Slow Hand Farm

More Office Time

2012-01-26T17:07:00.001-08:00

What's exciting on the farm right now? I'm not sure, I haven't been out in the field since last week, but I have been in the office. The big news is that the spring shares are basically full and I'm starting a waiting list (frequently the first few folks on the waiting list end up getting a share). The other thing that's exciting is that the seed orders are starting to come in, and I ordered a few new tools for the farm (including the one in the photo above). Other than that it's book keeping season, lots of time in front of the quickbooks trying to sort out the mess from last season. I don't recommend Quickbooks for Mac. It's mostly good, but when it screws up it makes a mess (and no it wasn't me, it was a bug that Intuit knows about). If any of you out there have an accounting program you like for the Mac let me know, I'm very tempted to switch before I get too far into another season.

More Winter Veggies

2012-01-19T15:49:00.001-08:00

From SHF CSA

A bit of a wet harvest today. I emptied the overflowing rain gage when I started harvesting and two plus hours later when I stopped for lunch it already had another half inch in it. Other than all the mud I had to clear off of the roots, it actually didn't make too much of a difference. Now that it's warmer and wetter, as opposed to the cold dry weather we've been having, I am noticing a lot more slugs and a but more rot.
I'm very happy with the shares today. The deer have just started to find the brassicas but they left all of the cabbage for us. The gold ball turnips are looking beautiful and have useable leaves on them as well. I pulled the last of the root parsley and kestrel beets, and the voles left enough radicchio for everyone to get a few slightly immature heads. With the radicchio if I had left it any longer to mature they probably would have eaten them all.

The above picture shows what happens when the voles have their way. They start with the root and then eat the heart out leaving the outer leaves behind.
As far as suggestions go for using the share, radicchio is the item that we've had the least of. In the past. It's a great salad "green," slightly bitter but also sweet and crunchy like romaine so a Caesar dressing works well with it. I also like it with a little oil, blue cheese and candied nuts. The gold ball turnip is another newish one. The greens are good sautéed, maybe with a little hot pepper vinegar. The roots are good roasted in chunks, and you could roast the parsley root and beets at the same time. Cabbage I like to prepare just like the turnip greens, and the have them with rice and beans and tortillas. All of these vegetables will keep well if you don't use them right away.

Ordering Seeds

2012-01-16T19:51:00.001-08:00

I finally got the seed order compiled today. I always shoot for having it done before the new year, but I frequently find myself finishing it up in January. There are a few seeds on the list that I actually need by the end of the month. Strange as it seems it's almost time to get the mini greenhouse cranked up again and in a month or so I'll be planting outside, weather permitting.

Inventorying my seed on hand took almost as long as putting together the new seed list. I have a good bit of seed from last year. There are a few new varieties I'll be mixing into the line up this year. Mostly early spring greens (or at least I hope they're early) and a complete revision of the bean varieties.

The bulk of my seed is coming from Wild Garden Seed and High Mowing Seed. Both of those companies deal with organic seed only. I still get a bit of seed from Johnny's Selected Seeds, which really does do a great job of selecting quality varieties for production. Seeds from Italy is the one other source this year. The quality of the seed I've gotten from them in the past has been excellent and they have really interesting varieties. Unfortunately they don't have a lot of organic seed and I don't love the idea of long distance shipping, but for a few special varieties I think it's a fun connection to have.

Seed feels expensive when I'm making the order, but quality in the variety selection and the vigor of the seeds makes a huge difference in the end product. I always notice that seed I save myself seems to be extra vigorous, but it's so much cheaper to buy the highest quality seed than to grow the little bit I need that I only save a few special varieties and I leave the rest up to the seed houses I trust.

No Harvest Week

2012-01-11T17:10:00.001-08:00

A quick reminder to our winter CSA members, no harvest tomorrow means no pick up either. For the winter we're on an every other week schedule. Kji and I are getting together to do a little collaborative planning. The seed order needs to go in soon. The end of January will mean cranking the greenhouse up and starting to seed the first starts of the season!

Welcome to Winter

2012-01-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

A beautiful share today for the first harvest of 2012. We pulled all of the remaining carrots today, mostly Napoli but a few Yellowstones and Cosmic Purples as well. Fortunately the voles left enough celeriac and castlefranco chicory for everyone to get some. The frisee continues to look good in the field, as do the leeks and they round out the share. Cabbage was on the schedule for today but with all of the chicory in the share I thought I'd leave it to size up another two weeks. One of the real tricks this time of year is trying to figure out what will keep in the field, and what to harvest. Everything is more or less ready to be harvested, some will keep, other crops will either get eaten by voles or will rot, or suffer cold damage if they're left.

If you're not familiar with chicories like the frisee and castlefranco, they're particularly good this time of year with the cold weather. Chicories are known for a slight bitter taste, but with the cold they also have a lot of sugar and make great raw salads. Chicories are also strong enough to hold up to a bit of heat, and are good sautéed or even in soup or roasted. If you're going to eat them raw they benefit from soaking in cold water for up to 1/2 hour after cutting up the leaves. Use a spinner to get them dry. Celeriac is another new one for many folks. The tops can be used like celery for flavoring soups or other dishes. The roots are the main attraction here, and are great grated in salad, or boiled and mashed with potatoes.

Final Numbers for the Year

2012-01-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how many of you are the kinds of folks that love sitting in front of spreadsheets, seeing what kind of information you can pull out of the data from the year. I have to admit I enjoy it every once in a while.

I sat down today with Kji and we ground out a few numbers on the 2011 season, adding up hours, expenses and sales. So, it looks like we're somewhere in the ballpark of making $9.50/hr in the 2011 year (net income, before taxes). That's our best year yet, but I think it could get even better (by a dollar or two). Our expenses were actually a little higher this year than in previous years, about 20% of gross, up from about 18%, so perhaps not really that different. On a per acre basis we're not as high as I would have expected, coming in at about $53K/acre gross income.

Going through the numbers for the year is so interesting. There are patterns in the work hours that are really obvious looking at the calendar, but don't show up as clearly just looking at things from week to week. The same is true of looking back at expenses. In some ways I'm surprised by how much we spend on things like seed ($700), but also on how few expenses we actually have. Low expenses are certainly one of the keys to making any money for us.

New layout, new information

2011-12-30T15:12:00.000-08:00

If you're looking at this post directly, and not on something like reader, or Facebook, or some other feed, you'll notice I've moved into one of the new templates, a new look for the blog! Not only did I move into a new template, I moved pretty much all of the information on the CSA over here as well, and I updated it. That means the blog is now more current than the website (slowhandfarm.com), which I'm currently unable to edit easily. Soon, this blog will probably become slowhandfarm.com, but I'll save that for later. In the meantime, if you're wanting to sign up for the 2012 CSA, or even just find out more about the farm there are now lots of updated pages here at the blog. Happy New Year!

Accounting

2011-12-21T12:14:00.001-08:00

Now that I have a little time off from the fields I'm catching up on some accounting and trying to get around to finishing the crop plan for next season. I'm also keeping track of the day length, and today is in fact the shortest day of the year, which means they all get longer after this, at least for a while. That's pretty exciting. Today we have about 8 hours and 46 minutes from sunrise to sunset. Happy winter solstice everyone!

Using the share

2011-12-17T17:54:00.001-08:00

Thai curry, using canned coconut milk, curry past and fish sauce for the base, has become a standard meal for nights I don't want to spent too much time cooking. This weeks vegetables, the brussels, carrots and scorzonera, along with a few leftover potatoes from earlier in the season and a block of tofu, made a very nice curry this evening. I pretty much follow the recipe off the back of a can of Thai Kitchen coconut milk. It's not the cheapest meal, but it's cheaper than eating out and really takes very minimal effort.

Final Fall Share

2011-12-12T16:20:00.001-08:00

We managed to pull a few new items out of the field today. I've been waiting for the sugarloaf to make heads, and it's finally there, just in time for the last shares. The brussels and scorzonera are still a bit small, but perfectly useable. The carrots are also starting to get a little size, and the final item in the share is garlic, which we didn't plan on at all, but we had quite a bit leftover from planting, so I thought it would make a nice addition to the final week of the year.

If you haven't had sugarloaf chicory (pan di zucchero in Italian) it's a bit like butter head lettuce, or maybe cabbage, with a tight wrapped head of pale leaves. I like to slice it in half lengthwise, drizzle a little oil and salt over the cut side and roast it in a hot oven. It can also be eaten raw just like the frissee, only with a little more crunch.

Brussels are another new one for the season. These might need just a little cleaning, generally trimming the butt ends and removing any yellowing leaves. The fast way to prepare them is to cut them in half, toss them in a hot pan with a bit of oil, stir them until they turn a bit darker green and then add a splash of water and balsamic to the pan, put a lid on it and let them steam for five to ten minutes until they are still crisp tender. Cooking them too long is the easiest way to make yourself think you don't like brussels sprouts.

Scorzonera is also called black oyster root, and it does have a faint oyster flavor when boiled. I peel it cut it into chunks, boil it until tender and then add it to a cream sauce with pasta. A word of warning, when peeling it will bleed white sap which is sticky and will turn brown. That's normal, and if you want to keep it from browning, put it in a bit of water with some lemon juice (acidulated water).

Carrots and garlic I assume you know what to do with. There is this fancy garlic peeling video that's been going around the web, so maybe you'd like to check that out. Roasting the heads whole is another great way to enjoy them.

2011-12-08T14:53:00.001-08:00

From SHF 2011

This is actually a photo from last week, I just got around to pulling it off of the camera. Fall has been really beautiful on the farm this year. Today's share is basically the same as Monday's was. Next week is the last week of fall, then we'll move into winter. I'm not sure why but it's always strange to me that winter coincides with days getting longer, perhaps it is connected with my feeling that it's already winter and the days are still getting shorter even though it's not. I just read a great post from a winter CSA down in Southern Oregon about the difference between main season harvest and winter harvests so I'll give you all the link here. I have to add to it that besides the days being significantly shorter in the cold season and all of the snafus around frozen objects, somehow everything seems to take much longer, and probably does due to the extreme number of clothes required, constantly numb hands, and prodigious quantities of mud. We also experience our most major pest problems in the winter, specifically voles and occasional deer. I harvested the last of the parsnips today, from a planting that should have lasted for three harvests. The voles had done a good job of leaving the tops completely in tact, and eating all but a very nubbin of a root. The parsnips that were remaining were beautiful though, so enjoy and we'll hope we get ahead of them on the chicories and carrots.

Roots and Greens

2011-12-05T15:24:00.000-08:00

Continuing to deviate from the plan laid this time last fall, today's share has a bit of kale, a parsnip and a head of frisee. Greens and roots are the order of business in the late fall through the spring and the hearty ones are coming out now that the frosts are more regular. This morning we had to wait until almost noon for the field to thaw, and it was a bit after that when the fog finally burned off. We kept warm by sifting and spreading compost, a task I managed to avoid all summer.

The kale is rainbow lacinato and the cold is really bringing out beautiful dark colors, as well as sweetness. More frisee in the share this week. It's been a good one for us so far, and it's holding up to the cold quite nicely. Remember that it needs good cleaning and soaking it in water for 15+ minutes helps sweeten it up. Parsnip is making its first, and probably only appearance of the year. Germination was ok this year, but the weeds got a bit out of hand. We were able to remedy that, more or less, but now our friends the voles have started going after them and there are quite a few that have nothing left but a top. If you haven't cooked with them before they are sweet when roasted or boiled. They go well in soup or a root roast, or even shredded into latkes.

Frosty Morning

2011-12-05T15:22:00.000-08:00

Seeding Experiments

2011-12-01T15:27:00.000-08:00

The share today is basically the same as Monday's was. One difference was that everything was quite frozen when I got to the farm this morning. Kji and I spent the morning working up beds in the greenhouse and seeding greens, roots and cover crops under the cover of plastic. If these crops have enough warmth to germinate they should grow and be ready in the late winter or early spring. They're just an experiment though and if we do get anything it will be a nice bonus.

