Birch Point CSA Week 14-15: Fall Bounty

This Saturday, Oct. 4: Grawndezvous!   Brenin and his dad  Tom are your hosts for this end-of-summer festival at the farm in Grawn.  Early evening through ???  Potluck and cookout over the fire.  Bring musical instruments, beverages, and a dish to share if you like. Dress for cool, maybe wet, fall temps. If you've never been to the Grawn farm, this is a good time to take a tour-- just come before dark. Follow the link for a map; take a south on Sunset Breeze all the way to the end-- look for the party tent!
Keep in mind: October 18 is the Garlic Planting and Farm Member Appreciation Potluck at Birch Point-- bring a friend! More details soon.

In Your Share This Week:

The very first Winter Squash- Acorn, Delicata, or Sweet Dumpling
Broccoli OR Cauliflower
The first fall Cabbage
Some of the first fall Carrots- either all orange Mokum or mixed Rainbow
A rainbow of Sweet Peppers
Sweet Onions or Red Tropea Onions
Potatoes- large red Strawberry Paw or white Bintje, or white/purple fingerlings (if you were part of the volunteer potato planting at Birch Point, these fingerlings are some of the roots of your labor)
Kale OR Collard Greens
Italian Parsley *think Parsley-Potatoes*
Salad Mix OR Head Lettuce

Delicata

Sweet Dumpling

Acorns come in many colors!

Tropea Onions

Announcements

1. Fall/Winter Shares available: Join us for eight weeks of fall and winter bounty (yes, "winter bounty" is a thing when you have a hoophouse!).  Starting Saturday November 1st, pick up shares every Saturday at the indoor winter market at Bldg. 50 @ The Commons (Sat. 10 am- 2 pm; market runs November through April).  Fall/Winter shares will include plenty of root veggies like potatoes, carrots, beets, leeks, onions, turnips, radishes, celeriac; as well as leafy greens like kale, collard greens, spinach, Asian greens, lettuce, cabbage, Brussels sprouts AND greens; winter squash, herbs like parsley, thyme, and rosemary, sexy hoophouse greens like arugula, baby salad mix, baby spinach, and possibly a few surprises. Shares cost $250 and are intended to feed 2-3 adults or a small family. Since there will be so many storage crops, don't worry if you have a small household and can't use the entire share in a week; many things will keep well for weeks or months if you have a root cellar or cool storage area.

2. Honey from our girls (the honeybees!) will be available soon! Beekeeper Greg Griswold collected supers last week and  is extracting honey this week, so we could have honey available as soon as next week. Last year honey was $12 per quart; I anticipate it will be similar this year. The way it works: You bring jars, labelled with your name, to CSA pickup. Tuesday people will fill your own jars on site from the bulk bucket. Sat, Mon, and Wed people will leave your empty jars with your empty boxes, and next week your jar will be in your box, full of honey!  I'll send an email shout out as soon as we get the word (and the goods) from Greg.

3. Three more weeks of CSA after this wek! (Four for those who joined before the end of February) 

Recipes

Click here for a simple variation on Colcannon, a traditional Irish potato-and-greens dish (note: you can use any onion; it doesn't have to be green; my guess is that since it's often a St. Patrick's Day dish in Ireland, green onions are what's in season there in the March, therefore that's what's in the recipe, but any allium will do nicely)

And speaking of internet recipes, here's a nice suggestion for Five Spice Roasted Delicata Squash, which you could use for any of the squash you'll get this week (any small, thin-skinned squash, basically, not just Delicata). 

Sweet Dumpling Squash with Quinoa (note: any small squash will do nicely!)

Courtesy of Buy Haywood

1 cup quinoa
2-3 sweet dumpling squashes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 diced yellow onion
1/4 cup chopped nuts of choice
1/4 cup chopped dates or raisins  
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

1 tablespoon maple syrup 
6 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut the squash in half and remove seeds with a spoon. Use a fork to poke several holes in the skin of each half of the squash. Place squash in baking pan with hollow side up. Add 1” of water to bottom of pan. Bake uncovered on middle rack for 30-45 minutes or until the flesh is soft. Rinse and cook quinoa in 1 and ½ cups of boiling water then let it simmer in pot covered with lid for about 15 minutes. Saute chopped onions in olive oil until translucent and then add nuts, spices, and raisins or dates and sauté an additional minute. Mix in the cooked quinoa and salt/pepper to taste. Divide mixture into squash halves, along with butter, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Drizzle with maple syrup and bake for 20 minutes.

lifted from http://www.motherearthproduce.com/pages.php?pageid=28

Birch Point CSA Week 12-13: Parties and fall shares on the Horizon

Save the date! Sat. October 18: Garlic Planting, Harvest Celebration and Farm Member Appreciation Potluck at Birch Point. You and your family are cordially invited to join us for the afternoon and/or evening in planting and mulching garlic, sharing food together, or both.  Rain date: one week later, Sat. Oct. 25.

In Your Share This Week:

Beets w/ greens: click here for one of the most comprehensive and tantalizing (and simple) list of beet preparation ideas from NYT food writer Mark Bittman
Scallions: see below for choi slaw recipe.  YES you can use the entire thing- tip to tail!  Some restaurants even use the roots as garnish-- they DO taste good even if they look funny on the plate.
Sweet Onions: Fresh or cooked, it's hard to beat a sweet onion.
Leeks: Time for soup! See here for a simple potato-leek soup recipe. and YES you can use the entire leek- don't ever let anyone tell you the green part is not edible- it is completely edible and delicious.  In larger/older leeks, sometimes the green part can get fibrous; not to worry, just chop finely, crosswise against the "grain" and saute a minute or two longer than the white part. If you can't bear the idea of green leeks in your dish, save the green part to make soup stock- it is packed with flavor.
Potatoes: Finally a critical mass of spuds have sized up!  You'll see a good mix of potatoes in your share over the next several weeks; let us know your favorites so we can plan accordingly for next year.  This week you'll get the hot pink "Strawberry Paw," large tan-skinned Anushka, smaller tan Bintje, or planetary-looking Purple Viking. Try each variety boiled or roasted (to roast: cut into bite-sized pieces, or leave small spuds whole, toss with olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper, roast in a single layer on a cookie sheet at 400 for 30-45 min, depending on size of pieces, test for doneness-- centers should be tender; edges caramelized).
Mei Qing Choi (similar to Bok choi): one of our favorite chois (there ARE enough chois to have favorites); mei qing, or MQ as it's affectionately called here, is a lovely light green, small, relatively fast growing choi, excellent in stir-fry OR fresh in slaw (see recipe below) OR used as a dipping vehicle-- serve whole leaves WITH stems with an Asian dipping sauce ( I like Annie's ginger-sesame salad dressing, but anything vaguely sesame-esque and/or spicy and/or peanutty is delicious here). Dip stems, crunch, enjoy. Yes, it DOES encourage double-dipping, as stems are long- if you worry about that sort of thing, just serve individual dipping cups. Leaves themselves may be left on or removed and used in salad or stirfry; it is the stems who are the stars in the dipping scenario.
Lettuce, either green or red butterhead. Lovely butterheads, some of our favorites!
Swiss Chard or Kale: the green, leafy crops have been loving the moist, cool weather lately! Expect to see more of these (various cooking greens) over the next several weeks.  See below for preparation tips.
Sweet Peppers: are ripening all at once, finally!  We've had a ton (still do!) of green peppers on the plants much of the summer, just waiting for HEAT that never really came, in order to ripen. Despite cooler temps, some of these crisp, gorgeous sweeties are finally changing color anyway, and we're happy to share the bounty with you. If you prefer green (i.e. unripe) peppers to colored (i.e. ripe) peppers, please let us know-- there are tons with your name on them ;)  In addition to standard bell peppers, you may see Carmens (long, skinny SWEET red beauties), red or orange Pimientos (small, Cinderella-pumpkin-shaped, thick-walled, SUPER sweet), Lipstick peppers (red or yellow, med-small, with a distinctly pointed end, also thick-walled and super sweet), or Chocolate peppers (the ugliest sweet pepper of all- brown, sometimes lumpy, medium sized, not too pointy, but DELICIOUS! and very productive!)
Heirloom tomatoes have been a delectable if not overwhelming (in quantity) part of the harvest this season.  At this point in the summer, only a few varieties are still going strong-- you might see Garden Peach, Green Zebra, Black Zebra, Costoluto Genovese, Kellogg Breakfast, Amish Paste, or Pink Beauty (not an heirloom but a favorite nonetheless), among a smattering of others who have peaked and declined already. Due to the late planting date and cool summer temps, tomatoes tended to ripen only toward the end of summer. We're still harvesting, but many plants are already on the decline.  Such is the fate of a cool summer-- happy, bountiful kale and lettuce, not so many tomatoes.  I hope you've enjoyed the varieties you've tried so far-- let us know your favorites!  We probably won't offer canning/preserving shares this year, due to the low yield.  I'll keep you posted if that changes.  If we get a hot summer and good yield next year, we'll be back in the canning/preserving share business!
Cherry tomatoes: always a favorite, still producing though also slowing down, due to cooler temps and shorter days.  What did you think of the new Bumblebee Tomatoes? those are the slightly-larger-than-average-cherry-tomato, striped (yellow and pink OR red and gold) newbies.  They've been quite productive, and beautiful; if you've tried them, we'd like YOUR feedback on flavor and texture.

