Posted 7/25/2011 12:16pm by John and Aimee Good.
Water is on the minds of every farmer in the region now. We are in need of rain. The crop farmers in this area will suffer heavy losses of corn and soybeans if we do not get rain soon. We are lucky to have a large, deep pond at the Rodale Institute from which to irrigate, and to have only 8 acres to water. The level of the pond is dropping slowly. The pond supplies not only our fields, but the Rodale Institute’s orchard and field crops.
We are switching the fall brassicas over to drip irrigation to conserve water. The potatoes are dying back, and should not need further watering. The potato plants begin to die back once the tubers are formed. It looks like they are dying, but it just signals that all the energy is going underground into the tubers now. The fall carrots, which require a moist surface until the small seeds germinate, have just emerged, and will need less frequent watering once they become established. They had to be watered several times a week, for short intervals, just to keep the soil moist enough for the seeds to sprout.
Our crops are producing well, despite the drought, because we are able to water all our fields in about a week with our combination of drip irrigation and overhead sprinklers. The dry conditions also dramatically reduce the incidence of disease, and intensify the flavor of the fruiting crops, like the tomatoes and melons. For a vegetable farmer, it is usually easier to deal with a dry spell than a wet one, because you can always irrigate but you cannot stop the spread of disease or rot in over-wet soils. Still, we are hopeful for rain, for the ground is parched everywhere, the pond needs recharging, and our farmer neighbors need rain for their hay and crops. Please send your thoughts and prayers for rain!
New Potatoes ( hopefully), if all goes well with the potato digger!
I had a wonderful Broccoli Salad at my mother’s house this past weekend, and wanted to share the recipe with you all. Also I have included two of my summertime favorites, Ratatouille (summer stew) and Pasta Fresca (a fresh, uncooked tomato sauce for pasta). And last but not least, a wonderful and simple Gazpacho recipe for the hot days.
Go to the Recipes page of our website.
Members who have a wonderful recipe are welcome to share. Just email us and we will forward to the membership. Thanks!
Posted 7/18/2011 3:13pm by John and Aimee Good.
Providing for a steady supply of vegetables for harvest is all about successions. We plant every crop multiple times. For example, lettuce is seeded every week in both the spring and fall to ensure a continuous supply. Because lettuce does not like the intense heat of summer, we take a break on lettuce for the month of August. Luckily, there are plenty of tomatoes and cucumbers for lovely summer salads.
This picture shows John planting out the field tomatoes in late May. This was the second succession following the hoophouse tomatoes, which were planted in late April.
Even as we are getting into the thick of summer harvesting, the fall fields are being prepared; spaded and made into beds; and the kale, cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower are being transplanted. The last planting of summer cucurbits, cucumbers and zucchini, is going out into the fields now. We plant these crops about every 3-4 weeks beginning in early May.
As you can imagine, much of the winter is spent devising this whole farm plan. Each bed in each field is mapped out and all its crop information recorded on spreadsheets in preparation for the season. Then the farm crew works hard to carry out the vision for each season. And we get to eat the fruits of their labor!
Upick: Fresh herbs & flowers. Wax beans and Jade green beans.
Its hot! And so there are new salad recipes for you to try: Cucumber Tomato Salad, Green bean and Tomato Salad, Pasta Salad with Eggplant, Tomato, and Basil, and a recipe for Sauteed Green Beans with Garlic and Herbs. Enjoy!
Go to the Recipes page of our website to view and/or print recipes.
The Rodale Institute Bookstore has new extended hours on farm pickup days. The bookstore is open from 10am until 7 pm on Tuesdays and Fridays, and from 10 am until 4 pm on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The bookstore is located in the old schoolhouse, just east of the pickup barn on Siegfriedale Rd. There is a parking lot at the bookstore. You can also walk the gravel path from the Upick garden up the hill to the store. The bookstore and bathrooms have been recently remodeled. Check it out!
Posted 7/11/2011 12:30pm by John and Aimee Good.