Multipurpose Vegetables

2011-11-28T15:23:00.000-08:00

Today's share is actually pretty big, bigger than I was expecting at least. From left to right in the photo there are celeriac, brussels leaves, root parsley, and a leek. The celeriac is really grown for the roots, but the leaves and stems are quite good as flavoring, or even cooked on their own. There's a bit of slug damage so you may need to pick and choose your stems, but they'll work just like celery for flavoring soups, stocks and other dishes, like my favorite, bread dressing. Bread dressing happens to go very nicely with mashed celeriac root. The brussels leaves are from brussels sprout plants and basically will cook up just like a collard green. We haven't harvested the sprouts yet, but we had to pull off the leaves anyway to get to the sprouts so I figured they should be eaten too. The root parsley is another that's grown for the roots but has a top that is good for the greens and stems as well. The tops are basically parsley and like the celeriac, the tops are bit tougher than their cousins that are grown only for tops, but they are packed with more flavor and once you cook them you won't notice any toughness at all. The roots can be roasted with other roots, or boiled and mashed. They're like a carrot or parsnip, but with parsley flavor. The leeks are just plain good, top to bottom. The greens parts are just as edible as the whites, but are more commonly saved for stock and not put directly into dishes. There's not really any good reason for this, I think, but I do it that way anyway.

On the topic of multipurpose vegetables, I just noticed that one of my favorite farm blogs also used a similar title recently. If you're interested in that sort of thing you might check out the Matron of Husbandry's take on the subject.

Thanksgiving Holiday

2011-11-17T14:34:00.001-08:00

Today's share is basically the same as Mondays so no new photo or talk of the vegetables. Next week is Thanksgiving and we're taking the entire week off from harvests. It's also supposed to be cold, like freezing cold, this weekend. I've been anticipating that, which is why the chard and celery was in the share this week. Those two crops will likely freeze out this weekend. Even so, we covered the celery with row cover, and lots of the rest of the crops as well. I'm hoping that the cover will stay on (it has a nasty tendency to blow off). I'm also hoping that the newfound protection the voles are feeling under that nice white blanket won't encourage them too much and that they'll leave a bit for us when we get back to harvesting. They've already taken out a number of the celeriac, root parsley, and radicchio. Our trapping campaign is woefully inadequate right now, we'll have to get on that. In the meantime, hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving, we'll be back in action on November 28.

Soup share

2011-11-14T15:04:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me that there are some nice opportunities for soup in the share today, especially if you have some good dry beans to toss in, and maybe a bit of stale bread. You might want to look for a recipe for ribollita, one of my favorite fall meals.

Today's share has a bit of kale, chard, carrot, celery and garlic in it. This is not at all what I planned for last fall when I was looking at what would go in the share today, but it's still a nice mix and it reflects everything that has happened in the season up to this point and my best judgement this morning about what I need to keep around for shares in the following weeks, and what would be best this week in the shares. At this point in the year most everything we have for the shares for the next two months or so is more or less ready. It's not just a matter of harvesting what is "ripe," it also has to do with guessing what will hold in the ground longer, what won't get eaten by voles or deer, what will survive impending frosts, and what would be a nice combination, giving a bit of variety from week to week

The chard and celery won't hold on much longer due to their sensitivity to freezing so I wanted to give those two out today. The kale is from a bed that hasn't been cleaned up in a while, and it seemed like some more greens would be nice in the share. The carrots have finally started to get a little size and the voles are starting to move in so I'm trying to thin them out, give a little more space and assess the damage. I don't plan for garlic in the fall shares, but this is leftover from what we saved for seed and I figured it should get eaten.

Next week is Thanksgiving so we'll take a week off from harvesting. I'm taking some of this afternoon, and likely many to come, starting to look at the plan for next season.

Crisp and Clear

2011-11-10T15:55:00.001-08:00

From SHF 2011

This morning was crisp and clear, enough that I ended up having to wait until 9:30 for the frost to thaw so that I could start harvesting. The share today is basically the same as Monday, just the beet variety is different. The Flat of Egypts from Monday were totally thinned so I thinned back through the one remaining Kestrel bed today. While I was waiting for the thaw I started to do a little thinking about next year's bed layouts, and some possible changes. I'm thinking we'll probably take out some of the sod pathway, making more space for vegetables, and reducing our mowing work. I'm a little tempted to completely switch things up with narrower beds, but it's funny how much we're invested in the bed width we have now with the irrigation headers, hoops we just bent, and row cover we're using. I was at a conference last weekend with Eliot Coleman who has always advocated 30" bed tops, which seemed a little narrow to me. At the conference he was talking about how the Parisian market gardeners used a 10" pathway and it suddenly clicked that 30" plus 10" is exactly 1 meter. Not that 30" isn't a good width, I'm coming to appreciate its versatility more and more, but for now we'll stick with a 48" bed top and 18" pathways, perhaps experimenting a bit with a few 24" beds with 9" pathways.

First Tuesday Share Ever

2011-11-08T15:22:00.001-08:00

Thanks for being patient this week. The share is a day later than usual, but other than that no real changes. The frisee continues to look good in the field so there's a head in the bags today. As with most of the chicories I like to slice this thinly for salads and soak it in cold water for a while to get it as crispy as possible and to reduce any bitter. It also holds up well to cooking. The share also has a beet or two as well as beet greens. The variety is Flat of Egypt, a new one for us so tells what you think. Finishing things out is a small bunch of parsley.

Actually, this warmish, dryish weather is keeping quite a few of the crops looking good. It's clear that growth has slowed to a crawl though, as the days are getting pretty short.

Ohio Workshop

2011-11-07T08:27:00.001-08:00

Today's harvest is delayed until tomorrow. I'm in Ohio listening to Eliot Coleman talk about season extension and hoping to bring back some good ideas.

Beautiful Fall Weather

2011-10-31T15:27:00.000-07:00

The past few work days on the farm have been beautiful, cool and damp in the mornings for harvest, clearing into sunny warm afternoons that have been very productive. We're getting just enough rain between work days to keep everything growing. Of course, now that I've said that it will probably freeze hard and then start raining for the next six months, but in the meantime I've been appreciating the weather.

Today's share has a few of the leftover garlic cloves that we popped for seed, perfectly edible but they won't keep for quite as long as a head. New in the share this week is celeriac, or celery root. We've left the tops on because they can be cooked just like celery, although they're a bit tough for raw eating. The roots are the main feature though. I like to peel and cube them, and then boil them with potatoes and make mashed potatoes and celeriac. They also make great soup, or they can be cut into sticks and parboiled, cooled and put on salad. Along with the celeriac is more spinach, the first kale distribution of the fall and some cilantro that was unexpected.

Like Monday, but different

2011-10-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have missed the Monday post this week. I was in Northern California visiting my niece and nephews, as well as a few friends, which left Kji to harvest and distribute, and without time to post.

Today's share is similar with a leek, chard, frisee, and peppers. On Monday the shares got a few small Hakurei turnips, but they were far and few between and we found some really nice cilantro under some row cover so that went in the shares today instead. These are the first leeks of the season. If you're not familiar with leeks they are a good substitute for onion, but milder. I love them sliced in half or quarters long ways and baked until very soft, or in baked goods. Usually they're just sliced into thin rounds and sautéed. Leeks are notorious for harboring dirt between the layers. To clean them thoroughly slice them lengthwise in half and then you can separate the layers gently while running the leek under water. This also gives them a flat side for the cutting board.

Frisee is also the first of the year. This is one of the chicories we grow and more will be coming soon. We actually have quite a lot of frisee because the escarole, sadly, did not germinate well, but we accidentally seeded extra flats of frisee, luckily, so that's replacing the escarole this year. The chicories are sometimes known as bitter greens. To reduce the bitter slice them into small pieces and soak them in cold water before using them raw, or they also hold up to cooking well and that will reduce, or remove, any bitterness and bring out the sweetness. Frisee is frequently blanched (whitened) but we haven't done that with these heads. If you leave the head in a completely dark place for a few days it will start to blanch from the center out. This also reduces any bitter. The bitter, however, is desirable to some, and pairs well with strong salty, oily flavors, like anchovy, or just plain salt and olive oil. Sweet also goes well , like caramelized shallots.

Not to go on too long, but we had a very productive day and all of the garlic for next season is in the ground now, as are some over wintering onions and a bit of fava seed that may or may not make it. I even got a bit of mowing done.

2011-10-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

From SHF CSA

Share today is basically the same as Monday. The peppers are different varieties, but all still sweet, green and needing a little time on the counter to color. One new addition to the farm this week are some "quick hoops" bent from 1/2" emt conduit. We've tried to everything as simply as possible, but the weather has been really cold and wet the last two years and we're wanting to help speed things up a bit in the spring, get some of the summer crops off to a good start, and give a little more protection to some of the fall and winter crops so we're trying out these hoops to keep the floating row cover we're already using up off of the plants. The row cover works on the plants, but it limits the air flow and we've had some quality issues in the past so I'm hoping this solution will improve things dramatically. More likely it'll improve things a little and introduce a bit more complexity into the system.

Southern Fall

2011-10-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

The share has some nice collards, beets and lettuce, a few Jimmy Nardello peppers and a last green tomato. If you haven't had them before, collards are actually a good cool season green, although they're associated with the hot south. They're particularly good after frost, but I'll take them now as well. My favorite way to cook them is to cut out the stems and then roll up the leaves and cut them into 1/4" ribbons. I boil those with some tamari in the water for at least 15 minutes and sometimes a lot more. If you got one of the green tomatoes with no color, you can slice that up, dredge it in a little cornmeal and fry it in a little oil on both sides to go with the collards. I also like baked beans and cornbread with those items. The lettuce is the last of the season, we'll switch to heartier salad greens next week. The peppers aren't turning color on the plants, but they continue to size up so we may have those for another week. Make sure to take advantage of the beet greens as well as the roots. The greens are just like chard or spinach.

Today we pulled some of the summer plants to make way for winter crops. More exciting are the new conduit hoops we put up. They look and feel very sturdy, we'll see if they make a difference in covering some of the winter crops, and if so we'll probably put a bunch more up in the spring.

Cover crops

2011-10-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

That was the second order of the day, after harvest of course. Share is basically the same as Monday's. More beds being put to bed for the winter and getting a bit of rye and vetch seeded to keep the soil in good shape over the winter and to make compost in the spring. We also got to spreading a bit of compost today, something that's been on the to do list all year and hasn't really made it to the top very much.

Spinach!

2011-10-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

Spinach isn't the only thing in the share, but I'm always excited when we have nice spinach as it's something that I have trouble growing. I was hoping for more, and bigger, Haukurei turnips and Cosmic Purple carrots, but the voles have been busy, as have the carrot rust fly, and they had done basically taken out the entire planting of carrots and a good part of the bigger turnips. So, we harvested some smaller turnips and thinned the next planting of Napoli carrots, which needed to be done anyway. For those of you who were spring members you might remember the Hakurei turnips and notice that they have a slightly different flavor in the fall. This time of year the growing is slowing as they ripen instead of the other way around. Make sure to use the greens as well. I like to chop them up before cooking as they can be a little stringy. Lettuce continues with a late season mix of butter, crisp, and romaines. The peppers and tomatoes still aren't getting any heat, which means they aren't turning color, which means we're giving them out green. The tomatoes aren't completely green but they can be used like a green tomato, or ripened on the counter. Parsley is in the share and looking good. My dad used to make us pasta with sauteed parsley and parmesan (and he liked to put canned clams with the juice on too).

It was a wet one today and I realized that my raincoat, which has been a great one for about the last eight years, has finally died. I think it's time for me to go raincoat shopping asap!

Text Only

2011-10-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

Yep, I forgot to take a photo today, and it's a shame because we spent a good part of the day cleaning up the farm and it looks good right now. The shares are pretty much the same as Monday's so take a look at that post for details on the vegetables. The only real difference is that some folks are getting either a stocky red roaster or a reliably red pepper (both are mostly green right now, despite their names).

Today I got to mow all of the main pathways, which hadn't been done in quite some time. We also got to hoeing and weeding a number of beds that were just starting to get weedy with the recent rains. And, we covered the brassicas with bird netting to try to keep the deer away. Deer are a major problem for us in the fall and winter. Unfortunately the other major problem is voles. Covering beds helps keep the deer away but it makes the voles feel safer and so they cause more damage. We try to trap voles but our success rate is pretty low right now. Mowing and weeding actually helps keep the vole pressure down as well.

Looks like next week we'll be solidly into fall vegetables.

