Week 17

We worked hard last week trying to bring in as much of the food from the field as we could before the rains came. Many hands made light work of the squash field and I learned how to back the trailer out of the barn. John had injured his back and was on "Mommy duty", carting Emma around to one or another after school activity. This left me to attempt the skills I usually depend on John for, like trailer navigation.
At any rate, after my heartbeat and adrenaline slowed from backing up the trailer, we all marveled at the beauty of the squash piled high in the barn and the bags of potatoes and onions lining the walls. The days here are filled with harvesting and freezing and canning. This weekend, I focused on apple pies. In some manic attempt to preserve all the apples, I set a goal for myself of 24 pies... I made 9 on Sunday. At Emma's school, there are a few apple trees planted between the main building and the portable classroom units. We always taste a few when we are at back to school night and this year we noticed that once again, the trees were heavy with fruit, untouched, and dropping apples to the ground at a rapid rate. There was much debate around the table about how to approach the apples, a midnight run with headlamps...a mid-day stomp in protest with students watching....finally, I asked the principal about the apples and suggested she have the students pick them and serve them in the cafeteria. She mentioned something about USDA regulations and cafeteria food and said we could pick as many as we liked. So, as the middle school children are served Red Delicious apples imported from China, my child transports a tasty apple back to her school that we picked at peak ripeness and keep stored in the barn. There are enough apples out there for a few week's worth of middle school lunches and enough picking to get those kids moving....maybe for a gym class activity, we could call it everyday PE, activities that feed us, house us and keep us warm. Rather than scooter tag in the gym, these kids could grow and harvest food, build structures and chop wood. Authenticity is a lacking concept in our educational system, propagated by fear of lawsuits and over-regulation. Next year, I'll push harder for an all-school apple harvest and hope that we can collectively pursue activities in our school system that link children to the apple trees in their back yards.




The rain didn't squelch Flora's obsession with her new rain suit. As always, she was ready to milk, collect eggs and feed livestock and poultry. Chores were all trumped by the appearance of large puddles, the size of which would challenge any rain boot/suit donning, producing one soggy toddler. Maybe next year she'll be big enough for waders.

Harvest List:
fennel
lettuce
carrots
beets
potatoes
leeks
Long Island Cheese pumpkin
Blue Hubbard squash
Acorn squash
soy beans (edamame)

The soy beans are best steamed or boiled and served with salt. They can be popped out of their pods by the individual eater or shelled and served alone or as an ingredient.

Don't be overwhelmed by the squash. They can be decorative and delicious. All of the squash we are distributing this season is edible, chosen for appearance and taste. In recipes, squash and pumpkin are interchangeable. Enjoy!

Our final work party will be Saturday, October 19th. Mark your calendars!

And, we have been processing turkeys this week. They are available for pick-up for those who have purchased a turkey share and for sale for anyone who would like a turkey for their freezer.
It's first come-first served so don't miss out!!!!

Blessings on the meal-
Stacy and John

Week 16

It's fair season! The Common Ground Fair had great weather and huge crowds.  There is so much to take in at the fair, and it is such a privilege to have as many inspirational people and organizations all together for a weekend. Each year we attend we get a little more realistic about our plans to "do and see everything", and paradoxically it seems that the less I do at the fair, the better my experience. The first year I came to the fair I ran from one tent to another, and I came home with my bags stuffed with pamphlets, catalogues, newspapers, books... This year, I am happy to report that I spent a little time on the lawn, I chased Flora around the children's area, and I helped out a little at a few booths. No shopping, no workshops, no exhaustion! 

We'll also go to the Cumberland Fair which runs all week. If you miss it, you can catch Maine's finale: the Fryburg fair the next week.  Although these county and town fairs are in sharp contrast to MOFGA's event, they are "traditional" in their own right. They feature 4-H programs (kids like Emma showing her sheep Goldie), horse racing, and lots of rides! (Don't forget the agriculture when you make the bee-line to the Midway Carnival rides!)

The CSA's last harvest will be the week of Columbus day, October 14th (Tuesday) and October 17th (Friday).  That will make it 19 weeks of distributions, and the diversity of crops will have begun to dwindle to storage crops.  

This weeks Harvest:

Lettuce

Kale

Cabbage

Spaghetti Squash

Diakon Radish

Tomatillos

Sun Gold cherry tomatoes

Carrots

Cauliflower

Potatoes

Leeks

Cucumbers

Eggplant

Hot peppers...

and a few other items that we have salvaged from the FROST.

