All posts by QueSehraFarm

week Four newsletter

This week, I almost got some lawnmower weeding done.

And then, I almost did again. And another time. And at least once more, for good measure, I again very nearly got onto the riding lawnmower and pulverized an old early pea plant row and its attendant host of looming and beastly weeds, bursting with seedy potential.

I’ve almost mowed it all week. But we aren’t doing the arid thing this year. It rains. It doesn’t add up to a whole lot, but it keeps happening, often without any warning at all – tomorrow’s forecast is always promising Low to Zero Percent Rain Chances and beaming sun pictographs. 

Possibly in control of the weather

But then it rains enough to thwart the mower and thwater the thweeds and and so the mower seat remains turned upright to drain dry the seat cushion, and the row of beautiful vigorous weeds is still standing proud. Also:

The rain is a blessing to all life, including the weeds, and the slugs (see: the surface of one of your kohlrabis). It’s always something. The trees and the crops are into it too, especially the little youngsters with their tenuous roots.

The lightning bugs signal from the shadows in the woods all around us this week, to the rhythms of the whipoorwills and the wails of the coyotes.

I love that this is where we’re growing.

inside Box 4

  • a Buttercrunch Bibb & a Romaine Lettuce – needs another wash post deconstructing
  • Green Onions – how do they work for you?
  • Green Garlic
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Mint – it exists emphatically.
  • Some Snow Peas & a Pound and a Half Sugar Snaps  
  • One Ugly and One Pretty Kohlrabi – maybe you will slice one thin and eat it with some salt and pepper. You’ll peel both of them before you eat them though.
  • Broccoli, maybe Cauliflower – Cauliflower don’t come easy and the sun makes it go all groovy and lean into its flower nature.
  • Mint
  • Radish Microgreens– add some zip

week Three newsletter

the Field at harvestime

It was hot there for awhile. We hydro-cooled with hoses, rivers, showers & sinks, and ran several fans overnights. Today’s 80 felt deliciously almost-chilly. Next time I want to try to make the root cellar feel habitable perhaps – there’s room for some furniture this time of year, right?

The annual garden abundance has begun in earnest now, well beyond a do-si-do, though still well shy of a mosh pit. (that’s August or so.) Things are remarkably lush and orderly, in spite of the farm being all ours, without any of the usual WWOOFers to help. The kids are older, and we are, perhaps, wiser.

inside Box 3

not full yet

  • Strawberries – don’t sleep on these for long. Ripe and ready!
  • Peas – Edible pod varieties, sugar snap and snow peas. Good for fresh eating and stir frying or sautéing. 
  • Garlic scapes – Garlic scapes are a fun part of growing garlic. They are the flower stalk of the plant and they are removed so that the plants energy goes to forming larger cloves. Chop them up and use like garlic. 
  • Green onionsannual soundtrack plays on
  • Bok Choi – Last one until fall! The recipe in last week’s newsletter has been well received. We added some spiciness to ours, which paired great with the sweetness.
  • Salad – various lettuces, a smattering of rugula, and some pea shoots.
  • Broccoli – the heat wave startled it a bit. but it’s all good.
  • Kohlrabi – Peel the outer skin and enjoy this crunchy mildly broccoli flavored vegetable. Good raw or cooked. 
  • Radishes
  • Salad Turnips
  • Micro mix – broccoli, red cabbage, kale, amaranth, radish, pea shoots

week Two CSA Newsletter

People ask how things are going, and I reflect a moment and tell them things are good.

It’s the most succient and accurate way I can hope to respond. It’s a good life (always, hopefully in the Helen & Scott Nearing way and not the Twilight Zone episode ;) ). Rain exists, the new deer fence and tractor are satisfyingly functional.

The field feels strong, the woods, lush. I was fully expecting drought, heat, blasting sun. I’m enjoying having been wrong. “Too little sun” and “too cool” feel like novel problems to be having, it having been several years.

Squirrelly is still around – we don’t feed him from our hands anymore, but he doesn’t mind when we come near. The first chicken of the woods mushrooms haven’t emerged in our part of woods yet, but they’ve been sighted at a neighbors. The whippoorwills sing all night long, June bugs are en vogue, mosquitoes still haven’t made a comeback. Two pair of hens shares motherhood, one twosome with 7 chicks between them, and one with two. It works for them.

selling stuff

And the sun is shining now.

It works for us.

inside Box Two

the end; Aster, Otis, River

Arugula – this arugula is spicy and full sized, so will need to be chopped for salad-making purposes. You can’t go wrong with a lemon and olive oil vinaigrette and some Parmesan cheese. Arugula pesto is really good too.

Bok ChoiThis recipe looks solid for using it raw. A good website for using your CSA veggies too!

Romaine Lettuce – usually a Ceasar salad is the play

Radishes 

Turnips

Rutabaga Greens (aka Swede Collards) – it wouldn’t be a CSA without some unusual vegetables – the things that look like shriveled carrots. But the greens are the part we think you’ll want to eat this week, see.

“I prepared them by browning the white parts of onions in bacon grease, and then adding the chopped greens and letting them wilt. Salt, pepper, maybe a little apple cider vinegar would be good. They didn’t take long to cook.”

Green Onions – new folks, be advised: we like to provide onions regularly because they are so darn useful.

Cilantro – love it or hate it. Good to have it with us this year.

Kale & Amaranth Microgreens – the jewel-toned leaves of red amaranth are mild & earthy, with a hint of beet-like sweetness. Use in:

Salads:  as a colorful garnish or mix into baby greens

Sandwiches & Wraps: with roasted vegetables or hummus. if you hummus

Egg dishes: scatter over frittatas or poached eggs just before serving.

Grain bowls & tacos: Top warm dishes to let the greens wilt slightly while maintaining their integrity.

