The hens' new home

 This weekend we rallied some neighbors and their family and friends to build the over-wintering chicken coop for our laying hens. One of our neighbors created the plan, and together with his son-in-law, his good friend and another neighbor and his sons, we managed to raise the coop in just 11 hours (48 person-hours!). It is such a beautiful building, I almost hate to give it to the birds. There are removable slatted floor boards for easy cleaning, a heavy-duty roof to handle the winter snow, solid walls and craftsmanship to keep out predators, and a door big enough for us to get into comfortably.

What's left to do?... just nesting boxes for the layers, a door, a paint job, and somehow getting wheels on the structure so it can be the mobile coop we need.

The crew who helped us was not only amazing for their skill, but for their sense of community. Again, I am amazed and heart-warmed by new friends lending their time and effort to accomplish a task that would have taken me and Jason days to complete. Thanks so much to you all who helped.

Eggs and chickens-for-cooking will be available in about 3 months... looking forward to sharing.

Week 3 CSA basket

Expect the following in this week's share:

Bok choy, tatsoi cabbage, salad mix (baby lettuce, baby beet greens, arugula), shelling peas, chard, kale, oregano and chives.

Savor those peas! They are sweet and crunchy and a perfect snack or addition to risotto.

Week 2 CSA basket

Harvesting kale

In your week 2 baskets: spinach (washed + dried), tatsoi cabbage, bok choy, radishes, a small head of red romaine (we found out slugs don't like the red stuff), kale and sage.

Our favorite thing to do with sage is to brown some butter, throw the sage in to crisp up a bit and then use it as the "sauce" for ravioli, or mix it in with some pearl couscous.

More wild life

As we were planting out sweet potato slips, we found this little guy.

Recipe with kale

Massaged kale salad

Ingredients: Kale, salt, olive oil, any other salad ingredient you like

Preparing: I can't take credit for this one. It is a hit on both coasts, and I believe the "original" recipe is from the book Feeding the Whole Family. The basic gist is to de-stem the kale if the stems are tough (we leave the stems on), roll the kale leaves and chiffonade them. Add some salt and massage the kale for a few minutes (it will reduce in volume by about half and turn to a darker green color). Then add your favorite salad ingredients and dressing.

Eating: This salad can be a whole meal if you add avocado, some seasonal fruit, a nut of sorts (we like toasted pepitas) and cheese.

Dish history: I had heard about this technique before but didn't try it until my brother and sister-in-law from San Francisco insisted we make it. It is worth getting your hands into.

Soil blocking

We are moving up in the farming world. Finally, we've gotten ourselves some soil blockers.

These are nifty hand tools that create small blocks of soil for sowing seeds. In the past, we have used cell flats or milk crates to sow our seeds, and there are shortcomings to these methods: with flats seedlings become root-bound because once they hit the plastic they start to coil around themselves; and with milk crates the roots co-mingle and make it more difficult to separate the seedlings when transplanting out.

So. The soil blocks prevent both of these root tragedies because when roots hit the air they actually stop growing, waiting until they hit soil again. Transplanting will also become a breeze.

The first basket

We gave out our first CSA baskets to our Friday members yesterday. Phew... it's official! Mother Nature would not let us delay this first harvest, as our broccoli raab had already been harvested for 2 weeks, our spinach was not enjoying the warm weather and the garlic scapes popped up 2 weeks earlier than I anticipated.

Vegetables we included in our full share basket: scapes, kale, tatsoi cabbage, chives, raab, radishes, beet green/spinach mix and a handful o' peas. Recipe ideas are always available on the Recipes page on this website.

Thanks again for all who are supporting us. We were rejuvenated by our harvest and a good day of sowing and transplanting and are heading into June happily and on schedule.

Recipe with scapes

Grilled scapes

Ingredients: Scapes, olive oil, salt and pepper

Preparing: Toss the entire scape (no need to cut off the flower end or the stalk end) in olive oil, salt and pepper. Throw on the grill until mildly charred.

Eating: With your fingers!

Dish history: Had this the other night with some special friends. We harvested what looked like way too many for 4 people, but they were so delicious we devoured the whole bowl.

Insect pressure

Be-headed pepper seedlings

Although I enjoyed never having to shovel snow or wear my long underwear this winter, I am now (cursing it, and) understanding what the implications of such a mild winter are on farming. Sure, spinach, kale, parsley and arugula all survived uncovered. But edible greens weren't the only things to experience an extension on life.

Insect pressure has been fierce this spring. Slugs, which can lay up to 500 eggs in a season and thrive in temperatures above 40 degrees, have annihilated over 300 of our lettuce seedlings, 200 basil seedlings, and have flattened several flats of peppers and eggplants. We now have nightly missions in the garden at dusk picking slugs, some the size of pearl couscous and some as long as a pencil. We throw them with anger into a jar of salt water and watch them perish. 

Slugs!

