Down on the Farm

Emptying the camera

Sarah washing beets in the wash room.

Elise picking garlic scapes. And yes, I realize we shouldn't let that Lamb's Quarter get that big.

CSA Week Two

News from the field:

The big news this week is the weather, as usual. It has been wet, wet, wet. Not wet like flooding-wet, but just enough rain everyday to make sure nothing dries out. You see, we plant crops every week to keep a continuous flow of veggies to your table. That means that every week we need to prepare beds to plant, and if the ground is wet, like it has been, we can’t prepare the ground the way we need to. So we have been getting by for now, but we could really use some dry weather to help us get caught up.

In other news, we have had our full crew in place for a few weeks, and they are great! Sarah, Anna, Andrew, and Dawn are the regulars and we feel really lucky to have such talented and motivated folks on board. Thank them if you see them at market or at the CSA pick up!

In the Basket:

These are the salad days!! Lettuce, mesclun or baby arugula, tomatoes, cucumbers. Enough for salad every night if you want. Try the pasta with mesclun recipe on the back.

Beets are also great in salad. These are small enough that you can just grate them raw into your salad (watch out for beet juice, it stains). Or boil and dice them: Cut the greens off the beets about ½ inch above the root, leave the skins boil them till fork tender, cool, slip the skins off and dice. You can add these to your regular salad throughout the week. Or do up a special salad with greens topped with the diced beets, goat cheese, and toasted walnuts. The beet greens are also good, and good for you – cook gently like you would spinach.

Garlic scapes are in! These are the top of the garlic plant which we trim this time of year so that the plant sends more energy into the bulbs. Scapes have a bright, garlicky flavor and a very firm, almost fibrous texture. Think of them like green beans in terms of texture. Here are a bunch of ideas: Brush the scapes with olive oil and grill till they get the tiniest bit black. Cut into 2 inch length and sauté in butter just till they turn the tiniest bit black. Chop fine and use as you would garlic cloves. Puree with olive oil in the food processor into a paste to store in the fridge then use in these ways: thin the paste with olive oil and use it as a dipping sauce for crusty bread, use the paste as base for salad dressing or pesto or other sauces, puree white beans and lemon juice with the paste for a dip.

Henry in the upper hoophouse

The tomatoes in the greenhouses are ripening fast, as CSAers already know. The upper hoophouses -- which have no supplemental heat -- are timed to come in a bit later, when the greenhouse tomatoes have passed their output peak. They're looking good!!!

Wavy in the tall grass

CSA Week One

News from the field:

Welcome to the 2008 Season!!! Woohoo! For anyone new to the CSA, this is the part of the newsletter where we explain how things are going on the farm. The nutshell version for this week: we have gotten off to a slow start this year, but things are starting to come along now.

We have had a slow start for two reasons. First, it may be hard to remember now, but we still had snow on our fields on April 19th. Some years the snow has melted, the fields have dried, the fields have been prepared, and we have planted the potatoes by that date. So we are still a couple of weeks behind where we would like to be because of the late snow and runoff.

Second, we usually hire a couple of part time people to help us in April and May. This year we advertised the same way as we normally did, but we had very very few responses. A big problem seems to be that no one wants to travel for a part time job with relatively modest pay. In past years we have had people commute from Montpelier to work at our farm, but not this year. No one wants to spend their whole paycheck on the commute. As a result, even after the fields had dried and were ready, we were short staffed for a bit when we needed help most.

But don’t fear! The greenhouse tomatoes are looking good, and not that we have things in the field, the heat we had in early June has really helped move things along! And the veggies should just keep growing from here! So welcome, and enjoy!

In the Basket:

Strawberries - We found these early season treats down at Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford. Since we don't do strawberries, we went down and picked them for you! Cedar Circle Farm strawberries are all certified organic and very yummy, and Cedar Circle is now open for pick your own – find out more at www.cedarcirclefarm.org. NOTE: These are not the strawberries from Too Little Farm in West Barnet that we have had in earlier years. Too Little berries will hopefully be ready next week or the week after!

