CSA Week 2 and Farm Stand update

We know intellectually that every season is different, but sometimes it takes looking back at photos and blog entries from the same time during the previous season for it to really hit home! I checked last year’s June 18th blog entry and found this photo of our crew drowning in massive weeds in the leeks:

Leeks June 2018

We also weeded leeks last week and it took 3 people only an hour and a half to finish most of it. This year’s leeks look like this:

Leeks June 2019

I’d like to say that this is entirely due to better weed management - it is in part, but the weather has also been a big factor! It’s been a much colder spring and weeds have been slower growing and a little easier to manage in spite of frequent rains. Weeds aren’t the only plants growing more slowly because of the weather - our crops are too (notice the leek plants look a little smaller too). Crops are ripening and maturing later this year due to the weather as well - strawberries had already peaked by this time last year and we had been harvesting peas for 2 weeks.

There are definite advantages to the colder and wetter spring, though. We haven’t needed to divert much of our energy towards irrigation (usually a massive time expenditure at this time of year), everything is less weedy and our cool weather-loving crops like lettuce, greens and kale look fantastic. Overall, we’re really happy with how the farm is looking. Our summer crops look really good and we’re particularly glad that this year we have our high tunnel up and running for some of our tomatoes. Every season is certainly different, but there is always a silver lining to each season’s challenges!

This week in the CSA:

• Carrots - The first carrots of the season are here! Tender and sweet, they need no preparation other than washing - just snack on them plain!

• Swiss chard - One of our favorite greens for flavor and color. It’s related to beets, with a similar sweet earthy flavor. Swiss chard should be cooked - it can be sautéed with garlic and salt, baked in a quiche, braised with beans, wilted on top of pasta, and much more!

• Green garlic - We planted a bed of garlic to be harvested green. Chop up the white and purple part and use like you would regular garlic. It has a milder flavor than full-sized cured garlic.

• Spinach - This week’s crop of spinach is great for cooking (because it is late in the season for spinach, the leaves aren’t as tender as the early season). This is likely the last week for spinach until the fall.

• Kale - we have both green and purple curly kale this week

• Bok Choi

• Kohlrabi

• Mini daikon

• Radishes

• Salad turnips

• Salanova

• Lettuce - butterhead, romaine, panisse and red leaf

• Arugula

• Mizuna

• Red Russian Kale

CSA Pick-your-own:

• Sugar snap peas and Shelling peas - To pick, gently hold the plant in place while you snap the stem just above the pea pod. Remove the top before eating (For shelling peas remove the entire pod).

• Strawberries - More strawberries are ripening this week, but even with some of the later varieties coming on, it isn’t looking like a banner strawberry year for us. We think it’s due to a combination of the cooler temperatures this spring, and the place where they were planted last year. We need to rotate the strawberries every year to prevent disease, but we think that the spot we rotated them to has slightly poorer soils (we had trouble with eggplant there years ago) and is maybe a bit too shady. We’ve already planted next year’s strawberries in a more prime location and we’ve been diligently maintaining them, so hopefully next season will be better!

• Herbs: parsley, dill, cilantro, basil and mint

CSA pick-up hours

Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 6pm

Saturday 9am - 3pm

This week in the farm stand:

We will have all of the veggies listed in the CSA available in the farm store, as well as scallions, honey and mushrooms from Fat Moon.

Farm Store Hours

Tuesday-Friday 11am - 6pm

Saturday 9am - 3pm

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.

Swiss Chard with Garbanzo Beans

by GABRIELE CORCOS AND DEBI MAZAR, from thekitchen.com

INGREDIENTS

• 2  pounds Swiss chard, preferably rainbow chard

• 2  tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 2  ounces pancetta, cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1/2 cup)

• 2  tablespoons finely chopped shallot

• Pinch red pepper flakes

• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

• Salt 

• Freshly ground black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Wash the chard leaves and stems well in a large sink of cold water. Lift the chard out of the water, leaving the grit at the bottom of the sink. Shake off the excess water, but do not dry the chard.

