On a sad note, Curly the rooster was seriously ill when we got home and checked up on the chickens – our neighbor took him back to her place for observation and treatment, but Curly was done; he died in the night a day and a half later, of causes unknown. It’s possible that the freak accident with the nesting box simply stressed his system out too much, and led to his collapse days later, or it may have been unrelated, we’ll never know. They had a brief ceremony for him and returned his body to nature, for recycling by foxes.

We mourned his loss, but still hit the ground running with our vacation momentum, preparing for a fall salad mix – the arugula we’d let go to seed was resprouting with the ample rain, so we simply cleared out the beds of old growth and weeds, and thinned out the dense sprouts for better growth. We planted Red Ruby and Buttercrunch lettuce, white stalked Pak Choi, spinach, and Ruby Streaks mizuna.

Our first planting of beans really got nailed by bugs and is unlikely to recover – but we had a second wave of backup-beans started – and the new wave is looking great, and should be ready to harvest as soon as next week. (We also had backup waves planted for the zucchini and cucumbers; this year those proved laughably unnecessary, but those who were members last year may recall the bizarre zucchini shortage we experienced.)

The squash, while definitely taxed by bugs and bacteria, is hanging in there and looking decent, thanks to the glorious rain and the emergency insectotomy surgeries. There is still some kind of gopher or mole or Tunneling Jerk Rat rooting through the potato row and messing up the plants and drying the spuds. Efforts to nab the beast continue.

Our compost piles are developing wonderfully, in large part thanks to the weekly garbage can filled with food scraps we get from the cafeteria we sell excess produce to, combined with our own food scraps, weeds, trimmings, and the piles of horse and cow manure donated by our amazing neighbors. If you would like to contribute compost weekly, let us know – we would love to turn your (non-meat) food scraps, egg shells, grass clippings (no pesticides or herbicides though), etc into black dirty gold for the field!

Compost is always crucial for organic farms, but it is extra vital for our field – the Sand Barrens tend not to hold nutrients well, as they are readily washed deeply into the ground beyond the reach of roots. Compost not only replenishes these nutrients, but adds organic matter to the soil, which helps with the retention of water and nutrients and delicious edible life.

• Spaghetti Squash – Noodley flesh! Cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, and cook it in your stove or microwave – checking it frequently so you don’t overdo it. When you scrape it with a fork and the stringy flesh comes off, it’s ready. Toss with other veggies and fresh herbs, or find a sweet recipe online or in your grandma’s cookbook.

• Watermelon – I’m not sure what the variety is right now, but it’s the earliest-ripening one we planted! We spent a good amount of time today trying to figure out the cryptic mysteries of watermelon ripeness detection; hopefully everyone’s melon is ripe and sweet, but if you should happen to get one picked early, we recommend Vodka augmentation.

  

• Tomatoes – an assortment of varieties that may include any of the types we planted this year: Red Rose, Black Prince, Earl of Edgecomb, Cherokee Purple, Old Brooks, Tricot Chezch, WI55, Grandma Mary’s Paste, Amish Paste, Snow White Cherry (actually we have never even seen this one I don’t think, even though we’ve planted it for three years), Jaune Flamme, Chocolate Cherry, or Tommy Toe.  Who names these things anyway?

  

• Tomatilloes (the husky fellas in with the tomatoes)

• Peppers – varieties you have may include italian frying, Jimmy Nardello, King of the North, Wisc Lakes, Sirenevyi, Carmen, serrano, habanero (not actually ripe or in anyone’s box – yet), Czech black, Cayenne red, Cayenne golden, and/or jalepeno.

  
  

• Rainbow Chard
• Broccoli or Beans or Okra
• Italian Basil
• Green Zucchini & Yellow Summer Squash
• Cucumbers – Lemon & slicing varieties

CSA Member Dish of the Week

Grilled vegetable ratatouille by Megan – “Bought salmon, had a ton of CSA veggies and just happened to find the perfect recipes in Cook’s Illustrated!”

The Weekly News

It’s been a long week – we’re glad that our annual weekend vacation has arrived, and we’ll be off the farm for the weekend, staying at a cabin in nature with friends and family, recharging and regrounding, rebooting and renewing. It hasn’t been a bad week, just a long one, and at this time of summer it is really nice to be able to unplug for a bit, not wake up and go to bed each day with vegetables and to-do lists swirling endlessly through your waking and dreaming thoughts.

