THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Fresh Desiree Red Potatoes, Heirloom & Slicing Tomatoes (See Week 13’s newsletter for variety descriptions), Murdoc Cabbage, Sweet Peppers, Dazzling Blue Dino Kale, Indigo Radicchio, Carrots, Eggplant, Summer Squash & Zucchini, Olympian Cucumbers, Bunched Chioggia Beets, Green Little Gems, Baby Braising Mix (with baby Ethiopian Kale, Red Russian Kale, Mustard Greens, Arugula, Bel Fiore Radicchio) Leeks, Metechi Hardneck Garlic
U-PICK
Check the u-pick board for updated weekly limits. With the ash settling on produce, we recommend washing all u-pick produce before consumption
🌟Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkins: Limit 1 per share for shares without kids | Limit 2 per share for shares with kids
Green Beans: A new bed of U-pick Green Beans is just getting going down in Field 5.
Albion Strawberries: Gleanings
Cherry Tomatoes: Gleanings | See week 10’s newsletter for variety descriptions.
Frying Peppers: Shishitos, Padróns | See week 5’s newsletter for harvest tips
Jalapeños: Located below the Padróns
Yellow & Red Thai Hot Peppers: Located next to the Jalapeños
Husk Cherries: Gleanings | See Week 9’s Harvest Notes for tips
Herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Tulsi Basil, Thai Basil, Purple Basil, Oregano, Marjoram, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Vietnamese Coriander, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Lemon Verbena, Lemon Balm, Green Coriander
HARVEST NOTES
Green Beans: Look for the double pink flags in Field 5 for our tried and true Green Beans. These green beans should be with us for the next couple week. They’re great raw, cooked, or preserved as dilly beans!
Desiree Red Potatoes: Debuting our 3rd of 4 potato varieties this week. Desiree Potatoes are an all-purpose potato with delicious flavor, good for any of your favorite potato dishes. New potatoes are potatoes that harvested fresh while the plant is still green and the skins haven’t hardened. They are crisp, turgid, fresh vegetables and something of a delicacy.
Indigo Red Radicchio: See below for a great Escarole recipe and tips on how to use other chicories — or try the simplest way to prepare any succulent chicory: Quarter the head, coat the leaves in olive oil and to broil it in the oven until it is nice and melted and the tips are crispy. Toss with garlic, salt, parmesan and lemon juice and voila!
SAUERKRAUT CABBAGES AND RECIPE
We have some big “out of bag” Murdoc cabbages this week — great for making sauerkraut. Here is a tried and true recipe for 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 the lids, then store in the refrigerator. This kraut will keep, refrigerated, for 1 year.
CORN HARVEST 2020!
A huge thank you to everyone who came out to help with our 4th annual dried corn harvest! We couldn’t have done it, nor had so much fun, without you! Now, the corn will dry down in our greenhouses for a month and be ground into cornmeal this Fall!
POTATO HARVEST - WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14th, 9am
Join us for our last big harvest party of the year, the potato harvest!
HOW TO USE RADICCHIO AND OTHER CHICORIES
In the Fall, we harvest a lot of chicories (a family of leafy greens including Dandelion, Frisée, Radicchio, Endive, and Escarole).
People who are unfamiliar with them are intimidated by chicories at first because they are bitter. But once you break on through to the other side, they is no turning back and you’ll fall in love.
Chicories are pleasantly bitter, with a succulent, crunchy sweetness, especially near the base of the stems. They are thicker in texture and heartier than lettuce, and softer and more easily cooked than cabbage. Generally they can be used like you would any cooking green like Kale or Chard — you can sauté them, use them in omelets, casseroles, pastas, or raw on salad with a rich dressing. Their sweet bitterness offers a wonderful counterpoint to savory, fatty, and spicy flavors in your meal or in dressings on the chicories. Try quartering this week’s Radicchio and coating the quarters in olive oil, salt, and garlic. Place them on a cookie sheet and broil or bake on high heat until they are wilted and the tips of the leaves are slightly crispy. Serve as a side.
PICK-UP SCHEDULE
The 2020 harvest season runs from Saturday, June 13th til Tuesday, December, 8th.
Saturday pick-up runs from 9:00am - 2:00pm
Tuesday pick-up runs from 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm
The farm and u-picking are open 7-days a week, sunrise to sunset. Please close the farm gates behind you on off days.