Goodbye to Summer

2011-10-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

It seems that fall weather has really set in and the remains of the summer vegetables are showing it. I picked lots of exploded cherry tomatoes today, but only enough intact ones to give a couple per share. Cucumbers and summer squash are still holding on enough that most shares have them today. The greens are looking good and I harvested more 5 Color Silverbeet (chard) today, which has bounced back beautifully from the clean up two weeks ago. Lettuce is also still coming and we have a week or two more of that in the field before we switch over to chicories. I did a small initial pick on celery today. This is not the kind of celery you'd make "ants on a log" with, this is for flavoring other dishes, like soup, and you can use the leaves as well as the stems. It kind of feels like soup weather, doesn't it? I also cleaned up the thyme planting so there a small bunch of that, which can also be dried if you don't want to use it right away. The peppers are still coloring very slowly, so I've harvested one with just a little color and if you leave it on the counter for a few days or a week it will color completely and be very sweet. The variety for today is Jimmy Nardello, which looks like a hot pepper, but is actually one of the sweetest peppers I've ever had. Last week some of you got a Little Finger eggplant. Today some of the other pick up sites are getting them. I've been making a lot of thai curries lately and one or two of these would be perfect to chop up and toss into a bit of coconut milk with some chili paste and fish sauce and simmer until it's soft.

I was bold today and pulled out all of the irrigation from the field to make it easier to do the weeding and path maintenance we need to do. It looks like we're going to have a decent amount of moisture this week. At this point I'm actually hoping for a little rain tomorrow and Wednesday. The plants are also growing much more slowly with the cooler, shorter days so they're not using as much water.

The Great Divide

2011-09-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Rain and wind, cool nights and shorter days, fall is officially here. However, this weeks share has a lingering summer flavor. You will notice a sampling of cucumbers, summer squash, tomatoes and basil. Unfortunately all of these crops hate cool, wet weather. The squash and cukes tend to get powdery mildew this time of year, while the tomatoes inevitably get blight and the basil turns a decrepit black from some other deathly disease.
In short, this may be the last you see of these veggies, which is why with regards to the basil, you get the whole plant. Hopefully this means a batch of pesto is in your future.

I found this very basic pesto recipe at www.epicurious.com. I have substituted pine-nuts with walnuts and left out the Parmesan for my lactose intolerant friends and it always turns out great. However, I also like to add in a little fresh squeezed lemon juice to give a little extra kick and prevent rapid oxidation of the basil. I might even add in those beet greens if I didn't have enough basil.

4 cups packed fresh basil leaves, washed well
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted until golden, cooled, and chopped fine
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan (about 1 1/2 ounces)
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender until desired consistency.

You will also see the first pepper of the season. It may look hot, but don't be fooled, this pepper is sweet and goes by the name Jimmy Nardello (Josh may want to correct my spelling). Most folks think of peppers as being a summer crop, but way up here in the great Northwest we need all the time we can get for peppers to fully ripen, especially when we have a cool and drawn out spring like we had this year. You will notice that your pepper may only have a hint of red, but if you leave it on your kitchen counter for a few days you may just end up with a perfectly red and ripe fruit to enjoy. Just don't wait too long or it will become a bit leathery and lose its crisp texture. Hopefully you will see a few more of these before it gets too cold.

A fall share wouldn't be complete without the addition of root crops so we included a Red Ace beet (or two) and some Yellowstone carrots, both of which I prefer cooked.

Lettuce will be in the share until we have our first frost, which could be within a couple of weeks...Yikes! Lettuce loves the cool, moist weather of season caught on the great divide. Enjoy it while you can. Jack Frost is right on our heels.

Last Day of Summer

2011-09-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

Same share as Monday, once again. And today is in fact the last day of summer and the last summer share delivery. It was a beautiful day, starting with an incredible sunrise and ending up with some good heat. We need all the heat we can get to ripen the peppers and eggplant, as well as the remaining tomatoes, cucumbers and summer squash.

The 10 day forecast has us going into a bit of a wet patch. Lets hope we come out the other side with a bit more of this warm dry weather once the full moon passes next week.

I'm off to Canada next week to teach a little workshop up there. Kji will be doing the harvest and I'll be missing the first fall share of the year. Kji's access to internet isn't quite the same as mine so the blog may be a bit delayed next week, just a little warning.

Flower Shares at Near East Yoga

2011-09-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

We don't grow cut flowers (at least not for now) at Slow Hand Farm, but one of the folks who I've been practicing next to for a few years now at Near East Yoga has decided to start offering flower shares on Thursday nights, same as our CSA shares. If you're interested in finding out more check out her blog and website and get in touch with her. The shares start next week, same as our fall shares!

Last Week of Summer

2011-09-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

This is the last week of summer and the last week of summer shares. Fall shares will start next week and we still have a few spots open. The cool wet weather is certainly making it feel like fall, and today's low hot sun in the afternoon did as well.

In the share today are a couple of new items and a few old ones as well. The most exciting item, I think, is a small bag of camomile for tea. It's dried so it will keep indefinitely. Making its way back in to the shares is chard. I'm cleaning up the chard bed, getting ready for fall. The tomatoes, cucs and summer squash have all really slowed down. Many tomatoes also split from the rain so there are fewer of them in the shares today and the cherries should probably be eaten right away. Split tomatoes are still good to eat, they just don't keep at all. There's a small bit of dill and lettuce and we harvested the last of the potatoes today, Rose Finn Apples. These are similar to the Russian Bananas we gave out earlier, a fingerling, but they have a red tint which is very pretty. They're also a bit larger on average, although still very small.

The first of the cover crop which was seeded last week actually germinated in the rain. We got a bit more in today to cover the potato bed which is finished now.

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the party on Saturday. I had a great time making pizza and hanging out with everyone. I hope no one caught a cold from the drizzle. It sure was nice to have a fire going.

Getting fired up for pizza

2011-09-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Golden Tickets

2011-09-15T16:24:00.001-07:00

Today's share is the same as Mondays, so take a look at the photo and comments there. A few lucky folks are getting a bonus item today, either a green pepper from a few plants that needed to be thinned, or a couple of Little Finger Eggplants. The Peppers are a red variety called Reliably Red bred by a friend, Robelee Evans. He's down in a bit warmer drier area so I'm trialling them to see if they'll ripen for us up here. If they'll do it this year I'll be pretty happy, seeing as how cold and late it's been. The eggplant are a very small variety, which I thought would be appropriate for our small shares. We tried it last year and got nothing, but I wanted to give it one more chance and it's starting to set some fruit now. Both this year and last have been very late for summer fruit. A lot of growers have gone to using plastic tunnels and ground covers to speed things up, but we're just growing outside with no supplemental plastic. I'm tempted to start using a bit more next year, as it would make a difference, but I really don't like working with the stuff so we'll see.By the way, we'd love to see you at the farm on Saturday. We'll have pizza, be giving tours, etc. Have I mentioned that before?

Pizza Party and Farm Open House Saturday

2011-09-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

Just a reminder - we'd love to see you all at our pizza party and farm open house this weekend. We'll be firing the wood oven and making pizzas with farm veggies from 1-3pm this Saturday. We'll be out there before that to get the fire going and to clean up the fields, give tours, hang out, etc., so come by early if you like. Bring something you'd like to put on top of pizza, or a side dish to share, and make sure to bring your own plates and utensils. If you need directions let me know.

PS it's always cool a drizzly for these events but there's plenty of space in the barn to stay dry.

Summer Continues

2011-09-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

Aggh, blogger just deleted my draft, and wouldn't you know it, I'm in a rush. Here's the very quick version, lots of summer vegetables today, kind of the standards. Tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash and basil all need to be picked regularly to keep producing, which is why they're in the shares pretty much every week that they're in season. We had a few leftover potatoes from the earlier pick so those are in the share, along with some Yellowstone carrots I pulled today. Lettuce is a staple, although the head and slugs have been rough on it lately so we may hit a lull soon.

Cover crop got seeded for the fall today - rye and vetch mix. Much more of that, and on that soon.

Remember the Pizza Party this weekend (look at old posts to see the info).

Keep your fingers crossed for more warm weather, or at least that it stays dry.

Have a great week...

Again, no photo

2011-09-08T20:16:00.000-07:00

Yep, Kji was all on his own today as I worked for the day down in Sherwood with a great group of folks who are trying to start a really amazing cooperative farm. Unfortunately that means I have no idea what actually went into the shares today, although I hope it was something good, maybe even a bit like Monday's share. I'll try to get the update soon.

Tomatoes

2011-09-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit odd the way things have been ripening this year. Today I pulled in a good harvest of tomatoes so the shares are leaning pretty heavily that way. I'm not sure how many there'll actually be for Thursday, we'll see what happens in the next few days. This hot weather is good for us right now, for the most part. The share also has cucumbers, which are appreciating the heat, but it's light on summer squash and a few folks won't get any this week. Our summer squash was really set back by the cold early on and it may never recover. Lettuce continues, mostly Blushed Butter Cos today, but a little Pirat as well. Fennel is back in the share, as well as a bit of parsley. The fennel is very young and will go great in a cold salad, very thinly sliced. The tops can be mixed with other salad greens as well. The parsley would be great chopped and sauteed with those potatoes from last week, or the Shallots from this week. Did I mention that I pulled all of the shallots today? These will keep for months if you don't use them right away, but they're good eating now as well. They're a bit like a mild onion and are often used similarly to garlic to add flavor.

The best news today is that we caught up on planting, and we're actually getting very close to being finished with plantings all together for the year. That means we can start to concentrate on cleaning up some weeds and getting cool season cover crops seeded in the beds that are finished.

A Bit Like Monday

2011-09-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

Very productive day on the farm today and the shares look quite a bit like Monday's so no photo or notes. I guess I will say that the cool week slowed down the summer squash and cucumbers, which was to be expected, so those quantities are a little lower. Last Thursday they were higher than they had been on Monday so these things kind of work themselves out.

The photo is of a bed of spinach we just transplanted. That, three beds of sprouting broccoli, and nearly a bed of radicchio got in the ground today. We're a bit late planting all of that so hope for a long warm fall. At this point we're really close to catching up on all of the plantings. Maybe it'll happen next week and then we can start concentrating on getting cover crops in.

Fall Pizza Party and Potluck

2011-08-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

The spring and summer pizza parties were excellent.

We've been having seasonal pizza parties with the wood fired oven on the farm. We'll be having the next one on Saturday, September 17 from 1-3pm. Anyone who wants a tour of the farm or to help clean up the fields a little should come out early. Bring your own plates and utensils and a dish to share if you like. Please don't bring pets, and we'd love it if folks tried to carpool or ride bikes. Hope for good weather so we can picnic on the lawn, otherwise we'll be in the barn again. Email us if you need more details.

Heavy

2011-08-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

When the shares have lots of greens, like in the spring, we can fit five shares in a box and I can carry three boxes at a time. Today I could only get three in a box and I can barely cary two boxes, it must be summer. The heat last weekend helped ripen some tomatoes and cucumbers so we're heavy on those today. The summer squash continues to limp along after a rough start earlier this summer, and I've supplemented with a bit of the extra that Kji has in his plantings (trading him for some extra lettuce). The lettuce looks beautiful right now and today we harvested some Jester and some Pirat, crisp and butter, so one or the other is in the share. I cleared a half bed of Napoli carrots and we dug the first of two varieties of potatoes, Russian Banana. They came out very small for the most part, although they are supposed to be a small fingerling. The benefit here is that you don't have to cut them up, you can just boil them whole, and then pan fry them with a bit of oil, salt and paprika. Or you could do something else if that doesn't sound good. Finally, I also did a harder pinch on the basil today so there's a nice handful in there, perhaps enough to flavor a bit of aioli for the potatoes?

Heat!

2011-08-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

Today's share is basically like Monday's, so no new photo or notes to pass on. This is what summer should be like, and it looks like it'll stick around at least through the weekend. We're finally getting a few more ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm hoping they're not peaking too late and that a bit more heat will perk them up. Maybe the heat will help the peppers and eggplant which have just been poking along, hardly doing anything. I think it's a bit late for the melons, which also got in the ground late and needed some early heat to speed them up if they were going to make it.

Kji and I were wilting in the sun this afternoon, but we're really happy for the plants. It's not actually that hot out, we're just not used to these temperatures after all of the cool working weather we've had this year. Folks in other parts of the country will laugh when they hear that we're too hot when the high isn't even 90, but for us, this year, that's some serious heat.

