Thursday October 28, 2010
Hello Farm Girl Farmers.
Inch by inch and row by row! As I mentioned in an email to all of you earlier today, we have had a steady garlic effort going—over the weekend Robin Perry, Emily Paskus, Beth Domaney, Melissa Brown, Andrei Vankov and Jamie Goldenberg took to the field and got the first hundred pounds of garlic in the ground. Today we had more help from Cindy Elitzer and later this week we have Liz Hogan on deck. Go team!
I should not neglect to mention that the garlic seed we are planting was prepared for planting (broken from heads down into cloves, a daunting job in itself) by a cheerful group of birthday revelers last week at Allium Restaurant. FGFers Brian Thayer, Sara Parrilli, Sarah Volkman, Greenagers Director Will Conklin (who brought us the help of the teenaged greenagers this summer) and various and sundry friends gathered around Vivian to celebrate her special day and made quick work of the garlic break-down, in addition to making a beautiful mess of garlic skin and soil all over the floor of Allium. Very special thanks to Troy Kinser, manager of Allium and Nancy Thomas, owner, for putting their money where their Farm to Table mission is.
We’ll keep planting garlic over the next couple of weeks, a great time to put in a few row feet is during regular pick-up hours on Tuesday or Saturday. We can also arrange for you to come and plant at other points in the week, so be in touch! Its easy and satisfying.
In my latest last year-this year-next year musings, I am noticing that it has been steadily colder this year than it was last year at this time. Last year at this time we still had a trickle of the summer crops like peppers and summer squash and this year those crops are long gone with the frost. But we’re hedging our bets…we’ve put protective row cover (that’s the white fabric you see out in the field) on several beds so that if we do get some milder weather, as we did last year towards the end of October, we won’t have given everything up to the tyranny of the cold nights. Under row cover, with the nights being as cold as they have been, things like baby arugula and bok choi aren’t growing, per se, but they are holding steady, not freezing to death either. So if things get more temperate, they’ll still have a chance to size up.
Finally, another reminder that we will distribute veggies through the first week of November: Tuesday November 2 and Saturday November 6. That means two more weeks of vegetables after this week’s pick-up.
Enjoy the veggies and the beautiful light at this time of the year.
--Laura Meister, Farm Girl Farmer
Thursday October 21, 2010
We have officially fallen below 32 degrees on several occasions in the last 2 weeks. This means that all frost sensitive crops have died. I have to say I wasn't sorry to see the tomatoes go. This has been a stellar year for tomatoes and I am hopeful you all had your fill to make up for our disastrous 2009.
After making my last tomato soup for the year and enjoying every bite, I have turned my attention to the plethora of other foods at our fingertips. Please enjoy some of the recipes below if you are looking for ideas and don't forget to check out our website for more!
Have a great week!
For the farm crew,
Elizabeth
P.S. I was informed by several of you that turkeys don't migrate. Thanks for setting me straight. I hope to see my turkey friends all winter!
A few notes:
1) We still need garlic to be cleaned if you have any extra time. Please ask the person in the barn to set you up.
2) The last two weeks of pick up (week of October 25th and week of November 1st) we will be doing our Annual Fall Sign Up for Indian Line Farm. We ask for a Commitment Form and $100 deposit to hold your space. We will give you more details next week.
3) Please note that the Rainbow Salad Mix this week will need to be given an extra rinse at home. We have an insect problem that I am unfamiliar with at this time of year. We have aphids in the lettuce greens and I can't with our two wash tubs rinse them out completely. They are harmless but I promise you if you take the lettuce you will find them. Consider yourselves warned. On the other hand, the lettuce will be extra sweet as the cooler temperatures encourage the plants to sweeten. Creating sweetness is an anti-freezing characteristic of plants.
Vegetables for the week of October 18th
Choices:
Bok Choy, Brussels Sprouts, Kohlrabi--limited quantity
Cabbage, Baby Hakurei Turnips, Green Tomatoes--limited quantity
Mix and Match Roots:
Carrots
Potatoes, from Thompson Finch Farm--Ancram, NY --see recipe below
Onions--see recipe below
Scarlet Turnips
Red Meat Radish
Daikon Radish
Celeriac--see recipes below
Purple Top Turnips
Beets--see recipes below
Sweet Potatoes!!--Stone Soup Farm, Belchertown, MA
Mix and Match Greens
Chard, Kale, Mustard Greens and Spinach
Acorn Winter Squash--Full Bloom Organic Farm
Rainbow Salad Mix--please wash before eating! 1/2 lb only
Garlic
UPick
Herbs
Fruit Share
1/2 gallon apple cider from Windy Hill Farm for folks on Tuesday.