2. Tear the stems from the leaves and chop the stems crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces; set aside. Stack the leaves and coarsely chop them. Keep the stems and leaves separate.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pancetta and cook until crisp and browned, about 3 minutes. Stir in the shallot and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring often, until the shallot softens, about 2 minutes.

4. Add the chard stems and beans. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the stems soften, about 4 minutes. Stir in the leaves a handful at a time until wilted. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chard is tender, about 5 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve hot on its own or on top of bruschetta.

Arugula Pesto

adapted from NYTimes recipe by Martha Rose Shulman

•   3 green garlic, white and purple parts chopped

•   2 heaped tablespoons shelled walnuts

•   4 ounces arugula, stemmed, washed and dried (2 cups leaves, tightly packed)

•   ½ teaspoon salt

•   ⅓ to ½ cup extra virgin olive oil, as needed

•   ⅓ to ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan, to taste

Turn on a food processor fitted with the steel blade, and drop in the garlic scapes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the walnuts. Turn on the machine, and process until they are finely ground. Scrape down the bowl again, and add the arugula and the salt. Pulse until the arugula is finely chopped, then turn on the machine and run while you slowly drizzle in the olive oil. When the mixture is smooth, stop the machine, scrape down the sides and process for another 30 seconds or so. Work in the cheese and combine well. Serve with pasta.

The CSA starts this week!

While we continue to plant, cultivate, weed, seed, mow and of course pick potato beetles, the focus this week is on the harvest! It is the first week of the CSA for 2019 and we can’t wait to have everyone back on the farm regularly! The crew will be busy cutting greens, bunching radishes, pulling scallions, and everything else needed to pack the cooler each morning to get ready for the CSA and farm store. A note about the harvest: While our vegetables often look clean, you should definitely wash at home before eating. Shopkeepers Molly, Ione, and Debbie will be in the farm stand to help farm store customers and CSA members. CSA members, be sure to check in when you arrive and the shopkeepers will mark it in our records as well as provide you with picking containers and instructions. If you didn’t come to CSA orientation be sure to pick up a copy of the 2019 CSA guide. New members will also receive their bag and one of the shopkeepers will show you the ropes!

This week in the CSA:

• Salanova Lettuce Mix - this cut lettuce mix is similar to mesclun, but a little crisper and will keep well in a plastic bag in your refrigerator for about a week.

• Spinach

• Kohlrabi - These funny shaped vegetables are crunchy and juicy. Peel off the outer skin and chop in salad or coleslaw or make into fritters!

• Mini Mak daikon radishes - These mini daikon are great raw or cooked.

• Bok Choi

• Radishes - A crunchy, peppery addition to salads! They can also be lightly sauteed for a more mild flavor. 

• Scallions 

• Purple Mizuna - Great in salads and on sandwiches

• Salad Turnips - Also known as hakurei, salad turnips look like white radishes but are sweet rather than spicy and free of the peppery flavor of radishes. 

• Red Russian Kale - Great raw in salads or lightly cooked. 

• Arugula - A slightly spicy salad green. It is great in sandwiches and as a pizza topping. 

• Lettuce - Panisse (oak leaf), green leaf, new red fire (red leaf) and some romaine heads are ready for picking this week.

CSA pick-your-own:

We hope you enjoy the pick-your-own! We welcome children into the fields but please always have an adult with younger visitors to help guide picking. Please walk in the pathways  (along the grass and down tire tracks or straw mulched pathways depending on the crop) as other areas may look like just dirt but are likely newly seeded rows!

• Strawberries!  Just the first taste of the season, many more to come in the coming weeks. The first few rows (closest to the farm stand) are the first to ripen! Pick the brightest red berries you can find. Check the tip of the berry to be sure the tip isn't still white before you remove it from the plant. To harvest, pinch the stem just above the fruit to avoid pulling on the plant. Walk in the straw pathways and don't forget to check further down the row in case the first area has been picked more recently!

• Herbs: Choose from Parsley, Dill, Cilantro, Mint, and Chives (and chive blossoms!). Add some flavor to your cooking this week! Some herbs are planted in raised beds just outside the farm stand while others are planted in successions in the PYO fields. Be sure to look for signs in the field and garden beds labeling the herbs to see which of our current plantings are open for picking this week.

