Down on the Farm

Basket pickup

Sarah and her son Sam picking up their CSA basket a few Saturdays ago. They're sitting on the front step of the shed-farmstand which we opened as every day-serve yourself a couple weeks ago. In the Red Sox cap is our neighbor and special friend to Waverly, Quinn.

New link

We've been added to the list of links on the Peacham town website. Thanks Diane! Nice list of links to cool stuff happening in Peacham at that site.

CSA Week Eleven

News from the field:

Well, all good things must come to an end, and this week we are seeing the beginning of the end of melon season. It is a short and very sweet season, and it does not last long. There is a melon in your basket this week, and we may have a few stragglers at our farm stand for the next week or two, but the main flush of melons is in our rear view mirror until next year. We are grateful for such a good melon year - hot, sunny, with just enough rain - but we are already starting to long for next year.

As we prepare for fall, we are starting to see the winter squash ripen up, the fall storage onions need to be put up for drying, the kale, spinach, and fall carrots are humming along, and yes, we may see another salad turnip or two as the weather begins to cool down!

On the farm, we have a series of infrastructure projects we are starting in preparation for next year. Another greenhouse is going to go up this fall, some new areas in our main veggie field need to be plowed and prepped for next spring, and we may try to build a bigger cold storage area in our old woodshed. But our most important expansion project will be welcoming the newest member to the Old Shaw Farm crew sometime around Thanksgiving. It is shaping up to be a good fall!

In the Basket:

Corn - We harvest our corn the morning of market, so it is fresh and as sweet as can be. Even though Mark Bittman’s column is more directed at less than perfect corn, I thought his ideas and recipes sounded great so they’re included in your basket.

Hot pepper - Use in the Mark Bittman corn recipe or for anything else. Melon salsa?

Melon - The book Melons for the Passionate Grower recommends serving melon with port. “Charentais [the kind we grow] and Porto were made for each other. Because port is sweeter and more viscous than Charentais, it accentuates the melon’s fruit acid and delicacy. . . . Simply pour it into the melon [half] and serve.”

Mesclun - Some greens to round out the basket.

Sun golds, slicing tomatoes, and sweet peppers - Yum.

September CSA 2005

I got a little behind on posting the CSA flyers, so here're the past two weeks. Also, this is the flyer we've been posting around town to let people know about the September CSA.

Fresh, organic veggies every week!!

Eat great this fall!! CSA (which stands for Community Supported Agriculture) means every week we pack a basket for you full of vegetables fresh from our farm. Until first frost, the baskets will likely still be full of summer goodness - tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and more! Even after frost the baskets are likely to have carrots, beets, greens, winter squash, mesclun and more!

Here are the basics: There are four baskets in September, and the cost for the month is $75. You can choose Wednesday pickup at the Danville Farmer’s Market, 9-1, or Saturday pickup at our farm in South Peacham, on Saturdays, 9-1.

Old Shaw Farm is a certified organic farm owned and operated by the Griffin family. For more information about us, check out our website at www.oldshawfarm.com There you can also see what full season CSAers have been getting in their baskets, to get an idea of how this all works.

To guarantee optimum quality and variety for all our CSAers, we only offer a limited number of September CSAs, so sign up soon. The September CSA filled up fast last year!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sign me up!

Name
Address
Telephone
Email

Pickup (check one)
Wednesdays in Danville _______
Saturdays at the farm _______

Please mail this form with your check to
Old Shaw Farm
P.O. Box 181
Peacham VT 05862

Questions? Call Maryellen at 592-3349 or email me at maryellen at oldshawfarm.com

CSA Week Ten

News from the field:

Summer, sweet, sweet summer. We hope you are enjoying the melons, you will find two in your basket this week. Get them while the getting is good! The crows are getting their share too, but even they can’t keep up with Mother Nature’s bounty in melons!

Another new addition is sweet corn. Our two year old, Waverly, has already gotten the hang of eating it from the cob. Tomatoes and sweet sun golds are also in keeping with the sweet theme.

Otherwise, late season weeds are a bit of a problem, and there are 1,001 tasks to get ready for fall, but there is still some time to enjoy summer in all its glory. So enjoy!

In the Basket:

Green beans and cucumbers - Green and crunchy to round out the sweetness in the basket.

