Hooky

I took the afternoon off to wander the farm with our son and visit his favorite spots.

Beautiful inky cap mushrooms sprouted since Steve parked this implement.  They’ll be gone before he needs it again.

We marveled at drifts of milkweed floss.

Our steepest hill is a blur.  Soak up some warmth this week if you can.  It won’t last much longer.

We are running low on CSA boxes.
Please return all your empty boxes. Remember, we ask that you leave the empty CSA boxes at your site this year. Take your produce home in your own bags or the plastic bags we provide. Outpost members, it’s too disruptive to do this in the stores. Just take the CSA box home and return it at your next delivery.

Local Thyme review
I’d like to remind everyone that we subscribe to Pat and Laura’s ‘Local Thyme’ menu service for recipes customized to use all of your CSA veggies.  We must decide soon whether to buy the service again next year, and will survey your thoughts in a week or two.  If you haven’t used the menus yet, give them a try.  I’ll send the instructions again in this week’s email.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes.
Sweet Dumpling winter squash, 2
Green tomatoes, 1.8 lb
Carrots, 2 lb
Celeriac, 1
Tatsoi, 1 head
Onions, 2
Colored bell peppers, 2
Broccoli OR Romanesco broccoli
Scallions, 1 bunch

Next week’s box will probably contain winter squash, potatoes, Yukina greens, scallions and more.

Sweet Dumpling winter squash (round, speckled green and white or yellow) – This is one of our most flavorful winter squashes and a personal favorite.  They are thinned-wall and sweet.  Like the delicata we sent a few weeks ago, these have a central cavity that can be stuffed.  This is another ‘short season’ winter squash, i.e. a type that does not store well.  Eat soon.
Green tomatoes – We like to include green tomatoes in the CSA boxes for their sour/tangy/citrusy flavor, a note that is generally missing from our boxes.  Some will be fully green, some will have a red blush.  It is the end of the tomato season, so some of the green tomatoes have small flaws that need trimming.  Store in the refrigerator.
Our farm cooks have a few favorite ways to prepare green tomatoes.
– Fried green tomatoes. This is the classic way to prep green tomatoes.
– If you prefer to avoid frying, try slicing the tomatoes, dredging in seasoned bread crumbs, then baking on an oiled cookie sheet until softened.
– Use as a substitute for tomatillos.
– Beth’s favorite:  Prepare your usual tomato sauce, but substitute chopped green tomatoes for red. Add a little water to the pot to start the cooking process, as it takes longer for green tomatoes to soften.  Excellent as a chutney or as pizza sauce.
– Add thin slices to casseroles.
I tried the last suggestion. I added thinly sliced raw green tomatoes while preparing lasagna, then baked the lasagna for one hour (I use the raw-noodle approach that requires long cooking).  The green tomatoes were a great addition.  They softened but kept their shape and tang.  I also added sliced red peppers and minced greens to the lasagna.  All were nicely cooked by the end of an hour.
Celeriac (knobby, round, bizarre-looking vegetable which smells like celery) – Flavorful celeriac is good raw or cooked. It is excellent in mixed roasted veggies or in soup. It’s especially good in cream soups, alone or mixed with potatoes. Grated raw celeriac is a great starting point for winter salads. Celeriac will store in your refrigerator for months. Cut off chunks as you need them. Peel before using.
Tatsoi (large rosette of dark green leaves) – This green is related to bok choy and mustard greens.  Eat both stems and leaves.  Use in any recipe that calls for mustard greens.

Scallion, Kimchi and Scallop Pancakes; a new family favorite.
Our family loves everything with scallions, including this new favorite dish.  The recipe is adapted from a Food52 dish.  We double the recipe to feed four people.  We prepare pancakes without kimchi for our kids, then add kimchi to the remaining batter for Steve and me.  You can buy kimchi at many Asian food stores.

2 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 Tbsp water
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup chopped scallions
1/2 cup minced spinach or other green
8 ounces bay scallops, drained
1 garlic clove, finely grated
1/2 teaspoon paprika OR ground cayenne pepper
1 cup store-bought kimchi, chopped

2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. rice-wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. sesame oil

In a large bowl, beat eggs then add water, flour, scallions, minced greens, scallops, garlic and paprika.  Add kimchi now if you wish or add later after you’ve cooked a few pancakes.  Stir to combine.  Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add some batter and pat into a large pancake.  The batter should be thick enough that you can shape it in the pan.  Add a spoonful of flour or water to adjust.

Cook until strongly browned, then flip and continue cooking until both sides are brown and the scallops are cooked.  Continue adding oil (1 Tbsp now) and cooking pancakes.  Transfer pancakes to a cutting board to cut each cake into 6 wedges.

