Week Five of 2011 CSA

Cherokee lettuce by Shannon Thompson

As we harvested this week's vegetables for you CSA members, the exclamations around the washtub were many. On Sunday, I picked, washed and packed 45# of salad mix (yeah, we usually don't work on Sundays. . .more on that in a bit) with the fantastic company of Shannon and John who came by "motorbicle" as Abel calls them. It was a gloriously blue skied day with a breeze and I wanted to be no where else on earth. . .and then Shannon rolled in, introduced me to John, chatting commenced and I got one notch happier. Love those visitors. They complimented the salad mix, too, so they get even bonus bonus points.

Shannon and John told me the storyline of a new documentary which you all might be interested in: Forks Over Knives. I will let you click on that link rather than giving a second hand report which I will botch. . .safe to say it is about health and good food. I look forward to seeing it.

We also had our first kohlrabi harvest and Zac snapped a few pics for his sister, who is, we hear, a kohlrabi fan.

We have hit 1200 row feet of carrots hard in the past weeks shipping many bunches to the Coop and giving them out at this week's and last week's distributions. You can see me sporting some high farm fashion here. I really wanted to wear the colors of the carrots.
Last week, we welcomed to the farm and family a young woman from France, named Zelie. Through a friend, Zelie has come to live with us for a few weeks, help with the children and farm work and work on her English. She is a delight to all, including her new friends, more farm visitors, The Goats. Despite my "no new species" rule, we agreed to goat-sit for a friends three white Saanans. Vegetables for week five. . .getting some crunch and color. First cucumbers and summer squashes, kohlrabi (best eaten raw, in my opinion--grated in a slaw, dipped in your favorite hummous or dip. It is like a sweet, tender broccoli stem and hails from the same family), your second take at viatmin greens, scallions, some got broccoli, some got beets, lettuce and salad mix and herbs for all. . .
This week coming up, we will have fresh (uncured) garlic heads for you, more cukes and zukes, escarole, an Italian cooking green which I will offer a recipe for, possibly peas again (can be hard to predict), possibly broccoli and more salad fixings and carrots and herbs, as usual.

Watering, watering to keep the plants growing these hot days. Everything is looking good. I walked the melons two days in a row and I think the vines grew 2 feet. There is so much more good food to come!!

Thank yous for the week include Thank you to a beautiful group of teenagers from Hidden Valley camp who worked for an afternoon planting our fall potatoes with Prentice. What a good time Prentice had. We were sorry not to be able to attend their end of the session party where they fired up an earthen oven they built. Hope it worked well, guys! Also on the farm were Levi, Lauren and Rowan for a day of picking, weeding and irrigation pipe hauling. We really enjoyed their company and help and look forward to more days in the future! My mother an brother came for a day of play with the boys and my mother and I actually got out and weeded a few beds of zinnias. Thank you Mom and Michael! Of course, Zelie and Zac and Willie--critical members of the team around here. We are having a lot of fun and getting a lot done, everyday.Truly a pleasure. My mother and father took Benny for a few solo days of fun and Josey has been in NH all week with Prentice's folks. Lucky boys to have such good times whilst the farm hums along and both parents try to keep up with it!
Let us know how it is going for you! We love emails, questions and posts to our Village Farm facebook page. Phone calls and visits are great, too!

Hope you are all staying cool and well fed.
Best wishes from all,
Polly,

We say we don't work on Sundays

But then there is Monday to prepare for. . . .so we actually do work on Sundays, a bit. This picture of Prentice proves it. Dressed for a party but armed with the necessary papers to lay out Monday morning's picking and CSA distribution.

All is well here on the Village Farm. We have had a few nice showers lately and the irrigation pump and system have been employed, as well. The crops are loving this heat.

