8/17/17 - Week 10 - Poem

FARMERS LOG:

Big days in the fields lately. Plant, water, big harvest, sleep... repeat. We transplanted over 600ft of fall crops yesterday. Feels crazy to say that the winter kale is already in the ground, but because sunlight gets so low in October, it's important to get winter crops in early so they have enough time to grow while the sun is out. Things slow way down after September.

We need to catch up on some zzzz's so today we'll leave you in the hands of the one, the only, Wendell Berry:

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1973. Also published by Counterpoint Press in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999; The Mad Farmer Poems, 2008; New Collected Poems, 2012.

THIS WEEK'S HARVEST: Heirloom Tomatoes, New Girl Slicing Tomatoes, San Marzano Sauce Tomatoes, Italian Eggplant, Cured Cabernet Red Onions, Sweet Peppers, Summer Squash, Hakurei Turnips, Striped Armenian Cucumbers, Crane Crenshaw and Sarah's Choice Cantaloupe Melons, Cauliflower, Kraut Cabbages, Chioggia Beets, Rainbow Carrots, Komatsuna, Red Russian Kale, Dino Kale, Arugula, Spicy Mustard Mix, Little Gem Lettuces

U-PICK in the GARDEN: Amethyst Green Beans, Frying Peppers, Padrones, Jalapeños, Husk Cherries, cut flowers, perennial & annual herbs.

U-PICK on the FARM: Cherry Tomatoes, Wild Himalayan Blackberries

Kraut Cabbages: Over the next few weeks we will put out a bins of cabbage meant for kraut. These cabbages don't have to fit in your bag and you may take several. Below is our favorite simple kraut recipe to inspire....

Lemon-Dill Kraut

From the book Fermented Vegetables by Kristen and Christopher Shockey

This recipe yields about 1 gallon of kraut

2 heads (about 6 pounds) cabbage
1 1/2-2 tablespoons unrefined sea salt
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons dried dill
4-5 cloves of garlic, finely grated

1. To prepare the cabbage, remove the coarse outer leaves. Rinse a few unblemished ones and set them aside. Rinse the rest of the cabbage on cold water. With a stainless steel knife, quarter and core the cabbage. Thinly slice with the same knife or a mandoline, then transfer the cabbage to a large bowl.

2. Add the dill, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon of the salt and, with your hands, massage it into the leaves, then taste. You should be able to taste the salt without it being overwhelming. Add more salt if necessary. The salt will soon look wet and limp, and liquid will begin to pool.  At this point, add the garlic. If you've put in a good effort and don't see much brine in the bowl, let it stand, covered, for 45 minutes, then massage again.

3. Transfer the cabbage to a crock or 2-quart jar, a few handfuls at a time, pressing down on the cabbage with your fist or a tamper to work out air pockets. You should see some brine on top of the cabbage when you press. Leave 4 inches of headspace for a crock, or 2 to 3 inches for a jar. Top the cabbage with one or two of the reserved outer leaves. Then, for a crock, top the leaves with a plate that fits the opening of the container and covers as much of the vegetables as possible; weigh down with a sealed, water-filled jar. For a jar, use a sealed, water-filled jar or ziplock bag as a follower-weight combination.

4. Set aside the jar or crock on a baking sheet to ferment, somewhere nearby, out of direct sunlight and cool, for 4 to 14 days. Check daily to make sure the cabbage is submerged, pressing down as needed.

5. You can start to test the kraut on day 4. You'll know it's ready when it's pleasingly sour and pickle-y tasting, without the strong acidity of vinegar; the cabbage has softened a bit but retains some crunch; and the cabbage is more yellow than green and slightly translucent.

6. Ladle the kraut into smaller jars and tamp down. Pour in any brine that's left. Tighten th kids, then store in the refrigerator. This kraut will keep, refrigerated, for 1 year.

8/11/17 - Week 9 - Fall is here

Week 9 sample harvest share

FARMERS LOG:

This is a complex time of year on the farm. Summer is here in full force, but Fall is everywhere. Even next season is in the works out there.

