New Leaf Organics
One Farming Mama
It certainly has started to feel a bit like Fall out there, at least in the mornings. The ground stays so wet now from the dew it is comical to see our boots and pants after harvest in the mornings. The shift always feels both happy and sad for me; happy as the weeds slow down and we can finally stay ahead of the weeding, but sad because that means we have definitely rounded the hump to Fall. This always seems to be the time when we all start to panic about the things we haven’t been able to squeeze into our Summer and all the projects left on the list for next time. There is never a shortage of projects at a farm but what we do often lack is the time to reflect enough to choose smart projects for the long term farm vision. Usually I end up mulling all these things over in my own head, at the end of the season when I am too fried to be rational, but this year I am enlisting the help of my capable crew. Hopefully they can help balance out my perspective a little bit and add a little creativity to our project list. Our plants are really responding to this cooler weather shift. The broccoli and cauliflower are all perked up. The greens are on their way back, the raspberries are huge and delicious, and the winter squash is beginning to turn. Our sweet potatoes are approaching sellable size, so we can look forward to those in the next few weeks. Our next batches of cukes are on their way so we can finally say goodbye to the now really ugly last round, good riddance. We have mowed our potatoes to get them ready for storage time, and just today we topped our brussel sprouts to send all the growing energy down to the sprouts. All this talk is not meant to rush you into Fall if you are not yet there. We are still knee deep in tomatoes for sure! Our peppers and eggplants are just coming into their own. Next week is the last week for those of you who only signed up for the summer share. If you would like to continue on for the Fall, just let me know. If you know anyone else who might want to join for the Fall GLory harvest share, send them our info so they can begin in September. Have a nice week,Jill, Abe, Drew, and Brittany
Skillet Macaroni and Cheese with Broccoli and Garlicserves 4
10 0z broccoli florets3 1/2 cups water plus more as needed1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk12 oz elbow macaronisalt and pepper1 t cornstarch1/2 t dry mustard1/4 t tabasco2 cups shredded cheddar cheese2 cups shredded monterey jack cheese3 T unsalted butter1 T olive oil3 garlic cloves, minced1/4 t red pepper flakes
Cook olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes in skillet over medium high heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Bring 3 1/2 cups water, 1 cup evaporated milk, macaroni, and 1/2 t salt to a simmer in 12 inch non-stick skillet over high heat, stirring often, until macaroni is tender, 8-10 minutes. Whisk remaining 1/2 cup evap milk, cornstarch, mustard, and tabasco together, then stir into skillet. Simmer until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Off heat, stir in cheeses, one handful at a time, adding water as needed to adjust consistency. Add in broccoli. Stir in butter and season with salt and pepper.
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Hello There,
Well it seems like it is a season of feast or famine, as far as water goes. The farm is now officially well watered once again. With this cloud cover can come disease, unfortunately. Our outdoor tomatoes are beginning to show signs of early blight. This is not the same as Late Blight which essentially kills off your plants in a very fast and disgusting way. Instead, early blight is more like a slow, suffering for your plants, and incidentally, us as well. WIth the return of the sun the spreading will slow, but in the mean time, once it has arrived we have to try to be as careful as possible not to spread it around the farm, and most importantly not into the tomato greenhouse. Some farms really take extreme precautions, asking people to sterilize their clothes, shoes, etc.. before walking around the farm. We will just be trying to keep anyone who has been near the infected area on the farm out of the uninfected areas.
Otherwise, we are beginning to prepare some of the fields for Winter with cover cropping. We just mowed down the cover crop in our asparagus field and will begin to get it ready for Winter Rye. Winter Rye is one of the only cover cropping options we have living in our climate. When you plant it in September, or even later, it can manage to overwinter, holding on to our precious soil from erosion and weather, and then sprout again first thing in the Spring. This will give it a solid few weeks head start before we could get in there with our tractor to plant something mid April. Part of what I love about farming is the necessity to always be thinking months and months ahead to what you would like to find in your fields come next year.
