Good Rain

Staking the sugar snap peas.

One of the best things about being a farmer is getting to work outside.  I love the feeling of the sun on my back, the dirt in my hands.  We need the sunny days to warm the soil, to make the plants grow, to make photosynthesis work.  But at the same time we love a "good rain". 

Yesterday we had a good rain. It watered the ground, it filled our ponds and streams, it makes the spring crops grow.

The rain came nice and slow.  It came without heavy winds.  No washes or gulleys.  We are thankful.

We give the good Lord thanks for whatever weather conditions we receive. . . hot, dry times when disease pressure is lower and we control the water by giving the crops just what then need through irrigation, the rainy days to replenish the ponds and streams and bring life, the cool and cloudy days to work without a lot of sweat. 

When it comes to weather, we get what we get and we don't get upset. 

As farmers we work hard to make the best conditions for optimal growth and productivity from our plants.  Knowing at the same time we have no control over the weather.


So around the farm we took advantage of a rainy day and got a lot of greenhouse work caught up.  On sunny days the we can only work in the greenhouse early in the morning before it gets too hot.   We also tried to catch up on paperwork that gets pushed aside when the sun is out.

Grape and Heirloom tomatoes ready to move into their new home, the high tunnel.

Grafting

Hi folks!

Happy Spring!  The CSA season is about to get started. Here is a new video from Farmer Eric to kick start this seasons blog.

Martie

CSA Week 19, 2012

This weeks share includes:
12 Corn, 2 butternut squash, 4 lbs white potatoes, 8 apples (Cortland, Gala, or Ginger Gold), and 2lbs Pole Lima Beans

Please excuse the missing picture.

Please take note there is corn and potatoes in the share this week!  The perfect week to make some corn chowder.  Check out my favorite recipe here.

Butternut Squash is a winter squash very similar to pumpkins. Butternut squash is wonderful roasted, pureed in soup, or mashed to mix into casseroles, bread, or muffins.

This recipe for Butternut Squash Soup is my all time favorite way to use butternuts.  

    I tailor the recipe to suit me by -- only using butternut (no acorn squash, I like butternut flavor better)

                                       -- I don't normally make the fancy toast to go with, crackers work in this house

Here is another recipe for Squash with Browned Butter and Thyme.


Pole Lima Beans from LaRosa's in Woodstown, NJ are included in your share this week.  Check out their website dedicated to Pole Lima Beans.

--To cook lima beans first you must shell them. Open the shell and pluck out the beans.  Put the shelled beans in a pot add water to cover.  Add a couple slabs of butter, salt and pepper to the pot.  Bring to a boil. Cook uncovered for 20 minutes or until tender, adding more water if necessary.

Lima beans are delicious served along with sweet corn.  Succotash, a traditional thanksgiving dish, is boiled lima beans and corn. YUM.

***Reminder next week, is the last pickup.***

Grilled Cantaloupe. . .Who knew?

Grilled Cantaloupe. Its yummy.

 -Take 1 cantaloupe, slice parallel to the equator.  I got 5 slices from 1 cantaloupe.
-Scoop out the seeds.
-Fire up the grill to medium heat.
-Make sure your grill is super clean, you don't want any meat flavored cantaloupe!
-Grill for 3-5 minutes per side, or until you get nice grill marks.
-When you flip to the 2nd side sprinkle a little brown sugar on the top.  2 Tablespoons of brown sugar is enough for the five slices.  It will melt on the hot lope and oh, baby, yum!

-Remove from grill and place each slice on a separate plate.

-Fill the center with vanilla ice cream!
-Serve as the warm cantaloupe starts to melt the ice cream!

Such a fun new way to enjoy your melon!

It is time to plant the Strawberries

It's August.

We are up to our eyeballs with work, picking and packing all your favorite summer fruits and veggies.  

But at the same time we are thinking about next season.

Especially next strawberry season. 