Half a years worth of planning, seed starting and plant tending is paying off as the set pieces of summer are in full fruit; the slow developing nightshades (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers) and their cucurbit comrades (melons, cucumbers, squash) adorn our tables, the corn is high, and we are in that special time of year where one can make fresh salsa straight from the farm (jalapeños, onions, tomatoes, cilantro).

2017's Tomato Varieties: (Top to bottom like reading a book) New Girl, Black Prince, Cherokee Purple, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Paisano San Marzano, Sungold, Supersweet 100, Black Cherry, Black Vernissage, Striped German, Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Green Zebra. Which is your favorite?

But in the the greenhouses and increasingly in the fields, it is all Fall. Our Fall brassica plantings (kales, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussells sprouts and the broccoli we will be picking off of on into December) are all bursting out of their seeding trays and ready to go in the ground. We planted the Fall storage carrots last Sunday. Parts of the fields, you will notice this week, are bare and ready to be planted into or are in the process of being prepared for what's next. These beds provided our earliest farm meals (spring lettuces, mustard greens, turnips and radishes, the first carrots, beets, and first cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage) and, depending on what was in them before, will see a second crop before being put to cover crop bed in the fall or will be planted into a summer cover crop now. And you would hardly notice but, just underfoot, 8 or 10 inches below the surface of the soil, our potatoes are mostly fully formed, their skins hardening off.

2018 is here in the four beds next to the raspberries. These beds will get a brief summer cover crop of buckwheat, the buckwheat will be occulated, and then these lucky beds will be planted into 2018's garlic in late September / early October. 

We hope you are enjoying the summer bounty coming out of the fields and this season of transition on the farm.

See you in the fields, 

David & Kayta

THIS WEEK'S HARVEST: Heirloom Tomatoes, New Girl Slicing Tomatoes, San Marzano Sauce Tomatoes, Italian Eggplant, Fresh Yellow Spring Onions, Sweet Peppers, Summer Squash (Italian Zucchini, Crookneck and Patty Pan), Radishes, Striped Armenian Cucumbers, Melons, Broccoli, Savoy Cabbage, Chioggia Beets, Rainbow Carrots, Tatsoi, Red Russian Kale, Dino Kale, Arugula, Spinach, Hearts-Aglow Lettuce Leaf Mix

U-PICK in the GARDEN: Amethyst Green Beans, Frying Peppers, Jalapeños, Husk Cherries, cut flowers, perennial & annual herbs.

U-PICK on the FARM: Wild Himalayan Blackberries, Cherry Tomatoes

PRESERVING THE SUMMER: 

Pickling Cucumbers: The 20lb per season quota has been lifted, let the pickle free-for-all commence! If you are interested in more pickling cucumbers, we've got you covered. We'll have 10lb ready-to-go bags in the glass fronted fridge in our barn. Help yourselves. First come first serve. Pickling cukes will be tapering off over the next 2 to 3 weeks.

Green Beans: One of Kayta's and my favorite preserves is pickled green beans aka "Dilly Beans". They are a garlicy, tangy treat to throw on the plate next to pretty much any meal. Our patch of Amethyst Green Beans is loaded and picking is not limited. Here is a great, simple dilly bean recipe (from foodinjars.com) to inspire you.

8/4/17 - Week 8 - Owlets

FARMERS LOG:

The Flight of the Owlets

We farmers, out here rooting around in the muck all day, are sometimes chanced privy to the spectacularly goofy things wild creatures do. Such as today, when the wild turkeys got and boggled out by the thunder, and couldn't help gobbling back at it every time.

Once in a blue moon, we are chanced privy to the mystical side of Mother Nature. To the occult. To moments where the cosmic wold and the animal world of flesh and blood aline in such a way as to reveal the source of fairy tales and superstitions.

Such a day, or night rather, for both, was the full moon of July.

We told in these annals, just a few weeks past, of the family of Barn Owls growing up in the owl box near our house. Four owlets there were...

We first learned of their birth into this World by tiny, hideous, rasping noises coming from the previously vacant aery. This was in March. Every twilight thenceforth, when out to check the mail or out to check the plums or out returning in from out, their insistent rasps accompanied us, "Feed us, Mommy! Feed us!" And feed them she did. 

