Goodbye wet June

The question of the week has been: How have we been dealing with this wet weather?

Answer #1: Covering warm-loving seedlings with as much protective row-cover as we can. This is our sad melon patch with black plastic to heat up the ground should the sun choose to come out, and covered with white row cover to shelter it from pelting rain.

Answer #2: We work indoors... in our two hoop houses. This is really just just an elaborate row cover in itself. We reserve tomatoes and a few peppers for this decadent treatment. In addition to being tomato heaven, each hoophouse is equally a device to more effectively give us something productive to do on pouring rain days.

Answer #3 Things are growing! Some things... like weeds, but also PEAS! They seem to love the fog-bank we are stuck in, so the trellises are overflowing with pea vines.

Answer #4 We must trudge through it... One of our cardinal rules is to not work the soil when it is wet. It turns into a compacted mess if you do. But we have been forced to bend these rules, because the soil has been wet for the past month. Last week, we tilled and got as many plants into the ground as possible (there was a 2 day clearing-- a truce with the sky when it did not rain...)

Answer #5 Our hair gets curly...

... and finally, we buy rubber pants and make the best of it!
The harvest:
Lettuce
Peas
Pac Choi
Garlic Scapes
Dill
Radishes
Strawberries
Greens (spinach and beet greens)

Peas: A great follow-up to the strawberries. Try to make it home before they get eaten!
Pac Choi is one of those great Asian vegetables that do so well in Maine. It has crunch greens, juicy stems and a great tangy flavor great in many stir-fry or sauteed recipes. Don't cook it too much! (But wash it enough to get the aphids off.-- little pale bugs who feed on juices from many plants. Don't panic... Lady Bugs are on the job, multiplying to meet the opportunity of eating so many aphids.)
Garlic Scapes: You can put them in a vase, wear them on your wrist, or chop them up just like garlic. In our kitchen we have taken the quick and easy route of putting four or five of them in a food processor along with some other herbs and oil. Buzz it for a few seconds and add it to... anything. Morning eggs, pulled pork or chicken, stirred in with rice, etc etc. But they really do look great as bracelets too; don't pass it up before you make them into dinner. (By the way, they are the un-opened flower bud of garlic-- a by-product of a bigger bulb.)
Greens: The Spinach and Beet Greens are not overflowing in quantity; really just an addition to salad.
Strawberries: This weather may close the curtains on our berry patch. Come and pick 'em before they go bye!
Blessings on the meal
John and Stacy

Baby Crazy

What we are loving right now are the 4 new kittens who were born on 6/24/09. The story of our journey to having them is long and torrid. You wonder how that could be when cats get pregnant so easily. Well, it's not the conception that challenged us, but the worry that we had passively contributed to the overpopulation of cats in the world and our sheepish calls to our vet, Dr. Kate, who we admire greatly, to confess that Baby Kitten had been knocked-up. There were countless hours of heavy processing on my part. You may remember Baby Kitten (aka Sylvia Dragon) who joined our family back in

October.....

When we went to our favorite farmer getaway, the MOFGA Farmer to Farmer conference, a dairy farm family brought three kittens into the childcare room the last day. Like the baby crazy suckers we are, Flora, Emma and I scooped up a kitten and covertly tucked her into the car before John could say much. He was light on conversation on the drive home, wondering what happened to the "communication" in our relationship. But, we were baby crazy. The girls loved up on the new kitten all the way home and she slept the better part of the three hour drive on Flora's lap, in the car seat. John was quickly wooed by the newest addition and Flora dubbed her Baby Kitten, which has stuck as the most used name. It is presenting some confusion for us now that there are 4 more baby kittens in the mix. Needless to say, we are so proud of our new momma and her babies. She is a delight to watch.

We'll write again about the harvest for next week by Monday night, including recipes, but we are unable to resist sending a note to announce the newest addition.

The pick your own strawberries are plentiful, juicy and ready to go. Please feel free to come by 7 days a week between 7A and 7P. We look forward to seeing you all!

Blessings on the meal-
Stacy and John

Building a better future

With a few glitches, we made it through the first week. We thank you all for your support, enthusiasm, patience and most of all, for your appetite.

Emma, Flora and I spent the week in Washington, DC. Emma presented her National History Day documentary on Margaret Sanger. We enjoyed the sites and during a photo opportunity with Senator Snowe, I peppered her with a few questions on her work with the Senate Finance Committee. For some reason I don't have photos to show. But back at the farm John took some shots of another kind of work:Back to Politics. I try to keep the writing on the blog to issues pertaining to food and agriculture, but I want to mention health care because as my friend Russel Libby pointed out, eating well is health care, going to the hospital is sick care.
2nd picture from the farm...In the 2.5 minutes that we were given with our senator, I managed to garner a few tidbits of information. The Senate Finance Committee will be responsible for determining a funding plan for whatever health care reform proposal that emerges. According to the Senator, the cost will be somewhere between 1 and 2 trillion dollars over the course of 10 years. (The difference between 1 and 2 trillion dollars seems... substantial to me...) I asked her about the response she is receiving from Mainers regarding health care reform. She replied that her office has received only 1400 letters regarding this matter and all speak to the need for some type of reform but fail to offer any consistent message as to the means of achieving it.
Here's where I get up on my soap box for a few minutes...