Store refrigerated and use promptly; amaranth is more ephemeral than most.

you could do this,

week One Newsletter

Welcome back, returning shareholders, and welcome aboard to those new to this ride!

When we started the CSA 11 years ago, I never would have predicted any of this … that we would wind up coming to the farm and living here off grid for a decade, that I’d quit my career to do so, or that we’d have two boys and I’d be struggling to remove a tiny deer tick from one of their foreskins in a moving car while trying to write this newsletter … but here we are!

Inside the Box

Salad mix – A mix of tender lettuce, peppery arugula, and the slight snap of tat soi.

Green garlic – Somewhere between a scallion and a clove of garlic. It is milder than cured garlic. Chop the lower white part like usual garlic and slice the greens tops thin then cook into soup, stir fries, omelettes, or leave raw and use in a dressing or as a garnish.

Spring onions – Used root to tip. Similar to the green garlic, the lower part is more pungent and better for cooking, the greens are milder and more suited for fresh eating or light cooking.

Salad turnips – Mild, juicy, and crisp. Eaten raw in salads, roasted until golden, or sliced into a hot pan with butter and salt.

Sunflower microgreens – Thick-stemmed and nutty, with a strong crunch. Used as a sandwich or wrap green, layered over grain bowls, or as a topping for anything that needs a little extra something.

Radishes – Sharp when raw, mellow when roasted. A nice addition to salads and slaws. The greens are edible too. Our favorite uses are pesto and chopped and lightly sauteed with some garlic and soy sauce.

Mint – Peppermint-adjacent. Used for tea or muddled into drinks. Not an everyday herb, but one that marks the shift into summer. Dries well.

Bok choi – Sturdy stems and tender leaves. Stir-fried with garlic and onion, or left raw in a cold noodle salad. Quick to cook, quick to wilt.

week 17 – the final CSA Newsletter!

Here we are at the last newsletter of the season – and the end of our first decade of living on the farm, off the grid, on the land, in the woods.

It’s been quite a ride, surfing this learning curve, and I am pleased to report an uninterrupted streak of no regrets – in leaving behind the life we’d known – career, city, and microwave ovens. I know a decade is an arbitrary point, but it truly feels that we are making a pivot from learning to live, and into living the life. Planting, harvesting, selling at the market, firewood and drinking water and electricity and all the basic activities and necessities come … not easy, but with much less stress and confusion.

We started without a business plan or a financial prediction, just winging it with faith that things would work out somehow. Without knowing if we might hemorrhage away all of our little savings, we leaned hard into learning to do without, and scavenging all the free detritus we could from the edges of civilization. Today we find ourselves with a new confidence, feeling that we know when and where we might choose to spend some of our precious nest egg to better our lives.

This week, that came into play with two major upgrades. Power-ups, indeed:

First, the replacement of our minimalist low budget solar battery bank with a mightier lithium ion system, thanks to our WWOOFers Evan & Nikki, who planned and built the upgraded 24v system while they stayed here … making it possible to power everything we do, including the daily irrigation of the high tunnel.

We have also powered up our abilities out on the land, with the purchase of a modern tractor! After 10 years of wagons, carts, backaches, wheelbarrows, and borrowing Neighbor Dave and his tractor, we took the plunge and committed to the most versatile, powerful, and iconic of farm implements!

We’ve window shopped online for years but the right thing never came along until, like our dogs and cat have done, the Right One came along with divinely perfect timing, flowing seamlessly into our lives, clearly meant to be.

The tractor came from a friend from the farmer’s market old days; we named the machine after her once we got her home. And getting home with the tractor was a journey, no mere shopping trip. I sent the picture below of Bonnie and the Boys to a farmer friend, and he responded that “Tractor trips are epic and mythical” – and mere minutes later, a tire shed its tread beneath Goat Dave’s trailer, laden with thousands of pounds of tractor.

Bonnie the Tractor coming home

It could have been a disaster. It should have been. But somehow … it was just a lovely little adventure, likely ling remembered by us all. We managed to limp four miles along the shoulder of the highway to the next exit, where a lovely trailer rental business quickly and painlessly set us to rights and gave the boys hats to remember the epic and mythical tractor trip with.

The best and most important things in our lives flow, unforced, and the best adventures feel epic and mythical, from getting power-ups to raising a farm and a family to growing vegetables for you all for another year.

It’s a profoundly lovely way to live our life together, and I feel like I should thank you for giving us the chance to do it. It’s been beautiful. Enjoy your veggies.

Thanks.

Inside the Year’s Last Box

Winter squash – a butternut & a storage squash (either Tetsukabuto or Winter Sweet). The storage squash will be better in a couple of months than in a couple of days – could go longer too, but keep an eye on it in case it starts to turn evil whilst forgotten in the back of a dark cupboard.

Note: I was knocked out of a spelling bee in third grade on the word “cupboard” and I haven’t forgiven it.

Russet Potatoes – best for mashing or baking whole

Kale – a nice addition to winter squash soup

Brussels sprouts – our finest crop yet; we think we might know why, and make it The Way we do them henceforth.

Carrots – not our finest crop of these yet; Que-rrot sera, sera.

Zucchini 

Tomatoes – I love having these all the way into October!

Cherry tomatoes – you’ve had a lot this year, since we had a lot …. here’s a couple recipe ideas if you’ve forgotten the feeling of winter in your bones and don’t want to eat them raw anymore:

Onion

More Beautiful Peppers – they have been finding their way into everything here. Stir fry, fajitas and tacos, sauces, salads…

Salad Turnips

Sage – left to my own devices I might just sniff the bag of these periodically, for pleasure, but Kristin recommends eating it. It is delicious to snack on battered and fried, or you could make a brown butter sauce.

See you at the party, or next year; wishing you sunny days & cozy nights!