Boulder Belt Eco-Farm

It's week 22 and I sincerely hope we make it another 3 to 5 weeks (the month to month folks stop the end of this month and the 3 mo and full season subscribers get to go through to Oct 13th). But with no rain and irrigation just barely keeping things alive I don't know if we will be able to keep on going through the entire season. Cutting the season short will be a first for us in the 12 or so years we have done a CSA. In the past I have felt like cutting the season short due to burn out on us farmers' part and the members' part but never did. but this is different, we are simply running out of food. Almost everything in the market garden has given up. We are getting maybe 50 pounds of tomatoes, less eggplant, no greens right now (they look terrible, but are alive and will likely come back in full force when/if it rains). The beans are producing but not much and the bugs have pretty much decimated what is being produced in their desperate search for food and water. the raspberries are pretty much done (Eugene still picks them but the berries are really really tiny now and sparse, to boot). The strawberries are slowly producing but even with several hours of drip irrigation daily they are not getting enough water so we get under 5 pints of berries a week (and this is why they do not show up in your shares-not enough for everyone).

So what I am getting at, is the fact that when you signed up for this food adventure you took on some of the risk of farming with us, and for the first time, I believe we may have to test out all you locavores participating. If we cannot make it through the entire season there will be no refunds. We will try our best to go out the entire time and with things like winter squash, onions, apples and perhaps parsnips (if we can get them out of the hard, hard ground) I think we will be able to go out to mid October. But I make no promises. Yeah, it's that bad. It's so bad we are wondering how we will make it through winter and get the bills paid as this is the time of year at the farmers market when we make most of our money for the season and because we have little in the way of crops to sell, our sales are down by about half. We want to do a winter CSA but it looks like we will be short on taters, carrots, greens, winter squash-pretty much everything we need for winter shares-because we will have to use some of our stores for the main season (as we are planning on taking this out all the way if possible). So this is another needed revenue stream that won't be happening, most likely. But we do want to do the winter CSA and if you have expressed an interest know we are still thinking of doing it but really won't know for sure until the beginning of October. After all, Boulder Belt Eco-Farm was one of the first farms in the USA to do a winter CSA 4 years ago and we want to continue onward.

But maybe things will change. All we really need is a couple of good (1 inch) rainfalls in the next 10 days and we will be back in the saddle. There is rain forecasted, including the remnants of a tropical storm (and they are usually good rain producers) in the next week, so maybe we will get lucky. With rain all the seeds planted for the fall and winter will start to thrive instead of merely surviving (and that is with hand watering for hours daily, plus drip irrigation and row cover over top to keep all moisture with the plants and not evaporating away-it's not like we are not trying-we are using every trick in the book and it still is not working well for us. Of course most small farmers in the eastern US are in the same boat. It's been a very, very hard summer for farming)

I do have to start asking at this point will you be doing the Boulder Belt FSI next year? I plan on doing attractive discounts for folks who sign up and pay before Jan. 1st 2011. And for those who are interested in the Winter Share; it will start Nov 3rd and run through Jan 26th (7 pick-ups which will be every other week). Cost is $350 paid in full by Mid October (we will start accepting payments, if we even do this, October 1st).

Okay, all that said, expect the shares to be much smaller starting this week than they have been in the past. You will still get plenty of food but not quite the bounty you have been getting (which may be a relief).

Shares will be ready after 4pm and please don't forget your tomatoes which will be sitting on the shelves by the fridge. Last week about 1/2 of you forgot them.

Recipe
Apple Betty

6 or more apples cored and sliced thinly (you can leave the skins on)
1 cup brown sugar
2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup melted butter
1 TBL (or to taste) Cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBL corn starch (or other thickener such as arrow root)
2 TBL lemon juice (fresh is best but bottled works just fine)
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

In a mixing bowl combine the apples, lemon juice 1/2 cup sugar, corn starch half the salt, raisins and walnuts. In another bowl combine the oats, butter and the rest of the sugar. in a buttered dish dump the apple stuff and top it with the oat stuff. bake in an over preheated to 350 for about 1/2 hour. Take out and let cool 20 minutes and serve.

What's in the Share

Eggplant-around 1 to 2 pounds
Tomatoes-around 1 to 2 pounds
Peppers-4 to 6 peppers. FYI if you leave the partially green peppers out of refrigeration they will ripen up in a few days and be far sweeter.
Garlic-2 heads of garlic. FYI, if you are not using up your garlic it will store well at room temp for many many months. It will store even longer in the fridge (like 9 months)
Leek-1 leek
Winter squash-probably a mix of bon bon (the bluish green squash) and delicata (the yellowish squash)
Apples-6 or 7 apples
Parsley-A small bunch of parsley
Yellow Onions-1 large or a couple smaller onions (around 1/2 pound). These are cooking onions, do not eat them raw unless you have an iron stomach

It's week 18 and once again it is ungodly hot and humid.

