20 Aug Thu 2009
Boulder Belt Farm Share Initiative Week 20
Greetings,
It's week 20 for the farm share. That's a lot of weeks of a lot of seasonal food. Most CSA programs stop right about at this point but not us. Like the Energizer Bunny we keep on going. I don't know about you guys, but we have been really pleased with the Farm Share Initiative thus far. Before we did this we spent Tuesdays for the last 14 years going to the Tuesday farmers market in Oxford. We loved that market (we had been there from day one) but it was not thriving and we were not making much money-imagine making $200 for 18 hours of generally hard work. And that $200 is split between two people. This time of year was especially hard as Oxford is dead in late July/early August because the university is closed (except for the 4th summer term which virtually no one does because you get only 48 hours of summer vacation-been there done that) and we always have lots of heavy food-water melons, cantaloupe, tomatoes, etc.. Not to mention, it is almost always hot and humid this time of year. So we would harvest crops for market in the heat, clean and bag them in the heat, load up the van with about 3000 pounds of food at 2pm every Tuesday afternoon. Drive to Oxford, park, set up in even greater heat because Oxford is about 5 degrees hotter than the farm. Set up meant taking lots of heavy crates and coolers of food out of the van and onto the lawn about 50 feet away-no selling right out of the van as we do on Saturdays-plus tables, the EZ Shelter and the other things we use to display our produce at market. Maybe there would be other farmers and artisans setting up but the last couple of years it was more common for us to be the only people setting (which was lonely). We would get set up by 4pm and than play the waiting game. Sometimes we would wait over an hour before we got our first customer, especially this time of year. Time would pass, we would get malts from UDF to keep cool and stave off hunger. Than 7pm would finally roll around and we would usually have about 80% of the produce unsold so it got loaded back into the van and we went home. We would get unloaded around 8:30pm, meaning the van would get empty and the fridges would fill up (some items we would compost but most would sit in the fridge taking up space and that meant that when harvest time for the Saturday market came around we would have a cold storage space crisis) and than I would make dinner and our day would end around 10 pm.
With the farm share, we harvest for a known market (you guys) which means there is virtually no waste. You see when you do a farmers market you have to harvest with the assumption there will be a lot of customers and everything you bring in will sell. So you generally get a lot more stuff than you need. This takes hours and hours to do and it is always a bummer when hardly anything sells in the end. With the FSI we harvest, fill the fridge up with produce and by mid afternoon on Tuesdays the shares are packed and the fridge is empty.
We don't have to leave the farm mid afternoon and return after dark to do an evening market which means a lot more gets done on the farm-basically we have an extra work day we have never had (we started this market the same year we went full time with farming). This has made a huge difference in our stress levels (they are way down) and with the farm's health in general (it's always been good but now it is getting even better). And the other big thing is we are making more money via the FSI than we ever did with the Tuesday market and this too is contributing greatly to the overall health of the farm.
In a nutshell, the FSI (you guys) are taking Boulder Belt Eco-Farm to the next level of success. Our goal is to have a 50 member FSI in two years and drop all outside markets except the farm store. Right now we are at 15 memberships sold and we should pick up another 3 or 4 next month. We were hoping to get to 30 members this year but this has not happened and as it turns out this is good as we have not been planting for a CSA like program right now but rather for farmers markets. There is a difference in how you plan out a market garden between the two. We do grow enough to supply 50 memberships in theory. But in fact we couldn't have done 30 shares all 32 or so weeks this season as we were not set up to do this in spring to do so. We did have enough to easily do the 12 or so shares that we sold back in April but we needed more hoop houses for the leafy greens and other early items to get up to supplying 30 shares. And we needed to adjust what we plant a bit-we need to drop some of the crops we attempt to do early but generally fail such as melons and cucumbers (between it being too cold and the voles devouring most of the seedlings in April most years it is a wash trying to do summer crops in spring) and do more of the crops that will do better in early spring like cilantro, scallions, lettuce, arugula, radishes, etc., etc.. Next season we will be much more prepared to do this program so we can easily take more members. And with your help we can get more members. We need you to help us recruit new members. We realize several of you have already done this and we are very grateful for your efforts. But if we are to reach our goal of 30 members for 2010 we need to get the word out and there is no better endorsement than people who are already members telling their friends, family, coworkers, etc.. Not to mention, you can better than us describe what it is like to be in the Boulder Belt FSI. We have never been in a CSA program, all we have done is run them on and off for the past 12 years so we have no idea, really, of what your experience is like.