Spaghetti Squash is a winter squash which has a moist fibrous interior that can easily be loosened from the cooked fruit and served with pasta sauce or butter, salt, and pepper. Delicious!

Diakon Radish is a fall radish (as opposed to the spring or summer radishes of earlier in the season). It is very popular in Asian cuisine and most famous as an ingredient of Kimchi fermented pickles. (there are a million Internet recipes... since I have not followed any of them, I'll leave the research to you-- and then you can share it with us!)

Kale is  a fall treat once the frost has visited. It gets sweeter as it gets colder, as do a few other items including Carrots, and the Radish.

Thanks for the help at our Potato Dig!!! 

We dug most of our potatoes and enjoyed lots of great potluck food. We will have another gathering Saturday, October 18th 1-3 ... a garden clean-up work party!

The last of 3 trial run farmer's markets in Scarborough will take place this Sunday from 8am-1pm behind Town Hall in the High School parking lot. Please come and show your support for a future Farmers Market for our town. We have tentative plans to participate next season. We planted some extra crops, especially for this last market. Also, we will be trialing a winter Farmers Market inside the High School. These new markets increase the likelihood that other farms will start up in Scarborough or neighboring towns, and that the few active farms (like us!) will continue to be viable. 

Blessings on the Meal

---John and Stacy

Week 15

Today is the rescheduled potato digging potluck. We'll start at 4. Looking forward to seeing you all if this weather holds....We'll send you an email in the event that we get rained out again.








After a few nights of chilly weather, the growth of tomatoes and other warm weather crops are at a stand-still. The same lack of growth happens for other crops when things get wintery. The secret to winter greens-- whether on your window sill, or in a greenhouse is in getting them started when the weather is still mild. That means getting plants started and growing well in the early fall-- just when us gardeners are wanting to slow down. That has always been a challenge for us, and by mid-winter we are buying greens from supermarket shelves, and wishing we had put more effort into a winter garden. Well, this fall we have things in place to potentially keep us eating greens after our garden goes by. Thanks to the work of Tim, our long season apprentice, who is still sticking to the farm, as well as a new face for the fall: Jordan, who joined us a couple weeks ago. Jordan has some good experience working on gardens already, and like some other farm interns, she seems somewhat addicted to a healthy lifestyle of good food, physical work, and positive activism.

You will have a chance to meet her and the rest of us if you come for our potato dig this Tuesday. It was rescheduled because of last week's rain, but the weather looks good for this week, so put it on your agenda and we'll enjoy a great potluck afterwards.

LEAVES!

If you live in a dwelling with a yard that collects leaves in the fall, please keep us in mind. Leaves from any and all trees can be an important resource on the farm-- we can make compost with them, bed animals on them, and mulch garden spaces with them. If you're going to clean them up anyway... send them our way. Spread the news to any landscapers you know-- we'll take lots of leaves! An organic farm thrives with organic material. This often comes in bulky amounts which makes the process of moving and spreading it, expensive. Mulching our small 1/3 acre of strawberries with straw for example will cost about $1000, just to get the straw here! (Spreading it on the field will be a multi-day task!) Manure is another bulky material brought in with expensive handling. Thanks for thinking of us!

The Cut Flower Garden is open to you all for a flower harvest free-for-all . Pick your own beautiful bouquets for your table. We will be mowing down the flowers after Friday's pick up. Don't hold back....they'll just get mowed if you don't take some home.

If you don't already have plans for the weekend, consider a trip to Unity for the MOFGA Common Ground Fair this weekend. It is the 35th anniversary of the largest fair in the region that celebrates organic and sustainable agriculture. Check out the MOFGA website for more information about speakers, vendors, and childrens' activities. We'll be there at some point this weekend and if you want to say hi, you can probably find Stacy in line for a delicious lamb sausage sandwich with peppers....a true favorite. The food alone is worth the drive.

The harvest:

• Lettuce
• Corn
• Tomatillos
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Acorn SquashCelery
• Watermelon
• Cilantro
• Hot peppers and green peppers
• Onions
• Eggplant

Our watermelon this year was especially tricky, with the erratic weather. They would prefer to be grown in a hot, dry climate (they originated in the Kalahari Desert in Africa), so this August's cold rain spell did not encourage the best production. Nonetheless, it looks like we have just enough for the CSA. The light green striped melon has yellow flesh-- its not supposed to be red! The dark green melon is a red flesh variety.



