Farm pics

Just some shots from around the farm.

Partial crew picture. From left -- Erin, Tamsin, and Stewart. Jamie is missing.

Tomatoes are starting to pop in the greenhouse!

Must be summer if we are eating dinner on the porch with friends.

CSA Week Two

News from the field:

A good week in the field -- a little rain, a little sun, a little warm but not too warm. Things are growing along nicely. And this being June, we are spending a lot of our time weeding, weeding, weeding. When you grow a wide variety of things like we do, you have some successes and some not so great things happen each year. This year our early cucumbers are more or less failed, and our peas were eaten by a flock of turkeys (I'm not making that up!). But the early tomatoes, beets, and carrots are all looking great, and we have had perfect weather for greens and lettuce this spring. If we get a little sun, we hope to have the first tomatoes for you next week. Keep your fingers crossed!

In the Basket:

Strawberries - We don't grow our own strawberries, but each spring we buy some in from one of the many local farms that do grow them. This week we got a bunch of certified organic berries from our friend Dave Hartshorn at Hartshorn's Farmstand in Waitsfield, Vermont. We know Dave from our Saturday Farmer's Market in the Mad River Valley. He is a great grower, all organic, and his berries are great tasting! Enjoy!

Baby beets with beautiful greens – Two vegetables in one! Cook the greens with the chard in the recipe on the back if you like.

Chard – Chard is a tender cooking green, somewhat like beet greens or spinach in its flavor. Recipe follows!

Mesclun or baby cut spinach – ½ pound

Lettuce – one head of red, green or romaine

Garlic scapes – Curly, green scapes are the immature flower stalk and the first part of the garlic harvest. They are garlicky, summery and firmer than scallions – about like green beans in terms of texture. They’re delicious grilled, and beautiful on the plate. Usually I like to puree them with olive oil in the food processor till I get a dipping sauce for crusty bread. This year I added them to pasta with mesclun: I cut them into 1 inch lengths, cooked them in a hot, dry, cast iron skillet, stirring, until they got a bit black. Then I turned off the skillet and added butter. I tossed the warm, buttery scapes with hot pasta and mesclun, added tamari, and dinner! I also cut them into 2 inch lengths and added them to meat I was braising in broth. Recipe follows!

Scallions and parsley

Chard with parmesan

Adapted from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food

This part you can do ahead if you like: Pull the leaves from the ribs of one or more bunches of chard. Discard the ribs (or save for another dish. Wash and cook in abundant salted boiling water, until the chard softens slightly and turns brighter green, about 3 minutes. Drain, cool (I ran cold water through the strainer turning the chard in it with my hands, or you could swish in a pan of cold water), drain, squeeze out the excess moisture, then chop coarsely.

This part you do at dinnertime: Melt 3 tablespoons butter for each bunch chard in a heavy pan. Add the chopped chard. Heat through. Add a generous handful of grated parmesan cheese. Serve.

Grilled garlic scapes with sweet & spicy Asian sauce

adapted from VegWeb via Janet McConnell

1 bunch garlic scapes,
olive oil for coating
salt and pepper

Asian sauce:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
1 clove garlic crushed
1/2 juice fresh squeezed lime
pinch chili flakes (or more if you desire)
2 tablespoons water

Put all ingredients for the Asian sauce in a small sauce pan. Bring to boil on stove. Remove from heat let stand to cool.

Trim the ends of the garlic scapes, wash and pat dry. Toss scapes with olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill or roast in a hot dry cast iron skillet until they start to get black marks - 3-5 minutes

Just before serving drizzle sauce over the grilled garlic scapes and serve warm or at room temperature, Antipasto style.

Tamsin's hands

I love the nail polish.

Peter was saying this morning how he likes to see the crew over the course of the season normalize what would otherwise be extreme behavior. Things that at first seem impossibly hard or strange, by this time of the season start seeming normal. Like working outside for 8 hours in the cold rain or having hands that just never really come clean - or climbing around on top of greenhouses. Tamsin says that the nailpolish helps hide some of the dirt and helps prevent staining when trellising tomatoes.

Scenes from market

Waverly face painting Olivia. Henry and Coulter talking trucks. There was some veggie selling going on, but also a lot of kid hanging out!

Emma staffed the register at the end of market.

Wavy brought her journal home from school, and this was one of my favorite entries.

CSA Week One

News from the field:

Off to a good start! It has been a good spring for us – a little hot, a little cold, a little wet, a little dry. The result is a big basket of greens to start off the season. Coming down the pipe, we are having a banner year for tomatoes, the zucchini are coming along, beets, chard, fresh herbs, are all on the way. The one set back so far is that we lost our first planting for greenhouse cucumbers, so we won’t have as many early early cucumbers this year, but you can’t always win them all. There is still plenty of veggies on tap, so enjoy!