Hey, I realized this past Sunday should have been pot-luck Sunday. With all that is going on this month we forgot about it. It don't see how we can fit this in this month so lets shoot for a September 20th pot luck and farm tour. We will offer a couple of our pastured chickens for dinner, probably roasted to perfection. This month we are having a big farm tour (sans pot luck) on the 30th from 3 to 6 pm in conjunction with the Innovative farmers of Ohio. This event is free and open to the public. I expect a couple of hundred people will attend. If you want to see how we conduct a formal farm tour or if you have not come to one of our potluck dinners/farm tours I suggest you attend
Recipe
Potato salad
This is an old family recipe, from my paternal grandmother, maybe great grandmother.
1 pound of taters washed, diced and boiled until soft but not falling apart
6 hard boiled eggs, deshelled and sliced
1/2 cup sweet onion sliced thin
1 green pepper sliced thin
1/2 cup parsley chopped fine
1 TBL dried rosemary or 4x that amount if fresh
1 cup mayo
1/8 cup mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
Put everything in a large bowl and mix together. Let sit in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.
What's in the share this week
Charentais melon-these are exquisite French melons. Hard to grow and very limited
Bright lights Chard-chard is back again this week
Arugula-we have arugula again. We planted a new bed back in July and it is now harvestable. generally this is hard to grow in August because it is so hot and dry but this summer has been cool and the past 3 weeks reasonably wet
Potatoes-A couple of pounds. These may have some holes in them due to voracious grubs that can eat a big tater in less than 2 hours. Simply cut the hole out of the tuber with a paring knife. These are the kind of taters we eat all the time (we rarely eat the top shelf produce-that goes to you guys). Normally I would not foist second rate produce on you but we have a lot of these and have to move them as they will not store well and we cannot eat that many spuds. oh and the biodynamic calendar sez not to harvest today (tuesday)
Basil-another big bag of basil. the plants are going nuts right now and that means great bounty. If I were a FSI member i would make pesto and freeze it sans the cheese.
Tomatoes-okay you will be getting a lot of maters this week. the pale yellow ones are actually a white tomato called great white. The browns are either Paul Robeson (big and ugly) or Nyagous (small round). The huge orange beefsteak is Dr Wyche's yellow. The cherry tomatoes are a mix of Sunsugar (orange) and Cherrywine (pink). The reds will be Early Girl (biggest) and Matina (smaller but not as small as the early crop was). The weird shaped yellow and red striped ones are Boulder Belt Striped. You may get some pink/purple maters, I have no idea what they are but they are excellent. Expect at least 7 pounds, probably more. Make a ratatouille with 'em, that should use at least 4 pounds for one meal.
Onions-2 pounds of Ailsa Craig sweet onions. these are best raw but do cook well enough
Carrots-a bag of our rainbow mix-the yellow is a French heirloom Jaune D'uabe, the red are Purple Haze (is in my mind...) and the orange are Bolero.
