this week:

It’s hot! Summer!! It’s amazing that we get to experience such tropical conditions – we (mostly) found it possible to enjoy the novelty of the triple digit heat indexes, working and laughing through the sticky airspace and solar blasting. Except for Thursday. That was ridiculous. So before the sun got busy, we did some morning weeding of the onions, and harvested a round of zucchini.  (Actually, Kristin and the WWOOFers did – I drove to Hudson to pick up free and incredibly heavy components of a wood-fired solar water heater.)

When afternoon hit, we packed up the dogs and the WWOOFers, fled to the river where we’d married, and got ourselves waterfalled.

We were joined in our quests this week by three wonderful WWOOFers – David PhDsson, Kingsbury’s Sarah, and Graaaaace! – as well as harvest help from the Senior Sehrs, Neighbor Marcia, and Steffan. Although the urgency and intensity of Spring is past, there is still a lot to keep busy with, and the extra hands and minds made for lighter work and hearts.

The pea rows were dismantled; cut off at their bases, trellising twine extricated and wound for reuse, heavy steel t-posts pulled up and piled for their next incarnation. The plants themselves were sent to provide a tasty snack for The Neighbors’ cows.

Fall crops like radishes, carrots, and lettuce got their roots into the soil.  The thick, wide weed canopy was yanked out in thousands of handfuls from among the sprawling watermelon vines.

The late-season cukes we planted last week are coming up now, to supplement the rather sorry early crop of cucumber beetle survivors – which are still being attacked beneath the soil by the larvae.

In a similar manner, we have been incredibly grateful for the screen porch, as the mosquitoes have finally gotten around to attain intense levels of obnoxious ravenous blood buzzing, even out in the field in the daylight,  where and when they are normally not found. Fortunately, one of WWOOFer Sarah’s talents is luring most skeeters to herself,  sparing her companions. Quite a skill indeed!

The coyotes, conspicuously absent from the night noises all spring, have returned with a yipping, yowling, caterwauling cacaphony, which we actually rather enjoy – plus, it reminds us to close up the chicken coops at night.

All the heat has the tomatoes ripening, the sweet corn silks drying … looking promising for next week’s box. Not this this week’s box is any slouch …

Week #8 Box

• Tomatoes – We grow most heirloom tomatoes – older lineages that have been selected for a long period of time, but not for traits like high production, long shelf lives, safe shipping, or uniform appearance. This means these tomatoes commonly feature what are seen as flaws to the modern grocery store shopper, such as cat-facing and green shoulders … but also tend to be far more interesting to look at and delicious to eat! Only a small amount are ready ripe now, so some of those we sent out are ripe – if you have any that are on the softer side or even starting to split under their own weight, eat them first! If you got a green tomato, it’s actually not unripe – it’s a variety … striped smaller ones are Green Zebra, and the larger solid-hued ones are “Grub’s Mystery Green.” The Yellow Ruffled tomatoes are low acid, as are the light orange “Kellogg’s Breakfast” tomatoes.
• Sweet Basil
• Tomatillos – It’s salsa verde season!!! Also great chopped up in tacos, roasted, sliced and eaten raw, or some other things that you invent. Crunch, tangy. If you don’t like them you’re wrong and it’s really too bad. Husk and wash first.
• Peppers – This week’s medley is similar to last week, but with the larger green bell peppers joining in the festivities.
• Eggplant – You might get a standard plump Italian, a slender Thai, a Chinese “White Sword,” or an Anaconda. (Actually we can’t recall what the long green ones are called, but know that that’s what they’re supposed to look like.)

• Cabbage – The harvestable cabbages are more numerous and more reasonably sized this week, so you get a whole one. I never cared about cabbages but I’ve been coming to like them quite a bit lately – hope you find some delicious uses for yours!
• Broccoli – After being almost murdered by that mid-May freeze, the broccoli army is making up for lost time, and not seeming phased at all by this intense heat. A pleasant surprise! There are two varieties producing now – our usual tender side shoots, plus the reinforcements we brought in after the freeze – a somewhat more branched, dense-headed variety.
• Zucchini – These have been put on an every-other day harvest schedule – with the big rains we’ve been getting, any longer a wait and they’d be the size of your thigh.