Green Zebra

Black Zebra

Kellogg Breakfast

Garden (or "Wapsapinicon") Peach

Costoluto Genovese

Amish Paste

Pink Beauty

Bumblebee tomatoes

Announcements

1. Sat. October 18: Annual Garlic Planting Party and Farm Member Appreciation Potluck at Birch Point.  Mark your calendars!  Garlic planting in the afternoon (2-5ish) followed by a potluck for CSA members and farm investors in the barn (5:30ish til 8ish). All are welcome- if you missed the pre-season member meeting, this is a great chance to take a farm tour and see where your food has been growing all summer.  Who has a cider press we can borrow for the day? We'd like to continue the tradition of pressing apples that day-- everyone bring a crate or bag or handful of apples to contribute, and a jug, jar, or mug to take cider home. Rain date: one week later, Sat. Oct. 23.

2. Sat. Oct. 4: Grawndezvous!  Brenin Wertz-Roth and his dad Tom Wertz are your hosts for the annual cookout, potluck, bonfire, and musical extravaganza at the farm in Grawn.  CSA members and friends welcome-- if you've never been to the Grawn farm, this is a great chance to take a tour (come on the early, i.e. daylight, side) and see the fall crops still in the field.  Tom grows hops there, and Brenin has been farming annual veggies as well as a small perennial nursery there for the past four years. This year after Brenin and I joined forces, we focussed on fall crops that require minimal attention in Grawn-- things like leeks, potatoes, cabbages and Brussels sprouts, hot peppers, and potatoes, several of which will still be in the field in early October.  It could be chilly; be prepared!

3. Fall/Winter Shares available: Join us for eight weeks of fall and winter bounty (yes, "winter bounty" is a thing when you have a hoophouse!).  Starting Saturday November 1st, pick up shares every Saturday at the indoor winter market at Bldg. 50 @ The Commons (Sat. 10 am- 2 pm; market runs November through April).  Fall/Winter shares will include plenty of root veggies like potatoes, carrots, beets, leeks, onions, turnips, radishes, celeriac; as well as leafy greens like kale, collard greens, spinach, Asian greens, lettuce, cabbage, Brussels sprouts AND greens; winter squash, herbs like parsley, thyme, and rosemary, sexy hoophouse greens like arugula, baby salad mix, baby spinach, and possibly a few surprises. Shares cost $250 and are intended to feed 2-3 adults or a small family. Since there will be so many storage crops, don't worry if you have a small household and can't use the entire share in a week; many things will keep well for weeks or months if you have a root cellar or cool storage area.

4. Going to the Earthwork Harvest Gathering this weekend? As Seth Bernard said, don't pack your coolers too full this year!  Birch Point Farm and several other grower/producers will be at the First Annual Harvest Gathering Farmers' Market, located on the northeast corner of the woodlot camping area at the festival.  We'll have fresh produce for snacking and for cooking on your campstove, as well as flowers to lively up your campsite!

Recipes: Asian Slaw w/Peanut Sauce, 50 ways to enjoy Kale and Co.

Asian Slaw w/Peanut Sauce (note: this is VERY  similar to the recipe in the last blog post; the only major difference is the Peanut Sauce-- our farm crew loved this dish so much today for lunch they thought it belonged in the blog!)

1 lg or 2 sm heads Bok Choi (or Mei Qing or any other choi or Asian greens you've got), finely chopped 

1-2 carrots OR beets, grated

1 sweet onion, sliced thinly

1/2 c. peanuts, chopped and lightly pan roasted

1/4 c. sesame seeds

1-2 tsp red pepper flakes OR 1-2 fresh minced chiles (heat to taste!)

the juice of one fresh-squeezed lime

1/2 lb. firm tofu, cut in bite-sized pieces, pan fried to perfect crispness in toasted sesame oil and/or veg oil, with a good splash of soy sauce/Bragg's/tamari added partway through cooking

Toss all these things together.

The peanut sauce: 

1 c. peanut butter, creamy or crunchy will do

1/2 c. boiling-hot water- mix w/pb to make it more mixable w/other ingredients

1/4 c. tamari/soy sauce/Bragg's

1/4 c. rice vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)

1/4 c. toasted sesame oil

2-3 cloves minced garlic

2-3 tsp. minced fresh ginger or 1 tsp ground ginger powder

1-2 scallions, sliced on a thin diagonal OR 1/3 c. minced onion

1/4 tsp ground cayenne

Mix all these things together and taste-- does it need more tang? add a little more vinegar. more salt? add more soy sauce. more heat? add more ginger AND cayenne. more peanuttiness? add more peanut butter OR just the peanut oil that's on the surface of the pb in your jar/tub. Perfect? toss thoroughly with slaw to coat every surface. Enjoy room temp or cold.

50 Ways to Enjoy Kale and Other Bodacious Leafy Greens

OK, not actually 50- BUT you can modify these suggestions to create over 500 variations of your own. Note: wherever it says "kale" below, freely substitute Swiss chard, collard greens, beet greens, or any other cooking greens you've got.

