Planting Time

What have I been doing since the snowy Easter scene in the last post?  Planting, planting, planting.  Interrupted only by some seeding, seeding, seeding.  The peas are up, as is the spinach, radishes, and arugula.  Garlic ws up long ago if I didn't already mention it, and planted are the onions, fennel (the picture

here is like a Josh's eye view of the past two weeks), the first plantings of lettuce and beets, and oh so much more.  Giant field of potatoes.

This week's weather has been great for us, though, to complain like a farmer about the weather, slightly dry.  If it doesn't rain by early next week we will start irrigating.  Sometimes you just have to threaten the clouds by putting out the pipes and it will rain.

Our CSA is filling up much quicker this year, which is great for many reasons.  Obviously it's nice to not have to worry about cash flow as much during the season.  The reason that is so nice is because every our I am not marketing I can spend farming, and thereby hopefully getting better results.  This year over last I will already be able to spend five to ten extra hours at the field, and those early hours are usually worth 2 hours in June or July. 

If you are interested in getting a share they are still available, just check out www.openheartfarm.com and download a brochure.  Just going to give one more shout out to our add-ons which rock this year.  The eggs you eat will be coming from chickens I can see grazing every day as we tend the vegetables.  

 Here is a pic of an Easter egg hunt (more like a scramble as you can see), and

starting 29 varieties of tomatoes in greenhouse yesterday (about four of those varieties are cherries, and all but two are heirlooms (those two were chosen for taste, I've missed Juliet the past few years, and Premio I just wanted to try)) - but how can we be seeding all these warm weather things in the middle of our slow spring.  The answer is That's what greenhouses are for.  The tomatoes won't start to adjust to real Vermont temps for another 4 week about.  And as you can see even in the past few days, Spring comes fast.  I bet if we went to the scene of that egg scramble today it would look pretty different.

Today I seeded the first round of beets, scallions, fennel, and celery.  That's right, today was a root day (for more info on my biodynamic seeding practices check back posts).  Next up, broccoli.   

Sign-ups for this year are going very well.  We do still have shares, and be sure to check out our egg, cheese, and bread shares.  Lots more info on www.openheartfarm.com   

It's Spring

We only have a week + until it is really Spring, technically Spring.  But we've already hit daylight savings time (figured that one out at 4pm when I looked at my cell phone), and probably the most relevant signs of spring for the Farm are that we cleaned up the greenhouse and I have started my onions and shallots (for more about new varieties of onions for this year look back about 4 posts).

Mulching the garlic and asparagus will be up next, I just want to wait until we see a little more snow melt outside of Burlington.

So now, before things get too hectic I want to enjoy Early Spring by doing two things our family loves: going to North beach on those slightly warm days and hiking around (for a 2 & 5 year old that is plenty of hike-space and so close) and go to the Palmer sugar house, on Hinesburg Road, once or twice.  I'm excited that, just based on the temps I'm seeing, it might be a really good sugaring year this year.  Obviously good news for everyone in this state.

Go to our website for our brochure or to just sign-up online at www.openheartfarm.com - we are filling up a bit faster than last year.  If I had to take a guess as to why it would mostly be that we provided a lot of great veggies last year and that I think there are many people tuning in to the abundance of local farms each day.  Yeah!

Website up + links to this year's exciting add-ons

Our website www.openheartfarm.com is up and running, ready to accept members and payments electronically, though the option still exists and is plenty fine to download a brochure (either from the blog on your right or the website) and pay by check or cash.  I can even mail brochures, I swear, it is possible!

but, going with the electronic flow of info here are some links that give lots of nice info and background on this years add-ons (which, in case you are new to CSAs, just means local foods that I also deliver to you at the same time that I deliver the vegetables which I grow.

Here's a great pic of O Bread's seeded baguette which I just had with avacado and chevre.  It rocked.  Where was the goat chese from you ask?  From Does Leap, who is providing our cheese this year.

They have a pretty extensive website with info on the five cheese rotation we will have, some nice stuff about their cows agricultural practices and cheesemaking info: http://www.doesleap.com/index.htm


Besteyfield Farm is new down at the Intervale, has no pictures up yet, and is offering us a great deal on local eggs.

We are again growing a few things up at South Village.  This year I'm isolating a few small crops that do well on clay, namely celery, corn, and possibly late season brassicas.

Things slowly getting in gear, feel free to email me or comment with questions.

