in the next few weeks with the sign that is sitting on the porch of the store. but now we are thinking maybe putting that one in the same place is not smart as this is the second time the signs have been hit in the past 18 months. So that was our Saturday.
Other than dipwads in tuxedos harming our property, things are going well on the farm. It should look fabulous for this Sunday's potluck dinner as long as the mower does not break yet another belt. We have been busy getting beds weeded as well weeded beds are so much easier to harvest than weedy beds. Eugene has been doing a lot of tilling for fall and winter crops (for those of you new to Boulder Belt we are season extension junkies-it's our thing to grow as much as we can in winter using simple hoophouses that are unheated. Most winters between the hoop houses and what we root cellar we generally have a lot available through early Feb and than again come mid March through the rest of the season). Along with tilling beds for upcoming plantings we have also been ripping out, mowing or harvesting the spring/early summer crops that are either mature as in the case of beets. Peas that no longer produce get ripped out and things like spring mix and lettuce get mowed than tilled in except for the lettuce we allow to got to seed so we can save seed from it. When you come to the farm tour potluck you will see all of this progress. it sounds like the weather will be absolutely perfect. Also this is something very few people get to do-tour a working farm and talk to the farmers. we do offer this to the public for $25 an hour and you get it as a perk for being a farm share member. I strongly suggest you take advantage. Plus it is a lot of fun and you meet other locavores from the area and thus we build stronger community.
Oh and speaking of progress, only two members have sent an RSVP about this potluck/farm tour coming up THIS SUNDAY. I need a response from the rest of you either yea or nay so I have a head count. if you do come bring a dish to share and things to eat and drink from. I will make a salad that has lots of maters, cukes and likely arugula and we will supply cider from Downing's fruit farm (not organic but raw and excellent), distilled water from our well (this is the best water you will ever drink) and perhaps a few home brewed beers that Eugene makes. Feel free to bring your own libations. the Fun starts at 6pm
I also need to know of all you monthly members if you are rejoining in August. I have a lot of people interested in joining in August but give current members first shot as spots in the farm share Initiative. I have heard from two people already and need to hear from the rest of you who are joining one month at a time. I believe we have 2 spots open for August and September if everyone rejoins for next month.
Remember we will take back all you bags, boxes, rubber bands, etc that come in your share. And if you have reusable bags bring 'em out and I will pack pack your shares into those and not plastic
Recipe
Pesto
1 cup basil
1 cup italian parsley
2 or more cloves of garlic
1/2 cup walnuts or toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt to taste
In a food processor put in the peeled whole garlic cloves and pulse a couple of times than add the nuts and cheese and pulse again than add everything else and process until smooth.
What's in the share this week:
Beets-a nice bunch of beets with greens. These were harvested Friday in order to clear out two beds for fall planting and also so the deer could not eat any more of the greens. they had started to ravage the beets last week so we had to get them out all at once.
Cucumbers-2 nice cukes, again be sure to peel the skins
Arugula-probably the last of the arugula until fall
Raspberries-a couple of boxes of raspberries. These are waning so this may be the last of them until the next type comes in in mid to late August
Strawberries-1 box of yummy strawberries
Basil-a nice 1/4 pound bag of basil
Garlic-a couple of corms of one of the 3 kinds we grow.
Potatoes-a pound or so of taters, likely Kennebec white and Yukon Gold
Scallions/green onions-a mixed bunch of true scallions and green red onions (or red green onions if you are a fan of the Red green Show)
Cabbage- a head or two of sweet tasty cabbage
Parsley-A nice bunch of Italian parsley
Tomatoes-A pound or so of a mix of Yellow Taxi and Matina tomatoes. Many are not quite ripe but will ripen up over the week (thursday folks yours will probably be ripe)
It is Tuesday and that means a new week of farm share has commenced, week 15. Things got a bit exciting here on Saturday. First we got home from a spectacular farmers market-the best July market we have ever had thanks to having more raspberries than you can shake a stick at. And we noticed that the floor in the bathroom was sopping wet. There was a leak somewhere. Due to being exhausted from the farmers market we turned off the water to the bathroom, attempted to dry things up than took a nap. Eugene got up from his nap before me and was groggily wandering around outside by the barn when he noticed a a dipwad in a pick-up truck wearing a tuxedo had hit our signs and was about to leave the scene of the accident. Eugene got in front of the truck and confronted the guy (who said he was not leaving just turning around so he could go to the front door and tell us about it, riiight). Long story short, the guy would have cut us a check for about $100, the damage was about $600 (we know the exact figure when the insurance adjuster comes out to look at the damage.) we have a bent yellow sign that is useable but damaged and the bigger permanent sign is missing a leg. we have plans to replace that sign in the next few weeks with the sign that is sitting on the porch of the store. but now we are thinking maybe putting that one in the same place is not smart as this is the second time the signs have been hit in the past 18 months. So that was our Saturday.
Other than dipwads in tuxedos harming our property, things are going well on the farm. It should look fabulous for this Sunday's potluck dinner as long as the mower does not break yet another belt. We have been busy getting beds weeded as well weeded beds are so much easier to harvest than weedy beds. Eugene has been doing a lot of tilling for fall and winter crops (for those of you new to Boulder Belt we are season extension junkies-it's our thing to grow as much as we can in winter using simple hoophouses that are unheated. Most winters between the hoop houses and what we root cellar we generally have a lot available through early Feb and than again come mid March through the rest of the season). Along with tilling beds for upcoming plantings we have also been ripping out, mowing or harvesting the spring/early summer crops that are either mature as in the case of beets. Peas that no longer produce get ripped out and things like spring mix and lettuce get mowed than tilled in except for the lettuce we allow to got to seed so we can save seed from it. When you come to the farm tour potluck you will see all of this progress. it sounds like the weather will be absolutely perfect. Also this is something very few people get to do-tour a working farm and talk to the farmers. we do offer this to the public for $25 an hour and you get it as a perk for being a farm share member. I strongly suggest you take advantage. Plus it is a lot of fun and you meet other locavores from the area and thus we build stronger community.
Oh and speaking of progress, only two members have sent an RSVP about this potluck/farm tour coming up THIS SUNDAY. I need a response from the rest of you either yea or nay so I have a head count. if you do come bring a dish to share and things to eat and drink from. I will make a salad that has lots of maters, cukes and likely arugula and we will supply cider from Downing's fruit farm (not organic but raw and excellent), distilled water from our well (this is the best water you will ever drink) and perhaps a few home brewed beers that Eugene makes. Feel free to bring your own libations. the Fun starts at 6pm
I also need to know of all you monthly members if you are rejoining in August. I have a lot of people interested in joining in August but give current members first shot as spots in the farm share Initiative. I have heard from two people already and need to hear from the rest of you who are joining one month at a time. I believe we have 2 spots open for August and September if everyone rejoins for next month.