1. Raw: remove kale from rubber band. Wash. eat.  Variation: Chop first, toss with any acidic condiment of your choice (note: adding an acid makes the iron more bio-available). Variation: Chop finely, massage by hand in a bowl with coarse salt first, then dress, enjoy. Variation: add any companion veggies, e.g. onion, garlic, tomato, olives, herbs, etc.

2. Steamed: Wash, chop, steam, enjoy with any of the abovementioned modifications. Please eat stems- just chop finely and cook perhaps a few minutes longer. they are delicious.

3. Sauteed: Wash, chop, add to med-hot oil along with veggie companions like onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, corn, etc.  OR go the other way and toss with toasted walnuts and dried cherries instead of garlic, tomatoes, peppers.

4. Smoothied: Wash, add to blender/vitamix along with other smoothie ingredients. Try a little at first, then gradually work your way up to more!

5. Juiced: Wash, run through juicer. My fave combo: kale, apple, parsley, optional carrot or beet.

6. In Lasagna: EITHER chop and add to tomato sauce, OR chop and lay kale right in the lasagna as a layer all on its own (can be just kale or you can stir in an egg or two and some ricotta and/or cottage cheese first, then spread that mixture as a layer)

7. In Soup: I can't think of a single soup that wouldn't be tastier and/or more interesting with a little (or a a lot of) kale tossed in.  For brothy, thin soups, add finely shredded/chiffonaded kale leaves early-ish in cooking so they are tender and not overwhelming. For thick chunky and/or stew-like soup, chop coarsely and add any time you like; they won't overwhelm if everything else is also chunky or substantial.  

8. In EGGS- the universal vehicle for any new veggies or for loads of greens.  Wash, chop, add to scrambles, to omelets, steam first and then serve poached or sunny-side-up eggs on a bed of it, saute and add to egg sandwiches, or my fave: Greens Patties.  Chop and massage a LOT of greens, perhaps an entire bunch of kale or collards or chard or anything you've got.  Add some chopped onion and garlic, salt and pepper, fresh chiles or ground cayenne if you like.  Add a good handful of flour and mix  very thoroughly.  Add just a few eggs (1-2 per bunch?) and mix well-- you want to coat every surface with egg, but it's just a binder; you're not making Egg Foo Young.  Heat oil in a skillet over med heat, scoop out a handful of mixture, form a patty.  Lay gently in pan, use spatula to coax escaping bits back into the circular shape.  Flip when thoroughly cooked on one side and can be turned. Serve with spicy mayo or ketchup or hot sauce or.......

9. Kale Chips- wash, dry, rip into chip-sized pieces.  Either spritz with an atomizer/mister of olive oil, OR toss with oil, coating every surface, but be careful to go easy on the oil- you don't want soggy chips.  Sprinkle with salt OR mist/atomize lightly with soy sauce/Bragg's. Lay in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 until crisp-- maybe 10-20 min depending on size of pieces AND how drenched in oil/salt they are- check often to make sure they're not burning. There is a fine line between dried/crisped and burnt. I sometimes use an even cooler oven and essentially dehydrate them instead of baking, just to be sure not to burn them. A dehydrator would be even safer, if longer.

10. As a garnish- just kidding!  Did you know Pizza Hut is the largest restaurant-consumer of kale?  They use it to garnish their salad bar. I wonder if anyone ever thinks to put it on a pizza. We do!  It's delicious, chopped and layered UNDER the cheese, so it doesn't dry out or burn on the edges if exposed.

  

Birch Point CSA Week 11: Pickling workshop, Tomato Tasting, Winter Shares, and Parties for members and farm friends

First of all, now that "summer" (school vacation) is drawing to a close, SUMMER (killer harvest!) is in full swing  We've finally been getting the diversity and bounty we'd wanted a month ago, and I hope it is worth the wait.  Heart-of-Summer people, this is your LAST week of shares-- it's a great one; nice to go out with a bang.  I hope you'll rejoin us next year and/or for a fall-winter share this November and December
Second, sorry for no newsletter last week- it was a busy one.  Hopefully you could figure out everything in your share.  The one thing that may have required some explaining is Beet Greens.  You'll see more of these as we continue to thin the fall beets.  Prepare them exactly like spinach or chard- and yes, you can leave the baby beetroots on; at that size they cook as quickly as the greens. Just make sure to wash them thoroughly-- lots of crevices for dirt to hide in!
Third,  YOU are invited to a bunch of farmy EVENTS coming up soon, including a pickling and canning workshop (Sun, Sept. 14), our annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting (Tues, Sept. 16), Grawndezvous (a fall celebration at the Grawn farm, Sat, Oct. 4), and more. Please see Announcements for details.

What's In Your Share This Week

It's an Asian-inspired share this week, full of good things to stir-fry and/or make slaw, soup, or snacks.

Beans- is anyone tired of beans?  I know our crew is getting tired of picking them ;)  What's your favorite so far? Regular green beans? Purple? Yellow? Exra long yellow Romano pole beans? Fortex (super long, twisty green pole beans)? Purple Romano pole beans? Other?  Just trying to get a sense of what to plant more of next year.  If you're ever faced with more beans than you can use, or if you LOVE dilly beans, please join us and ISLAND for the Dilly Bean and Cucumber Pickle Canning Workshop Sunday. Sept. 14!  Also, it's super simple to freeze them: blanch for 1-2 min in boiling water, cool quickly under cold running water or plunge into ice water (to stop cooking).  Drain/dry thoroughly, de-stem, cut if necessary to fit into freezer bags,  bag, seal, and label. Voila. Pop into freezer. They're wonderful in winter stew and vegetable soup.

Napa OR mini cabbages- The summer Napa cabbage grew sweet and small, due to the drought, as did the mini cabbages (even more "mini" than we'd planned!).  Hopefully the fall Napa will size up with the sufficient moisture we've had lately.  These two varieties this week are interchangeable in recipes- Napa tend to be more tender and cook more quickly; mini cabbage tend to be firmer and require slightly longer cooking, BUT both can be used in a fresh Asian-ish slaw (see recipe below), or egg rolls, or any way you like cabbage.

Scallions/bunching onions- white OR purple. And yes you can use the whole thing!  bulbs, greens, all of it.  Like ALL leafy green veggies, store in an airtight container in the fridge (like a sealed bag) until using.

Potatoes OR Edamame-- I know, a weird choice, right?  We figure some people love potatoes and some love edamame.  We had a limited amount of edamame thanks to deer and drought, so some folks get to make appetizers, and some get to make chowder ;)  If you are new to edamame, they are edible soybeans popular in Japanese cuisine. A simple preparation: Boil heavily salted water (1/4 c. or more salt to 2 qts water), drop beanpods in (remove pods from plant but leave beans in pods), boil til tender.  Eat similarly to artichoke- holding the pod in your thumb and forefinger, close your teeth almost all the way around it, then pull it through your teeth and out of your mouth, leaving the beans and possibly some of the skin of the pod in your mouth.  Enjoy!   Be sure to boil thoroughly and test for doneness-- I usually leave them in 15 min or so, to make sure they are melty-soft. It's more pleasant AND easier to digest a thoroughly cooked soybean than a slightly crunchy one.