• As a state, I believe we stand the most chance of sustaining our economy with the development of small, entrepreneurial business opportunities. With an employer-based health care system, this will never happen. The fear associated with leaving the workforce to experiment with a new business idea is a challenging paradigm to overcome. Determining the path to affording the experiment can be paralyzing. We need to urge our Congress to support a non-employer based model in an attempt to increase the development of our state's independent, small businesses.
• Our for-profit health insurance companies are in the business of insuring the healthy. Denying claims, increasing premiums, increasing deductibles and slashing benefits. There are very few reasons why they would support any other model for covering the expense of providing health care that what we currently have. Their lobby is rich and powerful. In addition to the insurance industry lobby, the hospital association lobby and the pharmaceutical industry lobby also prove to be a force to reckon with, all standing to lose a substantial profit if we reform our health care system to include a government option.
• Finally, I want to share a true, sad, little vignette with you to illustrate that even if you have insurance, work hard to do the right thing, if you get sick, you probably won't be covered. A family in our community is struggling. The mom has a medical condition that has landed her 56 days of time in the hospital this past year. She worked hard as a nurse before getting sick. Her husband is self-employed and she provides the coverage for the family. When her illness sent her to the hospital, she had to leave her job. They activated their COBRA insurance and are now close to the deadline of the insurance running out. Her long term disability claim was denied, despite her surgeries, hospitalizations and need for skilled home nursing care. What does this mean for the family? When their insurance ends, if her disability appeal is not honored, they will surely go bankrupt if she is to continue to seek the care she needs. This is a middle class family, hard working folks doing the right thing and following the scripted plan many Americans choose in an attempt to insure they receive care when they truly need it.

Here's the pitch.....please write to our Maine Senators and Representatives and urge them to support a health care reform package that does not force us to go bankrupt to access health care when we need it and helps to decrease the profit model associated with our current system. Rising health care costs make someone, somewhere wealthier. Encourage Snow, Collins, Michaud and Pingree not to cave to the industry lobbyists. Urge support for a non-employer based health care reform.
Point being: with all hands working together, we can build a health care system that shelters all of us....
If you've made it this far, thank you for your patience with my soap box moment. I PROMISE next week: recipes instead!
But... like I said, real health care starts with healthy food.

This week's harvest:
Lettuce
Green Onions
Radishes
Garlic Scapes
Rhubarb
Napa Cabbage
Strawberries
Oregano
Basil Seedlings

The struggle of farming is 90% dealing with the weather, and 9% raising crops (the other 1% is armed conflict with predators just because any struggle has to have some guns right?) Today the Portland Press Herald placed their annual call in to Broadturn Farm to ask "How the weather is affecting our farm." Honestly, the more times you read about Broadturn Farm in the paper is only an indication of journalistic habit than any real news-worthiness, but we oblige regardless... Anyway, in case you don't get tomorrow's paper, the weather is... rain, rain, and more rain. The effect is slow growth, or no growth, and sometimes death. I won't depress anyone with the details unless you ask. The weather is hardly ever perfect (except in California and in our hoop houses).

Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John

First Distribution of 2009

There are sentinel moments from your childhood. Spring rains and the taste of the first strawberries of the season are two that never age.

This coming week proves to be a busy one. We will welcome our Produce CSA customers for the first distribution of the season. The strawberry fields are almost ready to be opened for pick-your-own customers....we think maybe Wednesday, but we'll update the website and the answering machine with updates. And, our new timber frame building, a kitchen and break space for the interns, is ready to be raised on the slab. Watching the timber-framers cut the joints has been fascinating, but seeing the whole building raised will warm our hearts as we marvel at their skill and craftsmanship.

The pigs have moved out of the barn and into the woods, near the entrance to the farm on Hanson Rd. They are happy with their new surroundings and love to race through the brush after each other.

Finally, after 3 years, we have a sign for the farm! John painted the sign this winter and Ben- our intern, and Josh- one of our work-share members for the season, took on the task of erecting the sign on Friday. (that's the camera that's crooked-- not the sign.)

This week's share will include:

• A tomato seedling

• arugula

• lettuce

• rhubarb

• strawberries

• sorrel

• radishes

We always feel stressed that the season's first few distributions are so slim. We talk to our CSA farmer friends about when they will start distributions, what will be in the share and what they have coming on in the garden. Here's what we've been learning....

1. Cutworms are an emerging pest for the Maine region that causes early spring planting to be effected. The cutworms munch the stems of the newly planted seedling transplants. The only effective management is to dig around each seedling to find and destroy the worm or plant later in the season when the lifecycle of the cutworm reaches the pupae phase, ending their incessant munching.
   
2. Flea beetles love brassicas (arugula, broccoli raab, cabbage, etc...) in the spring and make the leaves look like Swiss cheese. The best method to manage the flea beetle is to cover the crops with floating row cover or plant later in the season when the detrimental effects of the flea beetle are lessened.
3. We are slaves to the weather. Hot days encourage bolting of cool, spring crops. Sometimes, crops we thought we would have for the first distribution will bolt if the temperature is too high. For example, when we have a few days in the 90's in May, the plants are stressed into bolting. Bolting is the process of sending up flowers to set seed. When plants are stressed they respond by trying to reproduce. This is the natural cycle attempting to continue to proliferate a species by making sure seed is set before the plant dies, ensuring another generation. As beautiful as this cycle is in it's simplicity, it can forever confound the farmer. Farmer's are essentially attempting to manipulate nature to grow food.

With all this said, let me add that the shares continue to increase in size and amount throughout the season. We strive to include lettuce in each share and coax the garden to grow a variety of crops.

So, for the next few weeks, enjoy the taste of spring greens and strawberries as the peas and summer squash mature.

We look forward to seeing you all for the first distribution this week and we thank you for your implicit support for local, organic farming.

Blessings on the meal,
Stacy and John