Beets and onions

2011-08-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

Beets and onions in the share today, along with cucumbers, a few tomatoes, summer squash, lettuce and just a pinch of basil and oregano. The onions are cipollini and will keep very well if you don't use them right away. The beets are kestrel, which I grow because I like their flavor, although they have less consistent shape and size than others. The greens are also good on the beets so use them like you would chard. The cucumbers are starting to produce a few more. I really like the flavor of the lemon cucumbers and I actually like the large seed cavity which has a bit of sweet. The tomatoes are very, very slowly starting to increase their production, although that might have just been due to the warm weekend. We're growing sungold and sweetie cherry tomatoes, juane flamme (organge), black prince (dark), and moscovich (red) so I hope you'll see a bit of a rotation in your bags which will let you try them all. Similarly with summer squash we have zucchini as well as patti pans and some bags get one, some another. The basil and oregano are just little pinches due to renovation of the plants. They're just enough to flavor a bit of dressing for the vegetables, certainly no pesto making to be done. With the herbs you can always dry them by hanging if you aren't going to use them immediately. This way they'll keep for a while.

Another delicious summer dinner

2011-08-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

After floating the Sandy today I had an unusual (for me) appetite for fish. I picked up the boxes and return bags (thanks for returning so many this Thursday, folks), and there were two shares left. After swinging by the store on the way home and picking up a little line caught cod I thought a little vegetable fish stew was in order, along with some risotto.

I basically chunked up the carrots and summer squash, leaving a little carrot to dice for the risotto. I cooked those with half a small onion I had leftover and diced the rest of that for the risotto as well. After sauteing the carrot, squash and onion in a bit of olive oil I added all of the cherry tomatoes, quartered and a bit of water, salt and a few diced sage leaves. As soon as that started cooking I put chunks of the cod in, covered the pan and cooked that medium low until the fish was finished.

The risotto was simple with just the carrot and onion sauteed, then a bit of parsley and olive oil added, then the rice and all of the liquid at once, and a bit of salt. I use a pressure cooked for risotto which make is super simple and requires no stiring - only taking about 10 minutes total.

A last minute addition was to chop up the lemon cucs and toss them with a bit of the dill and some plain yogurt. Super tasty meal, which once again I have no photo of.

More variants

2011-08-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

Slightly different again. The biggest difference may be that half the the bags are plastic today, as we finally got to the point where not enough bags came back. The good news is that the vegetables still look decent, even in plastic. I have to admit that the shares are a bit smaller than I would like to see this time of year, it's been a slow growing year and lots hasn't really taken off yet. Today's share has a bit of sage and dill. I like the sage as tea and the dill in dressings but they both have many uses. This is the first day that we had enough tomatoes to give to everyone, although cucumbers are still on rotation. We've been skating by with just enough summer squash to go around, although it's a bit smaller than I would like. There's a good head of Plato II romaine today and to round things out there are thinnings from a very thick planting of yellowstone carrots.

We continue to catch up on planting, but we're not there yet. I'll probably put in a few extra hours tomorrow. Fortunately most other work around the farm can hold off for now - that would be weeding and cleaning up the edges, spreading compost and things like that. Maybe we'll get a little heat this weekend and the summer crops will perk up.

Excellent Salad

2011-08-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

I ate it all before I could take a picture, but I just wanted to let you know what I did with a leftover share from Monday that didn't get picked up. I take those home sometimes and eat them myself. It's a kind of quality control. Even after three days of no refrigeration the share was completely usable. That always blows me away. Should we really be spending all this money to run our refrigerator?

Tonight I boiled the beans until tender in salted water and then dunked them in cool water. Meanwhile I washed the lettuce and carrots. I sliced up the carrots, chopped the dill finely, and cut the beans into thirds and tore up the lettuce. I made a dressing with a bit of tahini, olive oil, white vinegar that I had soaked the chive blossoms from this spring in and a bit of sea salt. Finally I tossed it all together.

I was pretty happy to find that the beans were really tasty. I've been worried that they weren't as good as I remembered, but they were actually better (although I realized that I should have been warning people to string them - they're an older style and some of the more mature ones have strings). I hope you're all enjoying the bean variety - these might be the only ones of the summer as our second seeding failed and it's a bit late to reseed. If you're not happy with any of the varieties, or if there are ones you think could be better please let me know. We're always refining what we do here on the farm from season to season. Also, we love hearing if you've made something you really liked with the shares, especially things that are super simple.

One last note - this is probably the week that we run out of bags. Unless our members from WK come through big time and return more bags than I gave them we'll be out of luck tomorrow. I've ordered more but they're not going to be here for a few weeks. We'll have to make do in the meantime. The past two weeks folks have been good about returning clumps of bags, but this week that seemed to fall apart and we're pretty desperate right now. I should have ordered more sooner - sorry about that. I'll make sure to have plenty next time round.

Variation on a theme

2011-08-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

A similar share to last week as the beans continue to produce, we harvested the remaining blushed butter and flashy lightning lettuces, and the summer squash continues to produce just enough for everyone to get some. Some Napoli carrots this week in place of the Cosmic Purple, very sweet and decent sized. Also, replacing the sage this week is a bit of dill and basil. A few folks will see tomatoes or lemon cucumbers. Both of those crops are coming on very, very slowly but I'm hoping they'll pick up the pace soon. Mostly we're harvesting cherry tomatoes right now but there are also a few Juanne Flamme (yellow), and Black Prince (black). The cherry varieties are the perennial favorite Sun Gold and a new one for us this year, Sweetie, a nice little red one that does have great, sweet tomato flavor. The one other tomato you'll see at some point is Moscovich, our mid sized red tomato with excellent flavor.

We're making a little headway on the fall plantings, although we're still not quite caught up. Today the last seeding of carrots went in, with a bit of cilantro. We also made headway on the beet beds so those should get seeded on Thursday. Then it's on to getting six or so beds of chicory starts planted out.

Other herbs

2011-08-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

Today's share is similar to Monday's, but instead of sage we have a bit of cilantro and some basil that needed to be pinched. The tomatoes are still poking along and ripening very, very slowly so only a few shares got them today. The same goes for cucumbers. Both look like there's good fruit set coming so we should have them soon, as soon as we get a little more warm, sunny weather I expect. In the meantime, we're catching up on some of the bed preparation and seeding outside and I've got lots of ideas for next year about how we'll keep on top of everything perfectly. Oh yes, I almost forgot that the carrots are different as well. We have Napolis and just a few thinnings from the Yellowstones today. We should have more carrots in the shares soon.

Groupo compacto

2011-08-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

A compact group of items today. We have the usual lettuce, and as with last week it's a small head again, mixed varieties as I'm pulling the biggest ones from plantings of Blushed Butter, Flashy Lightning and Jester. The beans are slowly sizing up so there's a good handful of Swedish Brown. I went to dig the first seeding of carrots that did anything this season and it was mostly eaten by voles. Off of a 10' planting I got just enough, very small Cosmic Purple carrots to let folks see how pretty they are. Unfortunately I'm not sure I like the flavor, although I'm sure they'll go nicely in a salad or cooked up. The variety is a new one for us and I'm not sure if the flavor is varietal or seasonal. I've tasted them from other places before and they were better. We should have a few more carrots soon as we did get some carrots to germinate after these, orange and yellow ones. Also in the share are cipollini onions. Most of these have a hard core from bolting but they should be tasty none the less. We'll also have more in a week or two. The squash is going very slowly so there's only one or so per share and there'll be a bit of a rotation between patti pans and zuchs. The farm pick up folks got the very first of the Lemon cucs today instead of squash. I'm hoping there will be more of both next week, although it'll take a bit more warmth than we've been getting to really get them going. The same goes for the tomatoes which are just crawling along. Finally, the share has two good sized sprigs of sage which smelled so good harvesting this morning. You can dry this by hanging if you don't want to use it immediately. I like it as a tea with honey.

Kji and I were back together today and we got a bit done. I'm not sure we'll ever catch up, but that's par for the course in the summer. We got the winter cabbage and collards planted and we're on our way to getting the winter carrot beds prepared. We still have some beets to seed as well as a few other minor items. The last greenhouse seeding of the season happened today as well, a little fall spinach. In a few weeks the greenhouse will be completely shut down until January. Hard to believe we'll have all of those starts in the ground soon.

Volunteers

2011-08-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

Today's share is very similar to Monday's, the main difference is that we started picking the Swedish Brown beans - as a green bean. We'll have these for Monday as well so no one will miss out. A good friend of Kji's and mine, Marisa, is visiting from Hawaii and came out to help today. Kji and I farmed with her at Sauvie Island Organics years ago and it's nice to get a nearly annual visit and catch up. I should also mention that every year we've had a few folks interested enough in learning more about what we're doing that they come out and volunteer some labor as a way to learn hands on and see what we do close up. This year we've had two folks, Sera and Ryan, who have pitched in quite a bit of labor, which is always a nice bonus for us. We've also had a lot of visitors who just want to get a quick tour of the farm. Even in the messy state that it's in right now I always like showing folks what we do.

Summer starting to warm up

2011-08-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

We've hit a bit of a lull between the spring goods and full on summer harvests, as is typical for early summer and typical for this year is about a month late. The lettuce is small this week, a bit of flashy lightning or blushed butter. I thinned some beets today, forgetting that Kji gave out beets last week. The tops are good eating, as well as the roots. Kji is out of town and he had a bit of Thai basil that needed to be pinched back so that went into the shares, as well as a few of his summer squashes mixed with our own which are just starting to come on. Kji is growing Costada Romanesco, the stripped zucchini. We grew it in the past but it's not quite as productive as some of the others and has a tendency to get big, although the flavor is excellent. We're growing Yellow Scallopini, and two different zucchini that were given to us by Sauvie Island Organics when our seeding of Midnight Lightning failed. Maybe one of these will be a good replacement for the Midnight Lightning. In any case, the summer squashes are randomly distributed among the bags so I hope you get to sample the different types over the course of the season. A bit of an experiment in the bags today is a bunch of turnip greens. I've been eating these on sandwiches at the farm but they're best cooked. They're actually a weed in our parsnips so giving them out does double duty, weeding and harvesting at the same time. They came to be a weed after I let last winter's remaining crops of hakurei and gold ball turnips go to flower for the beneficial insects and bees and then didn't get them out until after they had set a bit of seed. Let me know if you enjoy them and I might make the same mistake again next year. Finally, a few folks saw a tomato last week and a few more are seeing them this week. These are just teasers. There's lots of green fruit right now and we just need a bit more of this warm weather to ripen them. Soon everyone will be getting them, I hope every week.

A few more notes from the farm - Happy Birthday to Kji! He's off celebrating so I'm solo this week. I'm also trying to get all of the fall crops in asap. Today was a catch up day for me though, and what I managed to do was to update my field notes and harvest the fava that had been planted for seed, which frees up a bed for planting. We have about ten beds to plant this week, busy week.

What's in today's share?

2011-07-25T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's actually a mystery to me as well and I'm not sure if Kji will have a chance to upload a photo as we usually do. I'm up in BC right now at Foxglove Farm (above photo) to teach a workshop on growing vegetables with Michael Ableman. This is an annual event for me and I was able to check out their annual festival for the first time this year at the same time. Incredible farm with accommodations if you're looking for a vacation spot, and I'll be teaching with Michael again in September if you're wanting a workshop on Urban Agriculture.

Meanwhile, I hope the share is beautiful and self explanatory today. I can't wait to hear what you got.

What month is it?

2011-07-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

The weather looks like May, maybe June, and so does the share, kind of. No summer goodies yet, but we're still solid with lettuce, chard, and parsley and favas which really are early summer goodies. This should be our last pick of favas, and it's our first, of what I hope will be many, pick of parsley. I'm not sure what it is about this year but we're already starting to see some vole damage. I noticed their chewings in the beets and the chard today. They took out an entire chard plant and damaged a few more. We have more deer pressure this year than ever before as well.

We need to deal with both of those items soon, but first we need to get the rest of our fall vegetable plantings in. Today we planted another round of green beans. Lots of chicories are getting seeded now, and as soon as we can get beds ready we'll be putting in the fall and winter carrot seedings. Today was mostly filled with hoeing and tying tomatoes. The rain really stimulated a lot of weed growth and we've been ignoring the weeds for the most part as we catch up on the plantings. It was nice to clean up a lot of the beds, at least a little.

