Week Eight

It’s exciting to us to be eating more and more food from the garden. Almost every meal incorporates something that we have grown or that has been grown in this county or the surrounding ones. It’s a good time of year for local eating.

The food is its own motivator because it is really so delicious compared to what you can get at the grocery store at any time of year. But the change for our planet is good too. “If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally and sustainably raised meat and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels.” (Steven Hopp)That’s a real difference.

We hope that you all are enjoying your food. We would be happy to hear any feedback that you have. While we have had huge gardens and worked on other farms, this is our first year growing for other people on our own, so let us know how it’s going.

Farm work is still going at a breakneck pace and we would be glad to see some rain. We are trying to work in the coolest parts of the day, and I can’t help but feel very sorry for the sheep panting in the field in their wool coats. Phew. Everything is looking good though and we are glad for that.

Your basket this week will have:

potatoes

zucchini

green peppers

tomatoes OR green beans

purslane

onions

garlic

If you have a strong preference for either tomatoes or green beans, let us know and we will try to honor that preference.

I told you last week that you would be getting purslane this week. “Purslane is rich in antioxidants and the famous Omega-3 fatty acid (that many people think is only found in oily fish). In addition, 100 grams (a small serving) contains 300 to 400 milligrams of alpha-linoleic acid, 12.2 mg of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E), 26.6 mg of Vitamin C, 1.9 mg of beta-carotene, and 14.8 mg of glutathione. All of which is to say that Popeye has been eating the wrong plant!” (Whole Foods Guide to Nutrition)

Happily, it really is tasty. If you look it up online you can find dozens of recipes that sound good. Small salad with just purslane, purslane mixed with tomato and cucumber with lemon vinaigrette, tea sandwiches with cream cheese and purslane, pasta with purslane, bacon, onions, and garlic, purslane omelet or frittata. There are lots of ways to enjoy it - including raw which is our favorite. Let us know what you think.

Speaking of recipes, I want to share my new favorite potato recipe with you. It’s from Feast by Nigella Lawson. So good.

1. Boil 1 1/2 pounds of small potatoes (if they are large, you can cut them before boiling) for 30 minutes..
2. While the potatoes are boiling preheat the oven to 450 with a roasting pan in the oven.
3. Drain the potatoes. Put them in a large skillet or platter along with 6-8 cloves of garlic. Use a potato masher to roughly crush them. You want them to still be whole but smashed.
4. Pour 1/4 cup olive oil into the hot roasting pan and let it heat. Then place in the smashed potatoes and garlic (which will start to sizzle immediately - be careful!). Sprinkle with salt and pepper and place in the oven for 15 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven and flip the potatoes and garlic and heat for 15 more minutes. They will be browned and really tasty!!

As you may recall from your newsletter, we are providing 20 weeks of food out of a 22 week period from May 21 - October 15 with two weeks off to be announced ahead of time. One of those weeks off will be next Friday, July 16. There will be no delivery next week. We will resume delivery as normal the next week, Friday, July 23. We hope you miss your baskets a little!

Remember to let us know if you are interested in the fall shares (the cost is cheaper before August 1!), if you want eggs, and please bring your baskets.

Thanks for your support and we will see you Friday!

Week Seven

We are sorry for the lateness in getting out this newsletter. Things are good here (but busy!) and we are so grateful for cooler weather. We hear it’s not going to last, but, oh, the respite has been wonderful.

The last of the main season planting has been finished. Finally!! Some of our summer mainstays may be later than you will see elsewhere, but they should be really good. We planted many varieties of heirloom melons and winter squashes. There are so many more varieties of these vegetables (and others) that you never see in the store and we love to grow them and really love to eat them.

Now we are trellising tomatoes, weeding, starting fall seeds, weeding, mowing, weeding, mulching, weeding - oh and did I mention weeding? I laughed when I read about an author who kept a huge garden (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver which you should think about reading if you haven’t) thinking every year that the weeds were the absolute worst ever that year and then going back to read previous journal entries that basically said the same thing. The weeds are the worst every year apparently. Samantha and Lila have been gorging on purslane (Ben and I eat it too) which is a weed trying to take over the tomato patch. You might get some in your baskets next week. Farmers grow it on purpose in Europe, which is hard for me to imagine since it is everywhere in our garden. It’s actually quite tasty and is the green highest in the omega-3 fatty acids that are all the nutrition craze right now. And when you eat it, you’ll be helping us in our war against weeds.