Broccoli - Peter’s Mom, Alice, is visiting this week. Alice recommends broccoli with garlic sautéed in butter and lemon.

Corn - Our first ever (except our family taste tests the past few days). We’re wicked excited! Enjoy!!

Dried garlic - The papery outside is dried and cured, but as you’ve probably found yourself, the cloves are still super moist and packed with flavor.

Melons – Ready to eat now -- don’t let them get too soft.

Sun golds and slicing tomatoes - We still can’t get enough of these. We hope it’s the same for you.

September CSA
We are again offering our September CSA. This is a good chance for people to try out CSA, and its also good for people who love the farmer’s markets, but whose September schedules make it harder to come. Four weeks of baskets for $75. In case you might know someone who might be interested, we’re including a flyer in your basket. We appreciate any referrals!

CSA Week Nine

News from the field:

MELONS!!! The melons are here. We grow a French charentais type melon that is sweet and rich, and they are here now! We hope you like them because there are plenty more where these came from - that is assuming, of course, that the crows don’t eat them all first. But even with the crows getting some, there seems to be plenty to go around.

As far as recipes go this week, we looked over the list of goodies in the basket, and we couldn’t come up with much to actually cook. Have some salad with cucumbers, with some tomatoes with basil and cheese on the side, steam the zux, eat the sungolds raw, and inhale the melon for dessert (or breakfast).

In the Basket:

Basil – see, tomatoes

Cucumbers - Waverly calls these pickles even though they are fresh. Luckily she is not even two, so she has a while to sort all this out.

Dried garlic - Believe it or not, this is the first of the fall stuff we carry.

Melons – Slice, scoop seeds, eat.

Mesclun – Another favorite returns. We finally managed to get some lettuce and other goodies germinate in this heat.

Fresh onion - Lately we have really liked fried onions on the side of whatever we are eating. Chop into skillet with butter, splash some soy sauce, yum.

Sun golds - By request! We will be missing these in December!

Tomatoes - Munch with the basil and a little cheese.

Zucchini – They are back! Believe it or not, we will probably miss fresh zucchini in December too.

Farm love

Here is one for all you single gals out there. Don't let him get away!

Sweet corn is here!

But is farming sexy enough?

There has been discussion on the farm crew this year about Patagonia clothing and gear. Patagonia makes quality clothes, rain gear, etc. for active, outdoor people. They tailor their clothing for alpine hiking, rock climbing, trail running, surfing, yoga, skiing/snowboarding, paddling and fly fishing. Patagonia also is wicked pro-environment and pro-sustainability. They were basically the first major clothing manufacturer to carry organic cotton clothes, and their fleeces are made from recycled soda bottles. And I didn't realize it until I spent some time on their website, but it looks like they drop some serious bling on charitable causes.

I have some Patagonia stuff, and it is awesome -- seriously light, warm, and dry. It would be really great stuff for farming, but there is a problem. Their stuff is expensive. There is just no way that people trying to start an agriculture business, like us, or people who work as crew hands on our farm, can realistically afford to buy Patagonia. And if we are lucky enough to get some Patagonia gear, the last thing we would want to do is trash it by wearing it in the field.

This is all the more frustrating because you would think that small scale, quality conscious, beautiful, family farms would mesh well with the Patagonia image.

So we are open to some brainstorming. One idea we had while working on Friday was to get Patagonia to give us free stuff. Kat use to work at the Farm School and they had some deal where the Patagonia store in Boston sent them free seconds and out of season clothes. But Kat also noted, that we are not a non-profit, and that giving us free stuff would not count as a charitable contribution for them. So this idea amounts to asking a company to give us their product for free, which probably has a low chance of success.

Another idea would be to get to Patagonia to sponsor our farm, kind of like how beer companies sponsor racing cars, or something. But realistically, Patagonia probably wouldn't get that much exposure out of the deal, since our farm field is tucked away from the road, in a town of 600, in rural Vermont. We do attend two farmer's markets, and have this site, but still, that means we probably could reach a couple dozen people for them.

I think our best bet is to get Patagonia to add farming to the list of sports they do. But until that day comes, we are open to anyone's suggestion about how to get lots of free stuff from a big company.