Our Bags

2011-07-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

From SHF CSA

For the past three years we've been using organic cotton promotional bags to pack the shares. These are reusable and washable and we mostly try to get folks to bring them back. If everyone was perfect about doing this we'd only need 110 bags for our 55 shares - one that's out with the share, and one that's coming back. Last season we ordered 300 bags for what we thought would be 100 shares. We did a lot less that 100 shares. We've been using those same bags this season, but now it seems we're running out. Bags get lost, collect in piles in odd corners and some even fall apart after repeated washings and use so I'm not totally surprised. The only problem is that I haven't ordered more so I better order more soon. They are amazingly cheap in bulk, even screen printed we get them for less than $3 a bag, including shipping. This means that our nearly $700 order of bags has gotten us through about 45 weeks of shares, averaging about 45 shares per week over that time. That's over 2000 bags we've sent out, or seven uses per bag, very roughly - $0.40 per share per week maybe, or something like $5 per share per season. I actually have the exact numbers, but not the time to collect and tally them right now. On the whole I'm pretty happy with how it's going.

If you do have any bags sitting around that should go back into circulation please get them back to us, we'd love to make it through until our next order of new bags comes in.

Great Garlic

2011-07-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

Today there are 8, yes eight, heads of garlic in the share. We do not expect you to eat 8 heads of garlic this week, but these will keep for months and the skins will dry if you leave them in a place with decent air circulation (like an open bowl on the counter). We don't really have a place to store them, so we're sending them all out right now. Last fall when we planted the garlic we were planning for more shares, but then we scaled back a little so there's more garlic than we intended. There were also more onions that we intended so we're giving out the last of the sweet onions this week. The peas from last week were done in by the heat so we've switched over to favas this week. We also have a bit more fennel and the first pinch of basil which will allow the plants to bush out a bit and start really producing (we hope).

This weekend I had the great fortune to spend 7 hours giving a really in depth tour of the farm and our systems to the Beginning Urban Farmer Apprenticeship program that is being run by OSU Extension and Multnomah County. It was a sizable group and everyone had great questions, some of which I'm realizing I didn't answer all that well and I should write out more complete answers when I have a chance. Farming in the way that I do at Slow Hand Farm is something I'd been wanting to do for about ten years by the time I actually started the farm. The farm is a bit of an experiment to see if some of my ideas work, and how to make them better, and I also wanted it to be a model I could share with other folks interested in small scale production. I was really glad to be able to share what I've learned so far with this group of beginning growers, and their questions about the CSA made me remember how much I owe to all of the CSA members who have been supporting the farm over the past three seasons. I love bringing the members produce, connecting folks to the farm, and hearing stories about how people are enjoying the food. What a great community that's supporting agriculture here in Portland.

What? No Photo?

2011-07-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm rushing a bit today and the share, once again, is the same as Monday's was. I'm rushing to go table for the Portland Area CSA Coalition at the Ecotrust Sundown Series. There's free music, info tables, etc. Come see me there.

Quick update on the farm front, we've finally caught up on all of the planting and seeding, more or less. It was a busy week but I think next week we'll finally get to some of the weeds and other plant care that's been waiting for a free moment.

Spring or summer?

2011-07-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

It does kind of look like a spring share today, although I really think of peas as early summer. These are shelling peas so while the pods have good flavor and can be used to flavor stock, they're so fibrous they're not really edible like a snap pea - eat the little peas inside, and they're best sightly boiled or steamed. They go really well in hearty salads or on pasta. A big sweet onion with the onion greens as well. These are from overwintered sweet onions and they'll be good raw or cooked in a dish. A small bulb of fennel with the greens. Greens are good in salad, as is the bulb if sliced thinly. Both can also be cooked, which looses the anise flavor, but is also a tasty treat. Finally, a head of Jester lettuce, big and crunchy. I'm guessing you'll know what to do with this one.

It was a warm one on the farm today. I'm thinking about heading out to the farm for some extra irrigation and planting catchup on Wednesday. We're normally only out on Mondays and Thursdays but the farm could use a little extra love right now. I did manage to stake and prune most of the tomatoes today, although I didn't get them all tied up. There are actually a few green tomatoes on the plants so we should have some summer fruit this year; hard to believe after that wet, cold spring.

Same share, again

2011-06-30T16:20:00.000-07:00

Yep, the same share as Monday this Thursday, more or less, so I'll let you read the last post to get the info on the veggies. I actually did some quick harvest this morning before heading off on a great tour of the One Green World nursery down in Mollala - maybe some interesting fruit in our future? Maybe, not for a while. I came back this afternoon to find Kji still packing vegetables. We did get a bit of greenhouse seeding done, and I'm guessing it'll be another week or two before we're totally caught up on field plantings. The reality is we'll probably never be caught up on field work, but that's ok. A little pano of the fields this afternoon above. Things are looking pretty good.

Early Summer Treats

2011-06-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

Lots of items new for this year in the share today. I did the first pick of the Rainbow Lacinato kale this morning and cleaned up the plants a little in the process. With a little luck this planting will carry us all the way through to next spring when we'll be eating the raab. Kale is great chopped small in raw salads (like a slaw) or sauteed with olive oil and garlic. There's also lettuce, as usual. A head of Blushed Butter Cos in the share today, a butter/romaine mix with great red color. We put two heads of garlic in the share. These are ready to use, just peel the skins away from the cloves. I'm guessing most of you won't eat two heads of garlic this week so just let it sit on the counter with good air circulation and it will keep for months while you slowly go through one clove at a time. This particular variety is called Siberian and it has very few, but large, cloves per head. We'll have a little more garlic in a few weeks when the later variety is ready. Favas make their debut today. The pods aren't edible, but the beans inside are tasty boiled in salted water or sauteed in olive oil. Some people peel the leathery skin that sits around the bean and just eat the insides, but I like the whole thing. Finally, we're seeing a couple of beets for the first time this year. Kestrel is the variety and the tops can be used just like the chard from weeks past. I like beets best cooked, either roasted or boiled, but some folks like to grate them onto a salad. If you boil them the skins will slip right off. When I roast them I eat them skins and all.

We're almost caught up on planting, just two more beds to go. Unfortunately we're in a rocky patch of the field so the bed prep is going slow. Next year, when most of the rocks are gone, it should go much faster.

Same as Monday

2011-06-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

The share today is basically the same as Monday's so no extra photo. Instead I'll put up a photo of the favas and peas from Monday. The peas look like they have about two more weeks and the favas probably have a month. We do have another planting of favas from last fall that might actually be ready next week, maybe.

Things are looking pretty good, but we're still playing catch up with planting and bed preparation. We had two of our regular volunteers today, Sera and Ryan, who have been helping us catch up while they learn a little about what we do. We don't rely on volunteer labor, but we do appreciate it, especially when it's well timed.

First summer share

2011-06-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

First Monday harvest this year as well. With the summer we move to two separate harvest and delivery days, Mondays and Thursdays. The Monday share won't always be the same as Thursday, but usually it will. Today there's a bit of red butter lettuce, some more arugula which has been a workhorse this year, some garlic scapes which I'll talk about in a second, and a small fennel, which I'll also elaborate on. The scapes are the immature flower buds of the garlic plant. We pick them both so that you can eat them, and also to benefit the coming heads of garlic. You can eat them just like any other kind of garlic, but I like them best roasted until very soft. If you're grilling they work great on the grill as well. Some people call them garlic whistles, I'm not sure why, although they are kind of whistle shaped. The fennel is also good raw, or cooked. It's a bit stringy so it's best cut across the grain (the base/bulb part). The tops can be used in salad, or dressings, or however you like. Very thinly sliced fennel goes will with citrus salads, or in the winter time I like to cut it thicker and braise it until it is very, very soft, which changes the flavor from licorice, to a much milder, slightly sweet taste.

We also got a bit of planting done today: lemon cucumbers and little fingers eggplant. The beds for parsnips are almost ready to be seeded and we've got about ten more after that to dig asap. Still a very busy time on the farm

By the way, thanks to everyone who came out to see us at the farm on Saturday, we had a great time and we'll be doing it again when the season changes from Summer to Fall.

End of Spring

2011-06-16T16:19:00.000-07:00

Last harvest for our spring shares today. We have some big heads of lettuce, either romaine or red butter (Plato II or Pirat) depending on the bag. Some thinnings from the overwintered sweet onions are in there, along with tops which are good eating. Our first pick of chard is in the bag, and it looks beautiful, and now the bed is weeded as well. Finally, a bit more arugula, what can I say, it was ready to go. I pulled it with the roots for speed. You could probably eat the roots, but you don't have to.

On Monday we'll start harvesting summer shares, but before that is our Summer Solstice Pizza Party and Picnic Potluck. Saturday 8-4pm on the farm - let me know if you need more details, we'd love to see you out there. Make sure to bring your own utensils and plates and water bottle, we'll provide the pizza, bring a dish to share as well if you like, or toppings for pizza. We'll probably have free lettuce for folks who come early (if you need more lettuce, there's a bed we need to clear to make way for melons).

A couple of other field notes from today. We broke down and got enough hose and valves to allow us to keep the irrigation hose in one place and not have to move it (except for mowing, which will still be an issue). Today was great, no screwing and unscrewing hoses and dragging them down the aisles, just flipping valves. We also finally go the peppers in and the eggplant bed is very close to being ready. There continues to be a lot of planting to do, maybe I'll show up extra early on Saturday and see what I can get done. Kji has already said he'll be out there all day.

Abundant Arugula

2011-06-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

A big bunch of arugula in the share today from a really beautiful planting. It's good fresh eating but it doesn't tend to keep as well as some of the other greens. One suggestion from Kji is to make arugula pesto. Just follow a regular pesto recipe and use arugula in the place of basil, delicious. You can also use the green garlic in the place of regular garlic. In fact, I would probably just wash and dry the arugula and garlic and toss them both in the food processor with a bunch of olive oil to make a sauce/spread that will keep in the freezer indefinitely (freeze it in ice cube trays for serving sized portions). Rounding out the share is emerald oak lettuce and the last of the tyee spinach.

We're getting a little behind in planting, but we've been doing a lot of clean up lately and set up of irrigation so mostly things feel like we're doing pretty well. If we can just get a bunch of beds prepped and planted next week we'll be doing great. Next week is the last week of spring, and a week from this Saturday will be our solstice party on the farm so make sure to save the date (4-8pm, more details soon). The Monday after will be our first summer season deliveries, and it's actually starting to feel like summer weather. I hope it keeps going this way.

Lots of lettuce

2011-06-02T16:18:00.000-07:00

There are two heads of lettuce in the share this week, very unusual for us but it was ready and beautiful, and I was afraid it wouldn't hold in the ground for another week, so we cut it. There's also another nice bunch of spinach, a second pick of the last planting. I'm not sure if we'll get another pick out of it. I wasn't expecting radishes today, but there were still a bunch out there that had sized up a little from last week so I tossed those in. Finally a new item, chive blossoms. I finally put in a planting of chives this year, after meaning to do it for the last two seasons. There aren't a lot of chives, but there were enough blooms that I thought I'd give those out, especially after reading this post from Eatwell Farm down in Dixon, California. Yianni also tells me that his mother infuses white vinegar with the blossoms. They can be used on salads as well, or tossed into pasta.

Very busy planting this week. I finally got some beans seeded, two weeks later than planned. We're in the process of preparing beds for brussels right now for the fall and winter shares. Summer squash, melons, and cucumbers are all in the works as well.

Still very spring like

2011-05-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

It continues to be cool and wet and our irrigation duties continue to be put off a while longer. We did throw in some tomatoes and basil today that really needed to get out of the greenhouse and we're keeping our fingers crossed that it won't get too cold for them at this point. These went into beds where overwintered kale, and cover crop had been. Pulling out those very tall crops to plant the relatively short tomatoes made a big difference in the way the farm looks right now.

Today's share has some of the spring standards: lettuce, radishes, arugula and green garlic. I cut three varieties of lettuce today and they're getting bigger all the time. I selectively thin larger heads leaving room for the small ones to get bigger for the next week. Not all of the varieties mature completely evenly, especially in this weather. The radishes are French Breakfast, and they do have some damage, but are completely edible, and probably pretty tasty, both roots and greens. I've been quick pickling my roots lately, just slicing them thinly, salting them and letting that stand for 15 minutes are so. Then I rinse off the salt and toss them with a little white vinegar. It's a nice condiment. The arugula is beautiful, even though the stand was a little thin we got some size which made up for the quantity. Green garlic this time of year is an easy one, and it's starting to get to the point where we might have scapes in a few weeks as well.