The week started off as the last few weeks have been, weatherwise – dry as a bone. Even running the gravity drip irrigation daily, the crops were showing the stress of the daily heat and the persistent lack of rain. It is uniquely stressful to look out at a field of crops with drooping, sad leaves.

On top of the drought, the summertime pests have kicked their game into gear. In addition to the hateful squash vine borers we continued to surgically-strike, the squash bugs have taken to the stage, appearing in their myriad forms – clusters of bronzed eggs on the undersides of the leaves, little nymphs of all sizes dancing along the stems, and a handful of early roach-looking adults scuttling among them. These are the most evasive little suckers. Literally, suckers – they drain the vitality from the already-struggling squash plants with their sucking mouthparts, and they run and hide when they see you coming, stopping, dropping, and rolling into the mulch when you attempt to squash them. When you do manage to catch them, they smell like some kind of gross candy from childhood that you can never quite place, but which was most likely the same unnatural color of teal as their guts are.

Worse, the cucumber beetles – the striped black and yellow menaces, are out in record numbers this year. And they don’t limit themselves to cucumber plants – they also love squash. And melons. And all kinds of other things. While they don’t do a lot of direct damage by their feeding habits, they harbor single-celled farm terrorists  in their guts that infect plants with bacterial wilt – which is incurable, inexorable – and inevitably fatal.

So the squash – which had been growing in majestic and triumphant glory, have been battered by three pests plus drought, beaten back into a condition that tends to make as sad rather than smile when we walk among them. There are huge squash everywhere – but you cannot count squash before they ripen. They take a long season to get to the point they’re tastily edible, and the hurdles they must cross are among the most treacherous an organic vegetable faces, unaided by arsenals of pesticide.

By Monday, we were getting serious in our desire for some rain. Rain dancing was discussed with WWOOFer Sean informed us that holding turquoise under running water was said to help bring the rains … it didn’t seem like a compelling plan. But we were hot and parched and ready to avoid the bludgeon of the afternoon sun, so we headed to the Saint Croix with the dogs to take a swim – and of course, I was wearing my dad’s turquoise ring.

And lo, it turns out turquoise rocks really do bring rain if you put em in a river! This is now an Established Scientific Fact, because after we got back to the Farm, the rain started … slowly at first, very very slowly. But then more fell, and more – and soon the trickle turned to a soaking downpour. And the pour kept on downing, hour after hour, all throughout the night – it rained steadily for over 12 hours, dropping almost two inches onto the parched landscape, bringing the drooping leaves and the corners of our smiles back up where they belong. We set out every bucket and pail and wheelbarrow we had, in the open and under driplines from roofs, gathering precious moisture  for future use, in case the rain stayed away for weeks again.

The next day we seized the opportunity to retain soil moisture among the unmulched pepper rows – adding layers of paper topped with a thick hay mulch.  We transplanted some new cool season crop seedlings out of the greenhouse and into the field – spinach into the row cover where cabbages had once been, and new cabbages and broccolis under shade tent a-frames draped over the trellises from which we’d recently removed the snap pea plants.

Hmmm, what else happened this week … our new rooster, Curly, somehow got himself trapped beneath one of the 5-gallon pails we use as nest boxes – we fortunately found him before he was roasted or suffocated – but we still have no idea how he managed to get himself in such a predicament. We do, however, suspect that the hens may have had something to do with it.

We weeded out fistfuls of horrifically spiked sandbur grass from the one corner of the field prone to it, and stalked the fluttering, ridiculously evasive cabbage looper moths with a butterfly net (scored free from Craigslist last year). Hijinks ensued – I wish there was video of me chasing through the field, flailing and swearing and laughing as I mostly missed but occasionally captured and killed the deceptively-pretty white moths (which deposit clusters of future ravenous caterpillars on plants such as cabbage, broccoli, and the like). We found another gorgeous and tasty giant Chicken of the Woods mushroom!

At night, the coyotes and the owls compete to see who can made the eeriest, most hair-raising cacophony. This week, the coyotes are winning.

Yesterday, Widget discovered a skunk skulking beneath the semitrailer barn – it sprayed at her but missed. The entire area reeked of skunk all day. The coop is next door to the semitrailer, and skunks are chicken eggs thieves and chicken murderers, so we put out the live trap donated to us by some lovely shareholders, baited with catfood. We really didn’t WANT to catch a skunk and have to figure out how to dispose of it, dead or alive, so we were relieved to find the trap empty in the morning. The dogs seem uninterested in the trailers underside today, so we’re hoping the malodorous menace has moved on … but we’re leaving the trap out just in case.