Meanwhile, mix the remaining ingredients to make a dipping sauce (soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil).  Serve the hot wedges with small bowls of dipping sauce.

Your slip is showing.

Sweet potatoes are tenacious.  Plant an insubstantial cutting called a slip and you will find yourself with 10-foot vines after a few months.  The slip that Steve holds above is relatively robust.  We’ve planted spindly, leafless, wilted slips and they’ve still thrived.  I took the photo in June when our slips arrived in the mail.

We planted in June and harvested this week.  Steve (on tractor) pulls a digger to lift the sweet potatoes out of the ground.  Clint and Alex direct the flow of soil and sweet potatoes and the crew picks up the potatoes by hand.  It is a simple system but adequate for our once-a-year harvest.  We enjoyed the lovely weather this year while reminiscing about last year’s cold, wet harvest under threat of frost.  We learn something new each year.  Last year we learned that waiting for a little extra crop growth is not worth the risk of harvesting under ghastly conditions.

Each slip can produce a cluster of fat roots.

Blue finds an unusually big root.  We find that sweet potatoes are good at any size.  The roots will cure over the next few weeks to sweeten and set their skins.  We will pack them in your CSA boxes once they are fully cured.

Lackluster garlic season.
The garlic crop was poor across the Midwest this year.  The growers we know (including our supplier John Hendrickson) lost large portions of their crop but were puzzled why.  A plausible explanation is that the 2012 crop was infected with disease (aster yellows) but grew well enough to produce a crop.  The diseased garlic seemed fine when re-planted last fall but didn’t survive the winter or dwindled away as it began to grow this year.  That was exactly what happened to our green garlic this spring.

Garlic is in short supply this fall.  We only have two more garlic deliveries (including this week).  Buy yourself a stash of local garlic if you can find it.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes

green cabbage, 1
acorn squash, 1
leeks, 2
carrots, 2 lb
garlic, 1 head
slicing tomatoes, about 2 lb.
broccoli (1 – 2 heads) OR Romanesco broccoli (1 head)
yellow onion, 1
A mix of sweet peppers: Italian frying peppers and a bell pepper

Some sites will get an heirloom tomato OR raspberries.

Next week’s box will contain winter squash, carrots, peppers and more.

Cabbage – We have a bumper crop of cabbage.  Look for our cabbage in the food co-ops all winter.  It’s been a great season for all the brassicas: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Romanesco.  The greens suffered during the droughty summer but everything else did great.
Acorn squash (round, ridged, dark green) – We have a nice crop of winter squash this year.  Acorn squash are fairly mild and benefit from browning the cut surfaces to bring out their flavor.  We like to roast or pan-fry slices so they caramelize.
Carrots – We finally dug the first carrots.  We scheduled them for the past three boxes but delayed harvest because there was too much other produce for the CSA boxes.  Enjoy!
Italian frying peppers (red or green, elongated) – These are sweet.  Don’t mix them with last week’s hot Anaheim chili.

Equinox tasks

Our tasks are varied and interesting as we transition from summer to fall.  Here’s what we accomplished this week.

• Harvest, harvest, harvest.  Many summer crops are still ripening (tomatoes, peppers) but the fall crops are ready too.  Workers who joined us this year have little experience with cauliflower and broccoli, so they are learning these “new” crops.  We harvested almost all the winter squash.  I’m eyeing the sweet potato field.  We’d like to get some dug this week.
• Till down finished crops.  Wow, it’s a relief to finish off some weedy fields.  The squash, melon and cucumber fields are done.  The crew pulled out the drip tape and plastic mulch then Larry tilled, killing off many, many weeds.  It was an instant farm make-over.
• Steve seeded the final vegetable planting: a field of spinach which will over-winter as small plants.  It should be ready to harvest for the first CSA box next year.  Steve cleaned and lubricated the planter and tucked it away for winter.  It joins the transplanter and other tools that we’re finished with for the year.  There is one more thing to plant (green garlic) but plant whole bulbs by hand and we won’t need the seeder.
• Plant cover crops.  Lush cover crops of rye and hairy vetch are the backbone of our soil management system.  They improve soil texture and fix nitrogen naturally for next year’s crops.  Steve plants fields to cover crops as they are freed from summer crops.  He’ll continue this job over the next month.
• Wrap up Bike the Barns.  This didn’t involve much, just tidying the areas used for lunch service and putting the greenhouse benches back in place.  The rental companies returned to pick up the tents, toilets, plates, tables, and an enormous grill rented to cook the homemade sausage.
• Host a field day for other farmers.  We welcomed a group of 30 farmers for a tour and discussion.  The topic was growing, harvesting and storing late fall crops for winter sales.  That’s one of our specialties.
• Fix things.  Larry got one of our pick-up trucks running again.  The crew cheered.  They have missed the vehicle during recent harvests.  Steve and Larry worked on our root harvester today in preparation for the beginning of carrot harvests next week.  The 60-year-old harvester needs to be in reliable shape for the rest of the fall, especially during November when we bring in our winter’s supply of carrots, beets, parsnips and other roots.
• Pack CSA boxes for all of you loyal Tipi members!