Strawberry plants reproduce by sending out daughter plants or "shoots."  In June, after we are finished harvesting the juicy berries we go out and cut these "shoots" and put them in cold storage. 

We pull them out of cold storage in the middle of August and plant them to be next years strawberry crop.

The strawberry plants take special care.  This is a propagation bed.  The misters above the plants keep the leaves moist while the shoots grow roots.

 Each shoot or tip is carefully placed in the growing medium. Then we baby them for the next couple weeks.

-they get misted every 10 minutes for 10 seconds during the day
-they have a shade cloth over them for the first day, to help ease the transition
-the ventilation fan runs continuously to help prevent fungal diseases.

All this to get the roots growing.

Look at how much the roots have grown after just one week!

Three more weeks in the greenhouse and they will be ready to move to their new home in the field.

For the number people, 14520 strawberry plants per acre. We are growing 24,000 plants ourselves, (actually 25.500, just in case) and buying an additional 8,000 plants from a supplier for a total of 32,000  strawberry plants on 2.2 acres. High hopes.

2012 CSA Week #16

SugarBaby Watermelon, Cantaloupe, Red Cubanelle Peppers, Green Tomatoes, Red Tomatoes, Yellow Peaches, Sweet Corn, (not pictured PYO flowers, herbs, hot peppers)

Here we are WEEK #16.

We are enjoying this mild August weather! To quote Pop-Pop Buzby, "This is good weather for WORKING!"  To quote Farmer Andy, "Man, it is a beautiful day, I think you all should pay me for letting you work outside today!"  Haha.  Can you tell we love our job!  What a privilege to work out in this wonderful world we live in, the sun, fresh air, dirt.  We wouldn't want it any other way.

We have gotten about 5 inches of rain so far this August.  The corn is loving it, I just hope the pumpkins make it through this wet spell.

This originally came to me as a Jalapeño popper recipe.  Recently we have started filling cubanelles with it.  Both ways are amazing! 

This is what my father-in-law, Farmer Andy has to say about Stuffed Cubanelles, "I could eat about 10 feet of the that!"  

The filling:

One 8 oz block of cream cheese

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs

dash of chili powder

dash of garlic powder.

Mix the above and use to fill all kinds of peppers.  For cubanelles bake at 400 until cheese is melty and the peppers are getting some browned edges, about 20-30 minutes. Feel free to use what ever cheese you have, switch out the cheddar for monetary, YUM!

Farmer Andy prefers this filling in red cubanelle peppers.  I cut them in half length wise and take the seeds out, and then smoosh some filling in.  

I enjoy using the cheese mixture to make my own jalapeño poppers. I bake the jalapeños at  300 for little bit longer, 40-50 minutes.  

It is amazing in any hot pepper!

Enjoy!

Grilled Green Tomatoes with Herbed Cream Cheese

I have a lovely recipe to share with you that is E-A-S-Y and oh so good.

I got it from a new cookbook (Thanks Maggie and Martha).  These two were raving over these grilled green tomatoes,  I had to give them a try!

Grilled Green Tomato with Herbed Cream Cheese  

adapted from "The Gardener & The Grill the Bounty of the Garden meets the Sizzle of the Grill" by Karen Adler and Judith Fertig

One 8oz block of creamed cheese, at room temperature

1 clove of garlic, minced

2 Tablespoons of chopped fresh basil

2 Tablespoons of chopped fresh chives

4 green tomatoes, thickly sliced

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

Preheat your grill to a medium-hot temperature.  In a bowl, blend the cream cheese, with garlic, basil, and chives together until smooth.

Lay the tomato slices out on a baking sheet.  Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, on both sides.

Grill the tomatoes on one side 3-5 minutes, or until the tomatoes have good grill marks.  Then flip and grill on the other side the same way.  Keep the grill open while grilling the tomatoes.  

Take the tomato slices off the grill and then put a dollop of the cream cheese mixture on each tomato.  Serve hot with the melting cream cheese oozing off the tomato!

Enjoy!