Bosc Pears from Maynard Farms, Ulster Park, NY--please let ripen a week before eating!
Thursday October 14, 2010
As usual, Elizabeth Keen is the great farmer/philosopher!!
News from Indian Line Farm
A flock of wild turkeys have taken up residence at the farm this summer. Fourteen birds sleep in the trees just west of our house and meander their way down to the farm fields every morning. I catch myself laughing as occasionally Harry and Rainbow the cats will herd them a little faster in whatever direction they are traveling. By the time we make our way down to harvest they are in the front sections near the greenhouses munching away on bugs and bits of green. They have been here since the little ones were just chicks and they are now full grown to my untrained eyes. In all these months we have never seen any damage from their passing. They seem to have stomachs for the things we don't eat. By 9:00 am they have usually headed south across the hay field to wherever they spend the rest of their day. They return about 6:00 pm again meandering their way through our electric fence and into the vegetables. We most often notice them coming up the hill as we are sitting down to dinner. We almost always comment to each other that they are headed home for the night and Colin can rarely let the moment pass without jumping up and watching them pass. There are so many of them.
I have seen turkeys move freely about the farm in the past but they usually travel in a north to south pattern and most often as far from the house as possible. I suspect that the absence of our old dog Brantley has opened up possibilities for this new flock. I have yet to do research on the habits of wild turkeys but I suspect they will soon migrate to a warmer location for the cold of winter. One day I will realize they have gone. I am pleased to have them here now and hope that some will return to lay eggs next year.
I have been pondering the idea of this farm as a gathering place for creatures of all kinds. We have a healthy wildlife population: deer, raccoons, skunks, bears, opossums, ground hogs all live here or at least make sightings multiple times a year. Of course there are birds of all kinds and the reptilian population seemed especially strong this year. I have never seen so many frogs! Equally as important are the insects that congregate here. I tend to remember the least desirable of this category as they can do the most damage to the vegetables. Tomato hornworms, cucumber beetles, peach colored aphids, flea beetles, white flies, cabbage lopers, Japanese beetles, and Colorado potato beetles are just a few of my least favorite creatures. But we do have monarch butterflies, swallow tails, parasitic wasps, lady bugs, tons of spiders and other creepy crawlies we encounter in our day.
And then there are the human creatures which fill this farm with hard work and toil and manage to bring forth amazing food. On some days the humans are quiet and steady (except for when we need to blast the radio to hear NPR or listen to our favorite radio station) and on other days this farm is bustling with cars and more humans big and small. Just as I am pleased to have our wild turkey friends this year, I am glad to have all the humans that call this farm their own. After all, without them, we would not know who we were growing for. I hope they too return in years to come.
For the farm crew,
Elizabeth
Here's some of our "take"from this week: carnival and delicata squash. Stay tuned for recipes - oh so simple!!
Thursday October 07, 2010
You gotta love Elizabeth Keen and how she runs Indian Line Farm - check out the list of produce for this week's pick up. THANK YOU is all I can say!!
And, that carrot soup (she suggests) is on my menu today - a rainy, damp and cool day here in the Berkshires.
News from Indian Line Farm
After recording 7" of rain Friday afternoon I began to think of the Old Testament. This summer has been filled with drought, extreme heat, small insects in mammoth quantities, a strange fungus which killed our last cucumber planting and now... flooding. We are lucky here in that our land does not actually flood but it sure is saturated with water. We were overjoyed at the rain and had quite a time on Thursday and Friday during harvest. We were all so happy to be wet and warm that the pelting rain rarely bothered us. We will now be rolling up our irrigation equipment for another year and hoping for a bit more rain in 2011.
For the farm crew,
Elizabeth
Vegetables for the week of October 4th
Carrots
Potatoes, from Thompson Finch Farm--Ancram, NY
Green Tomatoes
Red Meat Radishes
Hakurei White Sweet Turnips
Onions
Scarlet Turnips
Cabbage--limited quantity
Bok Choy
Daikon Radish
Kohlrabi
Broccoli Raab--limited quantity
Celeriac
Purple Top Turnips
Mix and Match Greens
Chard, Kale, Arugula, Mustard Greens and Spinach
Delicata Winter Squash
Tomatoes--up to at least 2 lbs.
