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
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