Beets! Lovely red, purple, or golden roots with delicious greens.  Our fave beets: scrub a whole beetroot (or several) well, do not remove skin or tails.  Coat completely in olive oil, wrap airtight in foil.  Throw on the grill (if already grilling) or in the oven or toaster oven at 450-500 for 45-60 min, depending on size of beets.  The super high heat combined with sealing in all the juices results in a thoroughly steamed beet with amazing flavor and texture, and super moist.  Skins will slip off, or you can eat them.  Serve with a knife for slicing-- they should be so well cooked that a spoon would do fine, too. If you need to store beets for more than a day, be sure to SEPARATE greens from roots- just chop off and store in two separate airtight containers (e.g. sealed bags) in the fridge.

Lettuce- heads of green or red leaf, butterhead, or romaine. Try lettuce wraps for a new twist on spring rolls! (wrap rice noodles, protein and/or veggies of your choice, cilantro, etc. in a lettuce leaf instead of a traditional spring roll wrapper) Dip in some hot sauce or sweet-and-sour sauce. Voila. The trick is in the wrapping of course- you can use a toothpick to hold it together if you like.

Eggplant- the first major eggplant harvest, though we got a few earlier this season. Store eggplant at room temp, and use soon for max quality.  My fave eggplant dish: super simple-- slice into 1/2" rounds, coat both sides thoroughly with olive oil, spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet, sprinkle liberally with salt, bake at 375 for 30-45 min (depending on size of slices-- you want them browned and caramelized on the outsides, soft and melty on the inside. check for doneness). Enjoy. May then be blended up into baba ghanoush, tossed with pasta or other dish you like, or eaten as is.

Peppers- sweet or hot. Different harvest days will get different varieties. You may see Hungarian Hot wax (pointy, yellow, turning to orange), a sweet-hot pepper that can be eaten fresh or cooked.  Or any number of green, red, brown, or orange bells.  Or Carmen, a long, pointy red sweet pepper, or perhaps Pimiento, a Cinderella-pumpkin-shaped thick-walled sweet red or orange pepper. Or any number of hot red or green chiles- cayenne, jalapeno, Thai hot, serrano etc.

Tomatoes-- a nice mix of heirlooms from the field and/or hoophouse

Cherry tomatoes- another box of irresistible sweeties

Herbs: Cilantro, Dill, Parsley, or Basil

Announcements

1. Dilly Beans and Cucumber Pickles workshop here at Birch Point, hosted by ISLAND's Preservation Station: Sunday, September 14, 12:00pm - 5:00pm. $35-45 sliding scale: Show up, learn how to make pickles, take pickles home with you. All supplies included. Invite a friend! 

2. Annual Birch Point Heirloom Tomato Tasting: Tuesday Sept. 16. 4:30-7 p.m (during CSA pickup).  We're taking a quieter approach this year (acoustic music), but still the great and diverse spread of heirlooms for you to taste and compare and find your favorites.  Depending on the harvest that week, tomatoes may be available for purchase (beyond what's already in your CSA share and on the table for tasting). Friends welcome, not just for CSA members. 
Note: we did hear rumors of a late blight epidemic downstate. Late blight is the fungal disease that wiped out much of North America's tomato crop in 2009, just for reference.  If we don't get hit with late blight before Sept. 16, the tomato tasting is ON.  If we do get confirmation of the infestation (i.e. if reports are confirmed) but we haven't been infected here yet , we may go ahead and spray copper (an organic fungal control) on our tomato plants to prevent infection. We never normally use any fungicide, but late blight is so devastating that we may just do it to help protect the last few weeks' harvest, since the tomato harvest window has been so short this year. We'll keep you in the loop about what we decide to do.

3. Help wanted: Tuesday Bread Shares need a picker-upper.  A couple of people offered to help with this earlier, so now's your chance to help: we need someone to stop by 9 Bean Rows bakery on 204 (between Suttons Bay and Lake Leelanau, at the site of the former Covered Wagon farmstand) Tuesdays between 8 am and 2 pm.  Then drop off the bread at Birch Point Farm before 4 p.m. This could be a CSA member, someone you know who commutes from SB/Lk Leelanau area to TC every day around 8, or a retiree who loves picking up bread, for example. Farm vegetable credit in exchange for bread pick up and delivery every Tuesday through the end of the season. Please email for details.

4. Fall-Winter Shares still available! Eight weeks of fall and winter bounty starting the first Sat. in November and running through mid-December.  Fall is a great time to savor the amazing diversity of farm food northern MI has to offer-- everything from summer crops like tomatoes (which should still be growing in the hoophouse in early Nov!) and peppers, to cool weather-loving greens like spinach, salad mix, kale, chard, and collards,  to hearty storage crops like carrots, potatoes, squash, beets, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and more.  I'm always pleasantly surprised how late "fall" actually extends into winter-- hope you'll join us! $250 for eight weeks, share size intended to feed a family of four-ish or 2-3 adult veggie lovers.

5. Grawndezvous- Y'all are invited to the annual fall festival held in Grawn at the farm where Brenin's been farming the past four years. Brenin and his dad Tom host a mean potluck, grill-out, and singalong under a big tent and/or around a fire, weather permitting.  Save the date: Sat. Oct. 4. More details to come soon!

6. Late summer/early fall CSA Appreciation and Season Celebration Potluck: Date TBA. Look for a doodle poll soon to set the date for a late-season gathering here at the farm (may be in conjunction with garlic planting in October, or possibly earlier).

Field Notes

It's been a rainy week and a half around here- finally! It is such a relief to report that.  All of our green leafy crops (cabbage, lettuce, herbs, kale, chard, collard greens, etc) are just soaking it up and growing back faster and more lush than before.  Root crops (beets, carrots, potatoes, radishes) are sizing up so fast that we're often finding split and cracked roots, but mostly gorgeous and growing big and fat.  Droopy peppers and eggplants have perked right up (and in combo with the heat last week, started ripening finally!). The onions that are left in the field are still sizing up, and beans just won't stop. 
     We've been planting our latest rounds of fall crops: more radishes, turnips, spinach, more kohlrabi and broccoli, lettuces, radicchio, herbs, and Asian greens.  The cabbages, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, carrots, beets, celeriac and rutabagas, all staple fall crops, are looking great. Mid-season beet are coming on strong, as evidenced by your share this week.  Mid-season carrots are on the horizon (finally!), a welcome relief after the terrible germination of the early season carrots. Sunflowers are still going bonzo all around the farm, both the planted rows in the flower garden and the feral sunflowers that pop up all over, which we tend to leave in, for beauty.
The children's garden is finally greening up and filling in also! Like the rest of the farm, it benefitted greatly from the rain.  We're looking forward to at least one fall music-in-the-garden event for CSA kids and farm friends-stay tuned!