I’ve been reading cookbooks lately for inspiration. Local Flavors by Deborah Madison is a beautiful book as well as inspiring. It has been inspiring me to make Chard Soup with Noodle Nests; Lasagna with Chard, Ricotta, and Walnuts; Chard Gratin, Zucchini Risotto; Soft Taco with Roasted Green Chile and Goat Cheese. I tell you, this book is a treasure trove. Based on the inspiration that I’ve been getting from this book, I’m going to share with you three recipes for the abundance of squash and zucchini that will continue to come your way for pretty much the rest of the sumer.

Zucchini Risotto (adapted from Local Flavors)

1 pound zucchini or squash

5-6 cups vegetable or chicken stock

2 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup diced shallots

1 1/2 cups arborio rice

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup grated parmesan

1. Cut zucchini into a small dice
2. Melt the butter in a wide pot. Add the onions and squash and cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally until squash has begun to color, about 15 minutes.
3. Add the rice and stir to coat it with butter. Pour in wine and simmer til absorbed then add 1/2 cup of stock and simmer til it’s absorbed. Keep adding stock in 1/2 cup increments until the rice is cooked.Turn off the heat and stir in cheese.

Note: You call also add some garlic at the end, some diced tomatoes, some herbs - anything really. It’s delicious either way!

Slow Cooked Sliced Summer Squash (adapted from Local Flavors)

1-2 pounds summer squash or zucchini

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup water

salt and pepper

1. Slice the squash 1/4 inch thick.
2. Heat oil in a wide skillet. Add squash and cook over medium low heat flipping squash every 3 or 4 minutes until it’s tender and golden, about 20 minutes. Add water and continue cooking until none remains. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Note: This is also good with garlic stirred in at the end or any herb sprinkled on top at the end.

Lila’s Favorite Zucchini Orzo

Lila could eat this at every meal every day. And always, as she sits down to eat this, she says, “I’m so glad it’s summer and we have zucchini.” This is an inexact (but very forgiving) recipe.

1. Slice some onions thin (as few as one and as many as three). Grate zucchini (you can use whatever you have up to two pounds or so - it really cooks down).
2. Melt 1 tablespoon butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add zucchini and onions along with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix together. The zucchini will release it’s liquid and cook down a fair amount. Then it will start to brown. When it does this scrape the bottom of the pan and let it continue to brown a bit. This is the tasty stuff. This whole process takes maybe 10-15 minutes. When it is done to your liking then turn off the heat. At this point you can add a clove or two of minced garlic or some herbs.
3. While the zucchini is cooking bring a pot of water to a boil and cook orzo according to box instructions (I use around 8 oz of orzo for 4 people). When it is finished mix it with the zucchini mixture. Add a generous grating of parmesan cheese and enjoy!

This week in your baskets you will have:

garlic

carrrots

chard

green peppers

kohlrabi

zucchini

blueberries (from Blueberry Hill Farm)

Remember to let us know if you are interested in the fall share. We will offer a half share for fall which will be $125 before August 1 and $150 after. The half share will be the same with delivery every two weeks and you will be able to specify whether you would like more greens, cole crops, root crops, or winter squash. Let us know!

Thanks for support that keeps us farming!

Week Six

We hope you are enjoying all the food coming in your baskets. We certainly are. We ate the first broccoli from the garden this week and it was so good. The broccoli is going to be a here-and-gone item because it got hot so fast this spring. The heads are small and are trying to bolt fast, but they are still mighty tasty.

Good news and hard news to share from this week. Part of why we believe in the concept of CSA, of buying into one particular farm for your produce needs is so that you can share in some of the story. This isn’t faceless food from the supermarket, and so we want you to know what is going really well and what is struggling this year. This is your food and appreciating the ups and downs of farm life is important, we believe, in appreciating it more.

There are several good things. We got our last goat (for now anyway!) - Kasiana. She is a Nubian yearling who is in milk and we will be milking her twice a day. She is beautiful, friendly, and sweet and is getting quite beat up by the mama goats we have been goat sitting. But they leave today so hopefully she will settle in.

The tomatoes are looking great. I am expecting wonderful things from this years bunch - we might even have cherry tomatoes next week (and if not, then soon after). The sweet potatoes are growing well and so are the green beans. As the spring crops wind down, we are happy with how well they did, despite the early and intense heat. We missed cauliflower this year and are uncertain that it will mature in this weather. We’ll catch it again in the fall, but we love cauliflower.