CSA pick-up hours

Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 6pm

Saturday 9am - 3pm

This week in the Farm Store:

We will have all of the veggies listed in the CSA available in the farm store. We will pick strawberries for the farm store each morning, however they have been selling out quickly! In addition to the veggies listed for the CSA we will have certified organic mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm and honey from Double Bee Honey produced from hives on the farm.

Farm Store Hours

Tuesday-Friday 11am - 6pm

Saturday 9am - 3pm

Recipes:

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

•   1½tablespoons white wine vinegar

•   1 garlic clove, minced

•   ¼teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

•   1 cup crumbled feta

•   1½tablespoons milk, or more if necessary

•   Salt and black pepper

•   ¼cup extra-virgin olive oil

•   ½cup 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, ¼teaspoon salt, and ½teaspoon 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 1½teaspoons 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.

Kohlrabi Fritters

Recipe from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

• 2 medium kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and chopped (about 16 oz.)

• 1 large egg

• 2/3 cup (about 2 7/8 oz.) all-purpose flour, divided

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided

• 1/3 cup olive oil

• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

• 1/4 cup sour cream

• 1/4 cup applesauce

Step 1

Using the grating disc attachment of a food processor, process kohlrabi until finely shredded. Squeeze grated kohlrabi between paper towels to remove excess liquid. Place squeezed kohlrabi in a medium bowl. Add egg, 2 tablespoons of the flour, and 3/4 teaspoon of the salt to kohlrabi, and stir to combine.

Step 2

Heat oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high. Using floured hands, pat kohlrabi mixture into 12 (3-inch) flat discs. Sprinkle remaining flour on both sides of discs. Fry fritters in two batches until golden and crisp, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate to drain. Sprinkle with chives and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt; serve with sour cream and applesauce for dipping.

June farm report

Late May and the first half of June is probably the busiest time of the year on the farm. It is a big transplanting time, with large blocks of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, watermelon, winter squash, and flowers going into the ground. We also have to keep up with our weekly lettuce plantings and greens seedings, as well as smaller successions of herbs, beans and sunflowers. May 25th alone takes up 6 pages of our 27 page planting schedule!

Weeds also begin to take off this time of year, requiring cultivating tractors to be running most days and crew members out in the fields hand weeding and hoeing every sunny day. Longer-term weed prevention is also on our mind now, as the mulch and landscape fabric we manage to get down this time of year will save us many hours in late June and early July (though it can seem hard to prioritize when your greenhouse is bursting with plants that need to go in the ground).

Animal and insect pressure also weigh on our minds. The deer have been grazing on our asparagus this year, highlighting the importance of all the time we spend setting up and maintaining fences. (With some crops we have to wait until the fences are up before we can plant.) We also see enormous pest pressure from flea beetles and Colorado potato beetles this time of year. We take the time to put row cover on every weekly greens seeding so that the arugula won’t be filled with holes, and last Friday afternoon we planted out all of our eggplant and then immediately began covering them with row cover to keep out the dreaded potato beetle. We are preparing to hand pick the beetles off the potato plants this week, a task that will take our whole crew hours to do, and which will need to be repeated again in the next week or two.

Thankfully, we’ve had plenty of rain this year, so we’ve been able to spread out irrigation set up. Other years we’ve had to put all other projects on hold until we could ensure each field was ready to be irrigated before planting.

Finally, harvesting begins in earnest this time of year. Because of the way the calendar works out this year, the CSA is starting a few days later than in past years. This means that we can focus on planting, weeding and pest control a little longer before we start devoting full mornings to harvesting and washing. The extra time and a really strong and experienced crew have led to us feeling really confident about the course of the season (and only moderately on edge about the length of our to-do list, rather than the usual sense of panic!)

In spite of the cold spring, harvests for the store have been going well, with abundant spinach and arugula, as well as strong asparagus harvests on the days following warm nights. We also enjoyed the first strawberries of the season at the end of last week. It was a limited supply, but they’re ripening faster now, so we should have enough most days to last beyond the first hour that we’re open!