Recipe: 

Michelle's favorite Asian-ish Slaw

4-5 cups shredded Napa cabbage, bok choi, daikon greens, or any green Asian (or not) leafy thing you've got around
2-4 grated carrots OR beets (beets will turn the slaw pink!)
2-3 diagonally sliced scallions/bunching onions (greens and bulbs) OR 1 finely sliced sm. onion
1-3 cloves garlic, minced
equal amt of fresh ginger, also minced (if you have none, put in 1 tsp ground ginger to dressing)
at least 1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 generous handful coarsely chopped fresh herbs: cilantro OR lemon basil OR Thai basil OR dill/parsley if you preferoptional: 1-2 fresh hot chiles, minced 

toasted sesame oil
rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar
soy sauce/tamari
cayenne and/or your favorite hot sauce (I like Ray's Polish Fire)
pinch ground coriander
salt and pepper

Mix slaw ingredients well.  Mix dressing ingredients well, then mix w/ slaw. Enjoy!  Top with a good squeeze of fresh lime and/or bean sprouts and/or pea shoots and/or fried tofu and/or anything else you like.

Birch Point CSA Week 9: Soil Moisture=Increased Production and Weeds!

It finally feels like bounty has returned-- we are proud to share this week's harvest with you, and look forward to more diversity and quantity over the weeks to come.  We'll try to make sure your boxes are full and delicious without overwhelming you.  Keep in mind: we'll send an end-of-season survey, to help guide decisions next season, but we welcome your feedback any time!  Keep the comments, suggestions, and questions coming, please.

In Your Share This Week:

Swiss Chard- this most gorgeous of leafy greens is in the beet and spinach family-- in fact, chard and beets are the same species (Beta vulgaris)!  Our favorite preparation is a simple saute-- saute onions and/or garlic with chopped chard stems in olive oil, add in chopped leaves and saute til tender (not mushy).  Douse with your favorite acidic condiment (CSA member Kat Eldred recommends the espresso balsamic vinegar from Fustini's).  Perhaps some grated parmesan or toasted, chopped pecans?

Italian Parsley-- these generous bunches are intended to be used like a vegetable, not a garnish. Did you know parsley is an excellent source of vitamin C?  Besides its nutritional value, parsley is delicious-- of course there's the classic tabbouleh salad (chopped parsley, chopped tomatoes, diced onions/garlic, bulgur wheat, lots of lemon juice and olive oil), but use your imagination-- parsley is wonderful as the base of a salad, tossed with marinated and/or grilled summer squash chunks, coarsely chopped and tossed into hot (or cold) soup by the handful- not just a sprinkle, a handful ;)  And of course parsley potatoes  (to die for-- toss lots of chopped parsley with hot, bite-sized potato chunks and LOTS of butter, some salt and pepper. Cream=optional)!  It's hard to go wrong with Italian parsley-- we prefer it to the curly parsley for its superior flavor AND ease of cleaning (less dirt gets stuck in the large, flat leaves), but any parsley is a good thing.

Summer Squash/Zucchini OR Cucumbers-- more of these beautiful and tasty members of the Cucurbit family.  Check last week's blog for a marinated summer squash salad recipe.  Use little cucumbers the same way you'd use big ones. cheers!

Sweet onions-  you may get Walla Walla or Ailsa Craig, the two varieties we grew this year.  Sweet onions are fantastic as themselves (try marinating thick rings along with cucumber slices and serve as salad OR throw slices or halves on the grill just til hot) or in cooking-- they're not as pungent as yellow or red storage onions, so even the onion-averse might decide they like onions after all after trying these.

Beans!  Beans are really coming in like mad.  The pole beans (yellow Gold of Bacau, green Fortex, or Purple Podded Pole Beans) are producing crazy amounts of beans, and the second planting of bush beans (green, purple, and yellow) are coming into their own and starting to produce.  You could see any of these or a mix in your share this week. Try a fresh (uncooked) chopped bean, parsley, sweet onion, and cherry tomato salad with vinaigrette- yum.

Potatoes- the very first potato harvest!  We sample-harvested a bunch of different varieties just to check progress, and ended up with a nice amount to share with you. You may see Anushka (medium yellow-skinned white flesh), Purple Viking (purple skin with red streaking and white flesh), Bintje (small yellow/tan-skinned, pale yellow flesh), or any number of different redskin varieties.  A few shares may get fingerlings-- tiny potatoes with thin, tender skin that you can cook and eat whole. We determined that most of the spuds could stand to size up a little more, so we'll probably skip a couple of weeks at least before the next potato harvest.  It promises to be a GREAT potato season once they do size up!

Pea shoots- Saturday and Monday shares got pea shoots in their shares this week. Our favorite thing to do with them is a very brief, hot saute with generous amounts of minced garlic.  You can also toss them into any salad or at the end of any stir-fry.  They taste like peas, as you might imagine, and are a fun twist on greens.  Tuesday and Wednesday shares will get pea shoots in a couple of weeks, and extra beans for the time being.

Tomatoes- finally the field-grown tomatoes are starting to ripen!  Up til now we've gotten about a dozen tomatoes TOTAL from outdoors (not hoophouse-grown).  This week marks a turning point in that we finally have some ripe heirlooms coming in. At CSA pickup, your farmers are happy to help identify the different varieties by name and characteristics, if you're curious. If you just want to slice and eat them and do your own taste comparison, that's great too.  Fingers crossed for a critical mass to continue to ripen each week til frost! tip: never store a tomato in the fridge.  Keep at room temp for best eating quality (flavor and especially texture).

Cherry Tomatoes- the same mix of reds, Sungolds, bumblebees, and black (brown) varieties you've seen the past several weeks.  Enjoy!

OK, that's the list for now-- more juicy farm news next week ;)

Birch Point CSA Week 8: the rain came down! the spirits lifted.

The latest additions to the farm!

Glad I waited til today to send this newsletter- finally, the news we've been waiting to report: It rained on the farm!   Most of Tuesday we harvested in a steady drizzle that bordered on downpour at times.  The crew donned raincoats, rain pants, wellies, and hats, and STILL managed to get soggy socks and underwear-- hallelujah!  I've never been so happy to be so soggy. We got under 0.5" but that was enough to moisten the soil to the point where the low-pressure drip irrigation can finally keep up-- drip irrigation is wonderful for minimizing evaporative loss and foliar fungal disease, directing water at the plant root zones, and for ease of use, BUT by design it delivers less water at once than an overhead system.  Drip systems work great when there is already some soil moisture present; this year's incredible drought left many of our plants growing in dusty bricks instead of moist soil, and our well and irrigation system has not been able to keep up.  So we're going to keep irrigating, now that a base level of moisture has been restored, in order to keep it up for the rest of the season. Please DO keep those rain dances coming, though!

In Your Share This Week

Arugula- it's back!  This nutty, slightly spicy leafy baby green is super versatile- we like to use it as salad when it's so tender, but you can also quickly steam or saute it to enjoy with pasta or grain (cooking cuts what little spice is there, if your palate is on the mild side).   I recently ordered arugula salad at a great TC restaurant and was disappointed that it was basically micro-greens-- elegant looking, yet next to no substance on the fork or flavor on the palate. I prefer to know I've got food on my fork when enjoying a salad, so we let our arugula grow larger than that. We hope you like the more substantial leaf size-- it's still "baby," as this is the first cutting from these plants, so it's tender and mild.  What's YOUR favorite size of salad green? psst....have you tried arugula pesto? If you like arugula, you may love it. Just sub arugula for basil. yum.

Sweet onions: the first sweet onions are in! These are mainly a variety called Walla Walla, and they are smaller than any Walla Walla I've ever grown-- the drought hit them pretty hard. However, the sweet flavor is delicious as always.  Sweet onions keep best in the refrigerator due to their high water content, though there's no need to refrigerate if you use them within the week.