Remember we will take back all you bags, boxes, rubber bands, etc that come in your share. And if you have reusable bags bring 'em out and I will pack pack your shares into those and not plastic
Recipe
Pesto
1 cup basil
1 cup italian parsley
2 or more cloves of garlic
1/2 cup walnuts or toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt to taste
In a food processor put in the peeled whole garlic cloves and pulse a couple of times than add the nuts and cheese and pulse again than add everything else and process until smooth.
What's in the share this week:
Beets-a nice bunch of beets with greens. These were harvested Friday in order to clear out two beds for fall planting and also so the deer could not eat any more of the greens. they had started to ravage the beets last week so we had to get them out all at once.
Cucumbers-2 nice cukes, again be sure to peel the skins
Arugula-probably the last of the arugula until fall
Raspberries-a couple of boxes of raspberries. These are waning so this may be the last of them until the next type comes in in mid to late August
Strawberries-1 box of yummy strawberries
Basil-a nice 1/4 pound bag of basil
Garlic-a couple of corms of one of the 3 kinds we grow.
Potatoes-a pound or so of taters, likely Kennebec white and Yukon Gold
Scallions/green onions-a mixed bunch of true scallions and green red onions (or red green onions if you are a fan of the Red green Show)
Cabbage- a head or two of sweet tasty cabbage
Parsley-A nice bunch of Italian parsley
Tomatoes-A pound or so of a mix of Yellow Taxi and Matina tomatoes. Many are not quite ripe but will ripen up over the week (thursday folks yours will probably be ripe)
Lucy
09:22 AM EDT
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 14
It's new month and the farm share initiative has many new members thanks to some nice networking on the part of some of our members. This is exactly what should be happening in any healthy CSA type affair-members getting involved in their farm and going out and spreading the word. Way to go! For July we have 13 members, up from 9 members in June and 5 brand new members
First a little business-new members you share will be in the store in the fridge to the right of the front door. Each bag will have a name on it, take the bag with your name on it and leave the others (unless you are picking up for a group). Pick up is from 4 to 7pm. We are busy people and this time of year is a very busy time for us, so we may or may not be there to meet you. If you owe money and we are not around, leave it on the counter.
We will have a pot luck dinner/farm tour Sunday July 19th from 6 'til dark. I would like to know ASAP who will be attending (or not)
We will take back all packaging you get in your shares including boxes, rubber bands, plastic bags, etc..The more you bring back to us the fewer resources we will use for this project. And on this same general topic, some members have started providing us with cloth shopping bags. if anyone else can drop off 2 to 3 such bags (with you name written on each bag so we know who they belong to) this would be great. We have a gazillion plastic "T-shirt" bags but I would love to start getting away from using those or paper grocery bags to pack shares and go to something more sustainable. I can look into getting bags for everyone but frankly we all have such bags around the house and probably don't need another 2 to 3 of them.
Life on the farm has been busy, busy, busy. There is lots to harvest, lots to weed and it is time to plant crops for late summer. This means clearing out old crops-yesterday we harvested a bed of red turnips that had been sitting there doing nothing. Today all the pea beds will be cleaned up meaning plants taken out and put on the compost and the fencing used for trellising taken down and stored away. Hopefully this will get done early enough that Eugene can till these beds and prepare them for planting in the next few days. We plan on planting more beets, carrots, green beans, red turnips, rutabagas, etc., for late August/early September harvests.
We also have a lot of harvesting to do. Early July is raspberry season around here. our 400 or so feet of raspberries provides a lot of berries for us, the farm share, the store, the farmers market and yesterday I noticed an oriole family helping themselves (we have so many this year that we decided not to put any bird netting over the plants and until the orioles moved in this week not a lot of damage was done. Still, there are so many berries that I believe they will get their fill long before they have much impact on the harvest). Raspberry harvest has been taking about 6 hours a day to bring in. It is one of our most lucrative crops but I will be happy when the berries are over for this year. We had a fine garlic harvest. We decided to get the garlic out about 10 to 14 days early because we noticed some disease issues starting. So we jumped on harvesting the garlic and it is looking good and curing quite quickly. Our next big harvest will be the onions the beginning of August-we do all sorts of onions-red, sweet (yellow and white) and yellow cooking onions. The sweet onions you will start to see in your shares in the next couple of weeks others, like the yellow cooking onions, won't be available until fall and winter.
Recipe
Cucumber salad
This is about my favorite summer food
Cucumber peeled and cut into chunks
1 medium sweet onion sliced
1 ripe tomato cut into chunks
1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)
Rice or balsamic vinegar (or mix 'em)
Olive oil
put the veggies in a bowl drizzle olive oil and vinegars over top that add the salt. Stir and let sit for about an hour. this is really really good with cubes of a good bread tossed in too. I have been using a dill bread I found at Jungle Jim's last week
Okay, here is what is in your share this week
Cucumbers-2 cukes, be sure to peel these well as the skin is quite bitter. The irony is we pay a lot of money for this particular seed because this is supposed be a never bitter cuke and for over a decade was always sweet and perfect. but the past 2 years something has changed, climate change? a new breeding program? I dunno but the bitter cukes have made me a bit bitter.
Galia Melon-melon season has started you will get either a nice big melon or 2 smallish melons. the galia, or tropical melon was developed in the middle east. Eugene claims it is a cantaloupe but the catalogues have it in its' own category. At any rate the flesh is green but it tastes more like a cantaloupe than anything. it definitely does not taste like a honey dew despite the resemblance.
Chard-you get a nice big bag of bright lights chard. If you are new to chard, cook it like spinach
Raspberries-you get 2 half pints this week
Mizuna-A nice bag of this mild asian green. I like eating this raw by using it as a bed for other veggies. The cucumber salad would go well on a bed of mizuna.
Garlic- 2 heads of one of the hard necked garlic we grow
Beans-a pound of mixed wax and green beans. I like to snap off the ends and cook them for 14 minutes. Mmmmmm Beans.
Carrots-a pound of our spring carrots. We have had great difficulty with weeds getting into the early carrot beds. We have spent literally hundreds of hours attempting to keep the beds free of weeds with little success but we were able to eke out a small early carrot harvest. The summer and fall carrots should be a lot better
Red Turnips-earlier in the season we distributed red turnips with greens. These have no greens and thus will store for weeks and weeks in your fridge (greens tend to suck all the moisture from roots leaving them soft)
Zucchini-the best squash we grow, costata romanesque is coming in. These green with grey stripe beauties are an old heirloom zuke with the best flavor of any zuke grown.
Savory-this is a peppery herb that is good in about anything (this is where the term "savory" dish comes from)
Potatoes-you will get around a pound of Kennebec white and Pontiac red (named for the Chippewa chief, not the car manufacturer). Soon we will have several other varieties such as red fingerlings, yukon gold, all blue, etc..