We have a few volunteer cucumber seedlings sprouting in places and when I reached down to pull them up I saw a curcurbit's worst nightmare: the cucumber beetle. In fact, I saw several of them, even some mating. These pests are harder to abolish than the sluggish slug. They seem to sense you coming and fly away or bury themselves into the soil quickly. I have to go out at 6 in the morning to really catch them at their slowest time.

Salting slugs

And today we were in for the biggest blow of the season so far. We had a bed of beautiful lettuce mix growing, which we meticulously weeded 5 days ago. We were counting on it since the slugs demolished our head lettuce seedlings. But I noticed this morning small sections of the rows eaten down. The stems of the small leaves were still standing, but there was no more leaf. As I peered closer I saw too-many-to-count-or-want-to-think-about caterpillars munching on our lettuce. There were several different varieties, but mostly the cabbage worm. These are easy to squish between your fingers, but with so many, we had to just till the lettuce in and start all over again (after I had myself just a little joy of squishing as many as I could in 15 minutes).

Can you see those caterpillars demolishing our lettuce?

Eating seasonally

Eating seasonally is a skill. Trust me, to deprive yourself of fresh tomatoes for all but 2 months a year takes practice and patience.  (Well, not really, because who wants to eat those tomatoes grown in Florida's sand, picked green and hard as a rock, and brought hundreds of miles to your supermarket shelf, only to taste like mealy water the other 10 months of the year?)

Right now we are at the end of our "spring hunger gap" and starting to eat fresh vegetables again. We've polished off all of our frozen greens, pickled vegetables, and stored beets, potatoes and squashes. Our canned tomato sauce is running low. And I used the last of the blueberry jam to make a syrup for some homemade ice cream. Finally, wee have spring greens, herbs and chives coming up in the garden and the salad we had for dinner couldn't have tasted any fresher.

But our current food system has deprived most of us of the sheer joy of eating asparagus for just a few weeks a year, for example. Our culture of food has allowed us to have our favorite vegetable at any meal, any time... but so much so that it is no longer our favorite vegetable anymore.

Eating seasonally is a challenge, not only for your taste buds, but also for your cooking. (There are only so many ways you can make celeriac and rutabaga.) But it is so rewarding, because that first juicy spring peach is a little taste of heaven every year. It really makes you appreciate life and nature, and most importantly, food.

Recipe with scapes

Scape and raab pasta sauce

Garlic scapes

Ingredients: Garlic scapes, broccoli raab, sundried tomatoes (optional, or other vegetable of your choice), olive oil, hot pepper flakes, s + p

Preparing: Be sure the tough part of the scapes and raab are broken off (they generally break at the tender point like asparagus does). The rest is easy: saute vegetables in olive oil. Add a bit of the pasta water before stirring in the pasta.

Eating: Top with parmesan cheese and fresh lemon juice.

Dish history: Early garlic scapes and raab are harvestable at about the same time. The best part about scapes is that you get a similar garlic taste to your dish, but you don't have to peel and mince any garlic.

Wild life

As we were finishing up our outdoor work today we heard some squawks from the chicken coop. We didn't think much of it at first, but then Jason went up there to check it out and found a terrified crowd of chickens and a hawk stuck in the electric fencing. I've never been that close to such a huge, beautiful bird. It was scared of me and Jason and kept flying deeper into the netting, but eventually freed itself when we chased it from the opposite direction. Even though it is preying on our chicks we were happy to see it flying high in the sky again.

2012 member gathering

We had our 2012 season kick-off CSA member gathering this weekend. It was a great opportunity for us all to meet each other, enjoy some food + drink together, and build some community spirit. Thanks to all who joined, and for those who couldn't, we hope you can next time. This will certainly become a tradition!

Enjoying some food, drink + conversation

The spread of food

Visiting the chickens

Potatoes-in-a-barrel

See these 2 blue barrels? They've got a hefty layer of compost and leaf mold in them with some French Fingerling potatoes buried in. As the potato plants grow past the compost-line, we just throw on more compost and more potatoes will grow. Once we hit the top we'll harvest a whole barrel of potatoes... a technique we learned a la John Seymour.

Remay, remay, everywhere

Row cover is an organic gardener's best friend. Or so they say...my best friend wouldn't make my beautiful garden look like a sea of white cloth. But I suppose it is doing its job of minor frost protection and keeping flea beetles and other insects away from our seedlings. Once the young plants are established we'll be able to remove a lot of it, but the brassicas tend to need them all season long.

Halfway planted

Onions

This weekend we hit the halfway mark: 50 vegetable beds planted out before the last frost date in the Hudson Valley (being near the Hudson River and on the northern tip of Westchester County, we have an earlier date than most of the Valley). That means peas, greens, roots, beans, herbs, potatoes and the onion family are happily nestled in their beds. The next few weeks will be full of transplanting those heat-hungry yet frost-sensitive vegetables: tomatoes, squashes, melons, peppers and eggplant.