We slaughtered the first batch of 119 broilers this past Thursday over in Monmouth at a state certified and cooperative processing facility. Four of us went over for a long and hot day but we returned knowing each other a bit better and with a truck full of the most delicious and healthy birds around. We will have them available from the freezer all summer with another batch available fresh in about 7 weeks. Contact us if you are interested! Sunday night, After about 30 pizzas, we put two birds in Dutch ovens into a friend's outdoor cob oven (I want one and will build one. . .) and this is the view after the bake. Chicken salad for lunch on Monday. Last week was Week 1 of the Flower share. I tell you, I should be paying YOU for the privilege of crafting bouquets each week! This week's bouquets, like last week's, contained zinnias , larkspur, bachelor buttons, some celosias and statice. This week I also added some Bells of Ireland and a few had cosmos and some Irish Eyes rudebekia, a green-eyed black-eyed susan. Go figure.

The vegetable shares this week include:

Spinach, shell peas (Belfast), sugar snap peas(edible pods! Farm members) napa cabbage (Farm), rainbow carrot bunches, garlic scapes, hakurei turnips OR broccoli (Belfast), lettuce, and our new experiment: herb buffet or make your own herb bunches: parsley, cilantro and dill.

Hakurei turnips are the darlings of the farm crew. We eat them raw on sandwiches or grated in salads, mostly but have pickled them and steamed them, too. The greens are delicious as well, so saute or steam them and add them to eggs or a stir fry.
Napa cabbage is a big savoyed (crinkled) head of tenderness. We eat it raw, sliced thinly with a dressing or sauteed in a stir fry. They go well with toasted sesame seeds or toasted sesame oil, I think. Traditionally, it is the main ingredient in kim chi, A Korean saurcraut. We love the recipe from Sally Fallon's cookbook, Nourishing Traditions.

1 head Napa cabbage, cored and shredded

1 bunch scallions, chopped

1 cup grated carrots

1/2 cup grated daikon radish

1-2 tbs grated fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp chile flakes

2 tsp sea salt

2 tbs whey, if not available, use 2 extra tsp salt

1/2 cup water

Place veg and ginger and chile flakes in a bowl and mash down with a wooden pounder to release juices. Stuff into 2 quart sized wide-mouth mason jars and press down with pounder. The top of the vegetables should be 1 " below the top of the jar. Mix water with whey and salt and pour over cabbage mixture.Add additional water if needed to bring liquid to top of cabbage. Cover tightly. Keep in a warm place for 2-3 days before transferring to the refrigerator.

We are still enjoying many batches of garlic pesto per week and adding garlic scapes to just about everything that comes out of the kitchen, except the oatmeal. I have been told, however, that my Russian grandfather enjoyed garlic in his oatmeal, so it might be worth a try. (He also soaked his feet in a garlic tea when he was sick.)

If you are in need of recipes, we are going to order a few copies of Farmer John's Cookbook to have for sale at distributions. This is our summer "got to" cookbook as it was written by a CSA farmer and his kitchen staff and is wonderfully funny, simple and has ALL the vegetables that we grow listed seasonally and with good information about each.

Next week we will have scallions, kohlrabi and zucchini and summer squash as well as cooking greens (kale or chard), salad fixins and more. .. .

We wish we could get it together enough to post weekly recipes but it just doesn't happen. If any of you wanted to post recipes or links to recipes to this blog, I would welcome that contribution and could share appropriate coaching and passwords. Blogger does not enable "cut and paste" action, so it is a commitment to typing in the recipes, I am afraid.

Thank Yous. We cannot forget the Thank Yous!!! The Farm was saved by Kathy Weathers this Monday, or at least it felt that way, when she showed up to be with the boys so both Prentice and I could pick and pack for the day. What a busy day! She even baked cookies!! Zoli and Becky have been doing childcare a few times per week, allowing both farmers to be farmers and that is always a treat and a good time. A friend of Zac's, Beatriz, put in a few days of good farm work last week, including the infamous and aforementioned chicken slaughter marathon. We are grateful to grandparents and aunties and uncles who often love up our farm boys with trips and stories and special times. Thank you to all those and the ones I have certainly forgotten. . .

Well, it is time to set up for this afternoon's CSA distribution on the farm, so I shall sign off with many best wishes to all of you for many a happy, healthy meal with people you love.

Polly, for all at Village Farm

Alicia, Willie, Zac and Prentice pause and pose over the red greens mix last week.

