Proud farmers

We are officially proudest of our carrots so far this season. With some of the rockiest soil around, we worked hard to make the carrot beds the finest tilthed land. And even though these carrots are early, they are already huge and uniform and straight... an organic farmer's dream.

Week 5 CSA basket

In your baskets this week:

Sugar snap peas, basil, cilantro, lettuce, chard, carrots, oregano, green onions, beets, radish, hakurei turnip, green beans, parsley, arugula.

What to do with those root vegetables (carrots, beets, radish, turnip, etc.): If you don't plan on using them soon, cut off the greens so that the roots don't get drained of their moisture. You can eat the greens of beets and turnips.

Coming soon! ~ new potatoes, cucumbers, lots of green beans...

Old habits die hard

We found a few of our laying hens roosting on the roof of their coop the other night and realized there wasn't enough roosting space inside the coop for them. They had somehow managed to escape because their desire to roost on something for the night was so strong.

Now that we've added more roosts, we still find a few hens on the roof of the coop. Old habits do die hard.

Redemption

Remember that horrible day when we found our lettuce bed infested with cabbage loopers? Well. Jason had the smart idea to transplant the healthy lettuce heads out of that bed and into other ones. It took him and his dad almost a whole day to complete the task and I was so worried we'd find the newly planted beds annihilated any day. But his plan worked! We have over 100 heads of healthy lettuce now. So satisfying.

Week 4 CSA basket

Happy summer!

You'll get the following in this week's basket:

Sugar snap peas, kale, chard, lettuce, arugula, basil, cilantro, golden chard, d'avignon radish, garlic chives, shelling peas and mint.

Who wants to cook on a sultry summer day? Try a "Longhaul salad" - chiffonade some kale, arugula and lettuce; chop as many herbs as you can (we love basil, cilantro, parsley, chives or scallion) and toss together with your favorite dressing. Our dressing last night: 1 cup white balsamic vinegar, a splash of water, heaping teaspoon of sugar (or jam or honey), teaspoon of salt, one garlic clove minced, about 1 cup olive oil (adjust to your taste).

Fully planted!

Jason transplanting cabbage behind potato plants

My goal was to get everything into the ground by the summer solstice (not counting all of those good fall greens and root crops coming our way). And we've done it! Yesterday we put out cabbage, Brussels sprouts, rutabaga, and intercropped some daikon radish and lettuce with the cucumbers at our expansion plot across the road. For the next 2-3 weeks we can turn our attention to weeding, pruning, staking, watering, harvesting and -- dare I say -- relaxing.

An artichoke!

Last year we attempted to grow artichokes using a special variety that is hardy even in Maine. Of our 20 plants, only one survived the winter. And behold... it is artichoking! We'll try again next year to establish this tasty vegetable.

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