Picture blog

I am using the tractor to disc down the spring oat cover crop.  Discing it down while it is still green is considered a green manure and adds nitrogen to the soil.

Austin holding a 12 hour old chick.

Chicks arrive in these bins.  There are 100 hundred chicks in each.

 

Arugula on Scale before bagging.

Roasted beet, orange slice and chevre cheese sandwiches at our employee lunch.

Wilted beet greens, kale, swiss chard with lemon, garlic, ginger and kombucha vinegar.

Gluten Free swiss chard quiche with feta cheese.

Paul cultivating his 40 acres of open pollinated corn.

Protecting your plants.

Pictured above:
1. Winter Squash and Melon planting.
2. Winter Squash and Melon under floating row cover for insect protection.
3. Potatoes half sprayed with Surround.


Protecting your plants.

Being a farmer can be hard. An organic farmer, even tougher. It seems like everything is out to get your plants. How do we as organic growers protect our plant from everything out there?

A healthy plant. One of the best ways to keep your plants free from bugs and disease is to keep it strong. Water and feed it consistently. This will allow your plants to help you in the fight against bugs and disease.

Give them cover. Another thing we do here on the farm is covering plants. We use this both for temperature when its cold and bugs when they show up. It is probably not the hardest thing in the world for the bugs to overcome, but that extra layer of protection is definitely helpful.

Finally, something new to the farm. We are trying out this clay spray that the bugs aren't supposed to like called kaolin, a white chalky powder if you can see from the pictures. It's an interesting idea. The one down side of it is that it requires constant reapplication and requires a fair amount of time and product. We're still not sure how effective it is. It is still in the experimental stage, as you can see from my pictures.

Restaurant-Style Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients

1 (16 ounce) package smoked sausage 2 potatoes, cut into 1/4-inch slices 3/4 cup chopped onion 6 slices bacon 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic 2 cups kale - washed, dried, and shredded 2 tablespoons chicken soup base 1 quart water 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). 2. Place sausage links onto a sheet pan and bake for 25 minutes, or until done. Cut links in half lengthwise, then cut at an angle into 1/2-inch slices. 3. Place onions and bacon slices in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat until onions are almost clear. Remove bacon and crumble. Set aside. 4. Add garlic to the onions and cook an additional 1 minute. Add chicken soup base, water, and potatoes, simmer 15 minutes. 5. Add crumbled bacon, sausage, kale, and cream. Simmer 4 minutes and serve.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/restaurant-style-zuppa-toscana/detail.aspx

Produce Storage

So you purchased fresh yummy vegetables what do you do with them when you get home?

Produce storage can mean the difference between super healthy eating and eating dried out life devoid produce.  In my business I have found that what happens to the produce immediately after it is picked is just as important if not more than how it is grown.  I am a stickler about caring for the vegetables because I want to make sure that the energy of the plant is still there when the consumer eats it.  Nutrition and energy is why we are eating produce anyway.

Our recipe blog (http://www.bhrecipes.blogspot.com/) gives detailed information about how to store each crop.  But here is a little primer.

Greens should always be refrigerated and prefer temperatures around 32 degrees.  Our refrigerators are mostly around 40 – 45 and this is fine for a week or so.  As much as I dislike plastic I have found no better way to store my greens.  At the farm the greens are picked early in the morning.  They are lightly sprayed with water and then immediately stored in plastic bins with lids.  In my home refrigerator I store all greens in plastic bags.  I can’t tell you how many times customers have told me a bunch of pac choi was dead in just 1 day in the refrigerator.  I ask if they stored the pac choi in plastic and they say no they just put it on the refrigerator shelf.  Any greens stored without protection will immediately wilt.  Wilting takes the life out of the greens.  If your greens do wilt cut the ends and place in water (like a flower bouquet), cover with plastic and set in the refrigerator.  They will perk up in an hour. 

Berries like a similar treatment.  Although, I never spray them with water and if they are wet when picked we usually keep the container open in the refrigerator until dry and then we cover with plastic.  Wet berries will rot faster.  This is why we never wash our berries before they are sold. 

A fellow farmer, from Europe, once told me that in the European markets they sell vegetables (mostly roots) with the dirt still on them.  This makes sense.  Dirt is made mostly of minerals and minerals are great for preservation.  We store all of our root vegetables in plastic containers still dirty and clean them as needed.  Did you know that most root vegetables would store this way for 3-4 months?  Did you know that most of the roots you buy in the store have already been stored for this long?   Roots will also store better without their greens.  This is because the greens will rot first.  If you decide you want to store your roots for an extended period of time (say 1 month) remove the greens first.

Tomatoes, new potatoes, peppers and eggplants hate to be cold.  Low temperatures actually remove most of their flavor.  So don’t store them in your refrigerator.  They prefer to be stored at 60 – 65 degrees.  Peppers and eggplants will still benefit from being stored in plastic as they loose their moisture very quickly. 

A note about moisture in the field.   When we have to harvest after a rainy spell most crops will not store as long.  Rain is actually not an organic farmer’s friend.  Moist conditions lead to disease in plants.  This is not disease in humans.  However, greens especially when harvested wet will not store as long.  Our salad mix can store 1.5 weeks and under wet conditions tends to only last about 1 week. 

Should you wash your vegetables even if they are organic?  Yes!  Actually most pesticides on the commercial market now are called “Systemics”.  That means they are inside the fruits and crops.  You can’t wash this off no matter how hard you try.  With organic produce you don’t have to worry about chemicals.  However, it is always a good idea to wash the excess dirt off your veggies.   We do our best to keep our precious soil in the field but sometimes it gets away from us.  There will certainly be dirt in your veggies.  Oh and a few insects as well. 

Can you eat veggies / greens with holes in them.  Sure thing.  Although we are not proud of vegetables, which have holes from insects, it is part of the organic process.  We try our best to keep our crops hole free but when it is hot it seems impossible.  Insects do not spread disease in the produce and will not spread disease to you. 

What do you do if you bought produce from us and you followed all the appropriate steps to keep it fresh and it rots?  Let us know immediately.  We stand behind our quality and will honor our name. 

This week's recipe:
Garlic Scape Pesto  http://www.mikekostyo.com/blog/2011/6/14/garlic-scape-pesto.html

This seems like the hip new thing to eat.  I can't wait to try it.  We have tons of garlic scapes which hopefully means a great garlic harvest in a few weeks. 

This is our new baby goat Radish.  He is very sweet.  Update on our goat experiment in a few weeks.

Have a great week,

Erica