• Cucumbers – A handful of tattered survivors soldiers onward, against all odds. The cucumber beetle onslaught was brutal this year, and the cukes, of course, bore the brunt of the assault. (Hopefully the second-crop experiment we’re trying in the high tunnel will work out – we’re starting them under row cover fabric to keep out the dastardly buggers this time.) We’ve been drinking a lot of cucumbers on the Farm, blended with various herbs and fruity goodness. Store yours in the fridge if you’re not going to eat/drink em in a couple of days.
• Onions
• Beans – This week it’s 3 colors and 8 varieties! The larger, somewhat flattened greens are a typo of pole bean called “Grandma Mary’s Tricot”-something, which re currently twining their way to the heights of the high tunnel. Most other beans become quite tough at a size that these seem to remain tender and juicy.

 

 

 

 

In Which the Notes on What to Write About Seem Adequate

WWOOFer week of David, Rebecca, & Neville, with a touch of Meg. All four of them will be gone next week, but two should be returning.

Rising heat and rising river.

There was weeding and tilling and whipping. Potato beetle larvae patrols subsided.

Transition continues. As it does. Constant change in northern climate – brief periods of varied warmth between frozen ice ages.

Planted a cucumber bed and installed a bug barrier.  Replaced a dried up soaker hose.

Jim maintained the motorized fleet and headed up the louver-framing project in the high tunnel.

FUCKING VOLES

In the box this week:

• Eggplant: You have up to three varieties in your box. There are a couple kinds of bulbous squat purplish ones, some long skinny purple ones, and some white ones that are somewhere in the middle, shape-wise. The skinny ones are better for kebobs, and the fat ones seem a bit better for baba ganoush, but for the most part they can be used similarly. Ratatouille is a popular option. One trick to cooking with eggplant is to use a oil that you like the flavor of and use plenty of it. We like coconut and olive and sunflower seed oil on the farm.
• Turnips
• Onions

• Zucchini / Summer Squash

• Beans – our secret 3-color, 7-variety medley
• Cucumbers
• Curly Blue Kale
• Dill – would be good on sliced cukes – you can use the flowers as well as the frillies.

• Savory – this herb might be tasty sautéed with your zucchini, or you could dry it in a cool dark place to use at your leisure down the road …
• Broccoli
• Peppers – A mix of the earliest peppers in the garden – only the dark purple Czech black and the jalapenos (you will probably recognize them, although some are on the massive side for their type) are hot this week. Also some Italian Frying peppers and light streaky green/purple Sirenvyi peppers.
• Artichoke – Large boxes only  This link may be helpful … they’re not exactly filling; they’re more of an experience. We boiled them and snacked on them, peeling the scaly exterior away layer by layer and scraping the soft undersides into our mouths with our teeth. I guess that’s just how it’s done. We were hoping to overwinter the plants under cover in the high tunnel, for larger second-year artichokes .. but the voles are already tunneling through their roots with voracious glee, and I doubt these poor things have a chance of surviving a whole winter of the onslaught. Turns out this is a big problem with this crop … sigh  … those of you returning from last year likely recall how these colonial uncatchable unkillable unappeasable beasts have plagued us for years now. Oh well, they help define our limits, keep us humble, remind us of our lack of control, yada yada. Que sera, sera practice couches. Jerks.
• Okra – large boxes only – again, let us know if you’re interested in some in a future box, as we won’t ever have enough to give everyone them at once …

Some More of WWOOFer Rebecca’s Pics:

 

We’re deep into the spring/summer transition now, as pea picking gives way to bean picking and the tired salad greens are ready to be tilled under to feed late season crops.

This week we finally finished weeding the row that got (almost) away – the teensy tiny parsnips are rescued from the thick forest canopy of weeds that had oppressed them since they sprouted, and already exploding in size.

I was gone over the weekend visiting my sister in Illinois, so Kristin went to the Saturday market without me – fortunately, Shareholder Amy came out to help. Unfortunately, the alternator belt fell off the car … but fortunately, it didn’t die til they made it to the Market. Kind of a mess, but all came out OK in the end, with a few hours of waiting and some help from Neighbor Dave.

We had a changing of the guard this week on the Farm, as B, Nora,and Bucket transitioned into their next phase, and Floridians David, Rebecca, and dog Neville arrived. They weren’t all together though – David, here for the summer, is actually the son of last year’s WWOOFing couple “The PhDs.” Rebecca and her dog, here for a week, are traveling across the country in a travel trailer.