Cukes-this may be the last week for the cukes. The plants are definitely on the wane. like last week you get 3 different kinds, poona Kheera, Lemon and Telegraph
Garlic-This week several corms of Persian Star-this stores well so you might want to hold one back for later use. start a garlic collection for winter
Eggplant-a mix of purple and black and maybe some of the small purple striped fairytail (the cherry tomato of the eggplant world)
Peppers-several green and purple peppers. It will be another couple of weeks before the ripe red, yellow and orange peppers start to come in
Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com
It's week 20 for the farm share. That's a lot of weeks of a lot of seasonal food. Most CSA programs stop right about at this point but not us. Like the Energizer Bunny we keep on going. I don't know about you guys, but we have been really pleased with the Farm Share Initiative thus far. Before we did this we spent Tuesdays for the last 14 years going to the Tuesday farmers market in Oxford. We loved that market (we had been there from day one) but it was not thriving and we were not making much money-imagine making $200 for 18 hours of generally hard work. And that $200 is split between two people. This time of year was especially hard as Oxford is dead in late July/early August because the university is closed (except for the 4th summer term which virtually no one does because you get only 48 hours of summer vacation-been there done that) and we always have lots of heavy food-water melons, cantaloupe, tomatoes, etc.. Not to mention, it is almost always hot and humid this time of year. So we would harvest crops for market in the heat, clean and bag them in the heat, load up the van with about 3000 pounds of food at 2pm every Tuesday afternoon. Drive to Oxford, park, set up in even greater heat because Oxford is about 5 degrees hotter than the farm. Set up meant taking lots of heavy crates and coolers of food out of the van and onto the lawn about 50 feet away-no selling right out of the van as we do on Saturdays-plus tables, the EZ Shelter and the other things we use to display our produce at market. Maybe there would be other farmers and artisans setting up but the last couple of years it was more common for us to be the only people setting (which was lonely). We would get set up by 4pm and than play the waiting game. Sometimes we would wait over an hour before we got our first customer, especially this time of year. Time would pass, we would get malts from UDF to keep cool and stave off hunger. Than 7pm would finally roll around and we would usually have about 80% of the produce unsold so it got loaded back into the van and we went home. We would get unloaded around 8:30pm, meaning the van would get empty and the fridges would fill up (some items we would compost but most would sit in the fridge taking up space and that meant that when harvest time for the Saturday market came around we would have a cold storage space crisis) and than I would make dinner and our day would end around 10 pm.
With the farm share, we harvest for a known market (you guys) which means there is virtually no waste. You see when you do a farmers market you have to harvest with the assumption there will be a lot of customers and everything you bring in will sell. So you generally get a lot more stuff than you need. This takes hours and hours to do and it is always a bummer when hardly anything sells in the end. With the FSI we harvest, fill the fridge up with produce and by mid afternoon on Tuesdays the shares are packed and the fridge is empty.
We don't have to leave the farm mid afternoon and return after dark to do an evening market which means a lot more gets done on the farm-basically we have an extra work day we have never had (we started this market the same year we went full time with farming). This has made a huge difference in our stress levels (they are way down) and with the farm's health in general (it's always been good but now it is getting even better). And the other big thing is we are making more money via the FSI than we ever did with the Tuesday market and this too is contributing greatly to the overall health of the farm.
In a nutshell, the FSI (you guys) are taking Boulder Belt Eco-Farm to the next level of success. Our goal is to have a 50 member FSI in two years and drop all outside markets except the farm store. Right now we are at 15 memberships sold and we should pick up another 3 or 4 next month. We were hoping to get to 30 members this year but this has not happened and as it turns out this is good as we have not been planting for a CSA like program right now but rather for farmers markets. There is a difference in how you plan out a market garden between the two. We do grow enough to supply 50 memberships in theory. But in fact we couldn't have done 30 shares all 32 or so weeks this season as we were not set up to do this in spring to do so. We did have enough to easily do the 12 or so shares that we sold back in April but we needed more hoop houses for the leafy greens and other early items to get up to supplying 30 shares. And we needed to adjust what we plant a bit-we need to drop some of the crops we attempt to do early but generally fail such as melons and cucumbers (between it being too cold and the voles devouring most of the seedlings in April most years it is a wash trying to do summer crops in spring) and do more of the crops that will do better in early spring like cilantro, scallions, lettuce, arugula, radishes, etc., etc.. Next season we will be much more prepared to do this program so we can easily take more members. And with your help we can get more members. We need you to help us recruit new members. We realize several of you have already done this and we are very grateful for your efforts. But if we are to reach our goal of 30 members for 2010 we need to get the word out and there is no better endorsement than people who are already members telling their friends, family, coworkers, etc.. Not to mention, you can better than us describe what it is like to be in the Boulder Belt FSI. We have never been in a CSA program, all we have done is run them on and off for the past 12 years so we have no idea, really, of what your experience is like.