Some places where we are struggling are becoming clearer. We have lost the war with the potato beetles on our early potato plants. They were almost completely mature anyway and we will still get potatoes from all those plants, but it is disheartening. Eggplant has also been a pest casualty. Flea beetles have taken out our eggplant crop completely. We have some ideas for combatting them next year and we will make sure you still get eggplant from other local farmers we know. Intensive farming that seeks to build soil and be sustainable is tough work and wonderful work. There are always joys and always setbacks. And every year it is something different. We are grateful for your company and support on this journey.

In your basket this week:

new garlic

potatoes

chard

beets

broccoli

kale/zucchini

cabbage

New garlic is different than cured garlic. The taste is much better. It doesn’t keep as long and the peels are different. This is the garlic you want to use in pesto, or dipping oil for bread.

I hope you like beets. I have a confession to make - beets are the only vegetable we do not like. We never have and we have really tried. But this year...we found this recipe from our friends at Three Springs Farm and it was terrific. Not just good for beets, but really good!

Roasted Beets with Garlic & Dill

beets (any number is fine) with tops chopped off, washed

1-4 garlic cloves, to taste

1-3 tablespoons of minced dill

salt

olive oil

1. Roast the beets whole, on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for about an hour. After an hour start checking them. You want them to be very soft and easily pierced by a knife.
2. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. At this point, remove the skins from the beets and place into a bowl.
3. While the beets are cooling, make a paste out of the garlic, dill, salt, and olive oil. Use either a food processor or mortar and pestle. This is where taste comes in - use amounts that you think will taste good - there is no wrong way.
4. Toss the beets with the paste and serve either warm or room temperature. Delicious!

Really. Delicious. The sweet, earthiness of the beets matches perfectly with the strong taste of the garlic. We have finally found a way to love beets. Well, Samantha and Lila aren’t convinced, but Ben and I are!

One more thing for this week. We are starting to get really into our fall share planning with transplants to be started in the next week and seeds to be planted and a hoophouse to repair. Which means we need to have an idea of how many shareholders we will have. We are not asking for money yet, but we would like to have an idea of who might be interested so we can plan. So please let us know if you are interested.

Here are the details on the fall share - and this is different from what was in our newsletter. It will run from October 22 - December 17. Delivery will be every two weeks, but with enough produce to last for two weeks. Produce will likely include lettuces, spinach, asian greens, cabbage, broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, rutabaga, carrots, turnips, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, pumpkin, and more. Cost will be $200/share when paid before August 1 and $250/share afterward.

Also we will be offering a preserved food share with the fall share. You will also receive with your basket three jars of tomato product (diced, sauce, whole), one jar of jam, and one packet of frozen veggies, along with occasional bonus items (goat cheese, dried herbs, fruit syrup, fruit butter). All of these will be preserved here on the farm, either from our garden or a near by farm. The cost of adding this will be $75.

We are also considering adding bread for the fall. If fresh baked bread is something that interests you, let us know and we will continue to think on it.

Remember that we have eggs if you want them and bring your baskets. Thanks for your support. See you Friday!

Week Five

Did you get hit with storms this week? We did. We were grateful for the rain, but could have done without the hail. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to damage any of our crops. The wind, however, did. Our hoop house was torn up a bit by it. Hopefully we will be able to get it fixed before we need it this fall.

We spent this week sweltering, putting up more fence to keep animals out of the garden and in the pasture. Fence building is work best done in the winter, I think, but the need is here now and so here we are. There is still planting to do and always, always weeding. And our attention is beginning to turn to preparing and planning for our fall CSA season.

We have been having trouble with potato beetles this year, which we have not had problems with before. So tonight, Samantha and Lila went and caught five of our hens and put them in the garden to do potato beetle patrol. We are hoping that they get the bugs and don’t eat the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower plants which they like. Hopefully these five hens (Mrs. Jocelot, Barbie, Stripey, Karen, and Fly-ee, in case you were interested) will help with the bugs.

Also this week, we put up jars of black raspberry jam - which might be my favorite. It will be a part of our fall share baskets. But we have been eating some of it now. It is so good.

In your basket this week there will be:

beets

carrots

chard

kohlrabi

red cabbage

potatoes

kale OR baby zucchini mix

We still have kale and we don’t have quite enough of the zucchinis yet to give everybody some. So we will give some of you one thing and others the other. And next week we will switch. Our library shareholders (and those who pick up there) will get the zucchini this week.

And as for kohlrabi...it looks really strange. The greens are good and can be used like you would use kale but the best part is the round, UFO looking thing. It is a member of the same family as cabbage, broccoli, kale, and cauliflower. There are many ways to cook it. Many people like it raw - shred into salad or chopped into pieces and served like a crudite with some kind of dip.