We have been so very fortunate to have had another willing worker around for the last 10 days. Unity College grad and rock solid human being, Alicia, joined our farm and family in the height of planting and harvesting and has been a HUGE help to the works. Abel calls her "Miss Alicia." We will all miss her sorely when she returns to Ohio tomorrow. Big, big thanks to Alicia from all of us.

Another big thanks to Tim and Clayton, Belfast friends and CSA members for their wonderful company and helping hands Monday morning. Tim's big laugh, and work in the packing shed was just what we all needed on a busy Monday morning. While 6 year old Clayton and our three boys went to the pond with Prentice, Tim worked away as part of the VF crew. With a 10 am deadline for one order and a slug of CSA shares to pick for in the heat, Tim got a crash course in skedaddle, VF style. At one point, when I realized that we needed to be picking for 10 more CSA shares than I had written on the pick sheet, I said, "I think I should sit down and take a deep breath." Tim: "A very good idea." Another favorite Tim quote: "Just keep picking, right?" (Yes.)

What a pleasure to have friends and CSA members join our days here.

This week's offerings: Lettuce heads, salad mix, spinach, kale bunches, hakurei turnips (Belfast) or beet green bunches (Farm members--whichever you didn't get this week, you will get next week!), garlic scapes and a choice of either dill or parsley.

Hakurei turnips are a favorite crop around here Fun to pick, fun to wash and bunch and so fun and sweet to eat. We often slice them up in salads or quick pickles (a dash of vinegar and herbs). No need to peel them. They can also be enjoyed steamed though I tend to slice off the turnips for fresh dipping or munching and then steam just the greens.

Tuesday's Farm members received beet greens as we let the hakuriei size a bit more.

Beet greens are an iron-rich treat that I grew up eating quite often. Our naturopath tells me beets are good liver cleansers. My parents always simply steamed them in a shallow bit of water in a big pan for 5-10 minutes and then topped with a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper. You can add them to a quiche or omelet, saute them in a bit of oil. We eat the itty bitty beet, stem and leaf all together. They are washed well here but you may want to give them a rinse to be sure there is no grit.

Garlic scapes are the buds of garlic plants' flowers. While the bulb sizes up underground, the flowers rise and then curl their delicate loveliness right out of the top of the plant. We snip them off to eat but also because snipping them supposedly allows more energy to go to the bulb. They can be used as a milder substitute for garlic, sauteed whole or chopped, pickled or used in a pesto such as this one:

1/2 cup garlic scapes chopped into 1" pieces

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast if you avoid dairy or are out. . .

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds or almonds (toasted if you like)

1/4-1/2 cup or more olive oil

Blend all in a food processor and adjust the consistency with more olive oil.

Season with salt and pepper and a splash of lemon juice if you like.

Serve on pasta or on a sandwich or crackers or eat with a spoon. So good.

Today's lunch a la Zac: Rice noodles tossed with garlic scape pesto, massaged kale salad (click on those words for a link to a recipe--thanks, Kathy!), pressed, herbed farm cheese, microgreen salad and John's Ice Cream for dessert. We are doing well, I tell you.

And one more recipe link for kale chips, if you have never made them. . .you must.

Next week we are looking to add snap peas to the offerings. Perhaps Napa cabbage? It can be challenging to predict. Beet greens for those who got hakurei salad turnips and vice versa. . .

And the flower shares will begin!! Ten weeks of blooms! I can hardly wait!

Also! We have a work party coming up on July 9 from 9-12 am with a lunch provided. RSVPs appreciated so we can plan for food. These work party (fun, like a party!) mornings are a wonderful way for us to visit and work alongside friends and CSA members. We take a walk around to see the sights, too. There are jobs for all ages and abilities, so please come on out if you are inclined. Hope you can make it!

For all of us at Village Farm, we hope you enjoy the week and whatever food makes its way to your table. We feel very fortunate and happy to be growing some of that food for you,

Polly

Week One of 2011 CSA Season!

Well, let the fun begin!

