Farm updates and CSA week 2

It was great to see all of the returning members and meet the new folks at the first CSA pick-up last week! Harvesting was the crew's top priority all week to keep the cooler stocked with fresh greens for the CSA and farm store. After the daily harvest was in we spent time mulching and staking tomatoes, planting lettuce, hoeing, and (once our friend Charlie came to help fix our tractor!) cultivating.  The work days are starting to settle into our usual summer schedule: mornings are reserved for harvesting while the afternoons are spent planting and weeding to make sure that the next crops are ready on time!  This week we will begin to plant our winter squash that is now filling the cold frames outside the farm stand. Other fall crops will not be far behind.  This time of year is a combination of harvesting spring crops, caring for fruiting crops like summer squash and eggplant that thrive in the heat, while also planning and planting for fall.  When we are in the midst of it all it can feel like a bit of a whirlwind but it's incredible that just one day of work can connect the whole farm season!

*Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 6pm

Wednesday and Friday 2pm - 6pm

*Saturday 10am - 3pm

*Hours in bold and with an asterisk are also CSA pick-up hours

 

In the CSA:

• Kohlrabi-  These funny looking purple vegetables are a juicy and crunchy addition to salads with a mild flavor. 
• Scallions 
• Beets- The first beets of the season! My go-to beet preparation method: Chop off the greens (for eating later!) and boil the beets whole (skin and all). Once they are ready, run cold water over the beets and the skins will slip right off in your hands. After cooking the beets are easy to cut and keep well in the refrigerator in tupperware.  Beets are also great grated in a salad, no peeling or cooking needed! Beet greens are my favorite cooking greens. Make them any way you would swiss chard or other leafy green (see recipe below for beet greens and pasta).
• Baby bok choy - This tender bok choy can be eaten raw or lightly cooked.
• Salad turnips - these white turnips are like a milder radish. They can be eaten raw in salad or roasted. The greens are also edible - they are nice sauteed.
• Easter Egg radishes- These radishes are named for their color scheme- pink, purple, white and red!
• Cherriette radishes - Classic red radishes that add some spice to salads and sandwiches. 
• Head lettuce 
• Salanova lettuce mix
• Arugula
• Bok Choi
• Mustard Greens- We grow just a couple plantings a year as these spicy greens have a small but dedicated following! The greens become much more mild when cooked. 

CSA PYO:

We are excited for pick-your-own to start this week! The shopkeeper will be ready with containers for you for picking and directions. We also have a pick-your-own crop map up in the farm stand to help you find your way. All open pick-your-own crops have a sign up in front to let you know what they are. Please stay with your younger farm helpers to help them walk in field pathways, stay safe, and have fun at the farm! 

• Strawberries - They are ripening in all of this sun!  The strawberries are a bit farther from the farm stand this year to aid in our rotation for the sake of healthy soils and crops but they are worth the walk. Enjoy! 
• Sugar snap peas - Pick the biggest pods you can find. The entire pea is edible including the shell so sugar snap peas make a great snack.  Picking tip: Gently lift up the flopped over plants to find lots of filled out peas on the underside of the plant! 
• Thyme and sage - In the raised garden bed just outside the farm stand.

In the store:

 Most of the items listed for the CSA will also be available in the store. There will also be some spinach, swiss chard, and green garlic.  In addition we will have mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm and pasture-raised eggs from Clark Farm in Carlisle!

 

Recipe

Beet Greens and Feta Pasta

from chowhound.com

• Kosher salt

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 medium white onion, finely chopped
• 4 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 2 pounds beet greens, washed, ribs removed, and coarsely chopped (about 11 cups)
• 1 pound penne pasta
• 5 ounces crumbled feta (about 3/4 cup)

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. When shimmering, add the onion and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the vegetables are translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the beet greens and cook until just wilted, about 3 minutes. Season well with salt and pepper, remove from heat, and reserve.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the package directions. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water Return the pasta to the pot and place over low heat. Add the reserved pasta water and the beet green mixture, then sprinkle in the crumbled feta. Stir until thoroughly combined and heated through. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed.

The first week of the 2017 CSA!

We're very excited for the first week of the 2017 CSA! We grew from 118 CSA members last year to 175 this year, so we have a lot of new names and faces to learn! It's been a very cool spring, especially compared to the last two seasons. Returning members may remember that we've had strawberries and peas during the first week of the CSA for the past two years - this year we'll have to wait one more week. Every season has it's variations, but we're looking ahead to the rest of the season and feeling optimistic about the state of our crops.  This week we will enjoy all the fresh greens and look forward to the strawberries and peas, carrots, beets, scallions and kohlrabi coming along very soon!