Rainbow Salad Mix--possibly none
Garlic
UPick
Cherry Tomatoes
Flowers
Herbs
Tomatillos
Fruit Share
1/2 gallon apple cider from Windy Hill Farm for folks on Tuesday. Friday folks got cider on Friday October 1st.
Macoun Apples from Maynard Farms, Ulster Park, NY
Recipes
Heavenly Carrot Soup (Gardeners’ Community Cookbook by Victoria Wise)
Serves 3 to 4
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 ½ tsp. ground coriander
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 cups chicken broth
1 lb. carrots, scraped and finely chopped
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
½ cup white wine
Sprigs of cilantro, for garnish (optional)
1. Melt the butter in a large soup pot. Stir in the onion and sauté for 5 minutes, until slightly wilted. Add the carrots, wine, and coriander. Cover the pot and cook over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are mashably soft. Remove from the heat and cool enough to handle.
2. Puree the carrot mixture, along with 1 cup of the broth, in a food processor or through a food mill. Return the puree to the pot and stir in the salt, pepper, and remaining 3 cups of broth. Reheat and serve right away if serving warm, or cool, and chill if serving cold. Garnish with the cilantro, if using, just before serving.
Alice’s Moroccan Carrots (Gardeners’ Community Cookbook by Victoria Wise)
Serves 6
18-24 baby carrots with ¼ in. stem attached, scrubbed, and halved lengthwise
¼ tsp. paprika, hot or mild
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 clove garlic, crushed
Pinch of salt
¼ cup olive oil
¼ tsp. ground cumin
Pinch of cayenne
2 ½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 T. chopped fresh parsley leaves
1. Combine the carrots, garlic, and pinch of salt in a large sauté pan. Add water to cover, bring to a boil, and simmer briskly over medium heat until tender, 3-4 minutes. Drain and cool to room temperature.
2. Transfer the carrots to a nonreactive dish large enough to hold them without overlapping too much. Toss with the cumin, paprika, cinnamon, and cayenne. Add the lemon juice, oil, and parsley, toss again, and set aside to marinate for at least 1 hour. May be refrigerated for up to 3 days, holding out the parsley until just before serving.
Thursday September 30, 2010
Alas, it's raining!! It's what the farmers need - some good ol' H2O. Ironically, the rain fell on the evening that Farm Girl Farmer, Laura Meister, hosted a celebration of the harvest with other farmers and farm advocates at her farm under the tent. Chef, Brian Alberg, from the Red Lion Inn, served up a grilling extravaganza - goat, lamb burgers, his own smoked ham, veggies and a whole halibut. Oh my god - it was o-u-t-s-t-a-n-d-i-n-g!!!!!!!
Thank you farmers and Laura!!
And might I add that Chef, Michael Ballon's chocolate covered macaroons were the BEST I have ever tasted - I am buying his cookbook just for that recipe!!
Thursday September 23, 2010
Thank you Laura for your insights and newsletter!!
September 21, 2010
Hi all—
Happy autumnal equinox, more or less.
In the fields, it feels exactly like that kind of half-time—we got hit by a fairly substantial frost last night, it took out the watermelon vines, the basil, the second summer squash planting…the tips of the pepper plants, some but not all of the tomato plants…we’re in a bit of a late summer/early fall twilight zone. No matter how great of a run we’ve had with these vegetables, and no matter how appropriate the timing of our first frost, its always a bit shocking, and then melancholy, to be working among the fallen fruits. Mother nature, always the stern reconciler of time.
Now is the time of season when we all start to think about preserving the harvest, putting things up, pickling, canning, freezing, etc. Berkshire Grown runs a series of preservation workshops with local restaurants and caterers. The series is already in progress—
www.berkshiregrown.org for details on upcoming workshops.
Speaking of the changing landscape, we’ll be changing our distribution hours on Tuesdays starting the first week in October (2 distributions from now)—we’ll be wrapping things up at 6 pm instead of 7, because it will be dark by 7. We’ll remind you copiously between now and then. Saturday hours will remain the same.
If any of you have a build-up at home of the pint and quart containers that you’ve been using for the cherry tomatoes, bring them in--we will definitely re-use them
We’re still looking forward to lots of kinds of winter squash, turnips, broccoli raab and beets and carrots. If any of you have fun, easy recipes or preparation suggestions for these veggies, send them along!
Enjoy the harvest this week.
--Laura Meister, Farm Girl Farm Farmer
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