Eating from the farm is eating with the seasons. This is the first lesson for a new CSA member. Committed members, with several years of membership, realize that each season is different as well. Weather always influences the productivity of the crops, and each year there are some vegetables that do well, and some that do not. We take pleasure in the abundance. We learn to be flexible and use what comes in from the fields. This is seasonal eating.
We are in the transition from spring to summer crops right now. Spring crops are waning as the heat of summer sets in, and summer crops are just beginning. Greens prefer cooler temperatures, and do not do well in summer’s heat. Fruiting crops enjoy this weather, such as eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons. These crops will begin to increase in the share over the next few weeks.
Upick: Fresh herbs & flowers. Green beans.
Summertime eating is my favorite, perhaps because it is such a short season, and the vegetables are all so juicy and succulent. One of my favorite recipes for using everything from the garden is Pasta Tutto Giardino, which means “the whole garden” in Italian. The recipe is a creamy sauce studded with a colorful variety of vegetables served over pasta.
Since eggplant is new this week, I wanted to share some of my favorite recipes for eggplant dip. Two versions of Baba Ghanouj are on the website, as well as Eggplant Caponata. Go to the Recipes page of our website.
Thanks to everyone for making their final CSA payments!
Posted 7/4/2011 10:29am by John and Aimee Good.
We hope everyone is enjoying their holiday! The farm crew is digging the first carrots of the season this morning. So sweet and crisp, they are a favorite treat from the farm. The potatoes and hoophouse tomatoes will be the next new vegetables, hopefully in a week or so. The crew will also begin harvesting the garlic soon. It is usually ready around the fourth of July. We watch for 50% browning of the leaves, then bring it all in to the greenhouse to dry and cure. Once it is cured, we clip it from the stalks and store it in the barn, to distribute through the season. The big garlic harvest is the start of the storage crop season. Onions, winter squash and sweet potatoes must also be harvested and cured this way for storage and seasonal distribution. The heat of summer and the long days brings in a bounty of vegetables, some for fresh eating and some for storage to last us through the colder months!
The long days and warmth increase the growth rate of the weeds as well as the vegetables. It is a difficult job to keep up with them this time of year. The labor costs of weeding vegetables are a big reason why organic produce is more expensive. We use different techniques for weeding; including mechanical cultivation (using tractor-mounted implements to weed between the rows of plants), plastic and straw mulch, hoes and hand tools, and “down on hands & knees” pulling weeds by hand. A good number of crops, including carrots and greens, must be weeded by hand in the row, a laborious task.
Another tactic we use for carrots is flame-weeding. Because they are so slow to germinate, (about 3 weeks) we use the flame weeder to burn any weeds on the surface just before the carrots sprout. This allows the carrots to start growing in a clean bed. Because they are slow growers and do not compete well with the weeds, carrots need extra attention and care to produce well organically.
Carrots – new! Pretty Purple Haze and sweet orange carrots.
Upick: Fresh herbs, more flowers. Possibly green beans.
New broccoli recipes this week include Broccoli with Orzo and Pine Nuts, Freret Festival Pasta Salad, Broccoli Slaw with Crunchy Noodles, and Jade Broccoli. Check them out on the Recipes page of our website.
All share balances were to be paid in full by Friday, July 1. Anyone who has not paid their balance at this point will not be allowed to pick up their share until the balance is paid in full. You will be contacted by email if your balance is unpaid. Thank you!
Posted 6/27/2011 12:31pm by John and Aimee Good.
The weather has been kind to the crops again, and the summer crops are growing well, as you can see in the fields. Can’t wait for those tomatoes. The hoophouse is loaded with nice green fruit, now it just has to turn!
New this week, the broccoli harvest is beginning. Yeah! Broccoli is one of those vegetables that I never really enjoyed much, until we started farming. Fresh broccoli from the fields is so sweet, truly a different vegetable than that from the store. Of course, that is true of so many things. Anyway, now I get very excited about broccoli, and so does Celia, and I bet you and your children will too!
Although the Upick garden is a bit quiet again this week, the first green beans are flowering, and should be ready for picking in a week or two. And the flowers are starting to bloom, and will be opened up for picking in a few weeks as well. Enjoy the fresh herbs for now!