First a little business-new members you share will be in the store in the fridge to the right of the front door. Each bag will have a name on it, take the bag with your name on it and leave the others (unless you are picking up for a group). Pick up is from 4 to 7pm. We are busy people and this time of year is a very busy time for us, so we may or may not be there to meet you. If you owe money and we are not around, leave it on the counter.
We will have a pot luck dinner/farm tour Sunday July 19th from 6 'til dark. I would like to know ASAP who will be attending (or not)
We will take back all packaging you get in your shares including boxes, rubber bands, plastic bags, etc..The more you bring back to us the fewer resources we will use for this project. And on this same general topic, some members have started providing us with cloth shopping bags. if anyone else can drop off 2 to 3 such bags (with you name written on each bag so we know who they belong to) this would be great. We have a gazillion plastic "T-shirt" bags but I would love to start getting away from using those or paper grocery bags to pack shares and go to something more sustainable. I can look into getting bags for everyone but frankly we all have such bags around the house and probably don't need another 2 to 3 of them.
Life on the farm has been busy, busy, busy. There is lots to harvest, lots to weed and it is time to plant crops for late summer. This means clearing out old crops-yesterday we harvested a bed of red turnips that had been sitting there doing nothing. Today all the pea beds will be cleaned up meaning plants taken out and put on the compost and the fencing used for trellising taken down and stored away. Hopefully this will get done early enough that Eugene can till these beds and prepare them for planting in the next few days. We plan on planting more beets, carrots, green beans, red turnips, rutabagas, etc., for late August/early September harvests.
We also have a lot of harvesting to do. Early July is raspberry season around here. our 400 or so feet of raspberries provides a lot of berries for us, the farm share, the store, the farmers market and yesterday I noticed an oriole family helping themselves (we have so many this year that we decided not to put any bird netting over the plants and until the orioles moved in this week not a lot of damage was done. Still, there are so many berries that I believe they will get their fill long before they have much impact on the harvest). Raspberry harvest has been taking about 6 hours a day to bring in. It is one of our most lucrative crops but I will be happy when the berries are over for this year. We had a fine garlic harvest. We decided to get the garlic out about 10 to 14 days early because we noticed some disease issues starting. So we jumped on harvesting the garlic and it is looking good and curing quite quickly. Our next big harvest will be the onions the beginning of August-we do all sorts of onions-red, sweet (yellow and white) and yellow cooking onions. The sweet onions you will start to see in your shares in the next couple of weeks others, like the yellow cooking onions, won't be available until fall and winter.
Recipe
Cucumber salad
This is about my favorite summer food
Cucumber peeled and cut into chunks
1 medium sweet onion sliced
1 ripe tomato cut into chunks
1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)
Rice or balsamic vinegar (or mix 'em)
Olive oil
put the veggies in a bowl drizzle olive oil and vinegars over top that add the salt. Stir and let sit for about an hour. this is really really good with cubes of a good bread tossed in too. I have been using a dill bread I found at Jungle Jim's last week
Okay, here is what is in your share this week
Cucumbers-2 cukes, be sure to peel these well as the skin is quite bitter. The irony is we pay a lot of money for this particular seed because this is supposed be a never bitter cuke and for over a decade was always sweet and perfect. but the past 2 years something has changed, climate change? a new breeding program? I dunno but the bitter cukes have made me a bit bitter.
Galia Melon-melon season has started you will get either a nice big melon or 2 smallish melons. the galia, or tropical melon was developed in the middle east. Eugene claims it is a cantaloupe but the catalogues have it in its' own category. At any rate the flesh is green but it tastes more like a cantaloupe than anything. it definitely does not taste like a honey dew despite the resemblance.
Chard-you get a nice big bag of bright lights chard. If you are new to chard, cook it like spinach
Raspberries-you get 2 half pints this week
Mizuna-A nice bag of this mild asian green. I like eating this raw by using it as a bed for other veggies. The cucumber salad would go well on a bed of mizuna.
Garlic- 2 heads of one of the hard necked garlic we grow
Beans-a pound of mixed wax and green beans. I like to snap off the ends and cook them for 14 minutes. Mmmmmm Beans.
Carrots-a pound of our spring carrots. We have had great difficulty with weeds getting into the early carrot beds. We have spent literally hundreds of hours attempting to keep the beds free of weeds with little success but we were able to eke out a small early carrot harvest. The summer and fall carrots should be a lot better
Red Turnips-earlier in the season we distributed red turnips with greens. These have no greens and thus will store for weeks and weeks in your fridge (greens tend to suck all the moisture from roots leaving them soft)
Zucchini-the best squash we grow, costata romanesque is coming in. These green with grey stripe beauties are an old heirloom zuke with the best flavor of any zuke grown.
Savory-this is a peppery herb that is good in about anything (this is where the term "savory" dish comes from)
Potatoes-you will get around a pound of Kennebec white and Pontiac red (named for the Chippewa chief, not the car manufacturer). Soon we will have several other varieties such as red fingerlings, yukon gold, all blue, etc..
Lucy
09:17 AM EDT
05 Jul Sun 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 13
I's crunch time here. we have a flood of raspberries (and a great special on them if you are inclined to make jam out of them-10 boxes for $30) that must be harvested every day to the tune of 50 to 60 boxes a day. on top of that the first of the beans are harvestable (and excellent), the garlic decided to ripen early, and lots of other things are either just about ready to harvest or we have just started (and this is reflected in your shares). on top of it all we are getting chickens tomorrow for our winter meat stash. i think we have lost most of our sanity.
The good news is we have help twice a week until the end of July, though, if any of you have a hankering to pull weeds, pick raspberries or help us with any other necessary tasks (and with diversified farming there are always about a 100 things to do) feel free to come out and help. Doing a few hours of farm work is always an eye opener for non farmers and will get you closer to your food. And it is fun.
Because of this the newsletter this week will be short and sweet and missing a recipe
So here is what we expect to have in the shares this week
Garlic-this if fresh so the skins around each clove may not have colored up and looks like it is not there, it is. Expect 3 corms.
Strawberries-1 pint of berries this week
Raspberries-you get 3 half pints this week
Kale-a big bag of mixed kale. the varieties are winterbor (very curly) White Russian (flat scalloped leaves) and Dinosaur (dark green leaves)
Tarragon
Oregano
Snow peas-this will be the last we see of these
Beans-A mix of green and wax beans, probably over a pound
cabbage-either 1 big head or 2 small heads.
Zucchini-mainly patty pans and big green zukes. I envision 6 or more per share
Cucumbers-these are supposedly a type with bitter free skins. I find the skins bitter, personally so I suggest they be peeled before use. You get 3 cukes in your share
Arugula-the wonderful spicy salad green
The good news is we have help twice a week until the end of July, though, if any of you have a hankering to pull weeds, pick raspberries or help us with any other necessary tasks (and with diversified farming there are always about a 100 things to do) feel free to come out and help. Doing a few hours of farm work is always an eye opener for non farmers and will get you closer to your food. And it is fun.