FARMER’S LOG
An Ode to Corn
In honor of this week’s sweet corn harvest and our beautiful dried corn harvest with members this Wednesday, we wanted this newsletter to be a song of praise to maize — a magnificent, sacred plant, integral to human life and myth more than perhaps any other plant.
Since it’s domestication in Southern Mexico some 10,000 years ago, maize has become the staff of life to human civilization as we know it — Queen Mother of our hearths, nourisher, giver of life. She has been inspiring farmers, and poets, for thousands of years.
We can testify as farmers: From a small, armored, well and long storing kernel of radiant color springs forth a plant (a grass) with vigor and fecundity unmatched. In a week or so it out competes any weed, reaching for the sun with jaw dropping, almost hallucinatory speed and power. In the blink of an eye she creates a shady, complete canopy, creating a dominion over ground and skyline alike, soaking up every ray of sun with palm thick spears of green. After reaching her full height, she enters the most beautiful phase, a month of beautiful wind tossed sex — the pollen itself feeding thousands of winged beings. Then, she showers food down upon us. From one kernel, up to 800 kernels — multiplicities of nourishment.
As for the poets, we’ll let them speak for themselves. First, we’ll hear from our dear friend, neighbor, and CSA members, Rebecca Harris, the veritable poet in residence of our CSA, who wrote this poem last year. Second, we’ll hear from Pablo Neruda.
Notice that both poets name the sea, laughter, blue, children — undoubtedly tapping into the same collective-consciousness to sing the praises of the spirit of Mother Maize.
* * * * *
The Symphony of Harvest
by Rebecca Harris
I go down to the
Corn stalks just to listen
To them.
The way you might go
To hear the ocean.
Or bear a child to share
Laughter.
Here in a world that feels
Like a desert,
I hear rain in this
Corn-
Hear voices-
Melted with sunlight,
Made soft and strong-
Such a wild way-
The corn dances,
As strange
As lions
Dancing,
Or finding a melody in the
Dirt,
Or light in a cave.
Here,
They reach so tall,
They are browning,
Golden and green-
The farthest cousin from
The sea-
Yet I hear them murmur
The same words.
And I am bathed
In music.
Weeks later,
I heard that children were stamping
On the corn
After harvest,
Finally allowed to run tender and
Wild through and over the stalks.
I imagine they blew through them like
Wind colored with blue,
Dragging the sky behind them.
Blue corn sits in baskets
Like fallen arrows
Waiting to dance.
Now,
I see the corn stalks and as I
Let go of the sea wind that it
Brought into my hair
I am filled with children and their
Games
And the memory in my body
Joining them,
As beautifully as the corn and I
Make music.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Ode to Maize
by Pablo Neruda
America, from a grain
of maize you grew
to crown
with spacious lands
the ocean foam.
A grain of maize was your geography.
From the grain
a green lance rose,
was covered with gold,
to grace the heights
of Peru with its yellow tassels.
But, poet, let
history rest in its shroud;
praise with your lyre
the grain in its granaries:
sing to the simple maize in
the kitchen.
First, a fine beard
fluttered in the field
above the tender teeth
of the young ear.
Then the husks parted
and fruitfulness burst its veils
of pale papyrus
that grains of laughter
might fall upon the earth.
To the stone,
in your journey,
you returned.
Not to the terrible stone,
the bloody
triangle of Mexican death,
but to the grinding stone
sacred
stone of your kitchens.
There, milk and matter,
strength-giving, nutritious
cornmeal pulp,
you were worked and patted
by the wondrous hands
of dark-skinned women.
Wherever you fall, maize,
whether into the
splendid pot of porridge, or among
country beans, you light up
the meal and lend it
your virginal flavor.
Oh, to bite into
the steaming ear beside the sea
of distant song and deepest waltz.
To boil you
as your aroma
spreads through
blue sierras.
But is there
no end
to your treasure?
In chalky, barren lands
bordered
by the sea, along
the rocky Chilean coast,
at times
only your radiance
reaches the empty
table of the miner.
Your light, your cornmeal,
your hope
pervades America’s solitudes,
and to hunger
your lances
are enemy legions.
Within your husks,
like gentle kernels,
our sober provincial
children’s hearts were
nurtured,
until life began
to shuck us from the ear.
* * * * *
See you in the fields!
David for Kayta, Kate, and Anna