In the CSA:

• Green garlic - this spring we had some leftover small-sized garlic heads from last season, so we planted them in the hopes of having something interesting and flavorful for the late spring! These look like purple scallions, but have a garlicky flavor and can be diced and used as a substitute for regular garlic in any dish. They have a milder flavor than cured garlic.
• Baby fennel - these tender baby fennel bulbs can be shredded raw on salad or roasted. The fronds are edible as well and can be used as garnish on salad or soup. We'll have larger sized fennel bulbs later in the season.
• Radishes
• Salad turnips - these white turnips are like a milder radish. They can be eaten raw in salad or roasted. The greens are also edible - they are nice sauteed.
• Curly kale - the kale right now is very tender. It's not only great for kale chips and soups, but raw in massaged kale salad or smoothies.
• Baby Swiss chard
• Head lettuce - we'll have several types of lettuce this week, including green leaf, red leaf and oak leaf
• Salanova lettuce mix
• Arugula
• Bok Choi
• Red Russian kale - this baby kale can be eaten as a salad green or sauteed as a side dish.

CSA PYO:

The peas and strawberries from the PYO fields are still ripening and maturing, so there won't be any PYO crops this week. We should have some for picking in week 2 though! There will be some strawberries in the store this week, as the smaller planting we did for the store has ripened.

In the store:

Most of the items listed for the CSA will also be available in the store. There will also be a limited number of strawberries and some Sweet William bouquets. In addition we will have mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm and pasture-raised eggs from Clark Farm in Carlisle!

Recipes

The first week of the CSA is usually heavy on greens, but there are plenty of ways to prepare them and make nourishing side dishes and meals, especially when combined with the mushrooms and eggs we now have in the store! Below are a three ideas.

Stir fried Bok Choi

This is a really simple recipe that Lise improvised for lunch Monday!

• 1 head bok choi, sliced in ribbons
• 2 green garlics, diced
• mix of neutral oil (like canola or sunflower oil) and toasted sesame oil
• mirin
• soy sauce

Heat the oil in a pan on medium high heat. Add the bok choi and green garlic and stir occasionally until the leaves are wilted and the thicker leaf stem is softened (about 2-3 minutes). Lower heat and add a dash of mirin and soy sauce and cook for another 15-30 seconds.

Quiche with Swiss Chard and Mushroom

by Sue Lau, A Palatable Pastime

• 3 large pastured organic eggs
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 ounces white or crimini mushrooms, chopped (or try using some Fat Moon Farm oyster or shiitake mushrooms!)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion or shallot
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 5 ounces Swiss chard leaves (no stems), chopped
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 5 ounces Prima Donna aged Gouda cheese, shredded
• 1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
• Dash nutmeg
• 1 prepared pie crust or quiche pastry dough

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat room temperature eggs with heavy cream in a small bowl. Place pie crust in a deep-dish glass pie plate and crimp edges. Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a saute pan and cook mushroom and shallot until browned. Season vegetables to taste with salt and pepper and stir in chopped chard leaves, cooking only long enough to allow them to wilt; cool mixture. Sprinkle about 2 ounces of the cheese in the bottom of the pie crust and spread vegetables over that, then top with remaining cheese. Pour the custard (cream and egg) mixture over all. Make sure the cheese and vegetables are covered or wet with the custard mixture. Dot with butter pieces and sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake quiche uncovered, in a preheated oven, for about 45 minutes or until domed and puffy and custard is set. Allow to sit undisturbed for about 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

 Kale Salad with Oranges, Currants & Feta

from Boston Globe Magazine, January 13, 2013

• 2 large oranges
• 2 bunches kale, stems removed and leaves washed, spun dry, and torn into bite-size pieces
• 1½ tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 cup crumbled feta
• 1½ tablespoons milk, or more if necessary
• Salt and black pepper
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• ½ cup currants

Finely grate 2 teaspoons zest from 1 of the oranges and set aside. Cut the peel and pith off the oranges and, working over a strainer set in a bowl, cut the segments free of the membranes and reserve; discard the membranes. Place the kale in a large salad bowl and set aside.

