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
Thursday September 16, 2010
Melons and Farm to Table thoughts by Laura Meister. This is by far one of Laura' best newsletters in my humble opinion. Thank you Laura!!
September 14, 2010
Hi all—
I was a city girl. More accurately, I was a suburb girl, and in terms of understanding food, I’d say this is actually much more of a handicap. My food came from the grocery store by and large, although to give my parents some credit and not to paint the situation in completely black and white terms, we did have some great tomatoes in our backyard garden. Still and all, the aggregate effect of the location and time of my upbringing caused me to miss out on some spectacular eating experiences and even a couple years into growing food, I still didn’t know what good was.
During my second season at Farm Girl Farm, I brought an experienced farmer friend to my melon patch to show him the disappointing results. “See?” I sighed, “I blinked and I missed them. They are all too ripe now, they’re rotting.” My friend laughed and grabbed the nearest muskmelon, with a rotten spot and a dent in the skin where ants were beginning to enter. He deftly removed the bad spot with his knife, cut the melon open, held it first to his nose and began muttering to himself, “Extraordinary”—then devoured the entire fruit in what seemed like one long slurp-bite. “My god its been years since I’ve had a melon this good,” he said. “There’s just nothing like it. You can’t get melons like this anywhere. You’ve got a gold mine here.” Lesson learned. Each summer since then I’ve proudly delivered him one muskmelon, preferably with at least one opening in the skin, the late-summer prize for patience and connoisseurship.
What I still wasn’t entirely getting about the “farm to table” concept was the beauty of skipping the step where a vegetable or fruit spends a few days in between the field and one’s plate, whether that be the grocery store or the farmstand. Coming to the farm to get one’s veggies, literally right out of the field, means access to the melon that would never have made it to the store, the melon that is so ripe it is about to burst through its skin to spread its seeds and start the cycle all over again, the show-stopping tomato with a kaleidoscope of colors and one tear in the skin or small bruise—vegetables that are at their peak of taste but that wouldn’t survive the one-week or even three-day transportation and holding period involved in the retail process. This is the good life!
So fear not the melon bursting out of its skin or the 1-pound tomato with a dime-sized soft spot. It’s not everyday you get to experience such a fruit. And winter, and California vegetables, are nipping at our heels. So enjoy.
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Laura's melon, my tomatoes from Laura's seedlings. |
For those of you interested in learning more about how to tell if a melon is ripe in your own garden or to see the process we go through to bring the melons to the CSA table, here is a good webpage:
--Laura Meister, Farm Girl Farm Farmer
Thursday September 09, 2010
It's truly harvest time and it seems the abundance and celerity of the harvest has picked up. It's a bountiful and melancholy time. The morning mist is postcard perfect with a nip in the air while the days are still warming up. Jacket weather is not far away.
Here's what Elizabeth Keen from Indian Line Farm has to say about the harvest:
Where is the corn and eggplant? That is certainly the question many have been asking. The eggplant remains a bit of a mystery to me. In years past I have noticed that eggplant seemed to enjoy abundant rain and was not deterred by overly cool temperatures as long as the plants got off to a good start. We always plant the eggplant the 3rd week of May and then keep the plants covered with floating row cover for at least 2 weeks. This keeps the plants as warm as possible during what can be still a chilly time of year. Late May this year was blistering hot and I saw no need to cover them and, in fact, thought I might lose plants because the cover in combination with the biodegradable black plastic can really be overly hot. However, it turned cold again in early June and the plants were getting eaten by flea beetles so I covered them for two weeks. When we took the cover off, the plants were noticeably bigger and by all accounts healthy. We waited and continued to keep the plants as moist as we could through our drip irrigation system. And we have continued to wait. After a small flush in July the eggplants have all but petered out. The plants seem fine, but there has been very little flower production. I have asked around and it seems more than just I have the same problem. My conclusion is that eggplant won't flower much above 90 degrees and they really like water. We can hope for better next year.