Bike the Barns 2013:
rain + hardy bicyclists + great food = success.
Wow, the Bike the Barns (BTB) fundraiser through FairShare CSA Coalition was exciting this year.  We hosted the lunch stop.  Six hundred bicyclists registered and over 500 rode 30 to 70 miles through the rain.  The riders remained in good spirits even after getting soaked.  We cleared one greenhouse the day before the event, once we realized it was going to be chilly and wet.  The dry greenhouse was a welcome place to eat lunch.

Why do we host the BTB ride?  We are happy to support fundraising for Fair Share’s “Partner Shares” program.  This program supports CSA shares for low-income households, including some of our longterm CSA members who have turned to it during financial crises.  I’m glad the program is there to help.

Rented tents and other supplies arrived during beautiful weather on Friday.

By Sunday the weather turned wet and cold, but didn’t keep the riders away.  Ironically, that was our biggest rain in eight weeks.

Cooks from Monty’s Blue Plate served lunch in our outdoor washroom.

The ingredients were sourced from local farms.

Our largest greenhouse was a warm place to eat.

Steve (in yellow) did not get many takers for his farm tours.

The sun emerged in time for the after party at Evansville’s Lake Leota Park.

What’s up with the cauliflower??
Do you remember the cool nights in August?  Well, our cauliflower and broccoli plants formed early heads in response.  They are nice quality and very early.  We will pack broccoli and cauliflower for everyone again this week.  Basically, you are getting much of your October cauliflower now, so expect fewer heads in late October.  On the other hand, the broccoli will probably produce steadily.  Amazingly, even the Romanesco broccoli has formed heads.  This is great news, as we often lose many Romanesco to frost before they can reach harvestable size.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes
We send one Anaheim chili per box this week.  Anaheims resemble the Italian frying peppers that we sent last week.  Let me repeat something I wrote a few weeks ago. “Anaheims are hot peppers.  They usually have medium spiciness although it varies from pepper to pepper.  Anaheims are easily mistaken for Italian frying peppers.  We never send them in the same box for that reason.  Keep this in mind if you have frying peppers left over from last week.”

Superior white potatoes, 3.5 lb.
Pak choy, 1 head
Slicing tomatoes, 3 lb
Red bell peppers, 1 or 2
Broccoli
Cauliflower OR Romanesco broccoli
Yellow onions, 2
Chili peppers: 2 poblanos and 1 Anaheim
Cilantro

Some members will get raspberries OR an heirloom tomato.

Next week’s box will probably contain winter squash, peppers, carrots and more.

Superior white potatoes – These are from Chris Malek of Malek Family Stewardship Farm.  Chris grows all our potatoes.  Superiors are excellent all-purpose potatoes, useful for boiling, baking, roasting, etc.  They are a true Wisconsin variety and were developed at one of the UW research farms.
Pak choy (large head with green leaves and pale green or white stems) – This Asian green is very similar to bok choy.  Like bok choy, it is good for stir-frying or sautéing.  It is also good in soups.  You can think of the stems and leaves as two separate vegetables.  The stems require longer cooking.  The leaves will cook almost as quickly as spinach.  Bok choy stores well, so feel free to pull off leaves as you need them, or use the whole head at once.  Refrigerate in a plastic bag.
Slicing tomatoes – Tomato quality is still good (thank you dry weather) so we continue to send them.
Red bell peppers – Many of these are a small but flavorful variety called King Crimson.
Cauliflower – Some heads are yellowish because they were exposed to sun.  The color difference is harmless.
Romanesco broccoli (pale green conical head, possible tinged with purple) – Only one site will get Romanesco this week.  This is one of our prettiest vegetables.  Look at it closely to appreciate its branched beauty and repeating spiral pattern.  It is called broccoli, but is closely related to cauliflower which it resembles in flavor and texture.  Like broccoli and cauliflower, it is fine eaten raw or cooked.  It requires cooking times intermediate between the two.  Don’t overcook it.  I usually steam it, then dress it simply with a butter-lemon-garlic-mustard sauce.
Poblanos chilis (2, red or dark green, blocky triangular shape) –
Anaheim chilis (1, red or medium green, long tapered shape) –
Both chilis are of medium heat.  Both are easy to peel once roasted.  As usual, the heat is concentrated in the seeds and midveins.  Remove the seeds and midveins is to lessen the chili’s heat.  We roast these chilis and add to many dishes: tomato soup, salsa, lasagne or other casseroles, etc.