Once in a while we would spy Mother Owl, silent and ghostly white, hovering through the air as if suspended. She would alight upon the doorway, the rasps would increase in urgency and change in tone, and she would float away.

Weeks passed, moons passed, and the little rasps grew in power and potency. They became so loud they entered the house and became the soundtrack of our nocturnal lives. From dusk to dawn, cooking in the kitchen, turning over in between dreams, or in the predawn brushing our tooths, rasp. rasp. RAAAASP! 

Sometime in early May, they started showing themselves. Far from the little demons we expected to see, cute little white monkey faces began popping out of the box. A few weeks later, be-winged fuzzy monkeys bravely perched upon the porch. And screeched.

In June, they got their driving permits and could be seen and heard screeching to and from the a nearby tree. They awkwardly would crash into the tree, screech a few times, and try to hide from us, the bemused audience below.

As June waned and the moon waxed the owlets came into their own. The nights brightened and their presence increasingly dominated the little meadow valley below. They began whipping lithely hither and thither, perching on Big Doug Firs far from their nest, and piercing the air with chilling warning calls when we would approached their box. But same infant screeching continued. All night. Every night. We started to wonder how they all fit in the box during the day. And what power could compel these grown-children to stop haunting the meadow?

The full moon of July 9th, the "Thunder Moon" it is sometimes called, was a bright one this year. On my bedtime walk to check on the irrigation around 10pm, I remember the long shadow I cast on the silvery path and an eery feeling. One of the shortest nights of the year, I remember tossing and turning in bed, the bright window shades, shadows on the white walls, and silence. At morning tea we realized they were gone.

Since the Thunder Moon we have not heard or seen the owlets. We know they are out there. A pellet consisting of the front half of a lizard and the back half a mouse happenstanced on our doorstep the other day. But they have changed. The awkward monkey faces are no more. It seems the giant monkey face in the heavens may have held the key.

See you in the fields,

David & Kayta

THIS WEEK'S HARVEST: Heirloom Tomatoes, New Girl Slicing Tomatoes, San Marzano Sauce Tomatoes, Italian Eggplant, Sweet Peppers, Summer Squash (Italian Zucchini, Crookneck and Patty Pan), Striped Armenian & Lemon Cucumbers, Melons, Fennel, Broccoli, Murdoch Cabbage, Beets, Carrots, Bok Choi, Red Russian Kale, Rainbow Chard, Collard Greens, Mustard Greens, Romaine and Red Summercrisp Head Lettuces, Fresh Yellow Spring Onions

PICKLING CUCUMBERS: We're increasing the pickling cucumber quota to 20lbs per share. If you have already picked up one 10lb bag, take home a second. If you haven't received any pickling cucumbers yet, your future-self will thank your past-self when you are rolling in pickles this winter. We'll have ready to go bags in the glass fronted fridge in the back of the pick up barn. 

U-PICK in the GARDEN: 

• Amethyst Beans: This is a beautiful purple green bean variety great raw or cooked. Beans pods turn green when cooked. Picking is unlimited, the plants are loaded. They are located just below the frying peppers and are somewhat hard to spot because they are the same color as the vines.
• Herbs: Genovese Italian Basil, Cilantro, Savory, Onion Chives, Parsley, Sage, Oregano, Dill, Thymes, Mints, Sorrel, Chamomile, Lemon Verbena, Lemon Balm, Anise Hyssop
• Cut flowers: Dahlias (limit 4 per season per share), Celosia, Craspedia, Cosmos, Nasturtium, Bachelor's Buttons, Zinnias, Calendula, Snapdragons, Red Spike Amaranth, Sunflowers, Love-in-a-Mist
• Frying peppers: Shishitos, Black Hungarian, Padrones, Jalapeños
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Husk Cherries aka Ground Cherries aka Cape Gooseberries: A delightful sweet little nightshade berry wrapped inside a cool little "wrapper". Kids love them. Just peel the papery wrapper off and eat! Husk Cherries are ripe when the wrapper is golden. (Green = unripe). Look low down under the canopy of leaves for the ripe ones.