The store is now staffed, so come in and say hello to our Shopkeepers Molly, Ione and Debbie this week. They spent last week fine tuning our new credit card system, and we are excited to announce that we can now take credit cards in the store (we still appreciate cash for smaller purchases!). The CSA begins next Tuesday June 11th, and it is now sold out with 235 members. We can’t wait to see everyone back on the farm!

This week in the store:

• Strawberries - We’ll have a better supply this week than the first few pints of strawberries we enjoyed last week, but we still anticipate selling out early most days.

• Asparagus

• Spinach

• Arugula

• Bok choi

• Baby bok choi

• Kale - green curly and red curly (new this year!)

• Radishes

• Plants - basil and parsley

• Mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm

• Honey from Double B (produced from hives on the property)

Mark your calendars!

The asparagus harvest is now in full swing thanks to rising temperatures this week! The farm store continues to be open for self serve sales Tuesday-Friday 11am-6pm and Saturday 9am-3pm. In addition to asparagus this week we will have spinach, radishes (first of the season!), microgreens, basil and parsley plants, as well as mushrooms (from Fat Moon Farm) for sale. Despite the slow start due to a cool spring we are keeping up with our planting schedule and June will be here before we know it! There are just 9 CSA memberships left so if you’ve been meaning to sign up now is the time! Upcoming dates to remember include:

Tuesday May 28th Farm Store staffed: Come by and meet our new shopkeepers! Exact change no longer needed.

Thursday June 6th CSA Orientation 4-5pm: Orientation talks will begin at 4:00, 4:15, 4:30 and 4:45 and will last 10-15 minutes. Stop by to meet your farmers and talk with us about how the 2019 CSA works! New and returning members are welcome. All members will receive a copy of the updated 2019 CSA Guide. New members will also receive their CSA bag.

Saturday June 8th CSA Orientation 10-11:30am: Another option for CSA orientation. No need to sign up, just stop by when works for you. Orientation talks will begin every 15 minutes at 10:00, 10:15, 10:30, 10:45, 11:00 and 11:15 and will last 10-15 minutes.

Tuesday June 11th First week of the CSA! Pick-ups will be Tuesday and Thursday 11am-6pm and Saturday 9am-3pm. If you are new and can’t make it orientation we will have your CSA guide and bag available at your first pick-up. We can’t wait!

Sarah on our Farmall 140 using the Buddingh basket weeder to cultivate the sugar snap peas!

Farm Store opens May 7th!

April was a busy month on the farm as we prepped fields (when it was dry enough!), planted and seeded, filled our greenhouses to bursting, and did some major cleaning and organizing. Our small but stellar April crew of Sarah, Brian and Rebecca have made sure we are on good footing for the start of the season. Much of their hard work is beginning to come to fruition as we open the store for the 2019 season on Tuesday, May 7th! It has been a chilly spring, so asparagus has been very slow growing, but with slightly warmer temps in the forecast we expect to have limited amounts available next week. We will also have spinach, scallions, parsley seedlings, mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm in Chelmsford, honey from Double B Honey’s hives at Barrett’s Mill, and the very first crop of Barrett’s Mill Farm tulips! By the end of the week we will hopefully also have microgreens and pea shoots.

The farm stand will be self-serve for the first few weeks, accepting cash, checks or Barrett’s Bucks.

• For cash purchases, please bring exact change.

• For check purchases, please make checks out to Barrett’s Mill Farm.

• For Barrett’s Bucks purchases, fill out the provided card with your name and amount purchased, and put it in our payment box. We will tally your purchases until the farm store is staffed, at which point we will have the Barrett's Bucks book in the store each day.

The farm store will be staffed the week of May 28th, and the CSA will begin June 11th. If you have any questions or you aren't sure what your Barrett's Bucks balance is, feel free to send Melissa an email at melissa@barrettsmillfarm.com.

Farm Store Hours (starting May 7th)

Tuesday thru Friday 11am -6pm

Saturday 9am - 3pm