Here comes the sun

2011-05-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

And I hope this signals a bit of warm weather to go with it. It did mean that we started irrigating, a little, today, and that's a bit of extra work. But, it'll make preparing the rest of the beds for planting a lot easier, and we have a lot of beds to prepare right now. In the share today we have a small head of lettuce. I harvested Pirat, Blushed Icy Oak, and Flashy Lightning so you'll have to look in your bag to see which one you got. There are a couple of French Breakfast radishes. The greens are edible on these, but are best cooked. The radishes, unfortunately, have seen a little slug damage so just eat around that or ignore it, it shouldn't really effect anything except for how they look. We also pulled the last of the Hakurei turnips (did I say that last week?) Finally, there were some leftover cippolini onion starts from the planting last week. They looked so big and nice that we pulled them out of the potting mix, cleaned 'em up and stuck them in the shares. These will work just like green onions and should hold up to cooking very nicely. Use the whole thing, greens, through roots (but clean them a bit more before you use the roots). Oh, I almost forgot the spinach. This is more Tyee from our second outside planting. The first seems like it might have suffered from the cold early on, but this planting is beautiful and there's a nice little handful in each bag.

Planting Season

2011-05-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

It is oh so slowly warming up, and we're getting to the point where we're getting behind. This almost always happens, and it nearly always works out in the end. Yesterday we decided that it was warm enough that we could move most of the starts outside. We now have two tables outside, one inside and the heat table still has a few items, like eggplant and peppers on it. We borrow the space from Yianni, so the inside beds are being planted for him for use by his Wild Goose Farm project.

We finally got the huge cippolini onion starts in the ground yesterday, along with the shallots and seedings of Arugula and Cosmic Purple carrots, a new one for us by request. The ground is still incredibly wet, and that makes it really challenging to prepare decent beds. It makes it even harder to direct seed things like carrots, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. We got 3/4 of an inch of rain over the weekend. It does look like things are about to start warming up and drying out. This will mean we'll have to set up the irrigation soon. It also means we're going to try putting in the tomatoes as soon as we can get the beds prepared.

From SHF 2011

Great Greens

2011-05-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

That was interesting, blogger offline for the good part of a day. Here's the details on the above photo. You're looking at a share with spinach, arugula, lettuce and turnips. The Hakurei turnips are getting rave reviews as always. If you haven't had them before you really need to try eating the roots raw, so sweet. The greens are great too, but they can be a just a little stringy so I recommend chopping them up before cooking to make chewing easier.

This is the last spinach out of the greenhouse. We split our early spinach planting between the greenhouse and outside covered with row cover. I'm not sure we'll be able to harvest anything off of the outside as it looks like there might have been a little cold damage early on. The second outside planting looks much better fortunately.

The Lettuce this week comes in two forms. Some folks are getting more of the Jester, which, like Frank said, is a great crisp, with lots of character. I also cut a bunch of early Pirat red butter lettuce so some folks got that instead. There'll be more of both of these in the future.

Finally, the arugula was our second outside seeding. The first failed, although I'm not exactly sure why, probably the cold wet, but you never know.

I just stuck a second photo into the post below. Following a hot tip from Karl Grobl on his blog I decided to download the Pano App in the morning and this three shot panorama of the farm is my first attempt at using it. Pretty amazing and simple to use. I don't know Karl, but I've been following his blog for a few months now and he takes beautiful photos, mostly of people, that tell stories about other parts of the world. He's also very generous with sharing details of how he works and I appreciate that transparency.

From SHF 2011

What's Going On

2011-05-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

The bees are going crazy for the blooming brassicas on the farm. Yianni and his friend Timothy both have hives on the farm and the remnants of our gold ball turnips, pictured above, were buzzing loudly yesterday. We only clear beds when we have another crop going in, leaving the soil growing plants as for as much time as possible. Sometimes this increases our weed pressure. We're pretty good at dealing with most weeds in crops, so I'd rather leave crops in, and have them contributing to the soil, adding organic matter, and protecting the soil from the elements for as much time as possible.

From SHF 2011

It's still unseasonably cold, and the soil is warming very slowly. We've got tomatoes in the greenhouse which are ready to go out, and probably will as soon as we can get beds dug for them. Many of the crops we have out in the field are covered with floating row cover - the spun polyester you see in the foreground. This adds a bit of moderation to the climate under the fabric. Actually, most of the crops under row cover right now are using as much for warmth as they are for insect protection. Row cover is our main pest control on the farm and it helps keep flea beetle off of brassicas and rust fly off of carrots. Unfortunately it does nothing against slugs. We're hoping our new found love of mowing the paths short will help a little with slugs and other larger pests.

From SHF 2011

We have been managing to get some beds planting and we're headed into the heavy planting time of year for the next month or so. This is a leek bed, without the leeks, but with some lettuce planted on the shoulders. We ran out of time to get the leeks in, maybe on Thursday. Behind that bed is a bed of 5 Color Silverbeet (chard), and behind that some very strong looking garlic. The garlic is looking good despite there being a few more weeds than I'd like to see. We were good about keeping the weeds down until a few weeks ago, and really there aren't that many in there. Did I say we're good about dealing with weeds? Well, maybe sometimes.

Grass fed vegetables

2011-05-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

I was actually afraid it was going to be sunny today, and was happy that it drizzled and then was overcast. Strange. We got a lot of mowing done in the afternoon, and didn't have to worry about setting up irrigation yet. The mowing made me think about what a great grass growing climate we have, and how most of our compost is fed by grass in one form or another. In turn the compost feeds the crops, thus, grass fed vegetables.

In the share today we harvested some beautiful, very sweet little Hakurei turnips out of the greenhouse (while it was drizzling). If you haven't had these before, they're great raw and the greens are good cooked. You can also cook, or pickle, the roots. I also thinned more of our garlic planting for some green garlic. Frank Morton was raving about his new variety of lettuce Jester, and he gave me some seed to try, so that's what's in the share today, a little Jester. It seems to be super quick, much faster than any of the other lettuce we have out in the field. It's still early for full sized lettuce, but with a little sun we'll get there.

Still Wet and Cold

2011-04-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

But we're managing to get a few transplants in the ground and pull a few vegetables out as well. In todays share we're finishing up the first outside seeding of Pink Beauty radishes. There's a bit of slug damage, but not so bad. We finished up the first, very small, heads of Flashy Lightning lettuce. We're still going on the collard, brussels and kale raab, even though I thought two weeks ago was going to be the end of it. Today we also introduce the green garlic. This is Chesnook Red, if you're keeping score. We actually are thinning a planting that was planted closer together than we intended. I'm actually hoping this works out nicely because it gives us a little excuse to weed at the same time. In the future we might intentionally do it this way.

It is still wet and cold, and it's making seeding in the fields nearly impossible. It's also making transplanting very messy, and the plants are just stalled in the ground. I think we'll be ok for the spring and early summer, especially if it warms up in May, but it would be a lot nicer, and a bit less work, if we could get a little warm, dry weather.

Boxes

2011-04-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

We've been using used wax produce boxes for harvest and for bringing the shares to town for the past two seasons. They're free when you can find them at the local coops and they last for a few months if treated well. When they fall apart they can't be recycled, although I understand that Portland food business that are using commercial composting can now put them in the compost. Even though they're free, there are some definitely annoyances with them. They're a bit flimsy, especially after a few uses. They have gaps and have to be folded and unfolded to store well. They're not standard sizes so we spend time finding the right ones, and then figuring out how to stack them. My partner (in life, not on the farm) complains about the way they look sitting on our porch, and I admit they're not beautiful. I've been telling her for two years that I was going to build wooden boxes. It turns out that these Ikea boxes were almost as cheap as buying the wood I needed to build the boxes and they were pre cut so they saved quite a bit of labor.

From SHF 2011

I made a linoleum cut to print our name on the boxes (in hopes that we don't loose them, or at least if we do it'll be some advertising in some random spot). Yesterday while it was pouring rain Kji and I printed up the boxes and put them together. We'll use these to hold the bags at the drop sites so look for them there. After it poured rain all morning we did head out to the farm to check on the greenhouse, which was just fine, and to look at, of all things, some tweaks to our irrigation system. This week, believe it or not, is usually the first week of irrigation season - not this year, but soon maybe.

From SHF 2011

Share Three

2011-04-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

A few new items in the share this week, and we start to move away from the all brassica share. There are two brassicas: radishes and a mix of raab from collards, brussels sprouts, spring raab and kale. The radishes are a new variety for us, pink beauty, and they do look quite nice. The seed is from our friend Frank at Wild Garden Seed. In the non-brassica category we've broken out the lettuce and hope to have a steady supply for the rest of the spring. These are the first, very small, heads. They're mostly flashy lightning, but a few off types are in there as well. We've got a bit of baby Tyee spinach as well. We've grown Bloomsdale in the past, which is an older variety with a lot of history. The Tyee is straight up commercial organic F1 hybrid seed and it is way, way more productive for us. I hate to have to say that, but this is the first really good germination we've gotten in almost two years, and the plants are looking good, even in the cold. It also has an organic coating on the seeds which is supposed to improve germination, and that certainly hasn't hurt. We hope to have more spinach in a couple of weeks if all goes well outside.

Beautiful Brassicas

2011-04-14T16:17:00.001-07:00

From SHF 2011

Once again, a brassica filled share. Today we have (from left to right) mizuna, kale raab, gold frill mustard, and arugula. Some of the arugula and gold frill are a little spicy in the mustard way as they're getting very close to bolting (and actually a few already have). If you don't like that flavor, cooked is better than raw. The mizuna is very mild raw, and can also be cooked. The kale raab, which is probably the last of the year, is very sweet and is great cooked by also makes a good snack raw.

From SHF 2011

In other news, we're finally considering a power tool for the farm (other than the numerous construction tools we've used to build benches and shelves). Yianni borrowed a Neuton electric mower from his parents (who are great CSA members). It doesn't have a lot of power, but it's super light weight, very easy manuver and to adjust, and quiet and it may be the perfect thing for our sod pathways. We're appreciating the sod in the rain, although it might be better if we just got rid of it all together as we have on half of the beds on the farm.

Spring Raab

2011-04-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

First spring harvest of 2011 and we have three different raabs in the share, along with a small bunch of radishes. Some of the radishes are a bit oversized, but they're still tasty (at least the ones I sampled were). The raabs are from our overwintered rainbow lacinato kale, a bit of mizuna from the greenhouse (those are the ones with the yellow flowers), and some actual "spring raab" broccoli raab, also from the greenhouse. None of the items in the share will keep well so cook them up soon (or eat them raw!). I love raab as a side, sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt. It's also great on pasta or in soup, especially the heartier kale raab. The radish greens are also edible and can be prepared the same way. The roots are fantastic with butter and salt on a baguette.

Spring Break Is Over

2011-04-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

We take three breaks from harvest during the year - Thanksgiving, winter and spring. The winter break conveniently coincides with Christmas and New Years, a time of year that lots of folks travel. We take a spring break to give ourselves a little breather, and because this time of year happens to be one of the most difficult to get produce out of the ground, especially without plastic tunnels. At the end of winter most storage crops have rotted or are starting to produce spring growth. This is a time of year when the first greens and roots are just starting to get going, and in a cold, wet year like this one if they're outside, they're struggling.

From SHF 2011

We do have some space under plastic, and that's where a good part of our share is going to come from for the first week or two of April. It's also where we've been hiding out, seeding flats of vegetable starts, and hoping it'll dry out outside in time for us to shove them in the ground.

From SHF 2011

I spent my spring break this year visiting friends and farms in Southern Oregon and Northern California, putting almost 2000 miles on a rental car. Everyone I talked to, from California's Central Valley, all the way up Portland (and even friends in BC) were super excited about the little bit of sun we got last week. I sure hope some of that sun and warmth comes back soon, for all of our sakes.

Pizza Party

2011-03-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

Sunday was our spring party, and, as we did in the fall, we fired up the oven and made pizza! Turn out was great, a mix of CSA share holders, friends, and fellow farmers.

From SHF 2011

Lots of great food besides pizza as well. The weather even cooperated with only a few minor drizzles. The farm looks horrendous this time of year. Everything is ragged from the winter, beds are soaked and muddy, and new growth is just starting. Kji commented on the way out that he was glad we're having a party this time of year so that folks can see what we're dealing with. Kind of nice to give people a chance to see the difference between the farm at the end of winter and the beginning of summer.