In a blender or food processor, process the orange zest, vinegar, garlic, red pepper flakes, ⅓cup feta, milk, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon black pepper to a smooth puree. With the motor running, very slowly add the oil and process briefly until dressing is thick and emulsified; you should have about 2/3 cup. (If the dressing seems too thick to coat the kale leaves, add more milk about 1½ teaspoons at a time to adjust consistency.) Add the dressing to the kale and, with your hands, mix the salad thoroughly until all the kale is coated. Rest the salad to allow the kale to soften slightly, about 30 minutes.

Gearing up at the farm stand

We have been busy in the fields keeping up with planting summer crops, protecting spring crops from pests, and preparing fields for fall vegetables! It has been great to see many of you when we come in from the fields to stock up produce in the farm stand. When you come by for your veggies this week, say hello to our new shopkeeper for the season, Alexis! Alexis just graduated from college at UMass and is jumping right into the action at the farm stand on Tuesday.  The farm store will now be staffed for the remainder of the season so we will have change for cash purchases and our Barrett's Bucks record book available for review. 

The CSA starts in one week! Pick-ups begin June 6th. CSA pick-up hours are: Tuesdays and Thursdays 11am - 6pm and Saturdays 10am - 3pm. We have just 10 spaces left so if you or your friends have not yet signed up but want to join us for the season contact us now or stop by the farm this week! We are hosting a drop-in CSA orientation at the farm stand June 3rd between 1 - 3pm.  New, prospective, and returning members are all welcome to stop by for 5-10 minutes to talk with Melissa and Lise about the farm and check out how the CSA works. 

In the farm store this week: asparagus, lettuce, bok choy, Salanova lettuce mix, radishes, and basil plants. We will also continue to sell mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm. This will be our last week of the asparagus harvest for this season but we look forward to more next May from both our old and new plantings!  All items in the farm store (and CSA) are certified organic and grown here at the farm unless otherwise noted. 

Farm Store Hours

Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 6pm

Wednesday and Friday 2pm - 6pm

Saturday 10am - 3pm

Summer crop planting season is here!

With the last frost behind us we have moved into two weeks of non-stop planting! We have a line-up of frost sensitive crops that are ready to be planted including tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash, cucumbers and flowers.  All these mid summer favorites need warm nights to thrive but we want them to fruit as early as possible so the trick is to get them all in the ground quickly as soon as the weather forecast looks frost-free. Now is that time!  This week you'll see us out in the fields with a truck full of plants and our trusty clipboard containing our planting schedule which lists the date, variety, location, spacing, and fertilizer needs for each crop. The planting schedule starts at March 25th and goes until October 31st when we plant garlic at the end of the season. May 20 until the 30th takes up one third of the printed planting schedule!

Before we get to all that planting we will still be starting each day with the harvest! This week we will be harvesting asparagus, Salanova lettuce mix, arugula, and radishes. We will also continue to have basil and parsley plants and Fat Moon Farm mushrooms for sale.  Our self serve farm stand is open our regular hours:

• Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 6pm
• Wednesday and Friday 2pm - 6pm
• Saturday 10am - 3pm

The farm store will be staffed starting May 30th. CSA pick-ups begin June 6th and the CSA has just 15 spots left so if you or your friends have been thinking about joining now is the time to sign-up!

Blue skies (and green veggies) on the horizon

By the end of the week it will feel like summer, and rightfully so - strawberries and sugar snap peas are only a few weeks away! Last week's cool wet weather certainly slowed down the asparagus harvest and other crop growth, but it didn't slow our crew down. On some of the wetter days we thinned and weeded beets and carrots, transplanted successions of celery, lettuce and scallions, kept on top of our greenhouse schedule, put up our deer fence, and shifted around row covers. On drier days we hoed lettuce, cultivated peas, plowed more fields to prepare for tomato and summer squash planting, and seeded greens, sunflowers and beans!

The farm store will continue to be open self- serve this week with asparagus, arugula, red Russian kale, and basil and parsley plants for sale. We will also continue to stock Fat Moon Farm mushrooms. This week is also asparagus week at 80 Thoreau restaurant- look for our asparagus on the menu! The warmer weather that is forecast this week should improve our asparagus yields so that hopefully there will be plenty for both the farm stand and the restaurant!

Farm store hours

Tuesday/Thursday 11am-6pm

Wednesday/Friday 2pm-6pm

Saturday 10am-3pm