Because of this the newsletter this week will be short and sweet and missing a recipe
So here is what we expect to have in the shares this week
Garlic-this if fresh so the skins around each clove may not have colored up and looks like it is not there, it is. Expect 3 corms.
Strawberries-1 pint of berries this week
Raspberries-you get 3 half pints this week
Kale-a big bag of mixed kale. the varieties are winterbor (very curly) White Russian (flat scalloped leaves) and Dinosaur (dark green leaves)
Tarragon
Oregano
Snow peas-this will be the last we see of these
Beans-A mix of green and wax beans, probably over a pound
cabbage-either 1 big head or 2 small heads.
Zucchini-mainly patty pans and big green zukes. I envision 6 or more per share
Cucumbers-these are supposedly a type with bitter free skins. I find the skins bitter, personally so I suggest they be peeled before use. You get 3 cukes in your share
Arugula-the wonderful spicy salad green
Lucy
03:47 PM EDT
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 12
It's Tuesday and that means it is the beginning on another farm share cycle. The big news here is it is hot and humid which makes farm work miserable. We combat the heat and humidity by starting work early in the morning so we can get work done before it gets too hot, around noon, 11am if it is going to get well above 90F. Fortunately, as long as it does not get much above 90F the crops are happy. Though if we get a real heat wave where we are over 95F for several days (and do not drop below 80F at night) the crops will not be happy and will start a decline in yields. This is the big risk in a hot summer-heat.
We are pretty much done with planting until mid August when we start planting for late fall/winter. Now we are into maintenance and harvesting. Lots of weeding/hoeing, mowing, fertilizing, mulching and tomato tying to be done. On the harvest front we are going into raspberry season. For the next 4 weeks or so much of my life will be dominated by harvesting raspberries. And if we get a back log than I will make raspberry jam and freeze the berries that do not sell. Actually, I will do this even if there is not a backlog as I do a lot of canning and freezing for our winter food supply. In addition to the raspberries we will have green and wax beans coming in soon. Like raspberries, these take hours to harvest and need to be picked no less than every 36 hours (daily is better). And the strawberries are also coming back in and they are another drop that needs daily attention. Add to that beets, kale, chard, basil, zucchini, arugula, broccoli, scallions, etc.. and you have a full day. Oh and soon we will be doing our big summer harvest of garlic (over 2000 plants that will come in all at once, have to be hung to cure for 4 to 6 weeks and cleaned up so they will store into March or April, than sorted as this is what we use for our seed stock and we always take out the finest garlics to replant in October). This happens around July 4th
Sometimes I think we work too much but this is far better than working for The Man.
Recipe
Raspberry Pancakes
2 cups flour (I like to mix whole wheat and white 1/2 and 1/2)
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup butter melted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 TBL sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 pint raspberries crushed with a bit of sugar
Combine the dry ingredients than add the milk, butter and eggs mixing after each addition. lastly add the crushed berries. Cook on a hot skillet (I use med heat) until the pancake is bubbly than flip and cook another minute or so. I usually make extras that I put on a cooling rack before putting in a freezer bag and into the freezer-makes for super easy future breakfasts (but unlike a lot of things don't leave these in the freezer for more than 3 to 4 weeks or they get very wierd)
What's in This Week's Share
Raspberries-2 1/2 pints of yummy raspberries
Strawberries-1 pint of the berries
Scallions-our 2009 scallion crop is ready to harvest and it looks beautiful
Spring Mix-This will be one of the last weeks for spring mix. it is getting too hot and dry to produce quality and frankly we are getting to busy to deal with it-it is a labor intensive crop
Kale-more yummy and nutritious kale
Red Beets-a nice bunch of beautiful beets with greens. Cook the greens like you would spinach or chard
Sugar Snap peas-You get a pound (or more) this week. Eat these pod and all.
Snow Peas-like last week you will get a a lot, probably a pound and a 1/2. if you cannot eat them all consider blanching them, quickly cooling in cold water and putting in a freezer bag and popping in your freezer for later use
Broccoli-I have not looked at this so I do not know what kind of shape it is in. Our first bunch was a variety we do not like but wanted to use up the seed so we planted it this spring and hoped it would work this year. It did not, it all bolted. As it has done the 3 years we have used it. This kind also did not produce enough to include in the shares which is why you have not seen any broccoli until now. The second type is much more reliable and I hope has some nice big heads. In any event, it all tastes good no matter what it looks like
Zucchini-this week you get about 1.5 pounds of the green and yellow zephyr plus a bright yellow sunburst patty pan (treat this as you would any zucchini)
Basil-You will be getting more and more basil each week-Eugene just transplanted an additional 150 plants on top of the early stuff I am picking now. Basil is very easy to preserve for winter. Either dry it in a paper bag (check it daily) or put basil and olive oil together in a food processor and blend. Put into ice cube trays and into the freezer. When fully frozen, pop the basil cubes into a labeled plastic bag and back into the freezer. be sure to get all the air out of the bag before storing
We are pretty much done with planting until mid August when we start planting for late fall/winter. Now we are into maintenance and harvesting. Lots of weeding/hoeing, mowing, fertilizing, mulching and tomato tying to be done. On the harvest front we are going into raspberry season. For the next 4 weeks or so much of my life will be dominated by harvesting raspberries. And if we get a back log than I will make raspberry jam and freeze the berries that do not sell. Actually, I will do this even if there is not a backlog as I do a lot of canning and freezing for our winter food supply. In addition to the raspberries we will have green and wax beans coming in soon. Like raspberries, these take hours to harvest and need to be picked no less than every 36 hours (daily is better). And the strawberries are also coming back in and they are another drop that needs daily attention. Add to that beets, kale, chard, basil, zucchini, arugula, broccoli, scallions, etc.. and you have a full day. Oh and soon we will be doing our big summer harvest of garlic (over 2000 plants that will come in all at once, have to be hung to cure for 4 to 6 weeks and cleaned up so they will store into March or April, than sorted as this is what we use for our seed stock and we always take out the finest garlics to replant in October). This happens around July 4th
Sometimes I think we work too much but this is far better than working for The Man.