From SHF 2011

That's just when we'll be doing it again, at the end of spring, when summer is just starting. Thanks to everyone who came out and enjoyed the afternoon with us, we had a great time and really enjoyed ourselves.

Thanks to Dave for taking over my camera while I made pizzas and actually taking some photos with it, even a few of me, which I don't often get.

The Big Brassica Share

2011-03-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

Lots of brassicas in the share today, the last of this year's winter share. Most of the share is greens, but there are two other little additions: turnips and popcorn! Yes, that's right, I said popcorn. Japanese Hulless popcorn to be specific, a small, delicate variety. More on that in a minute. First a little explanation of the rest of the contents. The turnips have their greens, which are actually the main reason we're giving them out, as the roots are on the small (but usable) side. There is also Rainbow Lacinato kale, and a bit of the raab (flower buds) from the kale as well. This will keep better than anything except for the popcorn and turnip roots. The one non-brassica green is chicory. We scavenged a variety of different chicories, ranging from radicchios and castlefranco to small sugarloafs. You'll have to look in your bag to see what you got but these will be good in salad, especially if you slice the leaves up and soak them in cold water first. On top of all of these greens we have a number of smaller leaves which will not keep well and should be eaten in a salad, or cooked, soon.

From SHF 2011

The different leaf types are pictured above and from right to left they are: Mizuna, Arugula, Gold Frill, and Spring Raab. The arugula is a little spicy, the others are all very mild.

From SHF 2011

Back to the popcorn, there's just enough for a little snack. If you haven't made popcorn before you'll need a pot with a lid. Turn the burner to high and heat enough oil in the bottom of the pan to coat it generously. I toss in popcorn to make single layer that covers about 3/4 of the bottom of the pan and put the lid on. When I hear the first kernels pop I start shaking the pan back and forth on the burner to keep the kernels moving. Popping frequency should increase, and then decrease. When the popping sounds start to spread out to more than 5 or 10 seconds between them I pour the contents into a bowl immediately and then top with whatever I feel like. This popcorn is good enough, in my opinion, to not need anything extra.

Photo Extravaganza

2011-03-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

From SHF 2011

I really wanted to title this, "Happy Pi Day," but I'm a day late. It was a good pi day though, which I realized when I was calculating the diameter of the plywood rounds to cut for a new bed marker (11.5" - guess what circumference that makes...) Not only did I actually use pi yesterday in the normal course of my work, Kji just happened to have a little pecan pie with him that he shared with me at lunch. I love pie. And pi.

From SHF 2011

Since I haven't been so good about taking, and posting, photos recently, I made sure to take a few yesterday. It was a far more productive day than I was expecting. It's been so incredibly wet I wasn't expecting to get much done, but we did pick up our seed potato from Sauvie Island Organics, who were nice enough to receive our order (along with 5800lbs of seed for themselves and a bunch of other local farms). Our seed is certified organic and certified seed and it comes from Colorado. That's a long story, but I've been working with the grower for a number of years now, and he has good seed that is way, way cheaper than buying in small quantities from folks in Idaho or Washington. We're expect to plant about 50 lbs of seed this year, and we've set it out in the greenhouse to warm up and start "peeping" (the technical term I learned from the potato specialist at OSU).

From SHF 2011

Our starts are doing pretty well, and we actually had a part of a bed ready to go out in the field from last Monday's preparation so we plugged some spinach starts into the mud, covered them with row cover and crossed our fingers. This time of year it's just not pretty out in the field but we do what we can to get a few things in that we think might make it early in the spring. Last week's brassica seeding has already germinated and with a little luck we'll have early radishes and arugula.

From SHF 2011

The beds are nice and dry in the greenhouse. We plugged more of the spinach starts into a bed in the greenhouse and reseeded some hakurei turnips and carrots after the ones that we seeded in January failed to really do anything. I'm more and more tempted to give up and just cover the entire farm in plastic. Then I hear from my friend down in Southern Oregon that they lost a house to wind this weekend and I realize that nothing is perfect.

The Bottom Line

2011-03-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

Seems that things have been getting so busy on the farm that there's no time for posts recently. I'll try to remedy that right now, although I have to admit that yesterday's relative dryness got us so busy I didn't even stop to snap a photo. We did get the first outside seedings in the ground - a bit later than planned, but that's to be expected this time of year. We're quickly filling up the propagation tables in the greenhouse and next week, if it's dry enough, we'll start plugging some of those starts into the field and getting out from under the plastic.

Today? Today I'm doing my taxes. Did the farm make any money last year? According to a bit of accounting Kji and I did a few weeks back we didn't do nearly as well as we did in 2009 but it felt like we made some progress towards the future. We're hoping that pays off some this year, and with the seasons filling up it seems like it might. The bottom line is that we estimate the time put into the farm last season was compensated at a little over $7/hr, compared to over $9/hr in 2009. That's after expenses, but before taxes, and no, there are no "benefits" like health insurance or a retirement plan worked in there. Fortunately there are some other benefits - mostly in the form of doing something we love, in a great place, for great people.

Last year was a tough growing season, and we also didn't fill up the CSA, or sell much of our surplus produce from not having sold all of the CSA shares. These things were somewhat connected, at least mentally. It was easier to have a smaller CSA and not worry about all of the crops that were failing from the cold wet season, give out some more of the ones that were doing well, and wait for this season. That's the short explanation I'm giving for why we didn't make what we hoped to. Our goal for this coming season is to break $10/hr, which I would be very happy with.

What Snow?

2011-02-25T08:30:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

There was snow on the farm, but it all melted by the afternoon. Fortunately we've got the reach in greenhouse all buttoned up because it's cold out there this morning. The spinach is up and looking good, as is some of the lettuce. We've got shallots and onions germinating as well, and yesterday we seeded the leeks and more lettuce, always more lettuce.

Unfortunately we're seeing yet more deer damage in the fields. Those buggers never stop. We're going to have to build some stronger barriers next winter. In the meantime, we're hoping it warms up, and maybe even dries out a little later next week so we can finally start planting outside, in the ground!

From SHF 2011

By the way - party/potluck at the farm on Sunday, March 20, noon to 3. Contact me if you want to come out. We'd love to see you there.

Oh, and one other piece of news I should pass on: Spring shares are sold out and there's a waiting list. We still have summer, fall and winter shares available but they're starting to fill up too. If you want one, or two, or three, let us know.

More Construction

2011-02-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

Kji is taking a little vacation and while he's away I've been madly building accessories for our seed propagation. Friday I built a nice tall table for seeding flats, and then promptly used it to seed 10 flats of onions, shallots, lettuce, chard and parsley; nice to not have to hunch over to see what I was doing. I also built a table for flats that come out of our reach in greenhouse (which will be happening on next week!)

From SHF 2011

Today I finished the lid for the reach in greenhouse that we never finished last year. If it works it'll keep things warmer, and vent better. If it doesn't work it'll cut out too much light, make the seedlings leggy, and then fry them when it doesn't vent properly. I also had to change out all of the sprinkler heads for our automatic greenhouse water today, as they had clogged with deposits over the course of last season and were not giving even coverage anymore. Fortunately I had three spares and they only cost us about 60 cents a piece.

PS - small photos today to mask the fact that they're a bit out of focus. I didn't notice that my camera's auto focus was off when I took these, oops. I shouldn't rush like that.

Missing Harvest

2011-02-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

I took a quick look in on the fields this morning and checked in on the greenhouse. It was cold. I'm not sure if you can see the big fat snow flakes speeding by in the photo of the field, but it was just starting to dump when I took this. It looks like we'll be better off if we wait for the next harvest day, two weeks from tomorrow, before we take any more out of the field. I'm hoping that we'll have a little more growth on some of our greens by then. After tomorrow, which we'll miss, we only have two more winter harvests scheduled.

Instead of harvesting tomorrow we'll have to finish fixing our propagation set up and seed a little more. Either I forgot to flip the on switch or our heat mats have died - I'll find out tomorrow when I come back with my electrical tester (if they're working they should be warm in the morning, too). We've got lots more to seed and plenty of construction projects to keep us busy in the forecasted bad weather. Full moon later this week. For those of you keeping track this is the time to transplant if for some reason you have starts this early.

Seeding starts

2011-02-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

Monday I finally got the planting plan finalized for the season and all printed out, at which point I realized we were a couple of weeks behind on greenhouse seeding. Not really such a big deal, but it really is time to be getting starts going in the greenhouse so Kji and I made a little trip to the building supply today to get a few parts for upgrading our "reach in" greenhouse to a "reach in" greenhouse with a built in germination chamber - very fancy. We didn't quite finish getting it all set up, but we did manage to seed 10 flats of lettuce and spinach, and hook up the water and bottom heat so that they'll have a good chance at germinating before we get back from a farming conference next week.

Some of the most exciting news (for us) is that the spring CSA shares might actually be full. This would mark the first season where we actually filled up in advance, and that's really what we need to be doing every season to make this sustainable. I say might because I haven't actually entered all the names into the system yet, or received payment, but I'm optimistic.

Last of the winter roots

2011-02-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

The share turned out very nicely today. We pulled an impressive amount of mache out of the weeds. This is an incredible little green, which has been out in the open, no protection from cold, or deer or other varmints and it's beautiful and tender and green. It makes a great little side salad, just wash the florettes thoroughly as they tend to hold onto soil. Dress them with a little oil, lemon and salt and eat 'em up. This green is also know as corn salad, and I am guessing that it is a winter weed in grains, like rye, and wheat. All grains used to be called corn.

Also in the share are the last of the scorzonera roots. I peeled and chunked up the last round of these and boiled them in a curry sauce - excellent. We also harvested turnips, which are mostly there for the greens, but you can eat the roots as well. The turnips were planted very tightly so the roots didn't size up as much as we would have liked.

To round out the share there are a few kale leaves and a couple of sprigs of thyme. Not bad for a start to February.

New Moon Seeding

2011-02-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

We thought we'd take advantage of the new moon and try a seeding in the hoop house. The days just before the new moon are generally good for direct seeding crops and the weather right now is also indicating good seeding, as the soil had dried a bit to be workable (it's really usually that way under plastic anyway) and we have a bit of a warm up and precipitation coming in the next few days.

We also took a look at what we have out in the fields and decided we will do a harvest tomorrow. We'll see if we can get some nice kale, collard and turnip greens, a bit of mache, and the last of the scorzonera. Check back tomorrow to see how it worked, it's going to be a bit dependent on how fast things thaw out tomorrow after the expected freeze tonight.

Shares Available

2011-01-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

The shot above is Kji out in the field last week. Today I'm in the office, trying to get the seed order in and letting everyone know that we have shares available. Spring, summer, fall 2011 and winter 2012 shares are available right now, and sign ups now help pay for that seed order and the work we'll be doing any day now to start the seeds and get the plants in the ground. Details on how to sign up for a share are at our other website.

Our plan for the season is to do 40 shares in the spring, 70 in the summer and fall and 30 next winter. This is a few more than we did last year, but not as many as we had planned for. Kji also is expanding his other business in edible landscaping and is hoping to sell a little a farmers markets, including plant starts. You can follow news on that front over at his Edible Horizons blog.

More winter goodness

2011-01-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

After a bit of standing around, scratching out heads, and looking at what we have left in the fields we decided to harvest a little heavier today. Our thought was that the way the voles and deer have been going for it lately, the vegetables are safer in your fridge, and really they'll probably last at least as long there. The share has brussels, maybe the last of them, although there are some small ones out there that could size up, and we'll probably get some raab in the late winter. We pulled the very last of the leeks out of the field. We stripped a few more leaves off the kale today, those should keep going for while. We also pulled out the last of the salsify roots. Some of the salsify has a bit of greens, which does make a nice salad addition.

I've given most of this info before, but if you're wondering about using the less usual vegetables, like salsify and brussels, here are a few tips. The salsify is very similar to scorzonera. Peel it, slice it and fry it, or chunk it and boil it. Either way it's a nice addition to greens or other roots. I especially like it with sauteed kale.

The brussels need a bit of peeling as well, there are some not so nice wrapper leaves on the outside, but the insides should be good. I like to half them, sautee them for a few minutes in olive oil and then add a bit of balsamic and water to the pan, cover it and let them steam for a few more minutes until most of the liquid is gone and they're dark green but still crispy. They're also excellent shredded with a similar treatment.