Sick bugs

Last week we went to a NOFA-VT sponsored evening workshop at the Wellspring CSA farm in Marshfield. Wellspring is this wonderful CSA run by Mimi Arnstein, and as you can see from their site, they do a great job. We should add them to the friends column on the left. There, I just did that.

Anyway, the event was a field tour with a plant disease specialist and a bug specialist, both from the University of Vermont. Basically it was a group of about 12-15 veggie growers wandering around with two real scientists, talking about various pest and disease problems and strategies, about how the season is going, and generally shooting the breeze. It was great fun, and very informative for us. We always learn a tremendous amount visiting other farms. I guess we should thank Mimi for opening up her farm. I don't think I would have been brave enough to have all these people who know what they are doing wander around our farm and point out all the plant problems we are having! I mean, cough cough, not that we ever have any plant problems here, ahem.

It must be summer

The very first melons of the year are here.

We grow a French charentais type melon that is super duper sweet and tasty, right off the vine.

Here, Aleda enjoys a slice, sitting on the rear gate of the pickup, while her crazy boss insists on taking her picture. Yum!

The Danville Fair

Danville is the next town over from us, and every summer they squeeze a lot of fair onto a pretty small town green. Waverly goes to a day care in Danville a couple of days a week, and the kids there had gotten her all amped up for the fair this past weekend. So we went, both Friday and Saturday nights, and we had a blast!

We danced to music at the bandshell with Waverly's friend Tommy, we saw a lot of friends, neighbors, and customers, we watched the horse pull, we saw the exhibits, and of course, we ate too much fried dough.

One of the funnest things about being a parent is being able to be a kid again. Only 363 days until the next Danville fair!

Chef Pierre’s Gazpacho

Some tomatoes
Roughly 1/3 as much cucumber
Onion and garlic to taste
A bit of a Hungarian hot wax pepper, or something hot (like Tabasco) to taste

Put it all in the blender or food processor and blend until you have achieved your level of preferred chunkiness (or smoothness as the case may be). Voila! you have a cold summer soup. Maybe add some salt and pepper to taste. Find a hunk of bread and some butter, and you have taken care of another lunch.

CSA Week Eight

News from the field:
While summer continues to sizzle, our thoughts have begun to turn towards fall, if you can believe it. This week we planted out salad turnips, spinach, and a few more carrots for harvest in the fall. We started to pull the garlic up and to dry it for storage. Soon, we will stop seeding new transplants because we will run up against the first frost. But fall isn’t here yet, and we still have plenty of summer goodies for the weeks ahead.

And this week, we have a guest recipe appearance from Peter. Chef Pierre’s Gazpacho! Make some for someone you love!

In the Basket:

Carrots - Crunchy. A good working-at-the-computer food.

Cucumbers - Waverly likes to eat these in the car like apples.

Green beans - My brother-in-law Geoff suggests: Cover the beans in olive oil, kosher salt and pepper, and throw on the grill. Cover the grill and close the vents a little so that they are in there steaming (not burning). When you lose your patience, take off the lid and let them sear a minute. Then eat.

Eggplant - If you know a good recipe, email me, and I’ll post it on www.oldshawfarm.com

Fresh garlic - More flavor, less fire than supermarket garlic.

Hungarian hot wax pepper - A mild to medium hot pepper.

Onion - The first of the season!

Sweet colored pepper - You can roast peppers directly on the gas flame on the stovetop. Turn with tongs till blistered (black is okay, but don’t burn to a crisp). Put in a paper bag to steam. When coolish, rub off the skin, take out seeds, membrane, and stem, and done.

Potatoes - These are an early season russet. They’re much better roasted or baked (about 50 minutes) than boiled.

Sun golds - By request!

Tomatoes - Geoff suggests slicing tomatoes into quarters and dosing with kosher salt.

Congrats, Kat!!!!!

Kat, who works here on Tuesdays and Fridays, was the top female finisher at the Jay Mountain Half Marathon on Saturday. The Jay Mountain Half Marathon is this completely insane, 14 mile trail run, up and down one of the steepest ski slopes in our region. So basically, after working in the field during the week, and then working her other job, Kat likes to unwind on the weekends by running up and down mountains. What else can you say about that?

Way to go Kat!!!!