We're also recently obsessed with building our greenhouse, having grown out of our cold frame. Drafting up plans now and we'll hopefully start building next week. In our spare time...

Chives

Trellised peas + radishes

Asparagus

Lettuce starts

CDs + scarehawks

Our electric fence might keep our chicks in and ground critters out, but it is no match for the mighty hawk. We've lost two already to these birds, who live above the coop in the tall red pines. We're trying two tricks to keep the predators away... we've strung CDs across the pasture the chickens are foraging in and posted a scare-hawk. Our guide to raising chickens suggested the former method, saying that the sun and wind would move the CDs enough to scare away a hawk or other flying thing from getting too close (this method might not be successful on cloudy, still days... in fact, we lost one of our chickens on such a day with our CDs already strung). And we dressed a fence post in a scary trench coat and hat to see if it might guard our future egg-layers.

Work-ation Spring 2012

This past weekend 40 people gathered to help us with our spring work. In our morning session we dug 5  vegetable beds, hauled away dozens of rocks, prepped 750 square feet for potatoes, planted hundreds of onions and created an eye-high compost pile. After lunch, a small group planted 20 pounds of potatoes and the rest of the crowd walked up the road to our additional growing space and prepared 15 brand-new beds for spring planting.

It's amazing what a crowd of people can accomplish together in just one day.

Thank you to all who joined! Looking forward to the next work-ation this fall.

Mulch nightmares

It is hard to admit it, but we are really battling our mulch. Last year we thought we had hit the jackpot with chopped leaves and sheep-manure-hay. As we prepped the vegetable beds for their winter dormancy, we slathered on the stuff... I mean, trailerloads of mulch, piled on every bed. And when we got back out in the fields this spring... a farmer's nightmare came true: everything looked exactly as we had left it.

We are not the only ones dealing with the aftermath of a mild, snowless winter. Other farmers I've talked to have said the same thing. None of the expected organic matter got broken down these past few months without a snow cover. And coupled with almost no rain in March, we are all scrambling to prepare our beds... some farmers around here are even starting to water their garlic (almost unheard of).

We have wasted spent many person-hours this past month removing the mulch, only to see that none of it has composted, that the lime we worked in hasn't even dissolved, that none of the sod has rotted. Woe is us, we are now hauling trailer-load after trailer-load of mulch to our already humongous piles of compost material. And almost no organic has been added to our beds.

Mother Nature, won't you give us a break? Bring us some rain and we'll take good care of your land.

The hand is coming back

Or so says celebrity chef, Mario Batali, in a well-written call-to-arms article in Lucky Peach. He's referring to the return to American craftsmanship, where we actually make things with our hands... take pride in cooking a fantastically delicious meal, transplanting seedlings or building your own bookshelf, buying stuff from someone you actually know, learning how to fix things, using your fingers for more than just tapping away at the qwerty keyboard.


I used to think it was weird that I didn't have any "hobbies" to speak of, and when someone asked I would say, "I cook." But now that I can look at it as my opportunity to dabble in the artisan world, I feel even more inspired to be adventurous with my ingredients and taste combinations.


We have a lot of friends and acquaintances who do amazing work with their hands. Some of them have "gotten out of the corporate world" and are getting down and dirty by starting their own businesses, working in forgotten fields, renovating their houses, building green roofs, making music and art. I think more handy-work is just what this country needs. It not only creates work opportunities, it restores a sense of purpose.

And that's what we're all about... re-purposing life.

The chicks are out

Our chicks have been growing strong in their brooder boxes for 5 weeks now. In fact, they've been out-growing their boxes, so we decided to move them out into their bigger home in the red pine field. We finished the mobil-coop last night - tarping off the top and adding a door - and dragged it up with the ATV to a grassy spot. As soon as they had the chance they starting flapping their wings and flying around, at first pecking their feeders for food, but quickly realizing that the entire ground was a potential food source. Be free and be strong! 

Spring transplanting

 We've been transplanting out lots of our early sown seedlings - kale, collards, chard, spinach, lettuce and leeks. They are all protected under hooped-up greenhouse plastic. And even baby Seneca came out with us to enjoy some sun and spring breeze.

Have a heart

Jason found two large holes in the ground near our compost pile and we knew there was some critter just waiting for us to plant out our delicious little spring seedlings. So we set out the hav-a-hart trap with some green beans and salmon skin last night, and behold, we found a nasty creature in it this morning. The bare tail, claws and rather large teeth gave it away: an opposum. This kind of trap lets you release the animal somewhere without having to kill it. So we're checking with local regulations to see if there are any restrictions on where it can go... we're hoping it will be across the Hudson River, far from our kale and collards.

Garlic's up

Our garlic is looking great. I was worried with the warm weather we've been having that they were growing too quickly, but our local garlic expert told us not to worry, that the shoots should be coming up about now. Looking forward to a July harvest.