I was out harvesting raspberries last night around dark because I hoped it would be a bit cooler. It was not, it was 90F at 9pm and my shirt was drenched with sweat doing a non strenuous job. This heat is really putting a wrench in our farming works as the crops don't like it above 90 for more than a couple of days. The farmers don't like working in these conditions. My plan until it gets cooler is to get up early and get out at dawn and work a few hours until it gets too hot (around 10 am) than get inside where it is cooler and do inside work the remainder of the day. Eugene can tolerate heat better than me and thus can do more outside work. But even he will get out of it by noon. Fall cannot get here soon enough.

The yard sale was a spectacular success. We doubled our attendance rates over last year with 20,000 (yes, thousand) people stopping by to shop this year. We had people from 33 states and 3 Canadian provinces. We had a great group of vendors and it looks like most will return next year as almost everyone did as well as they imagined in their wildest dreams. We even got on Channel 2 news (well, the sale, not Eugene and I personally). And we got really lucky with the weather. Rain the night before (which we needed very badly) and than less hot and humid during the sale.

The yard sale does make it hard to farm but we managed to get in 4 beds of fall carrots and a bed of rutabagas after we closed down Friday evening. managing a big sale and going through the process of planting seeds are very different things mentally and physically. Dealing with thousands of people is very tiring mentally but not so much physically. Dealing with the farm is tiring physically and not so much mentally and I found it to be a wonderful break to help Eugene with the planting after the people had gone away for the day. When we plant several things must happen. First the beds has to be cleared of weeds (usually by tilling and than hand removal of big clumps), than a seed bed created by raking the soil so it is smooth and even more weed free. Than it can be planted using the Earthway Seeder (a simple contraption that makes planting seed fast and easy with no bending). Finally the seeds are covered with row cover that is secured with rocks. Eugene generally does the raking and seeding (I had a bad horse riding accident at a combined training event when I was 17 that tore up my right rotator cuff and it has never been fixed so I cannot do things like rake for very long without re-injuring it) and I carry rocks and lay out the covers.

Eugene also managed to get most of the onions harvested I (maybe all of them as he was down to the dregs of the onions) and a lot of beds tilled for fall lettuce and other greens, plus radishes. I was able to get 1.5 bushels of  2 kinds of garlic all cleaned up and ready to be segregated into stuff to sell and stuff to keep for planting in October. Just have another 3 0r 4 bushels yet to clean.

Crops coming in right now include the afore mentioned raspberries, about every kind of melon we grow, tomatoes, green peppers (though I'll bet there are a few ripening to red, orange or yellow), hot peppers and eggplant. The cukes are about over as are the zucchini, we have some of each but between the hot humid weather and the bugs they are not long for this world. The good news is we do have young plants of both growing for September/October harvest. We should have French beans by next week for your shares. After months of struggling with beans we have a couple of very nice looking beds and the plants are loaded with tiny beans that should be eating size by next week

As usual, your shares will be ready to pick up after 4 pm and will be near the cooler (but not in the fridge as none of the food in the shares this week depends on staying cold to stay fresh and the basil and maters would be best never refrigerated).

Oh and thanks to everyone who sent me past newsletters because I somehow dumped all mine. You guys are the best!

Recipe

Tomato Salsa
3 to 4 large tomatoes (a couple of pounds) dice fairly fine-I like a variety of colors
a medium sweet onion diced the same way
1 to 4 jalapenos diced
1 or 2 cloves of garlic either finely grated or pressed
the juice of one lime (incredibly important)
a handful of cilantro, chopped (I am sorry we don't have any of this growing right now-cilantro is hard to grow during tomato season as it hates hot humid dry conditions-nature's cruel joke on us salsa lovers. If we are lucky, we will get some to grow before the maters end for the season)
1 TBL sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Toss everything together and let sit for at least an hour so the flavors can marry. Taste and adjust seasonings  and serve with chips, as a side for burritos/tacos or whatever. Stores about 3 to 5 days in the fridge so best to use ASAP. Berries and cantaloups would also go well in the salsa if you want to talk a walk on the wild side

What's in the share

Cantaloupe- a nice big 'loup, I am not sure what kind you will get.
Watermelon-a fridge sized melon, either yellow or red. All of our watermelons have seeds. If you have kids (or are a kid at heart) have a water melon seed fight
Raspberries-the fall raspberries are coming in about 3 weeks early and I think they are better than the spring (summer actually) berries. These are an heirloom variety called Heritage
Blackberries-some nice domestic blackberries (the ones you have gotten previously were wild)
Big Tomatoes-you will get several pounds this week as we gear up to the part of the season where everyone gets too many maters. The salsa recipe is a great way to use lots of tomatoes quickly. I don't know what kinds you will get today but there will be at least 4 different colors in your share.
Cherry tomatoes over a pound of the sweet and tasty gems
Green peppers-2 or 3 peppers per share
Basil-another big bag of basil this week. Some will have flowers, the flowers are quite edible and tasty
Ailsa Craig Sweet Onions-a pound or so of these wonderful onions
Jalapeno peppers-at least 5, hopefully more
Garlic-2 corms of Persian Star this week
Scallions-a nice bunch of scallions

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