Salad fixins – Bunched spinach, a tomato, a garden cuke and a ridged English one (the main difference being the garden cukes are juicier and the English cukes are seedless), salad turnips or radishes. Salad turnips are an Asian variety of turnip that’s meant to be eaten raw, like a radish. The greens on those are edible too. I like to sauté them in olive oil with garlic until they turn bright green.

Greens for cooking – Swiss chard, bok choy. Check out the recipes on the back!! Swiss chard is a delicate cooking green most people cook like spinach (though we often eat it raw in salad.) Bok choy is a Chinese cooking green which typically people slice into 1 inch or so pieces and then stir fry with tofu.

Two recipes for greens

Korean Greens

1 pound fresh spinach (or other cooking greens)
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil
1½ tablespoons white vinegar
1½ tablespoons tamari soy sauce
Pinch of sugar
1/2 tablespoon sesame seeds toasted

Prepare the sauce by mixing together the sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar.
Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet. Add the greens and stir-fry until just tender, but not overcooked. Pour off any excess oil or liquid. Toss the greens with the sauce in a serving bowl. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and serve.

Chinese Greens

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large garlic clove, minced or pressed
½ teaspoon grated fresh ginger
6 to 8 cups of washed and chopped bok choy or 12 to 14 cups of chopped spinach
½ cup dry sherry or Chinese rice wine
1 tablespoon vinegar or fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon of sugar or honey
2 tablespoons of fish sauce or tamari soy sauce

Heat the oil in a wok and add the garlic and ginger. Saute very briefly. Add the greens and toss to coat with oil. Add the sherry or wine, vinegar or lemon juice, honey or sugar, fish sauce, and a splash of water. Continue sautéing. The spinach version will take about 1 minute, the bok choy version will take 5 minutes, or until tender. If you use tamari soy sauce instead of fish sauce, add it right before serving.

Both adapted from New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant. Thank you Tracy!!

First CSA pickup this week!!

CSA starts this week!! All the veggies (except the fall CSA) start this week and the beef CSA too. Woohoo!!!!

The CSA continues to grow, and our new St J pickup option was very popular - 21 families are picking up there, just beating out Danville as the most popular pickup location!!

If you have signed up for the CSA, you should have gotten an email from me this morning reminding you about the pickup. If you think you've signed up for the CSA and did not get an email from me, please call (592-3349) or email (maryellen at oldshawfarm.com) to make sure I have you on my list.

Fun at market

Playing house in the back of the car with Peter, Tim, and Olivia.

Henry selling the vegetables. He took the money, gave change, and then came around front to help folks pick a good cucumber.

Sarah and Anna's Lentil Soup with Spinach

We decided to celebrate the beginning of the season with an impromptu dahl-soup with spinach from the fields. This week we harvested a great crop of spinach and are thrilled to be eating the first few tomatoes. The soup came out beautifully so we thought we'd share the recipe, rough as it is.

A combination of red and green lentils (soaked)
a few spoon-fulls of tomato sauce
one large onion, chopped
three cloves of garlic, chopped
at least one fresh tomato (more could be added), chopped
olive oil
curry powder
garam masala
tumeric
salt and pepper
lots of fresh, chopped spinach

We cooked the lentils until they were soft, then added the tomato sauce. We let it cook a few minutes longer before adding the olive, onion, and garlic. Next we spiced with curry powder, tumeric, and garam masala to taste (and color). We added the tomato and when the soup was a soft golden-brown color we used the food processor to blend half of it. Last we added enough spinach to cover the top of the soup and stirred it in so it cooked down a bit, then we added more and let it cook down again. The soup tasted great, and was great again the next day as well.

Sarah and Anna

Henry loves cucumbers

Cucumbers are in and Henry (and his friend Tommy) likes to eat whole cucumbers out of hand, like an apple.