Here are the wonderful people who work to provide your veggies. From the left: Daniel, Heidi, Aimee (holding baby Lyle) Emily, John (holding Celia). Back row (from the left) Michelle, Ryan, and Andy. Michelle is the assistant farm manager, in her third season. Daniel is back for his second season as a farm apprentice. Ryan is a part-time intern and Andy is interning through the summer. Emily is our star summer volunteer. Heidi is everyone's favorite barn manager. And of course, the Good family: John, Aimee, Celia, and Lyle.
When you see them around the farm, please feel free to ask questions, talk “farming,” or thank them for their hard work!
Broccoli- First harvest. More to come!
Upick: Fresh herbs, see board for variety and quantity.
All share balances must be paid in full by Friday, July 1. Unpaid balances after this date will result in revoked pickup privileges. Please check the balance sheet in the barn. If you have any questions about your balance, please email Aimee at farmers@quietcreekfarmcsa.com.
Posted 6/20/2011 2:56pm by John and Aimee Good.
We have been enjoying a nice mixture of rain and sun, and the summer crops are growing well. The hoophouse tomatoes are heavy with green fruit, and the tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and eggplant in the field look great. The first harvest of red beets and Napa Cabbage begins this week, and there should be more to come. Sadly, the pea and strawberry harvest is coming to a close; a short but sweet season. As you could see in the field, the peas suffered from the waterlogged soils in early spring, which stunted their growth. The heat wave in late May further stressed them, so they only reached half their normal height before flowering. We were surprised that they yielded as well as they did. And they were so sweet! Fresh garden peas are one of my favorite spring treats, surpassed only by strawberries. We hope you enjoyed them, and are looking forward to the new crops to come. The broccoli plants are big and healthy, and we hope to have a good harvest in 2 weeks or so. As for Upicking, there will be only herbs this week and strawberry/pea gleaning, but the flowers and green beans are not far off.
Check out the cooking and storage tips for the two new items this week, Napa Cabbage and Red beets, on our website. There is also a nice Napa Cabbage salad recipe, as well as a wonderful, simple pasta dish that can use a mixture of the week’s greens, Rigatoni with Greens. Check out the other new Greens recipes for more ideas. Enjoy!
Please check the balance sheet for your remainder, which is due June 30th. I will have an updated sheet available each week. Email me if you have any questions. Thanks!
Posted 6/13/2011 3:04pm by John and Aimee Good.
Delicious Garlic Scapes for Your Pesto!
Garlic scapes can be used to make a truly wonderful and sophisticated pesto that you can use to enhance sauces, omelettes, frittatas, and even soups. This pesto can also be used in a pizza or to make toasted garlic bread.
Posted 6/13/2011 2:58pm by John and Aimee Good.
To wake from sleep to the sound of a gentle rain on the roof is indeed a wonderful thing for a farmer. We were blessed with an inch of nice rain, relatively slow and gentle, and a nice cloudy weekend to let it soak in. We spent all last week irrigating the fields, and still had more ground to cover, but Mother Nature did the work for us, and did a much better job of course.
Although the recent 90-plus temps did give us our earliest zucchini harvest to date (which we were very excited about!), the cooler weather this week should really benefit the cool season crops, i.e. the broccoli, cabbage, lettuces, and greens. And it is much more pleasant working conditions for the farm crew! Although it seemed like we were jumping into summer, traditionally this is still the season for the vegetables that prefer cooler weather. As the average last frost date in this region is in late May, the tender summer crops can only be reliably planted after that date. Of course, being human, we always try for an earlier tomato, cucumber or zucchini. So we put out early plantings, with special protection like the hoophouse or, wire hoops and row covers to create mini-hoophouses in the field. But we also plant several successions, so that if we lose the gamble on the first planting, we will be able to harvest from the next plantings.