Basil- it's pesto time! See below for our favorite pesto recipe, OR enjoy basil fresh with sliced or chopped tomatoes, pasta, on bruschetta, tossed with a marinated green bean-and-summer squash salad, sky's the limit really. IMPORTANT: Basil does NOT like temps lower than 50 degrees F, which means do NOT refrigerate, or the leaves will turn brown and mushy.  Treat it like a cut flower for max shelf life: re-trim the ends of the stems, place upright in water in a small jar or vase on your counter top.  Try to keep the leaves out of water; they'll last longer dry. Trim leaves/stems as you need them for garnish OR toss the whole darn thing into the blender/cuisinart for pesto (yes, even stems, unless they're woody).

Summer Squash/Zukes OR Cucumbers- your choice.  The summer squash and zucchini have been bonzo the last couple of weeks; cucumbers- not so much.  You may see pattypans ("spaceship" squash), crooknecks, green or gold zucchini, pale green cousa "stuffing" squash, or classic green slicing cucumbers, little yellow cukes, green or white pickling cukes. All cukes are interchangeable with each other; all summer squash/zukes are interchangeable-- personal preference for shape and color is the major difference.  We'll try to make sure everyone gets plenty of both over the course of the season.  The current planting of squash is still going strong, and the later planting is coming on. There will probably be a little lull between the two waves of squash/cukes, but I think tomatoes, eggplant and peppers will fill that in nicely. See below for marinated squash and green bean salad recipe.

Tomatoes-- all I can say is "thank goodness for plastic!"  Seriously-- there's some irony there, but if we didn't have a hoophouse, you'd have next to no tomatoes yet this year! Almost every cherry tomato and all the slicing tomatoes we've had this year have come from the hoophouse.  The late spring and cool summer temps are the opposite conditions of what tomatoes like.  Inside the hoophouse, tomatoes got planted earlier and have a warmer environment, so they've been very productive (though we're just starting to see the tidal wave we normally see 2-3 weeks earlier in the year).  Outdoor tomatoes are just hanging out, being green-- we'll feel lucky if we get two months of harvest from them this summer/fall.  We planted enough paste tomatoes to offer canning/preserving shares (1 lug paste tomatoes for $35), but until we get a heat wave, all canning/preserving orders are on hold til further notice. I'm getting itchy to can and roast and freeze, too!

Beans- so many varieties!  You may see classic green beans, purple beans (warning: they turn green when cooked, so serve raw for max purpleness), green pole beans (a variety called Fortex, which grow extremely long and convoluted and are fun to pick and to eat), or yellow pole beans (a variety called Gold of Bacau, my favorite bean- it grows big, long, and flat, a "romano" style that is fantastic when it gets longer and bigger- not starchy or tough like other big beans).  We tend to eat beans raw, with or without hummous or other dip, but of course you can steam, saute, or grill them, too.  The long beans are fantastic laid crosswise on the grill, brushed with olive oil, and just lightly cooked. yum.

Turnips- either small white Hakureis or red Scarlet Queens.  The summer turnips are finally sizing up! These two varieties are both so mild and tender that they're best enjoyed raw.  Hakureis are even milder and more tender than Scarlets; we usually eat them out of hand, like little apples, though slicing and salting first is even more delicious.  Turnips are also wonderful cooked, of course-- my fave preparation is cut into bite sized pieces, toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet and roast at 400 F for 20-40 min (depending on size of chunks) til edges are brown and caramelized and centers are soft. Enjoy.

Beet greens-- the first "beets" of the season, finally!!!!! A few shares might be lucky enough to get actual beets on the greens, but most folks will get the thinnings this week, which are intended to be used for greens.  Beet greens are totally interchangeable with Swiss chard in recipes -- they're actually the same species; just different varieties! My fave is a simple saute with onions or garlic, olive oil, toasted walnuts, a generous amount of balsamic vinegar, and a little heavy cream and chunked goat or feta cheese stirred in at the last minute. Try a pinch of ground nutmeg for fun.

Announcements

1. Flower shares: we did NOT harvest flowers Tuesday due to the rain (water spots on petals reduces flower quality; I'd rather people get high quality flowers!).  Tuesday flower shares can pick up Sat at market, and/or doubles next week Tuesday.

2. Wednesday Little Fleet pickup will be unstaffed today; please take the box with your name on it and leave last week's box in a tidy stack in the corner. thank you!

Meet Your Farmers:

This week's featured farmers: Jae Gerhart (aka Jaebird) and Christina Barkel (aka Tina Sparkles)

This is Jae’s first season at Birch Point Farm.  After completing the Student Organic Farmer Training Program at MSU in 2010, she worked as the Production Manager of Sunseed Farm in Ann Arbor and piloted “The Goat Project,” a small goat-share CSA.  Jae is super stoked to be up in the Leelanau County area growing vegetables.  When she’s not farming she can be found swimming, biking (on her brand new Bianchi road bike!), or dancing.  Fun fact: Jae can walk on her hands for an unrealistic amount of time.  She LOVES ranch dressing and really really really loves dancing. 

Farmer Jae with Allu

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Christina grew up in Metro Detroit and has called Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Ferndale home. She attended the University of Michigan, where she studied Environmental Justice. After college, Christina worked her first farm job at Frog Holler Farm in Brooklyn, Michigan, where she learned the fine art of salad making, carrot weeding and wheel-hoeing, among other glamorous skills. She next moved to Ypsilanti to work for Growing Hope, an urban farm and non-profit dedicated to healthy food access. Along the way Christina has also gained experience doing farm-to-school work, outdoor advocacy and nutrition education. A new resident to Traverse City, Christina hopes to call the area home for many years in the future. Christina is excited to be part of the Birch Point crew this year - she loves the physical and mental challenge of farming but is really in it for the food and the community. 

Farmer Christina at market

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Recipes

Birch Point Pesto
2 c. basil- include stems if they're tender and not woody
1/2 c. nuts- either toasted pine nuts or walnuts or sunflower seeds, or any combo of any of those
2 fat garlic cloves, peeled
big pinch salt
1/2 c grated parmesan (optional-- can also be added just before serving)
1/2 c olive oil
2 Tbsp lemon juice
pinch black pepper

Toss it all in the cuisinart and buzz til it's a consistency you like.  I tend to leave it slightly chunky so tiny pieces of nuts and leaves are still identifiable, but creamy is equally wonderful.  If using a blender, you might need to stop and push everything back down into the blades once or twice, and/or add more liquid (olive oil or lemon juice). If freezing for future use, I usually leave out the cheese, since frozen cheese can make the texture weird.  Tip: try substituting arugula, parsley, dill, or cilantro for the basil-- equally delicious and versatile!