The Weekly Box

The boxes are getting hefty now! Open yours up to discover:

• Potatoes – mostly “All Blue” variety potatoes this week, with some reds and Yukon Golds as well.

  

• Tomatoes – an assortment of what’s (finally) starting to ripen … there are many varieties being grown, and only some are red when ripe – there are yellow tomatoes, and varieties that have a dusky, greenish cast to their skins even when fully ripe. To further complicate things and make your tomato-eating more interesting, we’ve picked some for you that are almost-but-not-quite ripe.. So how can you tell if a given tomato is ripe, when color is an unreliable guide? Feel em – if they are hard, they’re not ripe yet. A ripe tomato will give slightly to the touch – not soft, but … slightly yielding. Store them in a paper bag, loosely closed, and they will ripen nicely – or go the old-school route and place them in a window ledge where they’ll get  little sunshine. Just don’t ever put them in the fridge!

• Kale – Curly Blue, Dinosaur, & Red Russian varieties

• Onion

• Garlic

• either Broccoli or Beans or Okra (or two of the above, if you have a Large share box)

• two kinds of Basil

• Peppers  – an assortment of sweet (Green Bell, Italian Frying, Carmen Peppers, Sirenvyi) and spicy (Czech Black, Golden Cayenne, Red Cayenne, Serrano)!

• Zucchini  – still can’t stop, still won’t stop. We’ve been eating them in stir-frys and pancakes this week, ourselves – here’s some inspiration if you’d like some!

• Tomatillos  – peel the husk and enjoy, raw or in a salsa verde!

• Cucumbers –  Lemon & slicer varieties

• Sweet Corn –  Sugar Buns & Candy Corn varieties

Weekly Recipes from the Shareholders

Got one to share? send it in! if we have the ingredients in a future box we can share it in the newsletter … previously we’d been posting them to the Facebook page, but this might make more sense we reckon.

Pasta with Corn, Zucchini, and Tomatoes
By Mark Bittman – pic and recipe sent to us by Lizzy Wilkins
From the How to Cook Everything app

Introduction:

A summer mélange of whatever is on hand, tossed with pasta. Like ratatouille, this is flexible not only in its seasonings but also in its main ingredients: You can use onions, garlic, or shallots, singly or in combination; add green beans (or fresh limas) to the mix; substitute eggplant for the zucchini.

Ingredients:

• Salt
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or 2 tablespoons oil and 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup corn kernels (from 2 or 3 ears of corn)
• 1 cup diced zucchini or summer squash (about 5 ounces)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 medium onion or 3 or 4 shallots, finely chopped
• ¼ teaspoon minced garlic (optional)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon leaves
• 4 plum tomatoes or 2 large ripe tomatoes, diced
• 1 pound cut pasta, like penne, rigatoni, or fusilli

Steps:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium‐high heat. When hot, add the corn and cook, stirring only occasionally, until the corn is dry and really beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the zucchini and some salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini begins to brown.
2. Add the onion and the garlic if you’re using it. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens, about 5 minutes. Add the tarragon and cook for 30 seconds, then add the tomatoes and continue cooking while you cook the pasta.
3. Cook the pasta in the boiling water until tender but not mushy. If the sauce dries out (with plum tomatoes, this is likely), add some of the pasta‐cooking water, about ¼ cup at a time, to thin it somewhat but not make it a soup. When the pasta is done, drain it and toss with the sauce and the remaining oil or the butter. Taste and adjust the seasoning and serve immediately.

Miscellaneous From Lizzy:

Beet greens and broccoli and soba noodles: http://www.annaliisakapp.com/2013/06/how-to-prepare-for-a-cleanse-soba-noodles-with-broccoli-recipe.html

Green beans and peaches: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Grilled-Green-Beans-and-Peaches-51169060

Zucchini cornbread (it says 55-65 minutes, but mine didn’t cook through until 75-80 grr): http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Zucchini-Cornbread-366395

Zucchini fritters:http://markbittman.com/recipe/vegetable-pancakes/

Sweet Pickles
Recipe by Melissa Hickman

Ingredients:
1 c distilled white vinegar
1 tbsp salt
2 cups white sugar
6 cups sliced cucumbers
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped green bell peppers

Directions:
Over medium heat, bring vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil. Boil until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Place the cucumbers, onions and peppers in a large bowl. Pour vinegar mixture over the vegetables. Let cool some.