They showed up just in time to survive a pretty awesome storm last night – a rollicking thunderstorm that dumped 3.5 inches of rain on us over a few hours, and showed us just how leaky our various coverings could be. Storms like this are a reminder to be grateful for our rather sandy soil, which can absorb such an onslaught with nary a puddle to show for it in the morning. Damage was minimal; some of the basil, arugula, and other more tender-leaved plants were visibly pummeled, and some corn got blown over (we easily stood it back up, propped with hay mulch).

It had been a long time since we’ve had a real rainfall on the Farm – for weeks, the storms keep missing us, or glancing off yielding only wind and fractions of an inch. About time! The serious soaking put the garden in a good place to recover from today’s harvest without missing a beet!

BOX 6

• Beets – a medley of several types and colors, but all similar in how you’ll eat them. We love beets, which made it hard to let many of the go out last year … so this year, we planted quite a lot more! They’re pretty grated onto a salad, you can made “red flannel hash” with your potatoes , they’re delicious when roasted, can be cooked to soften, then eaten cold in a salad …

• Beet greens – perhaps chop it up, cook it with onion and garlic, add to ricotta with fresh basil, and stuff pasta shells? And invite us over for dinner?

• Summer Salad Mix – lettuce, arugula, pea tips, baby kale, a little mache and lambs quarter – We almost didn’t do a salad mix this week – and perhaps we shouldn’t have, since we couldn’t even fit it into your boxes. This time of year, all the greens are moving toward flowering, and are becoming less sweet and more toward the bitter side of the spectrum.I personally love the salad even when the lettuce is a little bitter, and so I advocated for its inclusion this week over Kristin’s reservations – so please, let’s win together by your enjoying it! Unlike the salads of spring, summer salad is likely best eaten with some dressing, rather than simply devoured raw, straight from the bag. This will be the last salad in your box until the very end of the year – this week we’ll be tilling in the salad beds to make room for late season crops!
• early Potatoes – Mostly reds, with a bit of purples and russets for fun. The potato plants are looking great so far; we should have many more later in the season – just thought you’d enjoy some now!
• Napa Cabbage – the Big Freeze back in May killed several of the Napas, so we didn’t get as many heads as we’d intended … which kind of works out, because a whole head of these suckers would’ve taken up most of the box I think.
  Hopefully a half-head is still plenty for you! We like to use them fresh, shredded up with a sesame dressing with soy sauce. Some people grill ‘em.
• Peas (Snow and Sugar Snap) – the final installment! I’m excited to get the pea trellises down and weed the row – there are some beastweeds lurking in there that I’m going to really enjoy taking out.

• Beans – A mix of seven varieties spanning three colors! Tender enough to eat raw, but also great to cook with. Be warned though – the purple ones don’t stay that way if cooked, so eat those ones raw if you want to enjoy their sexy coloration.
  
• Broccoli – Although most of the main heads have been harvested, the type we grow continues to produce tender side shoots. Yum.
• Zucchini – So it begins. Oh wait, that was last week … this week, we only had room in the box to give you a couple. I’d brush up on your zucchini recipes though, because the row is looking feisty and fit so far.
• Basil – Use this as soon as possible for maximum impact!
• Okra (large shares only) – we’re never going to have enough okra for everyone at the same time, but if you’re interested in some be sure to let us knowm and we can start getting it out in small amounts!

(thanks for a bunch of pics from your first day on the Farm, Rebecca!)

 

 

This week, the garden got tall.

You know how kids do that?  You turn your back on them and they shoot up several feet and you realize that in one more quick turn about the things are gonna be taller than you are? Yeah, that.

(Robby! Viktor!))

I was away from the Farm for a few days, between last week’s CSA harvest and Friday afternoon, and blammo! Suddenly I can hardly see into the field. It happens every year, but still takes me by surprise – our okra is a gang of gangly teenagers, the sunflowers are rising (like, the Sun), the corn is beasting, and the high tunnel tomatoes are agitating to smash the glass (ok, plastic) ceiling.

The wheel of life spins around as the summertime field births baby peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants, and the salad greens, cilantro, remnant radishes, and peas march onward into oblivion.

This week, we shockingly weeded, mulched, watered, and hunted bugs! We went from zero to an arsenal of a half-dozen functioning weedwhippers (thanks Jim & Neighbor Dave!), and boy howdy did we whip some weeds this week, in the rows, around the fenceline and the greenhouses.

Tonight, we’ll have a storm on the farm (hopefully – we need rain!) – we won’t be there to batten down the hatches ourselves, but are lucky to have backup not only from our lovely neighbors, but, today  from a motley crew of amazing WWOOFers and friends from The Cities (beyond The River).