Hey, I realized this past Sunday should have been pot-luck Sunday. With all that is going on this month we forgot about it. It don't see how we can fit this in this month so lets shoot for a September 20th pot luck and farm tour. We will offer a couple of our pastured chickens for dinner, probably roasted to perfection. This month we are having a big farm tour (sans pot luck) on the 30th from 3 to 6 pm in conjunction with the Innovative farmers of Ohio. This event is free and open to the public. I expect a couple of hundred people will attend. If you want to see how we conduct a formal farm tour or if you have not come to one of our potluck dinners/farm tours I suggest you attend
Recipe
Potato salad
This is an old family recipe, from my paternal grandmother, maybe great grandmother.
1 pound of taters washed, diced and boiled until soft but not falling apart
6 hard boiled eggs, deshelled and sliced
1/2 cup sweet onion sliced thin
1 green pepper sliced thin
1/2 cup parsley chopped fine
1 TBL dried rosemary or 4x that amount if fresh
1 cup mayo
1/8 cup mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
Put everything in a large bowl and mix together. Let sit in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.
What's in the share this week
Charentais melon-these are exquisite French melons. Hard to grow and very limited
Bright lights Chard-chard is back again this week
Arugula-we have arugula again. We planted a new bed back in July and it is now harvestable. generally this is hard to grow in August because it is so hot and dry but this summer has been cool and the past 3 weeks reasonably wet
Potatoes-A couple of pounds. These may have some holes in them due to voracious grubs that can eat a big tater in less than 2 hours. Simply cut the hole out of the tuber with a paring knife. These are the kind of taters we eat all the time (we rarely eat the top shelf produce-that goes to you guys). Normally I would not foist second rate produce on you but we have a lot of these and have to move them as they will not store well and we cannot eat that many spuds. oh and the biodynamic calendar sez not to harvest today (tuesday)
Basil-another big bag of basil. the plants are going nuts right now and that means great bounty. If I were a FSI member i would make pesto and freeze it sans the cheese.
Tomatoes-okay you will be getting a lot of maters this week. the pale yellow ones are actually a white tomato called great white. The browns are either Paul Robeson (big and ugly) or Nyagous (small round). The huge orange beefsteak is Dr Wyche's yellow. The cherry tomatoes are a mix of Sunsugar (orange) and Cherrywine (pink). The reds will be Early Girl (biggest) and Matina (smaller but not as small as the early crop was). The weird shaped yellow and red striped ones are Boulder Belt Striped. You may get some pink/purple maters, I have no idea what they are but they are excellent. Expect at least 7 pounds, probably more. Make a ratatouille with 'em, that should use at least 4 pounds for one meal.
Onions-2 pounds of Ailsa Craig sweet onions. these are best raw but do cook well enough
Carrots-a bag of our rainbow mix-the yellow is a French heirloom Jaune D'uabe, the red are Purple Haze (is in my mind...) and the orange are Bolero.
Cukes-this may be the last week for the cukes. The plants are definitely on the wane. like last week you get 3 different kinds, poona Kheera, Lemon and Telegraph
Garlic-This week several corms of Persian Star-this stores well so you might want to hold one back for later use. start a garlic collection for winter
Eggplant-a mix of purple and black and maybe some of the small purple striped fairytail (the cherry tomato of the eggplant world)
Peppers-several green and purple peppers. It will be another couple of weeks before the ripe red, yellow and orange peppers start to come in
Lucy Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
Eaton, OH
http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com
Lucy
08:03 PM EDT