Recipe
Raspberry Pancakes
2 cups flour (I like to mix whole wheat and white 1/2 and 1/2)
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup butter melted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 TBL sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 pint raspberries crushed with a bit of sugar
Combine the dry ingredients than add the milk, butter and eggs mixing after each addition. lastly add the crushed berries. Cook on a hot skillet (I use med heat) until the pancake is bubbly than flip and cook another minute or so. I usually make extras that I put on a cooling rack before putting in a freezer bag and into the freezer-makes for super easy future breakfasts (but unlike a lot of things don't leave these in the freezer for more than 3 to 4 weeks or they get very wierd)
What's in This Week's Share
Raspberries-2 1/2 pints of yummy raspberries
Strawberries-1 pint of the berries
Scallions-our 2009 scallion crop is ready to harvest and it looks beautiful
Spring Mix-This will be one of the last weeks for spring mix. it is getting too hot and dry to produce quality and frankly we are getting to busy to deal with it-it is a labor intensive crop
Kale-more yummy and nutritious kale
Red Beets-a nice bunch of beautiful beets with greens. Cook the greens like you would spinach or chard
Sugar Snap peas-You get a pound (or more) this week. Eat these pod and all.
Snow Peas-like last week you will get a a lot, probably a pound and a 1/2. if you cannot eat them all consider blanching them, quickly cooling in cold water and putting in a freezer bag and popping in your freezer for later use
Broccoli-I have not looked at this so I do not know what kind of shape it is in. Our first bunch was a variety we do not like but wanted to use up the seed so we planted it this spring and hoped it would work this year. It did not, it all bolted. As it has done the 3 years we have used it. This kind also did not produce enough to include in the shares which is why you have not seen any broccoli until now. The second type is much more reliable and I hope has some nice big heads. In any event, it all tastes good no matter what it looks like
Zucchini-this week you get about 1.5 pounds of the green and yellow zephyr plus a bright yellow sunburst patty pan (treat this as you would any zucchini)
Basil-You will be getting more and more basil each week-Eugene just transplanted an additional 150 plants on top of the early stuff I am picking now. Basil is very easy to preserve for winter. Either dry it in a paper bag (check it daily) or put basil and olive oil together in a food processor and blend. Put into ice cube trays and into the freezer. When fully frozen, pop the basil cubes into a labeled plastic bag and back into the freezer. be sure to get all the air out of the bag before storing
Lucy
03:45 PM EDT
23 Jun Tue 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 11
We have reached mid June and true summer. The long days mean that the onions are growing at an explosive rate. The bulbs just about double in size daily (right now that does not mean much as they are just beginning to form bulbs but in about a week it will be really noticeable). we have pulled all the garlic scapes, or about all, there are always a few we miss no matter how many times we check, this means you will soon get fresh garlic in your share, by soon I mean next week. You should get raspberries next week as well. I though last year was a bumper crop but it looks like this year will easily out pace the 26 gallons of berries we picked last year. The plants are much larger and the stand is denser and they are loaded with ripening berries and flowers that are abuzz with pollenators. We have picked a scant few and they are fabulous!
Along with the 15+ hour days we have started getting good amounts of rain. Over 2 inches have fallen in the past 3 days (including the 1/2 inch that fell while AccuWeather told me we had less than a 3% chance of any rain at that time of day. I wish we could bet on this rain forecasting because I would have taken those odds.). All this means a lot of happy crops. The tomatoes we finished transplanting last week are growing really well. Some have grown about 6" in a week. the tomatoes we put out in April have green maters that look like they should start to ripen soon. We will start the tomato season with a yellow mater called Yellow Taxi, soon after will come the sublime red heirloom, Matina (this is seriously one of the best tomatoes I have ever eaten), than the orange cherry tomato, Sunsugar and another red heirloom, GL-18. I believe these will be ready in early July. The potatoes are flowering and huge. The beets are about a week from readiness. The scallions should be ready in about 2 weeks. Oh and the pea crop is coming in. We have loads of snow peas and soon will have loads of sugar snap peas as the second planting is what we are beginning to harvest from and this planting is bigger and the plants a lot more fruitful as they were planted in a warmer time than the first peas. We won't have shelling peas for another week. They are setting a lot of pods but the pods need a bit more time to fill up with peas.
We are leaving the planting period and going into the heavy duty harvest period. I figure by this time next week I will be spending about 6 hours a day harvesting raspberries, strawberries and peas. 3 days a week there will additional things to harvest for the farm share initiative and the Saturday farmers market in Oxford. I am not looking forward to the raspberry picking as that will fill most of the harvest day. I know last year there were a couple of days where both Eugene and I were out there together for 4 hours-that would be an 8 hour picking for one person. But the upside is raspberries are one of our more profitable crops and yummy.
This weekend there is a pot luck on Sunday at 6pm. I need to know if you are coming or not (i.e RSVP). Bring a dish to share, things to eat from and with. We will set up a grill and I plan on getting some local beef, probably from Salem Road farm (not organic but grass fed). Let me know no later than Friday if you are attending or not. The last farm tour pot luck was wonderful.
Recipe
Squash Lyonnaise
1 LB zucchini or summer squash
1 med to large onion
1 TBL Butter
Salt to taste
Slice squash into 1/4 inch slices, do the same with the onions. In a hot sauté pan melt the butter than add the onions, squash and salt. Cook over medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes or until squash is soft
In your share this week:
Chard-The first chard harvest of the year. Actually these are the thinnings-the chard needs space and you get to eat the results. If you are new to chard cook it like you would spinach.
Kale-You get a nice bag of kale this week. kale is one of the most nutritious foods we grow
Red Turnips-more turnips with greens. These can be boiled and mashed like potatoes only these will come out a pretty pink.
Snow peas-you will get a lot of snow peas this week, perhaps over a pound. These need to be strung and are best eaten raw. A very nice snack.
Sugar snap peas-you won't get as many snap peas as you do snow peas this week. Like the snow peas these need to be strung. these are good cooked or raw.
Zucchini-a couple of medium to small zephyr zucchinis. I think this may be the last week for zucchini for several weeks. the crop from which we have been harvesting is just about done and the next zukes have not yet started to flower and it will be a couple of weeks after the flowers start before there is anything to harvest.
Strawberries-They're baaack, and sweeter than ever.
Cilantro-a nice bag of cilantro
Garlic scapes-another 1/2 pound of scapes
Chives-I cut back the chives about 2 weeks ago to get rid of the fading flowers and tough stems. now they are ready to harvest again, without the flowers.
Along with the 15+ hour days we have started getting good amounts of rain. Over 2 inches have fallen in the past 3 days (including the 1/2 inch that fell while AccuWeather told me we had less than a 3% chance of any rain at that time of day. I wish we could bet on this rain forecasting because I would have taken those odds.). All this means a lot of happy crops. The tomatoes we finished transplanting last week are growing really well. Some have grown about 6" in a week. the tomatoes we put out in April have green maters that look like they should start to ripen soon. We will start the tomato season with a yellow mater called Yellow Taxi, soon after will come the sublime red heirloom, Matina (this is seriously one of the best tomatoes I have ever eaten), than the orange cherry tomato, Sunsugar and another red heirloom, GL-18. I believe these will be ready in early July. The potatoes are flowering and huge. The beets are about a week from readiness. The scallions should be ready in about 2 weeks. Oh and the pea crop is coming in. We have loads of snow peas and soon will have loads of sugar snap peas as the second planting is what we are beginning to harvest from and this planting is bigger and the plants a lot more fruitful as they were planted in a warmer time than the first peas. We won't have shelling peas for another week. They are setting a lot of pods but the pods need a bit more time to fill up with peas.