They’ll be making and pressure canning a broth with the remnants from today’s harvest – I’m excited to see what such a magical concoction will taste like – if they don’t blow away before we return!

Box #5

• Peas (sugar snap & snow varieties) – you know the drill by now! Enjoy them while they’re around – it won’t be long until the vines call it quits for the summer!
• Onions

• Garlic – Another year of vile voles tunneling around under the hay mulch and munching the garlic all winter long left us with far less garlic than we’d planted … we’re looking at buried wire mesh, remote plots (ie @ The Neighbors), etc for next year’s crop. The garlic is fresh and not cured, so rather than papery skin between cloves, you’ll find a softer, wetter membrane. Use it soon and enjoy the mouth-beauty of fresh garlic – or cure it if you want by storing in a dark, dry place until dry.

• Rutabagas – No, those aren’t more turnips in the box! OK kind of – rutabagas are a cross between turnips and cabbages! We recommend cooking these – they’ll be mellower than the turnips, but would pair fine with the turnips from last week if you still have some. Roasted is great, but you can also oil and mash them, fry or sautee them.
  
• Kohlrabi -(cut off the leaves ASAP to keep your kohlrabi crunchy! We love eating these freaky alien things raw! You have to slice off the tougher exterior to get to the crunchy, sweet, cabbage-y goodness – but the whole thing is edible, from the exterior to the leaves. Yours might be purple or white. Check out some recipes that grandpa would love!

• Broccoli – a smaller harvest this week, in the bag with:
  
• Pea Tips – which are great to add to a salad or sandwich. Kristin says she’d slice up her kohlrabi, dress it light with sesame oil, rice vinegar, and tamari, lay the slices out on a plate, and then top it with pea tendrils … and maybe sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds. I’d take it!  
  
• Summer Leaves Mix – kale (dino/red Russian/curly blue) collard greens, and a bit of mustard greens – You could braise it or enjoy it raw, or sautee it … go hog wild, people! Hog wild.
  
• Swiss Chard (large shares only) – didn’t go into the Summer Leaves Mix because the stems were too long to fit in and too beautiful and tasty to cut off. We usually eat the stems diced up, celery-stalk-style.
  
• Baby Zucchinis – Aren’t they cute when they’re so small? I can’t even. Slice em up and chow em down. (After you cook em somehow, probably. )
  

 

 

 

 

 

The weeks are accelerating.

It’s already Week 4 somehow – I had to double check even when I wrote that to make sure it was true. I can feel time slipping into high gear, and had my first thoughts of our winter trip south creep to mind already. Yes, that’s still months away – but the way the days are zipping by, it may as well be next week.

This week things really felt like a community on the Farm, with a good crew of folks helping keep the plants ahead of entropy and above chaos – lots of weeding and hay mulching, and thousands more ravenous insects sent to their graves slightly earlier than they’d have preferred. The bugs are really numerous this year, thanks to a mild winter that failed to kill off the stupid and slow ones which are normally taken out after not hiding well enough from the freeze.

Fortunately, the two of us have extra time to do bug patrol, while our good helpers’ hands saved parsnips, beets, and squash from weedshade. We also transplanted a bunch of things out into the field – herbs, summer savory, tatsoi, mizuna, chard, collards, Mexican tarragon, and an experimental tobacco crop.

Early in the week, WWOOFer Sarah’s mom, Terri came to visit for a few days, and found field work to be perfectly relaxing – and even an ideal way to spend her birthday! We forced her to play cards with us after the sun went down though. Shareholder Tara also came out, for a second round of helping us with chores and organization and interpersonal communication. Terri and Tara helped make the 5am farmer’s market harvest flow smoothly, and Tara ran the booth with me while Kristin got things done back on the Farm (we’d each separately taken a day away on Thursday and Friday, OMG!)

Although time overall is zooming, the days, individually, seem ridiculously and wonderfully long. Saturday, especially, was intense – with several chapters each worthy of a day in themselves. First harvest, then a busy day at the Market as the heat built up and up – by the time we got home the only sane option was a trip to the River. Knowing a storm was building, we zoomed down valley on the dirt roads to our favorite beach on the Saint Croix … where we unexpectedly ran into a crew of our friends from the Cities!

A couple of hours of floating, chatting, laughing, and drinking later, we emerged reborn, as the clouds piled up and the wind came on with increasing gusto. Knowing the high tunnel was vulnerable to a storm, but left partially open in the steamy sunshine, we reluctantly left the beach and raced back home to batten down the hatches.