Happy Summer everyone! Yesterday was our first CSA pick day and though we have been harvesting a bit over the last weeks, there is a certain giddiness to the first CSA pick days of the season. The CSA is truly the heart of our farm. Members are not merely customers. Those vegetables growing outside our farmhouse doors. . . that is YOUR food. It is ALL OF OUR food. For the months ahead we will all be nourished by the minerals and vitamins, flavors and colors and smells of nutrient dense vegetables grown from this earth. There is something powerfully cooperative about the CSA arrangement and we thrive knowing that so many of the vegetables we grow will end up on your plates. Thank you for supporting our farm.

So here we go!

The harvest: Members will be getting head lettuce, radish bunches, salad greens, vitamin greens, cilantro an micro greens. All but the vitamin greens are best enjoyed raw in salads, though the vitamin greens are lovely raw in a slaw or salad, too. I enjoy the vitamin greens sauteed briefly (so they maintain a bit of crunch and texture) in some oil in a hot pan. Add a bit of salt and enjoy. They are a bok choy relative so they also are great in a stir fry.
Next week will have hakurei turnips and more salad fixins as well as garlic scapes and hopefully beet greens.

Barnyard News: The new hoophouse is full of tomatoes and the original one is full of peppers and basil. And the new grain bin is up! Phew. Hundred of nuts and bolts and a few gray hairs (notice the power lines) later, it is full of chicken mash milled at Maine's newest farmer-owned, organic grain processor, Maine Organic Milling.

We are almost all sold out of seedlings for the year. It was a great second year of marketing at the Belfast Coop. These calendula are blooming in their pots and just looked so gorgeous on the back of the J-20, our new, old plow truck.

That is all for now. Be in touch with any questions, ideas or inspirations!

Polly for all of us at Village Farm

Working Shares Available

Wanted: 2 people to join the VF crew every Monday or Tuesday morning from 8-12 a.m. for 17 weeks-- the CSA season-- in exchange for a vegetable share. Call or email us if you are interested!

Spring at Village Farm

Well, last night's thunder storms left a good bit of rain (and some hail) for all at Village Farm. As we all sat on the porch during a downpour, I came to understand where the term "high-tail" might have originated. Watching cows run in from pasture: seven long, strong tails held high off their running rumps. They took cover, as we had done a few minutes earlier.
Just as bringing an umbrella assures the superstitious that it will not rain, setting up an intricate, heavy and cheeky irrigation system assures farmers that it will rain. We are not complaining. Rain from above, natural rain is far better than any water we can deliver to crops. They all needed it, so we are breathing a sigh of relief. How quickly it can go from way-too-wet to way-too-dry!
We are diligently planting, planting, planting while also running the twice weekly loads of seedlings into the Coop. The last week was amazing for sales! We just brought yellow and red watermelons and will deliver another gaggle of those today as well as some cantloupe, some new herbs, okra, and some lovely looking zinnias. And as always, the top sellers: gem marigolds, sungold tomatoes and Genovese basil.
Harvesting has begun again. We had a few week hiatus since our hoophouse vegetables sold out, and today we will be bringing more micro greens and baby head lettuce into the Coop and to our favorite caterers.
Speaking of harvesting, the 2011 Summer CSA will begin its 17 week run on June 20th for Belfast members and June 21st for Farm members. We will begin flower share distributions in early July. There is still time to sign up for either the vegetables or the flowers, so be in touch if are interested!
I just read this wonderful article by Sara Jenkins in the Altlantic and thought to pass it on to all of you. It is titled "Why Home-Style Cooking Will Always Beat Restaurant-Style" and it rung so true to these ears. We cook so simply here and eat so well. Just the other day I was paging through one of those fancy, beautiful cookbooks and felt a little inferiority rising. "I should learn to bake bread better, " and "This curry looks so much better than my 'old standby curry'" and on and on. . .the voices chatter. Jenkins' article makes the elegant case that restauranteurs do not have to think about the day in and day out health of their diners. Salt, fat, wine and tricky processes (the kind I haven't the training or time for!) can lure any eater into gastronomic ecstasy. Not that gastronomic ecstasy is bad, but simply good enough is usually delicious and a whole lot healthier and easier. In this home/farm kitchen, balancing all the palates with what is available seasonally and from the pantry and freezers, is the name of the game.
Soft, herbed farm cheese shows up on every table. Fresh greens, last fall's kim chi and saurcraut. . .all staples. Willie has become the chicken roaster, scone baker, and brewer. Zac makes salads come alive with surprising ingredients and has used parsnips in more ways than I can count. Prentice can juggle three boys and still turn out a multi-course lunch "on time" (noon). I made some beef empanadas this week that were enjoyed by all and now there are murmerings and jingles being sung of "Polly's Hair Salon and Empanaderia." (Not sure the two should be linked like that. . . )
All this, just to say that eating simply and eating well can go hand in hand. No need for fancy equipment, processes, kitchens or those cookbooks.
More from Village Farm soon!