Marinated Summer Squash and Green Bean Salad
1 pint worth of mixed summer squashes/zucchini, sliced super thin-- if you have a mandoline, that's ideal. If not, just get your sharpest knife and your razor-sharp eyeballs and slice squash super thin, lengthwise.
2 small sweet onions, sliced crosswise into thin rings
1/2 quart green (or purple or yellow or a mix) beans, stems removed and "frenched" (if you have a bean frencher- yes, it's a thing) or cut lengthwise into skinny shards. Don't sweat this step too much; just slice them into something pretty and edible rather than entire pods.
1/2 c. chopped or chiffonaded fresh herbs-- our faves are basil, dill, mint, or anise hyssop, but any fresh herb you've got on hand will be delicious
1 c. apple cider OR white wine OR rice vinegar
1/2 c. olive oil
generous pinch salt and pepper

Mix oil and vinegar, s/p, onions, and fresh herbs in the bottom of a mixing bowl.  Add squash and beans, toss to coat evenly.  Let marinate in the fridge 15-20 min or longer.  Toss again before serving.

Birch Point Tuesday Vegetable Soup-- Tuesday was the first day that felt like soup weather in a long time! So this is what we cobbled together for lunch.

2 med summer squash, cubed into bite sized pieces
2 med potaoes, cubed into bite sized pieces
3 med sweet onions, coarsely chopped
1 c frozen corn from last summer
1 c cooked dried beans (or one can beans of your choice)
2 tsp celery seed
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
4 Tbsp butter
1 very generous sploosh olive oil
1 qt. canned tomato juice from last summer
1 pint canned tomato sauce from last summer
2 c. water
1 Tbsp "Better than Bouillon" veggie bouillon-in-a-jar

Heat olive oil and butter til butter melts. Saute onions, celery seed, salt and pepper til onions are browned. Meanwhile in large pot, heat tomato juice and sauce, add chopped potatoes, beans, and frozen corn.  Add browned onions to soup, use remaining fat in pan to saute summer squash til browned.  Add to soup, scraping every last drop of oil/butter and celery seed/pepper into the soup.
Follow bouillon directions (add to hot water, then add that to soup, stir well). Top with fresh minced onion, fresh diced herbs, sour cream and/or grated cheese (optional).

Christina and Brenin on our sailing outing

Birch Point CSA News Week 7: Still no rain :( Veggies still growing :)

What's in Your Share This Week

Lettuce: Most of you will be getting the wonderful red and green butterhead variety

called Skyphos. Not only is it one of our favorites for looks and taste, it has been

handling the warm, dry conditions remarkably well. Some people may get crisp green romaine or green butterhead.

Cherry Toms: Thank goodness these summer delights like these conditions. The

Sungolds are really producing and the other cherries are starting to ripen as well.

Salad mix: Still going strong but there may be a lull for a couple weeks as the next

crop grows out.

Rutabaga greens: Kind of a new crop for us, but a fun surprise. They are very

similar to turnip greens but with a little more substance. They are great prepared

the same way as any braising green.

Summer Squash: So many great kinds of squash this time of year and not your

grandma’s baseball bats either (though we’ll have those for you zucchini bread

lovers). We harvest squash and zukes when they are small and tender. Many of you

may be familiar with the Pattypan type shaped like a flying saucer, but for those of

you uninitiated, this is another type of summer squash. The name comes from the

French word for a kind of baking pan or patisson.

Peppers OR Eggplant: These crops don’t mind the dryness so much, but they really

want heat, which it seems we’re finally getting after so many chilly nights. There

is a mix of eggplant varieties this season including the standard black elongated

type. Don’t be intimidated by any green ones you might see. This is a variety called

Applegreen and it’s one of my favorites. I was actually quoted in the Fedco seed

catalogue this year singing its praises. I think it holds its texture really well, which is

nice if you don’t like your eggplant mushy. I’ve been sautéing it by itself lately to put

on sandwiches. You may get a smattering of green or colored bell peppers, Feherezon paprika peppers in yellow-green stage (shaped like a frying pepper, mostly sweet with a touch of heat sometimes), and/or Hungarian Hot Wax-- long, lime green, sweet-hot.

Beans: Both our bush beans and pole beans are producing now. I like all kinds

of fresh beans, but am especially fond of the flat poded Romano type. They get

nice and big, which makes them fast and easy to pick, but have a nice juicy crunch.

Everyone will have a chance this type, but we also have green, yellow and purple

podded round beans.

Herbs, Dill, Parsley or Cilantro

Mini Cabbage: Either compact green heads (Early Jersey OR Gonzales) or tiny reds. These little guys are a baby variety called Red Express that has been

grown for European markets for a while now. It can be prepared any way you

would cook cabbage, but these might be fun cut in half and either roasted in the

oven or grilled. Have fun!

In some boxes depending on the day of pickup:

Slicing Tomatoes: Yay! Tomatoes are in. These are mainly from the hoop house,

but the flavor has been really great. The field tomatoes are starting to produce as

well. Those who don’t get slicers this week will get more cherries.

Cucumbers: We’re starting to get more cukes, but aren’t at the green avalanche

stage. Hopefully we’ll get there soon. Rain wouldn’t hurt.

Announcements: 

1. A-Z Cookbooks are in, come and get your copies! $15 each.

2. We are putting out a request for plastic grocery bags- if you have a stash of clean plastic handle bags, we are accepting donations to use at farmers' market AND if folks forget their bag/cooler when picking up CSA shares Tuesday at the farm.

3. We are missing a good number of CSA boxes, take a look around to see if you've squirreled one (or more!) away.  Each TC share (Sat, Mon, and Wed. pickups) are allocated two boxes for the season-- please remember to bring back the previous week's empty box when you pick up the full one!  Thanks.

Field Notes

First off we want to thank all of you for your support in our decision to suspend the

CSA boxes for a week. We received so many kind words of hope and encouragement

from many of you as we struggle through this drought. The diversity and quantity

in the boxes this week are fruits of that rest time. Unfortunately there is no real end

in sight and it has become a real 24-hour a day job to keep the irrigation going. We

got our hopes up a couple days ago when the forecast was predicting a long period

of 80% precipitation this weekend, but that has dwindled to a few hours at 30% or

less. Not very encouraging. At this point all we can do is keep on keeping on. Lots

of new crops have been planted and seeded and are surviving the harsh conditions.

Hopefully they’ll get a good soaker one of these days soon. On a bright note, the land

we are farming south of town (in Grawn) has been receiving more moisture (also a little bit

of hail) and are looking very healthy. There are also little things to be grateful for

in the midst of a huge challenge. Last night I went out late to change the irrigation

zones and while I was listening to make sure the drip lines were filling properly, I

got to watch the deep orange slice of the moon sink towards the hills and listen to

the sounds of the frogs, insects and coyotes. It was so beautiful I forgot about all the

worries and consternation over the lack of water.

Our dear visitors Holly and Kelsey have headed out on the next leg of their journey

to the sorrow of everyone on the farm. They brought so much fun and hard work

to the farm. They also got the farm crew out for a fun social event that we’ve been

hoping to do all summer. As part of their traditional half-birthday celebration we

went sailing on the bay. It wasn’t much of a windy day but a good time was had by

all as we tried to stay out of the way of all the fancy racing boats.

-BWR

Birch Point CSA Week 6 News: Garlic Out! Fall Brassicas In (hopefully)!

Greetings farm friends! Welcome aboard, Heart of Summer members.  Please see Field Notes below for  this week's farm news.