We had time to check on the rainwater collection systems, get the non-waterproof things under cover, and watched on the radar as the angry red blotches of potential hail and tornadic winds marched toward us out of the West.

Kristin went to work in the field, where the dry soil made for easy hoeing and weeding (our sandy soil works well for pulling them out with minimal soil coming out with the roots) – she was convinced that if she stopped working because the storm was coming, it wouldn’t actually arrive (more often than not, storm systems split and go right around us it seems), so she just keep slaying weeds as the winds got windier, the skies darkened and began to spit. Thanks to her efforts, the rain didn’t miss us – but neither did the wind! The air became opaque with rain that blew sideways, up, and down.

Trees crashed down in the woods, and lightning showed flashes of hundreds of oak sticks frozen in mid air. I was too enthusiastic about experiencing the storm to shoot videos or photos, even in the aftermath, as we emerged from our tenuous trailer shelter to take stock of the damages. The high tunnel had blown a cord on the southern door, which had allowed wind to burst in – blowing out the north door, knocking a few tomatoes from their trellising, and taking the glass window out of the screen door – relatively minor damage considering what might have been. Some of the Albatross soffit had flown loose, a huge aspen had been set alean over the driveway. The field fared better than I thought it would – the tomatoes out there were held aloft by their trellising, but the rows of peas on the western side of the field took the brunt of the wind’s fury. Other crops were simply bent over or knocked down completely – the garlic, many onions, some pepper plants, even some of the potato plants were bowed to the East, although most of the stems were not actually broken.  Most of the tall sunflowers that we’d allowed to grow up anyplace they weren’t in the way were flattened.

We spent much of Sunday repairing storm damage, with a break to attend the Sterling Old Settlers’ 78^th Annual Picnic, where Neighbor Marcie MCed and local author Lisa Doerr gave a talk about her semi-fictional piece of local history, “Eureka Valley – Grandfathers’ Grandfathers.”

Our order of sweet potato slips (seedlings basically) FINALLY arrived (we’d actually given up on them) … with a very long growing season, it’ll be interesting to see if we can actually get these little babies to produce before the end of the season.

Yesterday, Steffan and Angela returned to the Farm to help out – all day Monday in the field, spending the night, and then getting up for the 6:30 CSA harvest (in an effort to keep everything as tasty and resh as possible, we harvested everything this morning, trying to get all the leafy greens harvested before the sun started heating them up).

With friends like these, who needs arms?

 

IN THE BOX:

• Weekly Salad Mix – (green & red lettuce, pea tips, baby kale, arugula)-  this might be the last week of spring salad mix, as the lettuce is feeling the heat, growing more bitter and starting to seriously considering going to flower.
• Broccoli – the frozen plants are still producing side shoots that are as big as their initial main heads were – plus, we replanted new ones post freeze, which have done well.

• Sugar Snap Peas – spring field candy! The only vegetable from the field that Widget not only eats, but actually demands … she knows when we’re harvesting them, and never fails to show up to beg for some to snack on.
• Snow Peas (large shares only) – can also be eaten raw, but most folks seem to love to stir-fry them.
• Spring onions
• Turnips – We thought it would be easy to tell the sweeter Hakuri salad turnips (which are delicious on their own and raw) from the more traditional-tasting variety we planted (probably ideal for roasting), since they were called “Gold Ball.” However, they’re not that different looking – the “gold” is more of a slightly off-white, compared to the whiter Hakuris. You can try to puzzle it out or just treat them all the same! There are enough in the box this week to make a good dish with them roasted.
• Turnip greens are a staple dish in the south – many people eat them with darn near every meal, and they’re a side dish option at almost every restaurant down there. That being said, I know we’re in the Northland here, and most of us aren’t used to eating or cooking them! They’re very good for you, and can be quite tasty – but you might not get it right on your first try (Cole).You can eat them now, or freeze them til winter, when they’re great to add into soups – they lend their nutrition to the broth readily.

• Beets & Beet Greens – There are more beets coming later, but this is all Kristin is willing to let go of from the experimental early high tunnel planting … sorry there aren’t a lot, but try grating it over a salad to make it purty perhaps! The greens are awesome – basically like Swiss chard.
• Cauliflower (large shares only – very little of them did well for us!)
• Cilantro
• Tea herbs (anise hyssop, mint, lemon balm, red clover) – great for hot tea, ice tea, sun tea, or muddled and spiked with booze!