8th Week

This week marks the start of our newest experiment...a pick-your-own herb garden for CSA members. We have planted an herb garden designed for CSA members to harvest their own sprigs as needed for a flavorful addition to a special dish. In this garden you will find sage, tarragon, oregano, parsley, basil, edible flowers, and thyme. There are also the quintessential garden flower, sweet peas, that need to be picked and enjoyed in order to keep them coming. Feel free to enter the garden, harvest a sprig of this, that or the other and a few flowers to garnish your salad and a bouquet of sweet peas for your bedside table. The herb garden is in front of the greenhouse. Please respect the needs of all CSA members and don't harvest herbs to dry or to supply your neighbors. Come by anytime and help yourselves. We hope you enjoy.

This week's harvest includes:
green beans
lettuce
arugala
kale
radishes
summer squash, patty pan, and zucchini (all interchangeable in recipes)
cucumbers
dill
basil
parsley
cilantro
green onions
pak choi

A note on Patty pan squash- Patty pan squash are a space ship looking variety of summer ripening squash that can be used interchangeably in recipes with yellow summer squash and zucchini. Don't be scared off by the spaceship shaped squash, embrace the patty pan.

Mid-summer is a cherished time when we try to take a breath and soak in all the beauty of the garden and the pasture and the flavor of the harvest. This season, we are delighted with the growth of the vegetables and the flowers. Unfortunately, a fertile garden also produces a fertile crop of weeds. There are spots of our garden that are lush with lamb's quarters and purslane and amaranth. Each day we embark on another session of weeding, wheel hoes and stirrup hoes in hand, unveiling a tidy row of crops. When we reach the end of a freshly cultivated row, there is a cathartic sense of accomplishment. In addition to the growth of the vegetables, we are also noticing the growth of the number of people at our dinner table each night. Maine summers always bring throngs of house guests, old friends and family who come to enjoy the cooler weather, beaches and northern woods. We open our arms to them, feed them our wholesome farm food and put them to work. Our hands are so busy in the summer, I think we might make others feel uneasy if they don't lend a hand in the harvest or help weed a row. I like to think that once they are awake and they join us in the garden at 5:30 AM and pay witness the sun rise over the tree tops, just maybe they are hooked and know the blessing of dawn and dusk like parenthesis on their day, increasing their appreciation of living so close to the land. I also like to imagine that hosting all these house guests is a prelude to a future in agrotourism , as proprietors of The Inn at Broadturn Farm. For now, we'll just keep our doors open to our friends and family, enjoy the time and conversation we get with them while we harvest carrots, and share the joy we've found in our farming life. We tell them all they get bonus points, and more time to talk with us, if they come in the winter but very few people take us up on the offer.

Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John

7th Week

It has been busy at Broadturn Farm! We are so fortunate to be close enough to the greater Portland area to have most of our community come to us to either pick up produce, come to farm camp, or just experience the farm. But on July 13th Broadturn Farm made an appearance at a trial-run Farmers Market at Scarborough's 350th anniversary celebration. A Farmers Market is one of the most difficult endeavors to get off the ground. It can be a real chicken and egg problem-- ensuring that the community is interested and willing to visit the market, and ensuring enough farmers' participation. Most farmers markets are duds for a few years until enough consistent customers make it a reliable and profitable option for farmers. Of course we are very happy with our on-farm CSA program, but we are looking down the road with the hope of increasing our production, and serving more of our community by attending a market. The trial run was a success! There will be a second Scarborough Farmers Market in September, and next year with luck there will be a weekly market. Stay tuned!
We have some amazing flowers this time of the season. We sold some bouquets at the market, and we continue to sell them at Lois' Natural, The Cheese Iron, and Aurora Provisions. Here is Stacy surrounded by Flora and flora!
Stacy is the flower master and she put together an amazing display for the wedding we hosted over the weekend. Here are some of her table arrangements,
...the bridal bouquet...
and Stacy's wedding corsages modeled by her adoring farm crew...
Last night we hosted another event, a tour and dinner for 40 current and prospective state legislators. They were here to learn more about farmland conservation and the importance of working farms to our communities. We are convinced of course that food can (and should) be a central issue which can unify a diverse population. Food and farms have been very much an afterthought in recent political history, but yesterday's visit might be an indication of change.
This week's harvest list-
garlic
mizuna
arugala
dill
basil
Napa cabbage
carrots
parsley
rainbow chard

The Garlic we distributed last week and this week will be "fresh garlic" in that it has not been dried for long term storage. It can be stored for several weeks, but not through the winter... more storage garlic will be available later. We have been using garlic in all of our salad dressings.
Here's a basic dressing to last the week:
1 head of garlic,
1 T honey,
2 T Dijon mustard,
3/4 cup balsamic,
blend until smooth in a food processor,
slowly drizzle in 2 1/4 cups of olive oil,
touch of salt and pepper.
Garlic harvest, sorting, and curing sone by farm camp kids:We are taking a week's break from lettuce, but we have an abundance of arugula and mizuna. Napa Cabbage is an open head savoy type cabbage which makes the very best cole slaw. It is also known as Chinese cabbage and can be used in stir frys of all kinds. In the field the plant is enormous with huge leaves, and in the past we have distributed these monsters without shearing them down to size. That scared off a lot of people, so these are trimmed up to something that can fit in your refrigerator!
Blessings on the meal!
--John