Along with the abundance of tomatoes we find ourselves with, the artichokes are really starting to go crazy. These plants we definitely grow just because they are so cool to look at in the field. Yes, my family loves them, but they really are pretty awesome to just look at. I don’t have any real creative ideas for how to prepare them other then the old fashioned way involving lots of melted butter; why mess with perfection?
Have a good week. Thinking about canning tomatoes? This is the week.
Jill and Crew
hello everyone, As I am writing this I am happily listening to the sound of raindrops pelting our roof. Rain right now is a good thing. Our plants were starting to look a bit depressed out there and our half-hearted attempts at irrigation haven’t quite been cutting it. Our Fall crops have been having a hard time germinating, so this is truly music to my ears. Today we just began pulling all our onions out of the ground. This is definitely one of those glory tasks. It may not feel so glamorous as you are bent over the beds for quite some time hunting for each and every onion, but when you are done; that is the glory. We are not quite done, actually, but we’ve made some serious piles in the barn so far. This week we are missing two of our crew members and suddenly it feels like we move in slow motion out there. Usually I start the week with a large list of things that would be fantastic to get done and little by little we cross em off. This week I haven’t bothered making that list because it pretty much takes each day just for us to keep up with harvest, delivery, and crisis weeding. It feels kind of refreshing to not be so attached to a piece of paper for a few days. Of course it is also a little daunting not getting to cross much off this week.
On that note, tomatoes are in. If you have any desires for canning this Summer, plan ahead and let me know how many pounds you can use and when you’d like them. If we know ahead of time we can set aside 2nds tomatoes for you and save you some money. Otherwise, just eat them fresh and enjoy the taste of Summer. Since we no longer grow corn on our farm usually I buy some in and have it available for folks to buy at pick up time. I will plan on having local corn here for the next two weeks (not tomorrow) if you’d like some.
Have a nice week. Enjoy Field Days.Jill and crew
Tomato Salad with Corn and Basilserves 4
3 T olive oil1 T white wine vinegar1 shallot mincedsalt and pepper1 pound mixed tomatoes, diff sizes and colors1/2 cup corn kernels1 dzn fresh basil leaves
In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, wine vinegar, and shallot. Season highly with salt and pepper. Set aside for 10 minutes for flavors to blend. Core large tomatoes. Halve through the stem end, lay cut side down and slice thinly. Halve cherry toms. Arrange tomatoes attractively on plate and top with cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle with corn kernels. Tear basil leaves in small pieces and scatter over all. Spoon dressing evenly over salad.
Well, I can’t quite figure out how to make this picture appear the right way on the screen, so hopefully you won’t find this sideways glance at our onions as disconcerting. Infact, I’m hoping you will find it inspiring. This is one of the beds of our onions, almost ready for harvest. As you can see some of the greens are beginning to topple over as a sign of their maturity. This is a new variety of onions that I chose to grow based strictly on the catalog description and it actually seems just as great as they described. It is not often that we have such instant success with a new variety, so we are very pleased to see these huge beautiful white onions coming our way. Some of you last week took some tomatillos. This is the first time we’ve grown them on this farm. I actually swore off growing them when I farmed in California because of how much they re-seed themselves everywhere. Apparently I have forgotten that problem and now they are coming on gangbusters. They really do have a unique flavor and make fantastic salsas. We hope you like them and are also open to trying something else new for us, husk cherrys. They are just starting to ripen now so you will see them in the next couple of weeks. No one on our crew can really decide what exactly they taste like or if they are good or bad. Abe, is particularly excited about them and has been looking at the plants everyday for about a month now. Drew thinks they taste like buttered bread. Brittany is more in the candy or fruit category. You tell us what you think.Have a great week!Jlll and crew
Saun’s Fresh Salsa Verde
8 oz fresh tomatillos2 scallions, sliced1 t seeded jalapeno1/2 t minced garlic2 T fresh lime juice1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantrosalt
Remove the papery skin and stems from the tomatillos. Cut into quarters and place in a saucepan. Cover the tomatillos with water and bring to a boil. Continue cooking until they are just soft, 2-3 minutes. Drain, rinse under cold water and cool to room temp. Place the cooked tomatillos, the scallions, the jalapeno, garlic, and lime juice in a processor. Pulse on and off for about 10 times until well combined. Add the cilantro and pulse another ten times. Remove the salsa to a bowl and season with salt. Serve at room temperature. Makes 1 cup.