My favorite way (and this passes the kid test) is to grate it and saute it in butter and olive oil for about 5-10 minutes til as tender as you want it. Sprinkled with salt and pepper, it tastes like really sweet broccoli. This is all the kohlrabi until fall. It really does better in the fall and is a staple for us through the early winter when it is even sweeter. So consider this a teaser. We hope you like it.

Hope you are having a good week. Remember your baskets and let us know if you want eggs!

Week Four

It has been a busy week here on the farm. And it feels more and more like a farm all the time. The reason for that is we are caring for three more goats while our friends are out of town and are really enjoying that fresh, delicious milk. I never knew milk could taste so good. We are enjoying it so much that, anticipating our friends’ return on June 22, we have found a doe in milk to add to our herd next week. Also this week, we added two Shetland lambs - Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Gloria - to our growing menagerie. They will provide us with wonderful wool to spin, dye, and knit.

As if all that weren’t enough, Ben’s father and brother were here working to do some much needed improvements on the house. Ben planted sweet potatoes this week and is working to finish getting our fence up that will house our main crop of winter squashes in a huge variety, along with weeding and succession planting - we have had a full week. We said a sad goodbye to the last of the strawberries and lettuces. Lettuces will be back in a few months, and the strawberries will reappear in jam all fall and winter. We tried some new ones (strawberry and mint? strawberry and vanilla? strawberry and balsamic vinegar?) but mostly are just making plain, delicious, taste-of-spring strawberry jam. And goodbye to strawberries means hello to blueberries (which you will get a taste of from our neighbors at Blueberry Hill Farm).

We were so happy to be awakened in the wee hours this morning by thunder and rain. Our crops really needed it. I think they have grown more just since last night. What a relief. We don’t have an irrigation system so watering means endless trips with our two watering cans.

So much food is coming on now and we are so happy. The more food we can produce for ourselves and others feels like a triumph. We live in a world where so many items we buy and use come from places we don’t know, from people who might have been mistreated in the production of them. It feels empowering for us to eat food that was grown and produced in the soil of Henry County. One place in our lives that we don’t wrestle with what is faithful, what is least harmful to our planet. We know. And if we can provide that to others, we feel overjoyed. We welcome your feedback and your thoughts.

Now for the food! Here is what you will find in your basket this week:

green cabbage

beets

new potatoes

shelling peas

kale

green onions

mint

baby carrots

We keep thinking that it will be the last week for kale and yet it keeps truckin’ on. And even though kale is sweeter in the fall, we are enjoying it plenty now so we will keep sending it out as long as it keeps growing. But I really think this is the last week. We’ll see.

It is definitely the last week for peas. They are so sweet, aren’t they? How many of you aren’t even managing to get them cooked? So often we end up just eating them from the pod and forgetting about cooking them.

This hot weather has made me think of mint. We made some mint tea last week and I’m planning some mint ice cream for this week. Mint lemonade, mint in peas, mint with carrots - so many possibilities. My favorite recipe that uses mint is from Deborah Madison’s cookbook - Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Although we are not vegetarians, we eat a veggie centered diet and this book is wonderful. It is a simple recipe - especially if you have either leftover lentils, rice, or pasta. When Ben and I interned at Three Springs CSA Farm in Nicholas County, we ate this every spring and I think I will make it this week.

Lentils with Pasta, Rice, and Buttery Mint Sauce

adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

1 cup farfalle or any dried pasta (2 cups cooked)

1 onion, diced (green onions would work fine)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 can or jar of diced tomatoes

Salt and pepper

2 cups cooked lentils

1 1/2 cups cooked long grain white rice (we use brown)

4 to 6 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons chopped mint leaves

Cook the pasta, drain, and rinse.

Saute the onion in the oil in a skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Add tomatoes and season with plenty of salt and pepper. Add the lentils, rice, and pasta. Cook until warmed through, stirring frequently, thin with water if needed.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small skillet. When it is sizzling, add the mint leaves and fry for 30 seconds. Grind in plenty of pepper. Pour the butter over the lentil mixture and serve immediately.

Note: I like to play around with recipes and so I might try replacing the pasta with potatoes since I have them. Or stirring in some kale or beet greens. Oh, or the carrots, It will be good no matter what.

See you Friday. Remember to let us know if you want eggs and please bring your baskets!

Week Three

Whew! It is hot. And it is not a good sign that we are saying that two days into June. Our back porch thermometer read 95 this afternoon. Our spring plants have about had it, surrendering to the heat. We had our last salad from the garden tonight and while we certainly enjoyed, it it was not the same as the sweet spring greens from just a few weeks ago.

