In the Share: Week 13

In the Share: 

NAPA CABBAGE: The heart of a good kimchi, these are the ones in our ferments. You can make your own with ingredients from the share. A nice mix is to have your kimchi be about 75% napa, and 25% root vegetables and spices. Check out the blog from October 2008 for a recipe https://fairsharenews.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-to-do-with-your-share-week-22.html 

ONIONS: Beautiful red onions. These onions store well and are multi-purpose. 

BOK CHOI: Fresh from the field, it will complement the napa in a kimchi. We used it in a nice stir-fry tonight. 

 GREEN PEPPERS: The last of the season. Good addition to the potato salad recipe below. 

POTATOES: German potato salad always goes good this time of year. Check out our September 2009 blog for a recipe. https://fairsharenews.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-to-do-with-your-share-week-18.html 

SPROUTING BROCCOLI: This recipe http://www.fairsharefarm.com/archive/info/Newsletter/2006/v3%20I18%20September%2013.pdf from our September 2006 newsletter for a curry might also help you use up any eggplant or peppers you have on hand. 

PURPLE DAIKON RADISH: A great addition to a kimchi recipe. It is also wonderful and colorful when grated into a salad. 

HERB: We will be harvesting the last of several herbs before the frost hits this week. Selection will vary. 

Farm report: 

Fall is officially here! The sun now begins its retreat to the darkness of winter. 

 

 Fall brings frost and one may come as early as Friday morning. Amongst the many preparations for frost , we continue to care for the last of the monarch nursery. Several have made the transition in the last few days including both of the chrysalis that attached to our dining room chairs. 

The fields that were in crops this year are now blanketed in their winter cover crops. Rye, vetch, peas and oats are growing despite a lack of rain for most of September. We have missed most of the big downpours and are very dry at the moment. Luckily we continue to irrigate and the fall crops are doing well. 

In the Share: Week 12

 

In the Share: 

LETTUCE: We’ve been looking forward to the return of the lettuce harvest. This week’s varieties are crisp and crunchy. 

KALE: Such a versatile vegetable.  This week we have been enjoying kale as a green addition to vegetable stew of potatoes and carrots. 

SPROUTING BROCCOLI: The crop is looking great, so expect broccoli in the shares for the rest of the CSA season. 

SWEET PEPPERS: We grilled out this past weekend and were reminded of how great these are off of the grill. 

EGGPLANT OR OKRA: The okra is waning with the recent cool down. Eggplant is also great on the grill. Marinate an hour or more with salt, vinegar and oil. Cook until charred and soft.  

CARROTS: Out of cold storage from the July harvest, they are sweet and were great on our fresh lettuce salad tonight. 

GARLIC: Chop it and add to some roasted eggplant or peppers. 

DAIKON RADISH: The CSA is getting the more petite variety we grow, not the foot long ones we use in the fermenting kitchen.  To temper the heat of fresh daikon chop it up, add salt and let it set a bit.  We like to cut the daikon into matchstick shape for raw snacking or as part of a stir fry. 

Farm Report: 

Today there was haze in the sky from the cataclysmic wildfires in the west, almost 2,000 miles away. I guess some of us needed a reminder of how interconnected we all are on this small planet. No wall can keep out the impact of global climate change. The longer we delay and deny in the face of overwhelming evidence, the more we will all suffer. 

Farmers have a front row seat to the changing climate as we work long hours in the open air. Extreme weather is an occupational hazard.  When we see photos of farm workers harvesting under orange skies we feel that the debate should be over, it is time to get to work fixing the problem. 

One way we combat climate change on the farm is by growing cover crops that increase the carbon stored in our soil’s organic matter. Pictured above is the beautiful crop of sorghum Sudan grass and Crotelaria that we incorporated into the soil this week. As it breaks down it will feed the garlic crop that we will plant in a month’s time. 

Our monarch nursery continues. Right now we have five caterpillars still growing, with twice that having transformed into chrysallis. It is amazing to watch the transformation which we have had the good fortune to catch twice. It is over in just a few minutes.

One managed to escape the nursery and set up shop under one of our chairs!  I guess when the time comes, the chair will have to move to the porch for awhile.

By next writing, we should have had several emerging as butterflies.  Fingers crossed!

In the Share: Week 11

 

In the Share: 

TROPEA ONIONS: The venerated onion from the ancestral home of Farmer Tom's family.  The Calabrese know how to grow some onions! We use the small ones when a recipe calls for a shallot. These are sweet, not storage onions, so use them up soon! 

TOMATOES: Enjoy these fruits of summer, as their harvest is slowing down. We have been topping our cooked dishes with a healthy garnish of fresh tomatoes. 

SWEET PEPPERS: There will be lots of ripe sweet peppers in your share this week. The Italian bulls horn type we grow are especially great in a fajita. http://www.fairsharefarm.com/archive/info/Newsletter/2005/v2%20I21w%20Oct%205.pdf 

KALE: Greens are back! Chop some thinly into a chiffonade https://themom100.com/2019/02/how-to-chiffonade-basil/ and toss it with some cooked potatoes, which is a great way to get your greens. 

POTATOES: A mix of Kennebec (white flesh) and German Butterball (golden). Cooking with a mix of the two adds a depth of flavor and beautiful color. 

CUCUMBER: A few more of these before they end as summer winds down. 

 ZUCCHINI/ZEPHYR SQUASH: Last week for these.  Our meal for tonight was fried rice with onions, garlic and squash zoodles, a filling dish for hungry farmers.

GARLIC CHIVE FLOWERS: Pull the white flowers and buds off of the top of the stalk and finish off your plating with a crunch. The green buds are full of fresh garlic flavor and are peaking right now. 

Farm report: 

What a nice break from the humid heat of the last few weeks! My favorite month, September, arrived in fine form with some rain and clouds for the thousands of little plants growing for fall. Last week we planted these overwintering onions next to the napa cabbage. 

We’ve always overwintered garlic, but overwintering onions is a more recent addition. Variety selection is key. If they survive the winter, they will size up early before the ones we start in the greenhouse in January have a chance. In the next month we will give them a blanket of hay mulch, but for now they are off to a good start. 

September is the month for monarchs as they fly through our fields of habitat on their way south to Mexico. The family farm has alot of milkweed of many different species:  butterfly, tall green, spider, common and even one rare purple milkweed.  The butterflies are everywhere right now flying by, mating, laying eggs on all the milkweed that they can find, and hatching caterpillars. 

If we pull a milkweed plant out of the field while weeding, honeyvine milkweed is pretty common here, we inspect it for monarch eggs. If it has an egg, we place it in our makeshift caterpillar nursery.  So far the baby monarchs are doing what all babies do best: eat, sleep and poop. But these babies also shed their skin four times, before creating a chrysalis and emerging a butterfly. Pretty cool. 

Our other nursery on the farm is going well. After the first week indoors, the new flock of laying hens  got their first chance to walk on the grass and peck for bugs.

Seems like everywhere we look there is new life, just in time for the end of summer, time to grow big and strong before winter arrives.  The saying goes that "the farmer has to be an optimist, or he wouldn't still be a farmer."  Yep, and same for the farmhers by the way!  Who knows what insanity 2021 has in store for us all, but here on the farm we are nose-down raising next year's egg-layers, planting next year's onions and helping next year's butterflies along besides.  Here's to a better tomorrow for all of the Earth's creatures!