Hello again out there,
Often when I drive around Vermont and see all those huge, flat, lush fields for miles I feel a bit envious. Farm planning and management must be so much simpler when you just have one huge field to get to know each year. Here at our farm, however, in case you haven’t had the time to walk about yet, we are blessed with gobs of little tiny fields broken up by large hills, major drainage issues, and rocks way beyond moveable size. One such advantage of this layout is that you can very easily, and not even obviously kind of forget about our far fields. We all know the kind of forgetting I am talking about; more like avoiding without saying it out loud. Well, today we have finally finished weeding our scary far field of greens. No trumpets or sirens went off that we could hear, but a small victory for the weeders nonetheless. Of course the weeds will keep growing but now our crops have a head start which I hope they will use to their, and our, advantage.
Other news on the farm is the quest for the perfect garlic braid. Each of the crew has tried their hand at making them this season, with varying degrees of crafty success. I’ve been hanging back until the perfect technique is found and then I’ll go for it too. Who would have thought there could be so much challenge in keeping a bunch of garlic woven tightly and evenly? With the amount of garlic we grew this year we need to get resourceful with it. Anyone out there a closet garlic braider who might want to share their technique?
Otherwise we are just working on getting more space ready for Fall crops and seeding them between thunderstorms. Our tomato greenhouse is now officially a jungle. To harvest, you actually have to crawl on the ground in between rows as the only hope of fitting through. Your clothes and limbs become covered with that tomato residue, all in the name of tomatoes. Mental note, next season, space the rows out further. Have a great week everyone.
Jill and crew
Tomato-Avocado Salsa
1 avocado, peeled and diced1 ripe firm tomato, seeded and finely chopped2-3 scallions, including half of the greens1 jalapeno chile, seeded and diced1 garlic clove, mincedsaltfew drops sherry vinegar1 T chopped cilantro
Combine the avocado, tomato, scallions, chile, and garlic in a bowl. Add 1/4 t salt and the vinegar to bring up the flavors. Stir in the cilantro and let the salsa stand for 20 minutes before serving for the flavors to merge.
Greetings,
I have a feeling we just worked the last semi-pleasant day for a few to come. The humidity is really setting in and I can’t say any of us are excited to work the rest of this hot week ahead. Try to be extra nice to us when you come to get your veggies tomorrow because we might be feeling a bit wilted by afternoon. We are still hitting the weeds this week, not a surprise, and will be harvesting the rest of the garlic to put away as well. I imagine whoever draws the “short straw” will be the one who has to bring the garlic into the greenhouse tomorrow as the plastic adds at least an extra 15 degrees of joy. It will be a good thing, however, when it is all out of the ground and we can free up some more field space for late season crops. This week we’ve had the help of a visiting WWOOFER from France. This stands for Willing Worker on Organic Farms and it is a large network of people all over the world. In my pre-kid days Skimmer and I WWOOFED in quite a few interesting places around the world and it is always fun to welcome someone on the other end. Thomas has been camping out and hitch hiking around Addison county trying to explore the area when he is not helping out at the farm. We also have had the help of Tate, a young and eager 13 year old boy who loves to garden. It is so exciting to see someone his age really intrigued and asking questions about how to grow things on a commercial scale. I keep telling his mom that we have to harness his energy for a few years down the road. For now though, we are trying to ease him into things and not give him the rough jobs so he leaves with a positive memory. That is about all for now. Tomorrow you can expect:
squash, cukes, lettuce mix, head lettuce, beets, potatoes, peas, beans, blueberries, garlic, tomatoes ( a few), and more………. Soon, we’ll have broccoli, cabbage, and lots of tomatoes
Lazy Farmer SaladWho wants to cook in this heat?
2 cukes, sliced and halfed3 baby beets, grated1/4 pound string beans, snapped in thirds4 carrots, grated1 fresh onion, diced3 scallions, finely choppedfresh herbs1 can garbanzo beansfeta cheeselemon juiceolive oilbalsamicsalt and pepper
Toss and enjoy.