But I am jumping ahead. Back to this week, the second week of CSA pickups. More leafy greens in the harvest, plus radishes and turnips, some zucchini and summer squash, and new – garlic scapes! Garlic scapes are the flowering tops of the garlic plant. They are a bit more mild than the clove, and very delicious. Just chop them finely and use as fresh garlic, allowing about 2 scapes to replace 1 clove in a recipe. Since this is the season of greens, check out the Greens Storage Tips contributed by a CSA member.
I love to make (and eat) quiche, but would often forgo for the lack of ambition to make a pie crust. The Spring Quiche recipe offers 2 simpler crust options, and has infinite variations for whatever is in the week’s harvest. Lastly, I offer one of my favorites for greens – Turnip Greens N Ham (which also has a vegetarian version.) In my opinion, turnip greens are an underappreciated tasty treat. They are very tender, somewhat bitter (in a good way). We also enjoy them sautéed with the slice turnips, usually cooked in bacon fat, but use whatever you like. Enjoy!
The Marketplace: New – We have organic, pastured butter and cottage cheese, from Swiss Villa Dairy.
Posted 6/8/2011 6:17am by John and Aimee Good.
We hope the Tuesday folks are enjoying the first greens from the farm, and we hope you Friday folks are looking forward to your fresh salads. We would just like to let you know that we had planned and hoped to offer more vegetables for the first share of the season, but we had a difficult spring.
The crops which we are harvesting now were planted in early April, when we had excessive rainfall, several inches above normal. The field which the greens were slated for was so wet and muddy, that John could not prepare beds in it for several weeks. His tractor kept sinking in the mud when he tried to enter the field. So the spring greens had to be squeezed into the field which was slightly uphill, and slightly drier, with the spring roots, in order to be planted at all. In order to fit both the early carrots, beets, and onions, into the field with the greens, we were not able to plant as much extra "insurance crop" as normal.
Then we suffered losses in the crop: some lettuce heads were lost to rotting on the bottom leaves, and the broccoli and bok choy bolted as I mentioned previously. The final straw occurred in the high winds last Thursday. We keep most of the tender greens covered with row covers until harvest to prevent them from being eaten by flea beetles, (which riddle the greens with holes). But in the high winds, the row covers actually burned the tops of some of the tall harvest-ready greens from the friction. We did cut back the burned greens to enable a second cutting in a week or two, but this was a frustating setback a few days before harvest.
The vegetables in the share are of the utmost quality, fresh and delicious. And we should be able to harvest more each week over the next few weeks. So please enjoy the offerings and look forward to more as it comes in!
Posted 6/6/2011 3:18pm by John and Aimee Good.
The first CSA pickup is tomorrow, June 7th and Friday, June 10th. We look forward to seeing you all out at the farm! Pickup hours are 2-7 pm. Please come at least 15 minutes before closing. If you are new to the CSA, please review the pickup instructions sent last week. They are accessible on the News/Blog page of the website.
We have a nice selection of greens for you, as well as turnips, radishes, and scallions. Most exciting of all, the strawberries are ready in the Upick garden! Even though we are having nice summer weather now, we did have a slow spring and the crops have not quite caught up, so we will be having a slow start to the season. The share size and variety will increase steadily over the next few weeks.
We had expected to harvest bok choy and broccoli for the first week, but both crops failed. The bok choy bolted overnight after 3 days of the heat wave we had last week. (Bolting is when a crop goes to seed prematurely, and is a result of stress.) The first broccoli was planted out in early April and then spent many weeks in waterlogged soil, which resulted in stunted plants. Luckily, this season we added an additonal spring broccoli planting. The second and third plantings look good, and should be ready in a few weeks.
The weather dictates everything we do on the farm. We spent many weeks wishing for sunshine this spring, when many crops were under water. Just one month later, we are irrigating all the crops. The summer crops are doing well, and we hope to have early zucchini in soon. Whatever the weather brings, some crops will benefit.
RECIPES: Please see the Recipes page of the website for radish, turnip, and argula recipes.
Other News: Chicken shares are starting this week. Please check off your name on the chicken share sheet.
CSA Balances are due by June 30th. Please see the balance sheet on the sign-in table.