In Your Share This Week:

Lettuce- Either romaine, butterhead, or green or red leaf.  Despite the last few days of heat, lettuce is still loving life and looking great in the field. We'll continue to have lettuce all summer provided we get some much-needed rain to re-soak the soils, to help keep lettuce happy (not a dry- or heat-loving plant).

Kohlrabi- I know we've sent you home with a lot of kohlrabi lately-- it just happened to thrive this spring/early summer, so we hope you love it as much as we do.  If you get a backlog, remember kohlrabi stores really well in the fridge if you remove the leaves and keep it in an airtight container (e.g. a sealed plastic bag or tupperware). And the leaves can be used just like kale- saute, steam, in soup, in omelets, etc.

Herbs- cilantro, parsley, OR basil (just the very beginning of basil; much more is on the horizon!). Top any dish with fresh minced herbs for more flavor and style.

Garlic- more early small bulbs-- store in fridge to maintain juiciness, or cut stems off and allow to dry at room temp to cure for later use. Come to the farm TUESDAY during CSA pickup to help pull garlic! See Announcements below for details.

Baby Salad Mix- it's back!  We took a little break when the big lettuces were threatening to overwhelm the CSA, but we should be back to an every-week or every-other-week baby salad rotation.  Luckily baby salad mix is planted in one of the gardens that is easy to keep watered, so it's doing great. We'll keep you posted.

And the fun part: We can't tell you what else exactly will be in your share, because every day (Sat-Mon-Tues-Wed) will be a little different! Due to the drought (see Field Notes, below) and late spring, summer crops are maturing later and less consistently than we'd like.  That means we're getting our very first harvests of beans, cherry tomatoes, summer squash/zucchini, peppers, cabbage, etc, but in sporadic quantities every day/week.  So you'll get a nice mix of some combo of those things this week and next! Thanks for your patience while we wait for the rain to help size up and mature all those crops in the field that are just hanging out, being small for now.  I think it's the quiet before the storm, so don't worry, there will be food and in greater quantities; if it'll just RAIN already!

Announcements:

1. Garlic Harvest has been moved UP to this Tuesday, July 22.  Due to the drought, garlic is ready to be out of the field and into the barn.  Sorry for the short notice, but if you'd like to join us, come to the back field during CSA pickup (4-7 pm-- we'll likely be done well before 7, so arrive by 6 at the latest if you want to get in on the garlic harvest). Wear clothes that can get dirty, gloves, and a hat.  There is a chance of rain (fingers crossed!), so bring rain gear to stay dry. There will NOT be a potluck following this garlic harvest, contrary to earlier announcement, but we will have a mid-summer celebration, independent of garlic, just as soon as we get some serious rain (something worth celebrating!!!).

2. Asparagus to Zucchini cookbooks have not yet arrived- it may be next week instead of this.  There are still books available (we ordered a case of 20 but only had orders for 12, so there is still time to get in on that). Books are $15 each.

Field Notes

      The good news: Hoophouse-grown cherry tomatoes and field-grown green BEANS are just starting to mature; either this or next week, members can expect the first tender, snappy green (and/or purple) beans and a small taste of cherry tomatoes in your shares. (Check out the current issue of Edible Grande Traverse for a nice article about green beans, written by our friend Nic Theisen, in which he admonishes the reader to dress nicely and stand tall when preparing green beans! ) The bad news: still no rain :(  This is one of the most extreme, if short-term, droughts we've experienced on the farm. Over the past month or more, every rain event that has hit our neighbors 20 or 30 (not to mention 300) miles from here has skipped us.  Last week's much-anticipated storm appeared as a bare sprinkle.  Tomorrow night's likelihood of precipitation has dropped from 92% to 62% and still dropping. The garden beds that have been harvested already and mowed down (e.g. spring broccoli, early lettuce, turnips, radishes) are too dry for the tiller to dig in.  We need to be able to till to re-prep beds to replant, whether to another crop or to cover crop.  Drip irrigation isn't cutting it, since some of the beds have dried out so completely and require a good soaking rain to rehydrate enough to be workable.  So the trays of transplants that are ready to go in the ground are waiting. Patient, but needing to get in the ground!
      Spirits are sagging a little bit at the dusty soils and slowed plant growth. We're running irrigation almost 24 hours a day, but since we're still using a domestic (house) well to supply the farm, we're limited in the volume of water we can use at one time.  The current big project is, of course, a new well (if cleaning/flushing/checking the pump for problems doesn't help).  That's been on the horizon for a while now, but this year's reduced flow (even less than past years, indicating a clogged filter, faulty pump, or -worst case scenario- depleted aquifer) combined with the drought has pushed the well to the head of the list. We'll keep you posted on developments (results of cleaning filter and checking pump, as well as a timeline and cost estimate from the well drillers).  Meanwhile, thanks for all the feedback and enthusiasm about the first third of the season, and thanks for joining us for what's turned out (so far)  to be this dry, dry season.
     More good news: a giant load of compost was delivered last week! We buy the majority of our compost from Morgan Composting (an aged compost made from dairy cow manure and bedding, known as "Dairy Doo").  I'd called them to arrange a later-summer delivery, and Diane at Morgan happened to mention that Four Seasons Nursery (a few miles from here) was getting a load delivered the very next day, and that if we had our load delivered tomorrow, we could split the delivery fee with the nursery-- good timing!  So we have an even bigger load of compost ready for the fields, which will increase the moisture-holding capacity, the cation exchange capacity (ability to make nutrients available to plants), the overall fertility (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and micronutrients), and friability (texture) of soil. Like any soil amendment, compost and all its living components (fungi, bacteria, micro- and macro-invertebrates) will really be effective and literally "come to life" when we get rain, and the critters can go to work. Yet another reason to do any rain dance of your choice when you get a minute!
      And last but not least, we've been the lucky hosts of two different amazing groups of people: one is the MSU Student Organic Farm Organic Farmer Training Program students, who are currently base camped at the farm while they tour several area farms as part of their program-- a yearly tradition we started six or seven years ago.  It's always fun to host this year's crop of students, hear what they're learning, catch up with old friends (staff and faculty who accompany them). The other group is Brenin's old college friends!  Genevieve, Holly, and Kelsey all arrived last week, pitched tents and immediately pitched in on weeding, harvesting, and making us lunch.  Holly and Kelsey are on a coast-to-coast road trip, visiting friends and farms, talking to folks about farmland, farm financing, farm business management, you name it. Genevieve took off to visit more friends and family before making her way back home to Chiapas, Mexico.  Holly and Kelsey are still here for a few more days and still helping out greatly-- if you see them at CSA pickup or at garlic harvest, be sure to say hello.

Holly and Kelsey, superstar volunteers:

Recipe

Kohlrabi Slaw- serves 2, approx.

2 med kohlrabi, peeled and grated OR cut into matchsticks (slightly nicer texture but slightly more involved)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 generous handful cilantro OR parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp mayo OR dijon mustard (or both-- your choice)
Juice of one small lime (optimal) OR 1-2 Tbsp verjus or cider vinegar (also good but there's really nothing quite like lime juice. Sad that there's a world lime shortage)
dash salt and pepper
optional: handful chopped olives and/or brined capers, dash red pepper flakes if you like a little spice

Mix everything together well, let marinate 15-20 min or longer in fridge. Serve chilled.  This is especially delicious on tacos and grilled things!