Admin + 2013 Brochure

Seed ordering is obviously exciting.  But this time of year there is also a lot of other admin work.  Truth is, I kinda get into it, it almost seems like the "natural" thing to be doing in the winter at this point (it's been my cycle for the past 8 years).  What are some of these fun tasks: taxes (expenses mostly, which help me understand the business a bit better), figure out what the add-ons will be for this year (boy am I excited about this years: eggs right from the Intervale, Does Leap goat cheese (feta, here we come), and an expanded O Bread share including baguettes.  Then there is ordering things that are not seeds like remay, cheep cheep (dried chicken manure), etc, and meetings for markets and restaurants that we work with. 

All that plus getting out new site up and running, or rather having someone get it up and running since I don't have those skills.  I did get our brochure up, so you can access it from here, but without the paypal part, which will hopefully be ready in a week or two. 

Anyways, as I said I actually get excited about getting all of my ducks in a row, so that when the tractor hits the ground, everything else is set up.

Seeds Ordered

After six years of ordering seeds for our farm (and three other years of noticing what varieties worked and didn't while apprenticing at Quail Hill) I thought this year would almost be a little bit boring, practically from memory, but that was not the case at all.  A farm is such a living organism that I guess it's evolving too, as is my knowledge of how it works, and that led to more surprises (and fun) than I expected.

Onions stick out in my mind as something in particular that should have been boring but wasn't (and you'll have to excuse me if I get more excited by these things than most.  Red Marble will be the first cippolini onion I have grown in Vermont.  Besides it's Cippolini-ness I wanted a red storage onion that would really store, and the shape of cipollinis makes them ideal for that.  At the same time, I am dropping Copra for now, which had been my go to yellow all-purpose onion.  For the past two years I have found it underperforming relative to other onions of mine, and it wasn't storing well either, so I've switched to both New York Early and Varsity. 

The thought process wasn't quite so extensive in all categories of vegetables, but it often was.  I had kind of gone into the whole process thinking I would be replicating my tomato order from last year, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to create a special mix of cherry tomatoes, getting great taste and color (which means no yellow pear in my opinion), ended up with Isis candy, black cherry and three others.  I also brought back Juliet, which is a great tasting Roma tomato.  It is not an heirloom, nor a slicer, but I felt like my members and maybe even farmer's market customers would appreciate a smaller option.  Also the first time trying a paste tomato in a long time, it is the sungold of paste tomatoes (so at least if I can't have sungolds (see earlier posts for that story) I can have this, and an easier time making sauce.  With 20+ varieties of tomatoes I won't go into all of them here, but I think it will be a colorful exciting bunch.

Other quick glosses: getting broccoli earlier and better now looks more possible, in part because limba, which I missed the boat on last year (I ordered everything a week earlier this year) will be in the mix, as will some other early varieties.  Also adding more marigolds and rudbeckia to the flower patch.

As for those wanting to get a jump on getting a share for this year, I will soon be updating our brochure and website.  No big changes there so anyone new to us can get the gist right now if they want.  Enjoy Winter!

Year in Review

yep, that brown dripping on the pan are sugars from the pumpkin.  And yes, I now have my camera back on line so be ready for more cooked vegetable and hopefully snow pictures.

on to the year in review.  I am going to try to stick to the broad strokes, not get caught in the weeds, cause otherwise it might go on forever, as long as the year itself.

So, the overall grade: B+.  That is not a current, by my standards grade-inflated B+, but something that truly means, "almost really great, but darn good."  This takes in to account the weather for the year, which I give a B- or C+, though it's hard to complain given the previous year, there was a significant lack of precipitation, not an outright drought, but . . . quick list of outstanding things: tomatoes had awesome flavor this year, and pretty good varieties, really mastered carrots and chard, pretty good bean, pea, eggplant, beets, kale, squash, melon production.  Might be leaving out one or two, but you start to see a pretty full farm with that (oh, head and mix lettuce also did well, along with a nice spring and fall spinach crop).  Things that could have gone better: our pepper plants looked nice but we need both more of them, and a better nutrient balance cause they did not put out enough peppers per a plant, though I am most excited about my trellising method for them.  Fall brassicas got in the ground a week or two late and missing that heat set them back alot, so while we had plenty of stuff for the CSA, it wasn't broccoli and cauliflower, which it should have been.