Sixth Week Harvest

I have been entrusted with the blog this week. I am now a blogger. Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to introduce to you one of the internet's newest bloggers, Mr. Timothy Dutcher. However, you can call me Tim or even Timmy. As a new blogger, I feel I should tell you a little bit about myself. This can include such facts as my height (6'1") my zodiac sign (Aries), my sport (basketball), my preferred method of transportation (bicycle) or even my hometown (Middletown, CT). I am a middle child. Lately, however, I have been feeling more empathy with my older brother. You see, I arrived here at Broadturn Farm in early April and until late May had the place to myself, as well as the undivided attention of John, Stacy and the girls. Those were the glory days; heady times where John and I would each consume a dozen eggs in a day, Emma and I would have daily archery lessons and Stacy and I could gossip to our hearts content while preparing beds. The world revolved around me and my particular idiosyncrasies, of which there seem to be a steadily increasing number.

Then came the new baby.
Or three, really.
[I'm talking about the three other wonderful apprentices -- Arianna, Clare and Amanda -- in case you are confused.]

Suddenly, I had to maintain respectful silences while listening to others speak at the dinner table. I had to learn how to share tools. Emma had new playmates. I could no longer eat everything on the table the moment I sat down. The dozen egg days were over.

I'll admit, it was a bigger adjustment than I had expected. Could it really be that I was jealous of these three young upstarts? I mean, I'm a grown man, shouldn't I have already reached some developmental milestone or something? But then I began to notice some curious changes. Projects that would have taken John and I all afternoon were getting done in an hour. Things were really getting accomplished around here. We were being helped! And helped by three lovely folks who, once my initial resistance was down ("Put it back, Mom!") I learned were great to work and live with.

This isn't to say things have all been warm and fuzzy since I overcame my jealousy. Sometimes, while sitting eating meals and listening to everyone else talk, I start to get a little antsy. I feel my leg start twitching, and I just know that I need someone to pay attention to ME or I might explode. And that is when I turn to my number one go to gal:


Flora.
The great thing about living with a two year old is that she is always willing to be entertained. Even (or particularly) when I'm at my most annoying, she is a captive audience. After a hard day out in the field, when the rest of the crew is drained and doesn't want to listen to me tell the same joke over and over or hear an endless stream of sound effects and silly voices, I always have Flora, who is forever willing to indulge me in my quest to be entertaining.

This week's harvest:

lettuce
arugula
zucchini
beets
cilantro
garlic
radishes
peas

See ya!

5th Week harvest

Note: We do not offer PYO berries at this time. (2015)

The weather is hot, humid and sometimes magically beautiful, this rainbow came after a thundershower late last week and shed it's color over the fields.

E.B. White, writer and gentleman farmer wrote, "There is no doubt about it, the basic satisfaction in farming is manure, which always suggests that life can be cyclic and chemically perfect and aromatic and continuous." Having a full pile of manure and compost heaps filled to the brim are like filling your cupboards and freezer with food to ensure a winter full of bounty. It's reassurance that the fields will have added fertility to enrich the growth of the produce planted within. We treasure our piles of manure, compost and leaves. We are always looking for extra additions to our piles. If you have leaves or grass clippings or horse manure you want to part with and you don't spray herbicides or pesticides in your yard, we can make your yard waste into hearty compost for the garden.

It's hot this week! If it stays dry, many hay fields around town will get cut for winter feed for horses, cows, and sheep. OK, so the scenes don't quite look like the one from 1440's Paris shown at the left. (look here for more great images of haymaking through the ages) However, gathering up hay in the hot summer remains beautiful and evocative of all things seasonal. Grass grows so fast in late spring, that even a pasture full of cows often gets a "first cut" before the grazers can get to it. Hay must be cut low, then raked or "tedded" out to dry in the sun. It then gets raked into windrows where the baler can come through and bale it up into either round bales or square bales. All this for winter feed for grass-fed livestock.

This weekend, I noticed a curious site in the recently mowed hay field of a farm friend and neighbor. He had mowed his fields and the hay was arranged in windrows, lining the field with a beautiful contour of curves and waves. In the middle of the field, there was a circle of vultures huddled over something worth a party. There were 3 other large vultures circling around over head. The mowing of the hay field had disturbed enough habitat that the vultures were being offered easy snacks. Field mice, the babies of ground nesting birds and toads all make the hay field their home


This Week's Harvest:

green onions
parsley
lettuce
sugar snap peas
broccoli
turnip greens



There are still some strawberries to be picked but they are going fast. We have a special CSA pick until you drop option this week.....free picking for CSA members. Please make sure to let the person at the little pick-your-own booth know you are a CSA member so they know not to charge you.




Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John






A photo of the crew at 5:30 AM watching the sunrise and harvesting flowers for wholesale.
From the Left: Amanda, Tim, Ariana, Stacy, Clare, Toto....John is taking the photo and Flora is still sleeping.