Tomatillos are best turned into a salsa verde with the hot peppers, onions and cilantro. Peel off the papery skins, place the tomatillos into a baking dish and roast for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. Let them cool. Then place tomatillos, onions, garlic, cilantro, lime juice and salt into a food proccessor and whiz it up. I usually add all the ingredients to taste so I'm sorry I don't have specific amounts. This salsa freezes really well and maintains its flavor and texture. We like to eat it in place of traditional tomato based salsa on nachos, fish or turkey tacos, and burritos. To freeze, just place an appropriate portion for your family into a freezer bag and freeze flat to save space. Then, you can "file" away your flat bags of salsa in the freezer.

This week's silver queen corn should prove to be tender and sweet. It's our favorite variety and we hope you enjoy it! If you don't think you can eat it all, consider scraping the cobs and freezing the kernels for a delicious winter treat. John prefers the corn raw, right out
of the field.







Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John

Week 14

This past week we spent as much time by the water as possible, making trips to the Saco River for time on the rope swings and walking down the hill to the creek in our woods to dangle toes in the water and squish our feet in the mud after school. We hope you all are making the best of these warm September days.

Tonight (Tuesday, September 9th) is our annual Potato digging potluck work party. Starting at 4, we will dig potatoes for a few hours and then share a potluck dinner together. This usually proves to be a great way for us to get a majority of the potatoes out of the field, enjoy some great conversation and sample your delicious cooking. We look forward to seeing those of you that can join us.

If it is raining, we will reschedule for next week.

A reminder about upcoming events:

• Saturday, October 18th 1-3 garden clean-up work party

This week's harvest:
peppers
potatoes
cucumbers
tomatoes
rainbow chard
cilantro or parsley
basil
dill
broccoli
onions
delicata squash

Delicata squash is the earliest of the winter squash varieties to mature. They are delicious with their tender skin left on then thrown in a pan and sauteed, grilled, roasted or baked with salt, butter and parmesean.

Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John

Week 13

Welcome to September! The Farm enters another phase, as hay-fields get mowed, older crops get tilled in and replanted to winter cover crops, and the harvest of Livestock gets underway. We slaughtered two of our ram-lambs this weekend, and put up plenty of lamb sausage, roasts, and ground meat into our freezer. In our grass-based system, the passing of lush grass in the pasture, means that some of our animals-- turkeys, lambs, and our steer, get slaughtered and butchered for our delicious wintertime meals.
This looking towards colder months defines September, even though it still may feel like summertime. Our short growing season sometimes feels like a 100 yard dash to get it all in-- not only grow our own food (meats and vegetables for freezer, root cellar, and greenhouse), but also make a living growing food for others. During that race we barely have time to squeeze in that essential element of gratitude. To sit back for half a minute and soak in the blessing of it all; these cycles of life, and the gifts of the natural world. That also, to me is September.
Our three farmhands, Ariana, Clare, and Amanda are off to their next adventures, and we welcome a new face to the crew: Jordan. She will help us with the job of bringing in the harvest and wrapping up the season. A HUGE heartfelt thank-you goes out to our summer season camp and farm crew.
A few notes on the produce:

• The tomatoes are a mixture of heirloom and hybrid varieties chosen for a balance between production, yield and taste. Don't be scared off by the big yellow-orange goldies. They have a sweeter flavor and pair well with the reds on a plate of sliced tomatoes or a tomato salad. And always....the basil accents it all. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of tomatoes, they store well through the winter in the freezer. To freeze tomatoes, all you need to do is peel and core them and stuff them into a freezer bag. This is a bit quicker than canning and yields a versatile tomato for winter time sauces and stews.

• This week's basil is abundant and we refer to it as "pesto basil". Pesto is a snap to make in a food proccessor and freezes well. We throw in some garlic, parmesean, olive oil, walnuts or pine nuts and salt with the basil and proccess them in the Cuisanart. We correct for seasoning and amount and them scoop into freezer bags for a midwinter treat.

• Growing organic corn is always a challenge. Sometimes we are plagued by hungry corn worms. Intimidating in appearance, these guys can just be left with the shucks and the damaged part broken off.

• The turnips are small and great raw in a salad.

• The beans are DELICIOUS! The are yellow with purple speckles but their taste is similar to a green bean and they can be used and handled in much the same way. They are called dragon tongue beans
  

Harvest list:
Lettuce
tomato
cucumbers
red/yellow onions
pesto basil
salad turnips
fingerling potatoes
corn
cilantro
purple hot peppers
dragon tongue beans (like a colored green bean)
kohlrabi
eggplant

A reminder about upcoming events:

• Tuesday, September 9th, Potato digging potluck work party 4-7:30

• Saturday, October 18th 1-3 garden clean-up work party

Blessings on the meal-
John and Stacy