Kale and leeks, I assume those don't need much explanation at this point - good in everything, pretty much.

I"m not sure when the next harvest will be. We'll take a look in two weeks, but we might have to wait for some more late winter growth before we pull anything else out of the field. We'll let you all know and keep you up to date on the first seedings of the year that will be happening in a couple of weeks as well.

Hoop House Happiness

2011-01-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

From SHF 2011

Kji and I are slogging away in the office today, trying to hammer out the remains of the plan for 2011, and finish the accounting for 2010. While we're in the office the seeds we planted in December in the hoop house are starting to grow, and we're hoping for some fresh salad greens and radishes in late February or early March from these little guys. With the winter season we're only harvesting every other week so this week is an "off" week for us. No harvest today, but still plenty of work to do.

First Winter Share

2011-01-06T12:49:00.001-08:00

From SHF 2011

A bit smaller than we planned for, but it should all be tasty and I'm really looking forward to some vegetables right now. We managed to keep the deer away from enough of the red savoy cabbage to give out a small head to everyone. Keeping with the small theme we planted these on tight spacing to force them to make smaller heads, and for the most part it worked. They were little ice balls this morning, very cold on the hands. We also dug scorzonera (and a little salsify) out of the partially frozen ground.

From SHF 2011

Scorzonera is very similar to the salsify we gave out earlier in the year, and can be used the same way. It's sticky and browns quickly when peeled, but if you put it in acidulated water it prevents the browning, or you can just cook it right away. Sauteing or boiling both work well. To round out the share we pulled a few more leeks and these will be nice on their own, or in conjunction with the other two items.

The shares are smaller for a few reasons, mostly just because winter is unpredictable. There's a great article on this that I read yesterday by Courtney Cowgill that explains some of this. There are a lot of things that went wrong with some of the crops we were hoping to give out. The voles ate a lot of them, we're working on that problem. We were short on transplants when we went to plant due to poor germination, which was probably due to seeding during the only really hot weeks we got this summer. The list goes on, but really we're doing ok and we should even have enough for at least another harvest or two, or even more, this winter.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

From SHF CSA

Nothing like a nice warm fire to keep you cozy on a cold January day (although I admit the photo is from September and I'm no where near a fire right now).

I also have to admit, I haven't actually been out to the farm for more than two weeks! Kji, on the other hand, spent his holiday out there house sitting and reports that things seem to be hanging on. I didn't get any report on the number of voles trapped in that time.

Winter CSA will start this week, weather permitting, and we'll see how many harvests we can pull out in the next three months. We've settled on a plan for the 2011 spring, summer and fall shares, as well as the 2012 winter shares; prices too, so sign up now before they're all gone!

Also, and the fire reminded me of this, we've set dates for seasonal open houses/farm parties so mark your calendars. More details will follow, but the dates for now are March 20th, June 18th, and September 17th. There will be fun involved, definitely food, most likely some portion of that food will come from the above pictured oven, and maybe Kji will show off his mad hooping skills during the party this time, not just after...

First Days of Winter

2010-12-23T08:20:00.000-08:00

From SHF CSA

Finally, the days are starting to get longer again. We're officially on a two week winter break but I wanted to mention that I've posted prices for the 2011/12 shares on the website here. I've also put up our plans for what we're hoping to put in the spring, summer, fall and winter shares and there's additional info on those on the website at here.

Hope you're all having great holidays and we'll see you in the new year.

End of Fall

2010-12-13T14:24:00.000-08:00

This is the final week of Fall shares. Pull out your vegetable peelers. Today we harvested all of the remaining carrots in the field (some of them will be held for Thursday) and there's a good bit of surface damage from carrot rust fly. Peel it off and they'll be just fine. In the old days (think, a few years ago) I wouldn't have given carrots like this out, but really they're fine to eat and I'd rather have someone eat the good parts than toss them in the compost pile immediately. We also harvested collards (Thursday will be getting kale, I think), and we thinned the winter turnips. The winter turnips are a variety called Gold Ball and they are more of a traditional turnip, better for cooking than the Hakurei, not so good for fresh eating. We also cut the greens off and put those in the shares. Usually we'd just leave the greens on but it was easier to fit them in the bags, and they two will actually keep better separated, so we separated them. Turnip greens can be steamed or sauteed and they have a little bite, kind of like mustard greens.

A Little Wet

2010-12-09T15:52:00.001-08:00

The weather is noticeably wet, but it didn't really have much effect on the harvest today. Kji pulled leeks and salsify while I scrounged all the random chicories I could. Different shares have different chicories. The photo above shows a share with escarole and frisse hearts, and small radicchio and castlefranco heads.

While the harvest was relatively smooth today, our transportation to and from the farm was a bit trickier than usual. My car was broken into while I was away, leaving the steering column damaged and so I called Kji for a ride. Kji called me back after his car wouldn't start in the morning, which left us borrowing a car from the very generous Tricia. Unfortunately this also means that Kji is stuck doing all of the deliveries tonight. With a little luck we'll have at least one of our vehicles running by Monday.

Chilly Mornings

2010-12-06T22:32:00.000-08:00

Hello,
Kji here, giving the update of this weeks share while Josh is spreading words of wisdom over on the East coast. Oh, how I do miss the guy. Venturing out in the crisp morning air to put your hands in the damp, frigid soil is so much easier when you have someone to share it with. Nothing like a little fall farming camaraderie.

So, in Josh's absence I ventured into the greenhouse instead. We decided to sow some hardy greens in hopes of having a late winter harvest. Arugula, mizuna, mibuna, and green frill to name a few. In just a few short weeks we will be gaining daylight back, which means these little seedlings should be ready to harvest by late winter.

Okay, Okay, enough about that. I'm sure you all want to know what we are harvesting now. The highlight of this weeks share is the salsify. Don't be fooled, it is not a parsnip, although you may choose to prepare it in much of the same way. This hardy root crop of the aster family, is also known as "oyster root" for it's oyster like flavor. Although if you don't like oysters, don't be put off by this description. Remeber, these delicous roots don't actually come from the sea.
I have enjoyed them roasted with other roots in the oven or pan fried alongside potatoes. You may notice a discoloration accompaning a sap when you cut into them. No need to fret. This is normal and will disipate when cooked.

Along with the salsify I harvested leeks and a wide variety of chicories, from which you will get one or two. Due to the insesent vole pressure we have been experiencing I had to glean from varies beds. Think of it as a bit of a surprise bag. This exercise will go along well with the fact that I don't have a picture of the share this week. Don't worry, Josh will be back for Thursday harvest.

Cheers,
Kji

Thanksgiving fallout

2010-11-29T14:26:00.000-08:00

A close inspection of the fields this morning showed that we weren't the only ones feasting over the Thanksgiving holiday. The voles had a field day. We lost at least half of our radicchio and castlefranco chicories, as well as almost all of our remaining beets. We didn't even bother to check on the carrots, but I'm sure their fairing only a little better. Traps have been set and we're set to order more as well to see if we can put a dent in this year's exploding population.

The frost did minor damage on some of the chicories but most everything else we were hoping would make it through did. This week's share has a bit of kale, that should be sweetened by last weeks freeze, as well as on or another chicory (we were hunting a bit for ones that weren't already snacked on by voles), and new for this year: brussels sprouts and root parsley.

The brussels will need a little cleaning. Trim the butt ends and peel a leaf or two back. If you want a quick way to prepare them I like to cut them in half, pan sear them in olive oil and then sprinkle with a little balsamic and water in the pan, cover and let them steam in the juices for six or so minutes until they are just cooked, but not too soft.

The root parsley can be used like most other roots. It's great in a soup or flavoring a stuffing, or something like that. Think parsnip, only parsley flavored. These are very small samples, as the first seeding this summer didn't germinate and so we had to reseed. I didn't think these would do anything, but our wonderful volunteer, Lindsay, weeded them when they were young and they took off. These are also a vole favorite, and the big ones have mostly been pre-eaten, leaving us with the smaller sorts. Usually the tops are still intact through frost, but the very hard freeze we had last week softened them up so we took them off.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

From SHF CSA

Not all vegetables from the farm, but pretty much all vegetables, with a healthy dose of wheat as well in the forms of gravy, stuffing and a delicious post dinner pie crust. We're hoping to have brussels for the shares soon (these were from Sauvie Island Organics, as well as the potatoes and squash). The stuffing featured the celeriac tops, carrots, and leeks from the farm.

Hope you all had great Thanksgiving dinners and we'll see you next week!

Looking back

2010-11-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

From SHF CSA

We're busy planning next year's crops right now. Yesterday I was solo on the farm and forgot to take a photo in the rush of getting the vegetables harvested and packed. I also forgot to post to the blog so today you get an old photo and a late post. The photo above is the field before we started.

From SHF CSA

Here's photo from this summer. The building has changed, the fence is gone, and we've taken out much of the sod and replaced it with vegetables.

From SHF CSA

And, we expanded into the field that used to be fenced. Next year we're not really planning on expanding, although we're considering adding a few other ways to get our product, other than just the CSA. These are photos from September of this year; not quite current, but like I said, I forgot to take photos yesterday.

Next week is Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving, probably because I love eating and it really lends itself well to that activity. To make things simpler for ourselves, and for our members who also likely have crazy schedules on Thanksgiving week, we take the entire week off from harvesting and delivering and we leave everyone time to just worry about preparing food. Happy Thanksgiving, we'll be back in two weeks.

Celeriac

2010-11-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

From SHF CSA

Celeriac is new this week so I want to give a few notes on it, but first I have to say that I'm really excited that folks are appreciating the chicories and are posting on how to they're using it. Right on! I love hearing how the shares are getting eaten. Chicories are relatively new for me. I got interested in eating them, and thus growing them about 5 or so years ago and once you start looking there's a huge amount of info that starts flowing in.

Back to celeriac, this is not quite as new to me, although it's not one that most people around here have grown up with (including myself). Basically it's similar to a potato, or maybe a turnip, but it has a flavor like celery. I really like to make mashed celery with potatoes. Think mashed potatoes, only substitute celeriac for about 1/2 of the potatoes, excellent! It makes excellent gratins, soups, and salads. We're also giving you the greens, which is even less common. These are very similar to the celery we've been giving out, good for cooking, not so good for fresh eating. A number of years ago a Greek farmer came to visit the farm I was working on and we happened to be harvesting celeriac that day. She was outraged that we were trimming off all of the greens. "You can cook those," she said. In her honor, we're leaving you the greens, in case you want to cook them.

One more note on the celeriac: it's a bit smaller than we'd like and I believe we stuffed it a bit closer together in the bed than we should have. Also, the field rodents love it, and they seem to love the biggest heads best, eating the interiors until there is just a thin shell of the root holding up the stalks and leaves. It's an skill that they hone in the beets and carrots and use just as impressively in the celeriac. We've finally put out some traps in hopes of reducing their damage but we're too late for the biggest heads.

So as not to ignore the other items in the shares, we also have a lovely leek, another head of the escarole bionda (yay, more chicory), and a few more Hakurei turnips. The turnips were an afterthought in our plantings this fall, and they've come to replace the two seedings of parnsips which both basically failed to germinate earlier in the year. We're very sad about the parsnips, but the turnips have been quite nice.

Purple Peacock and Tres Fine

2010-11-11T15:50:00.000-08:00

From SHF CSA

Today's share is similar to Monday's but there are a few variations. First, we're substituting the purple peacock broccoli for the kale that was in Monday's share. I'm not a huge broccoli fan, but this broccoli kale cross is really tasty and the variations in the color and shape are beautiful, with cut leaves, and everything from deep purple, to green, to white. I'm hoping we'll continue to harvest side shoots occasionally from this unique broccoli.

We also ran short on the sugarloaf so some of you are getting the tres fine frisée instead. We do have more sugarloaf planted, but it wasn't quite ready. The rodents are loving the chicories, so it's a bit of a race to get to them first but with a little luck we'll have those in a few weeks. The photo below is the frisée, with the finely cut leaves, next to the immature sugarloaf.

From SHF CSA

We have them covered with floating row cover to protect them from the deer (who also love them) but it actually creates haven for the rodents. Actually the canopy is so dense they don't need much more shelter. The cover also helps prevent frost damage, not that it's actually been that cold in the fields yet.