We are leaving the planting period and going into the heavy duty harvest period. I figure by this time next week I will be spending about 6 hours a day harvesting raspberries, strawberries and peas. 3 days a week there will additional things to harvest for the farm share initiative and the Saturday farmers market in Oxford. I am not looking forward to the raspberry picking as that will fill most of the harvest day. I know last year there were a couple of days where both Eugene and I were out there together for 4 hours-that would be an 8 hour picking for one person. But the upside is raspberries are one of our more profitable crops and yummy.
This weekend there is a pot luck on Sunday at 6pm. I need to know if you are coming or not (i.e RSVP). Bring a dish to share, things to eat from and with. We will set up a grill and I plan on getting some local beef, probably from Salem Road farm (not organic but grass fed). Let me know no later than Friday if you are attending or not. The last farm tour pot luck was wonderful.
Recipe
Squash Lyonnaise
1 LB zucchini or summer squash
1 med to large onion
1 TBL Butter
Salt to taste
Slice squash into 1/4 inch slices, do the same with the onions. In a hot sauté pan melt the butter than add the onions, squash and salt. Cook over medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes or until squash is soft
In your share this week:
Chard-The first chard harvest of the year. Actually these are the thinnings-the chard needs space and you get to eat the results. If you are new to chard cook it like you would spinach.
Kale-You get a nice bag of kale this week. kale is one of the most nutritious foods we grow
Red Turnips-more turnips with greens. These can be boiled and mashed like potatoes only these will come out a pretty pink.
Snow peas-you will get a lot of snow peas this week, perhaps over a pound. These need to be strung and are best eaten raw. A very nice snack.
Sugar snap peas-you won't get as many snap peas as you do snow peas this week. Like the snow peas these need to be strung. these are good cooked or raw.
Zucchini-a couple of medium to small zephyr zucchinis. I think this may be the last week for zucchini for several weeks. the crop from which we have been harvesting is just about done and the next zukes have not yet started to flower and it will be a couple of weeks after the flowers start before there is anything to harvest.
Strawberries-They're baaack, and sweeter than ever.
Cilantro-a nice bag of cilantro
Garlic scapes-another 1/2 pound of scapes
Chives-I cut back the chives about 2 weeks ago to get rid of the fading flowers and tough stems. now they are ready to harvest again, without the flowers.
Lucy
03:19 PM EDT
15 Jun Mon 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative, Week 10
It's been another busy week on the farm. First of all, I am happy to report that the storms of last week were easy on us. Eaton got golf ball sized hail. We got no hail at all and very little rain out of that storm (but we did get over 1/2 inch the next day). If we had gotten that hail I doubt we would have had much of anything to harvest. The row covers we use to protect against such things are not up to golf ball sized hail and would have been shredded along with the plants underneath. Leafy greens would have been ruined and likely the raspberries and strawberries as well. The beets, squashes, turnips, basil, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, potatoes, onions all would have gotten damaged but would have recovered in time. But as I said, we dodged a bullet and all is well. But if we had not this would have been a lesson in the risk of farming and the result would be no shares for at least a week and we not having anything to sell for at least a week, probably longer.
We are in the midst of getting the tomatoes planted. This should be done by Tuesday afternoon as we only have about 100 plants left. This would have taken less time but we realized after about 3/4 of the tomato stakes had been put up that we do not have enough stakes for all the beds and we need to buy another 75 or so. That would be an easy task except we need two different heights and I lost the sheet that had all the data about what tomato were to be planted and how many beds of each and which beds took which stakes. Fortunately I had posted the list of the maters on my blog and from that I was able to basically remember how many beds of each type and which type takes which sized stake-big indeterminate heirlooms take 7' stakes and the determinants take the little stakes. Now almost all the maters are transplanted and we have a good idea of what we need stake-wise.
We could have opted to just go ahead and plant the tomatoes willy nilly and put up which ever sized stake was handy but we have been there, done that in the past and it works out badly-tall plants on short stakes growing well above the tops of the stakes than dropping down to the ground-that is a nightmare scenario for harvesting. And of course, you get short plants on tall stakes which is just a waste (but quite easy to harvest).
These are the things we deal with in our lives.
Don't forget there is a potluck/farm tour coming up on the solstice, Sunday June 21st. I encourage everyone to attend as these are fun, you will learn more about how your food is raised and get to eat some good food and have good conversation. let me know if you can/cannot come.
Oh yeah, a reminder to bring back all the plastic bags, rubber bands and fruit boxes and any other packaging we supply-we will reuse it all and lessen our impact and landfill use. Just leave such things on the counter in the store
Like last week (and until it gets cool again) your share will be in the fridge.
Recipe
Squash and asparagus
2 medium zucchinis, sliced
1 onion sliced
1/2 pound asparagus, cut into 1" pieces
2TBL butter
salt to taste
Heat a large frying/sautée pan and add the butter when it has melted and stopped foaming add all the vegetables and salt and cook covered on medium heat for 15 minutes, checking and stirring occasionally. remove lid and cook another 5 minutes and serve.
This Week's Share
Asparagus-a half pound this week. the plants are finally starting to go dormant. it was a good run.
Spring Mix-this has been so good the past couple of weeks
Lettuce-another bag of mixed heirloom heads of lettuce
Zucchini-a pound or 2 of zephyr (yellow and green) and Jackpot (dark green). I find the zephyr much tastier than the jackpot
Red Turnips-These are a salad turnip as they are sweeter than the purple top globe turnip that is by far the most common turnip in America. These can also be cooked and are very tasty this way as well.
Basil-this will increase in amount as the plants get bigger. Make a pesto, use in salads, freeze by putting basil and a bit of olive oil in a food processor and pureeing, than put the basil puree into an ice cube tray (that will forever have the essence of basil) and freeze.
Thyme
Mizuna/Tat soi-a bag of asian greens-this is good in a stir fry, braised or as a bed of greens topped with some cooke vegetables or meat
Red Mustard-a hot and sweet mustard. this does lose a lot of its' heat when cooked
Sugar snap peas-last week you got snow and shelling peas. this week sugar snaps which you string and eat pod and all
We are in the midst of getting the tomatoes planted. This should be done by Tuesday afternoon as we only have about 100 plants left. This would have taken less time but we realized after about 3/4 of the tomato stakes had been put up that we do not have enough stakes for all the beds and we need to buy another 75 or so. That would be an easy task except we need two different heights and I lost the sheet that had all the data about what tomato were to be planted and how many beds of each and which beds took which stakes. Fortunately I had posted the list of the maters on my blog and from that I was able to basically remember how many beds of each type and which type takes which sized stake-big indeterminate heirlooms take 7' stakes and the determinants take the little stakes. Now almost all the maters are transplanted and we have a good idea of what we need stake-wise.