Polly

More Comings and Goings

Some beautiful Cornus Rugosa cuttings that we are rooting for the tree nursery.




It is Full Tilt Spring here on the Village Farm and in the words of our dairy farmer friend, Jeff Bragg, "There is never enough time in May." And, I add, there's a LOT going on to report to our blog followers! All this rain has slowed our planting and transplanting down to a full stop but there is never a shortage of other building, greenhouse and harvesting tasks to do.


We got all of our alliums (onions, leeks and shallots) in before this week of rain as well as first sowings of radishes, carrots, salad greens, salad turnips, beets, herbs and lettuce. That was a bit of a push and even Ben, aged four, was out after dinner one night helping get the seeds in the ground. We don't work after dinner very often but in this case, staring down a week of rain, we thought every minute of daylight should be used to get our crops in the ground. There is no driving on our fields now, or even walking, really. Much too muddy. And so we are waiting for some sun and a warm breeze to dry things out (again!).

A few photo collages to capture more comings and goings. . .First the arrivals.

• Two days ago a big bull calf was born to Charlotte, our Shorthorn beef mama. His name is Chico (in keeping with the custom of naming offspring with the first letter of their mother's first name) and he is a strapping and thrifty guy. He and Charlotte are in a box stall in the barn now, despite being born into that luscious green grass. They get a chance to bond away from the other herd members this way. They will be out to pasture within the next few days.




• The new bulk grain bin is coming together thanks to Tony, a.k.a. Pop, Prentice's father who has been working all the metal and hundreds of nuts and bolts into a gigantic bin. Quite the erector set.




• The plum trees are in bloom, tragically, as there seem to be NO pollinators out and about. . .so no or very few plums this year for the Grassi boys.




• 120 chicks that will graze and laze and grow on VF's lush pastures and make the tastiest chickens for our customers. (Let us know if you would like to be on the chicken list. . .)




• Leroy. He has already been introduced via our facebook feed but here is a picture of the sweet guy. He is about three weeks old now. We are awaiting one more calf in the next week.




• And the "cuban" (cube+cabin), the newest intern dwelling.

And the departures. . .

• We were all sad to see Laura head back to Alabama. She was here for a bit over a month and a few weeks into her stay, she realized she had made a mistake. A growing season in Maine wasn't adding up for her. She wants to farm in Alabama or Georgia and is on her way back there now to begin that adventure again. We were priveleged by her company, help, humor and sincerity and we wish her the very best.




• Sold! Our old plow truck to Ginger and Daniel at Freedom Farm. . .Trucky served us well for 10 years and is off to a second or third or fourth life at another farm with its own snow removal issues.




• Seedlings are a huge spring effort for us. We produce all of our own for the 4-5 acres of VF vegetables but we sell thousands at the Belfast Coop each spring. We deliver van loads twice per week and trust that they are giving many, many a midcoast garden a great start in their own food growing efforts.




• Feeding hay. This was a picture from early April that I love and now that the cows are on grass, the twice daily chore of feeding out hay to the herd is a thing of the past. Until fall of course.

The CSA distributions will start sometime in June though we are waiting to see what the weather does in the coming week before announcing a start date. We still have a few shares left but are nearly full, so if you haven't signed up and would like to or would care to share the idea with a friend, we would love to be your farmers in 2011!!

It is May, and though we may be busy, we also find ourselves basking in the greens and the buds and the babies and all the glorious unknowns that the growing season ahead holds for us.

All the best from your friends,

The Village Farmers