But we have moved on to other garden joys - like the cabbage, potato, green onion, garlic scape, and sausage mix that we have been cooking (and for a real treat tossing in a dash of cream - yum!) all week - sometimes substituting kale for cabbage. You will be able to make that this week also, if you want.

We have more big farm news. We were given two goats - Chicory and Clover. They were both born this spring and will start providing us with milk next year. They are settling in well and we are excited. We hope you will be able to come out and meet them.

This week in your basket you will receive:

head lettuce (the last of the spring)

kale

turnips

baby green cabbage

green onions

garlic scapes

new potatoes (full shares only)

shelling peas

snow peas (full shares only)

I have to rave for a moment about the potatoes! If you have never had new, baby, right-from-the-garden potatoes, you are in for a treat. They are smaller and require only steaming or boiling and a toss with some butter and salt. They are actually a little sweet and are the best potatoes you will ever eat.

The rest of the garden is coming along well - beets, baby carrots, kohlrabi, chard, broccoli, and cauliflower will all be coming in the next few week and all are looking good.

There are still a few summer veggies to be put in the ground (sweet potatoes, more corn, and winter squash) but most of the planting is done. Now it is weeding and watering.

We are enjoying this season so far and hope you are too.

Remember that we have eggs upon request (for $2.50/dozen) and please bring your baskets!

Week Two

We so enjoyed delivering our first share last week. Having a CSA has been a dream of ours for years and here we are. We have so wanted to nourish and nurture people with truly good food, nurture and nourish the land with farm practices that add to the health of our ecosystems instead of subtract, and make more clear the connection of faith and justice to the choices we make about everything - especially our food. We want to keep a small CSA so we have a strong relationship with our shareholders and can tailor what we grow to them. And while we may expand in number a small amount, most of our expansion will be in variety - orchard, vine, and bush fruits, grain, milk, cheese, grains, and meat. We want to be diverse - feeling that is the best way to maintain the health of the land, providing more food to fewer people. We are small for a reason, so give us feedback. We will use it to make your baskets better for you each week.

Seeing all those vegetables in the baskets looked almost like art to me - and we hope the food tasted as good as it looked. And those baskets inspired two new members to join our CSA. We are so glad to have you.

The spring plants do not care for this sudden shift to such hot weather. It was a fast change to temperatures that are more like mid-summer than late May. If it keeps up our lettuces and greens won’t last for long. On the other hand, our summer plants are loving the heat and really taking off.

In your basket you will get:

spinach (full shares only)

speckled romaine lettuce heads

looseleaf lettuce

kale (full shares only)

garlic scapes

radishes

shelling peas (full shares only)

strawberries

snow peas

There are not many peas. You will receive a small bag of snow peas. In fact, Ben was for just mixing them in with your salad mix (which is what we do with ours and they are really good) but we decided that some of you might want to toss them in a stirfry or something. So they will be separate and there are only a few.

We will have shelling peas over the next few weeks. Again, there are not a huge amount (although there should be more next week) so you might want to mix them in pasta or something else. Samantha and Lila love to shell them and eat the peas raw. I like to cook them for just a few minutes in a little butter or olive oil and eat them. Even when there are only a few they are so good.

Shelling peas are quite sweet right after they are picked but turn to starch quickly. You might want to plan to eat these as soon as you can. The sooner you eat them, the sweeter they will be. We will do our part by picking them Friday right before you get your baskets.

The other things you may wonder about are garlic scapes. Some of you may never have seen these. After you get over the what-in-the-world-do-I-do-with-these reaction, we think you will love them. They are the flowers and stems that garlic plants send up in the spring. You cut off the top, where the flower bud is. They are delicious chopped into salad or sauteed with almost anything, like you would use onions. We have heard of people roasting them and eating them that way, although we haven’t tried it. Our favorite way to eat a lot of scapes is in garlic scape pesto.

Garlic Scape Pesto

8-10 garlic scapes, top flowery part removed, cut into 1/2 inch slices

1/3 cup nuts (walnuts, pine nuts, or almonds work)

3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 - 1/2 cup grated parmesan

1/2 teaspoon salt

black pepper to taste

Put the scapes and nuts in the bowl of a food processor and whir until combined. Add the oil, cheese, salt, and pepper and process until smooth.

This pesto is terrific tossed with pasta and veggies, on pizza (YUM!), or on chicken or fish.

See you Friday!