We could have opted to just go ahead and plant the tomatoes willy nilly and put up which ever sized stake was handy but we have been there, done that in the past and it works out badly-tall plants on short stakes growing well above the tops of the stakes than dropping down to the ground-that is a nightmare scenario for harvesting. And of course, you get short plants on tall stakes which is just a waste (but quite easy to harvest).
These are the things we deal with in our lives.
Don't forget there is a potluck/farm tour coming up on the solstice, Sunday June 21st. I encourage everyone to attend as these are fun, you will learn more about how your food is raised and get to eat some good food and have good conversation. let me know if you can/cannot come.
Oh yeah, a reminder to bring back all the plastic bags, rubber bands and fruit boxes and any other packaging we supply-we will reuse it all and lessen our impact and landfill use. Just leave such things on the counter in the store
Like last week (and until it gets cool again) your share will be in the fridge.
Recipe
Squash and asparagus
2 medium zucchinis, sliced
1 onion sliced
1/2 pound asparagus, cut into 1" pieces
2TBL butter
salt to taste
Heat a large frying/sautée pan and add the butter when it has melted and stopped foaming add all the vegetables and salt and cook covered on medium heat for 15 minutes, checking and stirring occasionally. remove lid and cook another 5 minutes and serve.
This Week's Share
Asparagus-a half pound this week. the plants are finally starting to go dormant. it was a good run.
Spring Mix-this has been so good the past couple of weeks
Lettuce-another bag of mixed heirloom heads of lettuce
Zucchini-a pound or 2 of zephyr (yellow and green) and Jackpot (dark green). I find the zephyr much tastier than the jackpot
Red Turnips-These are a salad turnip as they are sweeter than the purple top globe turnip that is by far the most common turnip in America. These can also be cooked and are very tasty this way as well.
Basil-this will increase in amount as the plants get bigger. Make a pesto, use in salads, freeze by putting basil and a bit of olive oil in a food processor and pureeing, than put the basil puree into an ice cube tray (that will forever have the essence of basil) and freeze.
Thyme
Mizuna/Tat soi-a bag of asian greens-this is good in a stir fry, braised or as a bed of greens topped with some cooke vegetables or meat
Red Mustard-a hot and sweet mustard. this does lose a lot of its' heat when cooked
Sugar snap peas-last week you got snow and shelling peas. this week sugar snaps which you string and eat pod and all
Lucy
09:30 PM EDT
08 Jun Mon 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Week 9
It's June! the start of summer or something like that. Early June is when we transplant the tomatoes as this is when we are about 99% assured there will be no frost (there was a frost after June 7th in the late 1980's I remember but 99 years out of 100 there is not). We have, with the help of my brother and sister who visited over the weekend, gotten about 20% of the maters in the ground and about 15% of the stakes, that will support the plants, erected. So far, there are Early girls, Paul Robeson (guess what color the maters will be from these plants?) Opalka (a nice heirloom sauce tomato) and yellow taxi an early lemon yellow tomato-we have another 17 or so varieties to get in the ground this week.
Other than tomatoes we have also been planting beans, cucumbers and zucchini, more spring mix (though I believe the seeds planted this past week will be the last as lettuce and spring mix do not do well for us in the heat of summer). Most seasons we do some sort of planting pretty much all the time but this year we will try to wrap things up in the next couple of weeks as it looks like we will not be getting much rain-in the past week we have received .3 inches. All but two weak storms have missed us. Not good. But we have irrigation and If Eugene is not tied up planting lots of seeds and seedlings than he can work on hooking up the irrigation system which takes a couple of days to do. We do have most of the drip tape laid out and now they need to be attached to the feeder lines and that takes a while because it is rare that the drip tapes easily attach to the lines. Once the irrigation system is 100% we will not worry as much about the lack of rain, at least for a while. But if we do not get a lot of rain in a couple of weeks and go into July down on rainfall we will start worrying about the well drying up. I seriously doubt this will happen as it is a fairly new well (under 40 years old) and deep bit no rain equals a low water table and low water tables are not good when you are taking about 70K gallons out of the well weekly when it gets dry. 70k gallons is a shocking amount but if we were to water with a hose or sprinklers it would be about 5x more water-yes, agriculture can use a lot of water but drip tapes use the least amount at 70% to 90% less than any other irrigation system.
And, irrigation will not allow the crops to thrive the way an inch of rain a week will. So pray for rain to fall on our farm. We are doing all we can-hanging laundry out, leaving windows open in the house and vehicles, exposing flats of seedlings in soil blocks (which will melt into a solid mass of soil and roots if rained upon), leaving tools in the field. Perhaps we need to have daily outdoor events such as the potluck of a couple of weeks ago. We need to do something to call the rains to our farm-it gets close. There was a gully washer that got as close as 1/8th mile away on Friday. Most of the rain in the past week has been within no more than 2 miles but it will not fall here where we need it. Now that I think of it, the key maybe getting the irrigation all set up. In the past we have done this and have been rewarded with months of rain (this has happened 3 different times-we get the system set up and it starts raining within 24 hours for the rest of the season and we don't use it at all. But than there have been plenty of years where the irrigation was all that kept the crops going)
Your shares will be in the fridge in the store. I believe most everyone knows this now that I have been haphazardly putting them in there the past few weeks. now that it is above 75 degrees I like to keep the food chilled so it stays fresh longer in your fridges. I tend to be a bit obsessive about food quality. Eugene sometimes thinks I go overboard but I really hate sending out food that is not top shelf.
We are planning another potluck dinner Sunday June 21st, the summer solstice. I hope everyone can make it. these are really fun events and I feel it is important for all members to tour the farm as you will learn a lot about how we grow the food you eat. This is a big perk as we normally charge $25 an hour for a farm tour. So come out and get your money's worth.
Recipe
Roasted Garlic Scapes
These are wicked good
1 package of Scapes (1/2 LB)
1TBL olive Oil
Kosher or sea salt to taste
Preheat your oven to 350?. Put clean whole garlic scapes in a roasting pan. drizzle the oil over top and sprinkle salt to taste. Cover pan with lid or foil and put in oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Done when it smells like roasted garlic
This Week's Share
Lettuce-at least 3/4 pound of mixed heads
Spring mix-1/2 pound bag (we sell 6 ounce bags at market and the store so you get a BIG bag of this)
Arugula-1/4 pound bag of this peppery green
Zucchini-the squashes are getting bigger so you should get about a pound of bigger than baby squash
Kale-a 1/2 pound bag of either russian white (what you have been getting all season) or Dinosaur which is dark green and an ancient kale. The dinosaur was almost ready last Friday and may be ready today (Tuesday)
Peas-1/2 pound of snow peas this week. And maybe some shelling peas, if enough are ready. If you get both the snow peas are the flat ones and are eaten pod and all (these will be loose). The shellers are dark green and you don't want to eat the pod (they are not poisonous, just fibrous)
Chives-Another bunch of chives with flowers.