News from the office:

There’s a lot of business-y news this week! The summer chicken CSA worked so well that the Zschaus are doing a fall chicken csa too. I highly recommend their chicken! The pickups are coordinated with our fall CSA, but you can sign up for one and not the other if you like. There's an order form here

Speaking of the fall CSA, the deadline for the OSF veggie fall CSA is July 1. I know its early, but all those veggies have to get planted now, so we need to know the numbers now. Get in while the getting is good!

Info on late pickups: If you pick up at the farm, we’ll put your basket in the glass-front cooler in the shed where you pick up your share. This is the first year we’ve had a pickup at Natural Provisions. Natural Provisions has said they can try leaving the vegetables in the front of the store for 24 hours, but they won’t be refrigerated or closely supervised. Please pick up your share promptly as some of the veggies (tomatoes especially) don’t like to be in the cooler, and it makes us sad to see the veggies in there. We’ll hold your share for 24 hours after the regularly scheduled pickup. After that, we’ll compost it for you.

Info on missing pickups: If you know that you will be out of town, we hope you can have a family member or friend pick your basket up for you or for themselves to enjoy the week's bounty. If someone is feeding your cats or taking care of your house, giving them your CSA basket can be a nice thank you gift. If Like to know the person’s name if you think to tell me, but if you just send them and they tell me “I’m here for Jane’s basket”, that works too. If you have to miss a share or two, don’t worry, you are still receiving a good value for your money. Your share is already discounted 10-15% off organic retail prices.
 
In the Basket:

2 napa cabbages – A delicate, mild, ruffly cabbage. You can eat it the way you eat regular cabbage – slaw, cooked or salad – but remember it is more delicate. So for slaw, add the dressing only like 10-15 minutes before you serve it. Napa is especially good in Asian style dishes like noodle salads, springrolls, or in salads with peanut, cilantro and ginger. Napa salad recipe on the back, more recipes on the website.

1 bunch dill – Last year CSAers suggested including more herbs in the basket. We’re off to a good start with yummy dill. Delicious yummy in napa slaw or your salad dressing.

1 pound spinach – I love spring spinach. So tender and earthy and green after a long cold winter. I love it in salad, but toward the end of the week, if I have any left, I bring it to work, rinse it, microwave it with butter and have yummy cooked spinach for lunch.

1 head lettuce – There’s a mix of lettuce this week. It’s the greens week!

½ pound arugula – A lovely peppery salad green. This is the good stuff – the tender, baby arugula to eat in salads or on your sandwich. Its especially good with fruit -- Waverly made us a delicious arugula salad the other night with grapes and shavings of parmesan cheese.

1 bunch radish – Something red for the green weeks! Crunchy, not too spicy (thank you cool weather!), bright.

Napa Cabbage Salad

Adapted from Jacques Pepin

Ingredients
• 3 to 4 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed and chopped (2 teaspoons)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons Dijon-style mustard
• 1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 firm head Napa cabbage (about 1 pound)

Preparation
1. Put the garlic in a large salad bowl and mix in all the remaining ingredients except the cabbage.

2. Trim the cabbage. Cut the head crosswise into 1-inch slices. Wash well and spin dry in a salad spinner (moisture would dilute the dressing). Ten or 15 minutes before serving, add the cabbage to the dressing, toss well and set aside, so the dressing can penetrate the cabbage and soften it slightly.

Hillside Chicks Fall Chicken CSA

2 options:

1. In conjunction with the Old Shaw Farm Fall CSA get 4 chickens for $80
1 per week or all at once
(circle one)

2. Buy whole chickens directly from us, in whatever quantity you’d like at $4.50/lb.
to be picked up all at once in late October
I would like _______ chickens

It’s first come, first served ~~ we sold out of our summer flocks very quickly, so let us know right away if you are interested!
Name_____________________________
Phone ____________________________
Email____________________________
* we will collect payment at pick-up for the Fall Order

CSA starts this week

Don't forget! The CSA starts this week. CSAers should have gotten an email from me reminding them, but I thought I'd put up a post too just in case.

Wavy on the farm

Waverly worked with us on the farm today. She helped transplant and weed, which is about all we did today.

Packing trays of seedlings for planting

Wavy took this cool picture of one of the winter squashes we were transplanting

She took this picture of Tamsin and Stewart shoveling remay

And enjoying one of the first tomatoes of the season out of the greenhouse at the end of the day