Some less grade-y notes:  It is really exciting to me how much I learn each year.  After 10 years farming, in the past three I really am starting to feel the ability to gain and implement knowledge.  Examples for next year include the aforementioned peppers fix, getting a shade cloth for curing onions and garlic (we lost 1/4 of our onions just to sunburn), planting the parsley a few weeks later so that it doesn't bolt, direct seeding leeks and then mulching them (so so so much more efficient).  Part of that mastering of carrots mentioned earlier was just changing seed plates.  Really easily doable.  So that's fun, the feeling of getting better.  Also strangely exciting is the year-roundness that we are starting to achieve, with or without a hoophouse.  Some of this is the warming thing, which, without getting political is a little scary, but more can be chalked up to figuring out how to create, store, and sell more root crops.  Here it is December and I am just mentally wrapping up last year and will start ordering seeds in another week or two.

Vermont is such an ideal place to be doing the work I am doing.  People's interest in keeping this state a sustainable, viable, and interesting enterprise is what keeps any of this from being a grind, and I really appreciate being able to supply veggies to my CSA members, Shelburne Farmer's Market customers and the one or two restaurant and grocery store things I do.  I like all of those different relationships.

Surely I forgot something, so feel free to comment and remind me or give your own grade.  Hard to believe we will be updated our website in a month with our new brochure and getting ready for a new season.

Be on the look-out for something more exciting than all that: messaged kale recipe.  I am not at all kidding.  I would never thought to have eaten kale raw, but this totally works and is absolutely simple and delicious.  Stay tuned.

Pumpkins, CSAs and things

It has been a while, longer than I would have suspected given the time of year, but we have continued harvesting for wholesale longer than ever before.  Also harvested for our pre-Thanksgiving Day sale to members recently.  The sale went well, and I have enjoyed doing a little more wholesaling this year.  But mostly I was thinking about pumpkins.  I made our second pumpkin pie of the year yesterday (the first one which I thought was going to be the Thanksgiving one got eaten).  Out of that same pumpkin I also made two loaves of bread (of which one is still frozen either awaiting Santa or a pot luck), so we are talking about 4 cans of pumpkin (incidentally I should mention all recipes are from Rodale's cookbook which I think has very nice basic whole foody versions of these things).  As I've said like a ba-jillion times so I won't say it too much more, fresh pumpkin rocks can pumpkins world, and isn't that much more work.  But as I was thinking it again today I had another thought which was, "Boy, it sure is more expensive though."

4 cans OG pumpkin at city market (on sale) = $11.96
10# local OG pumkin at city market = $16.90

I was actually expecting more of a difference, but still, 17 bucks on a pumpkin may not be something everyone can swallow, so one is probably prone to just get a can at a time of canned and call it a day.  But then, my next thought was, "Oh, wait, my members don't pay anything like that for the pumpkin they got (some larger than 10, some smaller, but I would guess that was quite close to the average), they paid $5."  Which of course led to the epiphany that having a CSA is really a cheap way to eat like a king.  Which given some current debate at least in our hyper-local neck of the woods makes me think there is still an important place for them, or many important places.

I will do an end of year sum-up, but probably closer to the end of the year.  Everyone enjoy T-day!

Week 19

A great week, by my estimation

butternut squash
cabbage
garlic
potatoes
jerusalem artichoke
beets
cilantro, dill, or parsley

most of those are familiar to all except one, it's like the Sesame Street song, "which one of these is not like the other . . . " 

It's Jerusalem Artichoke.  An unusual vegetable that is actually in the sunflower family, and has a nice little flower but the part we eat is the tuber that grows below.  One obvious thing to do given the rest of the share is mix it into some garlicky mash potatoes.  But here is another simple one that I like is here, just sauted


One week after this.  Also goodies like more carrots and parnips and I think broccoli.  I say I think cause this cold weather (which is actually just normal, we just haven't had normal in a few years) are making it slow.  Still, I think it will be there.

In any case, see you then.

Week 18

This time of year there is the dual "can you believe its already October?" and a "Are we really still doing this for three more weeks?"  The answer is yes to both.  Fall does seem to be hitting hard and fast this year, but I think mostly because last year was so odd, remember we had a long hot streak after Irene.  The mosquitoes were pretty mean all the way to mid-October.

But this year a different story:

Pumpkins (chose of Jack-o-latern or pie pumkin)
turnips
2 greens (choice of Spinach, Totsoi, bok choi, chard)
scallions
carrots
green peppers

for my ideas for pumpkins and totsoi look back in the blog, so this time around I feel the need to tackle turnips.  They exist, we should all eat them at once a year.  Not talkin' about salad turnips of course, easy to eat year-round.