Savory-this is an all purpose herb that everyone needs to use more often. It can replace black pepper and is good with anything except sweet foods. It is said to cut down on the flatulence factor in bean dishes and pairs exquisitely with dried beans.
Asparagus-at least 1/2 pound this week. I do not know how much longer this will be coming in. maybe a week, maybe a month
Garlic Scapes-These are the long green things in your share. Scapes signal the beginning of garlic season. These are the flower tops from our hard necked garlic and must be removed in order to get large heads of garlic. Our early garlic made their scapes over the weekend (right on time) and in 5 weeks we will harvest it. You use scapes much like you do garlic. Chop them up and put them in anything that needs garlic. they also are great pickled (though to make the canning process worth it you really need about 10+ pounds of scapes). These will last about 5 months in the fridge
Lucy
09:46 PM EDT
01 Jun Mon 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share week 8
We are at the 2 month point for those of you who joined up at the beginning-yep this is week 8 (week four for the folks who joined this month). Another 23 weeks or so of this adventure in food left.
Had the potluck this past Sunday. 12 people came to it and we all had a great time wandering through the market garden, eating great food, drinking wonderful cider and a variety of home brewed beer. learning about herbed vinegars and getting to know one another. The Platt's son, Duncan, and his friend, Eric, had a great time playing with the dogs and collecting bugs (mainly asparagus beetle grubs). I find such gatherings to be a very important part of any CSA/Farm Share experience. You, the members, get to see your food growing as well as a chance to ask us farmer questions (and we got a lot of really good ones too). This is a profound step in learning about what you eat and getting back your food sovereignty. And it is good to meet the other members as well. I find we have a very interesting and fun group of people in our Farm Share
The next pot luck will be June 21, the summer solstice. I am thinking having a cookout by the pond where we have a fire pit, along with a farm tour.
We have another week where I think the shares are a bit lean, but this should change in a week or two as we do have broccoli, shelling peas, garlic scapes and a few other items poised to be harvested soon (but not this week). Warning; you will get a lot of asparagus and lettuce this week as this is what we have a lot of.
Recipe
No recipe this week, sorry
What's in the Share This Week
Lettuce-3/4 to 1 pound of a mix of lettuces
Asparagus-2 pounds of green and purple asparagus. In the past week the asparagus has decided to start really producing so you will see greater amounts in your shares. Why, there is so much that I was able to freeze 10 pounds on Monday (last year I was able to put up about 3 pounds)
Cilantro-A nice sized baggie of cilantro
Basil-a small amount as this is the first harvest, there will be more, a lot more as the season goes on.
Tarragon-in every CSA there are a few crops of which the members may think they get way to much. I believe Tarragon is slipping into that category. You see, we have a thriving large hedge of it that needs to be used. I am starting to cut it for drying (started the first 2 pounds yesterday) which may mitigate this problem.
Spring Mix-a half pound bag of spring mix
Radishes-I am not sure what kind we have this week, I think both the D'avignon and the easter egg types. I do know from using so split and damaged radishes last night that the quality is excellent
Zucchini-a 1/2 pound of baby Zephyr zukes. these are good raw in a salad or painted with olive oil and grilled whole. I doubt you will ever get too much of this, despite the legends of too much zucchini. In reality, we have several pests that are about impossible to control organically that attack zucchinis (and other squash and cucumbers) so we grow them out of season so we can get a good crop early knowing that all the other zuke crops we plant this summer will likely be killed soon after they begin to produce fruit so will not be able to over produce. All that said, we do every now and again have bumper crops of summer zucchini
Red turnip greens-we have to thin the turnips so they can grow to a decent size and not bolt to seed prematurely. these are a mild and kind of sweet turnip green
Had the potluck this past Sunday. 12 people came to it and we all had a great time wandering through the market garden, eating great food, drinking wonderful cider and a variety of home brewed beer. learning about herbed vinegars and getting to know one another. The Platt's son, Duncan, and his friend, Eric, had a great time playing with the dogs and collecting bugs (mainly asparagus beetle grubs). I find such gatherings to be a very important part of any CSA/Farm Share experience. You, the members, get to see your food growing as well as a chance to ask us farmer questions (and we got a lot of really good ones too). This is a profound step in learning about what you eat and getting back your food sovereignty. And it is good to meet the other members as well. I find we have a very interesting and fun group of people in our Farm Share
The next pot luck will be June 21, the summer solstice. I am thinking having a cookout by the pond where we have a fire pit, along with a farm tour.
We have another week where I think the shares are a bit lean, but this should change in a week or two as we do have broccoli, shelling peas, garlic scapes and a few other items poised to be harvested soon (but not this week). Warning; you will get a lot of asparagus and lettuce this week as this is what we have a lot of.
Recipe
No recipe this week, sorry
What's in the Share This Week
Lettuce-3/4 to 1 pound of a mix of lettuces
Asparagus-2 pounds of green and purple asparagus. In the past week the asparagus has decided to start really producing so you will see greater amounts in your shares. Why, there is so much that I was able to freeze 10 pounds on Monday (last year I was able to put up about 3 pounds)
Cilantro-A nice sized baggie of cilantro
Basil-a small amount as this is the first harvest, there will be more, a lot more as the season goes on.
Tarragon-in every CSA there are a few crops of which the members may think they get way to much. I believe Tarragon is slipping into that category. You see, we have a thriving large hedge of it that needs to be used. I am starting to cut it for drying (started the first 2 pounds yesterday) which may mitigate this problem.
Spring Mix-a half pound bag of spring mix
Radishes-I am not sure what kind we have this week, I think both the D'avignon and the easter egg types. I do know from using so split and damaged radishes last night that the quality is excellent
Zucchini-a 1/2 pound of baby Zephyr zukes. these are good raw in a salad or painted with olive oil and grilled whole. I doubt you will ever get too much of this, despite the legends of too much zucchini. In reality, we have several pests that are about impossible to control organically that attack zucchinis (and other squash and cucumbers) so we grow them out of season so we can get a good crop early knowing that all the other zuke crops we plant this summer will likely be killed soon after they begin to produce fruit so will not be able to over produce. All that said, we do every now and again have bumper crops of summer zucchini
Red turnip greens-we have to thin the turnips so they can grow to a decent size and not bolt to seed prematurely. these are a mild and kind of sweet turnip green
Lucy
11:02 AM EDT