Busy week

Bike parking during the Bike the Barns event at our farm on 9/15/13.

It’s been an action-packed week, so this newsletter is brief.  I’ll post more photos from Bike the Barns next week.  The event went well despite the wet weather.  Can you believe it?  The weather has stayed dry for months, but it rains during the ride.

Raspberry U-Pick.
We’re having a raspberry u-pick this weekend.
Date:  Sunday Sept. 22
Time: 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.
Price: $2.50/pint
Berry condition:  Excellent.  The berries are at their peak right now and the picking is easy.
General u-pick info and directions:  Go to this page.  Please read before visiting the farm.

Veggies List and Veggie Notes (green week)
We are easing out of summer crops as the fall crops mature.  You know it’s fall when we have winter squash and cauliflower for you.  We will continue to send tomatoes as long as the quality remains good.

Delicata winter squash, 2
Cauliflower, 1 head
Broccoli, 1 – 2 heads
Edamame edible soybeans, 1 bundle
Slicing and plum tomatoes, 2 lb of each, for 4 lb total
Bell peppers, 1 or 2
Italian frying peppers, 2 or 3
Green OR yellow wax beans, 0.6 lb
Yellow onions, 2
Parsley, 1 bunch

Raspberry progress

We received interesting news from our collaborators at UW/Madison.  I’ve written before about the new raspberry fruit fly pest. We are participants in a fruit fly monitoring program through the entomology department.  The scientists visit weekly to check insect traps at our farm and 19 other sites.  This week, they told us that we are one of their “success stories.”  Apparently our raspberries are in better shape than at other farms, suggesting that Steve’s control efforts are working.  He sprays the field every week, rotating among our limited organic pesticide options.  Most other growers spray too, so we’re puzzled why our berries in better shape but we hope the trend holds.

We will pack raspberries for one site again this week, and welcome feedback on the berries you receive from us.

Raspberry u-pick this past weekend.  Our children and a friend are at the front, with members down the row behind them.

The raspberry u-pick this weekend went well.  We trained members how to pick the berries to avoid fruit flies.  It’s pretty straightforward.  Remember, we’re having another raspberry u-pick this weekend.
Date:  Saturday September 14
Time: 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.
Price: $2.50/pint
General u-pick info and directions:  Go to this page.  Please read before visiting the farm.

Bike the Barns preparations.
The Bike the Barns fundraiser arrives at our farm this Sunday, and we are dutifully getting ready.  Imagining our farm through the eyes of 600 bicyclists makes us realize how weedy it is.  Oh well, it’s September.  The event has given us a needed push to clean up.  We’ve cleared areas for tents, rented toilets, food prep areas, etc.  There’s a team of ham-radio operators who need their own space.  There’s a special spot to park the 600 bikes.  We’re looking forward to the event.  I’ll take lots of photos.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes

Swiss chard, 1 medium bunch
Leeks, 1 or 2
Mixed green and yellow wax beans, 1.4 lb
Slicing tomatoes, 2.5 lb
Plum tomatoes, 2 lb
Cherry tomatoes, 1 pint
Bell pepper, 1
Anaheim chilis, 2
Red onion, 1
Walla Walla onion, 1
Broccoli, 1 head
Basil, 1 or 2 sprigs
A few sites will get raspberries OR an heirloom tomato as we rotate these harvests to all of you.
We will also pack garlic if the delivery arrives tomorrow.  Otherwise we’ll send it next week.

Next week’s box will contain winter squash, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beans and more.

Leeks (look like big scallions) – These alliums have a milder flavor than onions.  Nonetheless, they can be used in recipes that call for onions.  To wash, split the leek lengthwise, from the green tops about halfway to the base, leaving the base intact.  Rinse well under running water, separating the layers to flush.  If necessary, split the leek further if soil has penetrated more than halfway down the leek.  Shake dry.  Leeks are generally eaten cooked.  They can be sauteed, steamed or roasted.  Intact leeks will store 2 to 3 weeks if covered loosely and refrigerated.  The outer leaves will yellow.  Just peel them off and discard.  The inner leek layers will be fine.
Anaheim chilis (long and slender, red or green) – These are hot peppers.  Anaheims usually have medium spiciness although it varies from pepper to pepper.  As usual, the heat is concentrated in the seeds and midveins.  Remove the seeds and midveins is to lessen the chili’s heat. Anaheims are easily mistaken for Italian frying peppers.  We never send them in the same box for that reason.  Keep this in mind if you have frying peppers left over from last week.