So, two options, the first is in almost any soup, on the adventurous side I puree and add curry.  The second is more of a stand out, and could be done with rutabaga as well

Ingredients

• 3 pounds turnips
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with a piece of aluminum foil and lightly grease.
2. Peel the turnips, and cut into French fry-sized sticks, about 1/3 by 4 inches. Place into a large bowl, and toss with the vegetable oil to coat. Place the Parmesan cheese, garlic salt, paprika, onion powder in a resealable plastic bag, and shake to mix. Place the oiled turnips into the bag, and shake until evenly coated with the spices. Spread out onto the prepared baking sheet.
3. Bake in preheated oven until the outside is crispy, and the inside is tender, about 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Other Field news: we have all our cover-cropping done and next to work on is getting the garlic area ready with compost, which I got from CV compost for the first time, looks absolutely gorgeous.

Week 17

We are well into the fall section of our CSA, last week, which went undocumented had giant beets and rutabaga, more roots and interesting greens coming your way this week and probably every following week, with various exciting aliums and winter squash. 

The fields looks great, as good as they ever have.  The herb circle got freshened by a UVM class I work with each year and it turns out it is full of chives sage thyme some mint lots of horehound (why did I plant that you ask?  Not sure, but now that I have it we are going to try to make candy ala Little House). Also, asparagus looking good, don't want to promise, but next year could be our first of asparagus to the CSA.

But, back to the present

choice of dill parsley or cilantro
potatoes
spinach
onions
collards or mustard greens
carrots
daikon radishes

many interesting combos from this list: again the greek frittata.  Arthur, of It's Arthur's Fault got a bunch of carrots and daikon from me to make kimchi, so you might consider that. Or, with the collard greens might I suggest this classic version, where you can also make use of our onions and hot peppers.

little end note: I won't bring any more basil up, but I encourage all members to come down and pick it clean if they are wanting to put away tubs of pesto.

Week 15 - Full Force Fall

As I write this we have woken to the first chilly morning, Ciaran and I went on an early bike ride for which we both had to wear long sleeves.  Many Squirrels were collecting sunflower seeds: it dawned on my that this must be why we have such strong squirrels in this town, everyone grows sunflowers.

Anyway, we have put oats on lots of land that has done its work already this season, I have started trying to figure out where the garlic for next year, we have started to collect winter squash; in short: Fall, even if it has been quite warm until now.  In terms of farm shares this means the time of many varied greens and many kinds of roots, including potatoes, carrots, beets, rutabaga, parsnips and more.

For this week:

potatoes
leeks
onions
green beans
lettuce
spinach

acorn squash

One recipe to remember is the greek fritatta we featured early on, another basic acorn squash one that works

Week 14

Spaghetti Squash
Eggplant
garlic
Tomatoes
lettuce
squash
radishes
bok choy or other cooking greens choice

Last of the Tomatoes (probably) and first of the fall greens (probably, though I guess the arugula might have counted from last week) and a winter squash.  Yes, it all adds up to fall is in the air share, if not actually here.  I suspect next weeks share will more definitively be fall-y.  Anyway, besides wishing it would rain, the field looks great.  I will be getting oats on as a cover crop this week, first time I have been ready in time to use them since starting to farm in Vermont.

Here is a recipe that one of our members made using our eggplant.  She also attached these pics, please try and enjoy

http://www.kitchendaily.com/recipe/lamb-and-eggplant-kebabs-148523/

Week 13

Yep, there are two weeks missing, that's summertime for ya! or tomato-time.  The craziness is slowly abating though, and I'm back to the blog, which a few people actively said they missed, so . . .

We do have at least two weeks more of tomatoes, though you are probably going to notice amounts diminishing.  Could even be three weeks.  I've learned a few things about tomatoes this year, but I'll wait till the end of the year to go on about it, in short: air flow.

Fall-ish greens will be making there debut appearance this week.  For those that don't know fall is a great time to grow all those greens that can't stand the heat, either because they would bolt or cuz there are too many bugs out.  Many of my favorites are included: mustard greens, collards, spinach

this week

potatoes
arugula (option of chard for those who know they don't like arugula)
white onions
tomatoes
cucumbers
dill/cilantro
green beans

For those not already excited by arugula, let me offer two simple recipes, a pesto (which could also involve the cilantro if you wanted to experiment), and a salad.

enjoy

Week 10

Potatoes
Onions
Tomatoes
cucumbers
chard
beans
melons

I hope we might be able to add dill/cilantro to this list.  if not, then next week.  I have been eating the melons the past week (definitely the best farmer perk is melon "testing") and they rock.  Best since I've been here, hopefully we will have three weeks of them.  The onions for this week are white fresh and sweet.  Tired from a hot weekend that resulted in a little rain, enough for me to not think about irrigating tomorrow, but maybe the day after.