Transfer to sterile containers and store in the refrigerator. Give it 24-48 hours before eating so that the flavors have a chance to meld together.

Hints:
Use this as a good base – play around a bit. Add less sugar for less sweet pickles. Add red pepper flakes to add some zing to your sweet. Use different bell peppers. The first batch I did was exactly the recipe, but the second time around, I only had green onions and a purple pepper and some obscure pepper from my CSA. I also ran out of white sugar so used raw sugar crystals instead. I think this batch will be even better (I’ll find out in 2 days when we try them!!).

Dill Pickles
Recipe by Melissa Hickman

Ingredients:
2 to 3 cucumbers
5 springs of fresh dill (or 1 tbsp dry)
2-4 cloves are garlic, crushed and minced
3 tbsp distilled white vinegar
¾ tbsp salt, to taste
20 peppercorns
¼ tsp red pepper flakes, optional
Filtered water (enough to top off the jar)

Directions:
Cut pickles into discs, spears, or sandwich slices and add everything to a 1-quart mason jar EXCEPT the water. Once everything is in the jar, fill to the top with the filtered water. Screw the lid on tightly, so as not to leak. Shake up the jar to distribute the flavors and leave on your countertop for 12 hours. Shake it again and flip upside down for another 12 hours. Enjoy within a month for maximum freshness.

Hints:
You can do this with just about any vegetable. Eliminate the dill and use okra, bell peppers, etc. get creative!

Weekly News

This newsletter will be brief … we are getting dinner with our folks for a belated birthday meal, and couldn’t write in the car today – because we had to drive two cars back to the city, so that we could leave one to have the window repaired – a thief smashed a window and stole Kristin’s phone and Gabe’s backpack when we were in town to celebrate his birthday.

That was a hassle and a pain, but whatever. We had glass insurance coverage, that car window had stopped working anyway, and this will goad us into fixing it finally – and Kristin’s phone had a completely lousy battery life … silver linings, hooray, we’re GLAD it happened! OK not really, but it only made us crabby for a half hour or so. And when we got back to the Farm, we took nice relaxing salty hot tub baths.

Far worse has been the discovery that squash vine borers have sneakily invaded our beautiful & robust squash plants – despite our yellow buckets of water (which are supposed to catch some and alert a farmer to the little bastards’ presence). We never caught a single borer in the traps, but with the droughty heat, we noticed a frightening percentage of the squash looking more wilty and sad than they should be … and discovered the tell-tale “frass” at the base of their main stems. Grubs have been hatching and chewing into the stems, setting up camp within, where they suck away the plants’ vitality and grow fat and disgusting while the squash plants wither away – their huge, gorgeous squash fruits never ripening.

This is the worst of all pests we face. Almost unstoppable and almost always totally lethal. Organic control methods for squash vine borers include “do not plant squash” and “pray for a miracle.” Once they have already invaded your plants, you can try surgery. We knew it wasn’t likely to work, but we had to try – checking each plant for signs of invasion, slitting open the stems where the grubs were likely to be found, stabbing them and scraping them out with a wire, and then burying the grievous wound created with moist compost, in the hopes that all the grubs were eradicated (can be several per plant), and that the vine would heal and perhaps reroot above the wound, recovering enough to allow the huge young squashes to ripen before the frosts come.

This is grim work.

We still have about half of the squash left to do surgery on, when we get back to the Farm tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes. It sucks but it’s precisely this type of thing that we have to simply do what we can, and hope for the best – feeling crappy about it doesn’t accomplish anything other than making our experience of living less pleasant – so, que sera, sera. Life is great, and we hate squash vine borers, and that’s great too. :)

In other news, we did plenty of weeding, took out an old arugula bed to plant new radishes and spinach in, and a new WWOOFer arrived today – Sean from Milwaukee, with his beagle sidekick, Athena. He’s had some experience working on farms and he’s excited to be tenting out in the wild meadow back behind our trailer/home.  We found a couple of delicious, huge Chicken of the Woods mushrooms and ate, shared, and froze pounds of them. Hopefully we find similar bounties closer to box distribution day (this was last Thursday), so that we can share future fungi!

Harvest today went nicely, with help from Sean, Florian, Amy, and our new CSA member, Elizabeth.

Weekly Box

• Cucumbers – lemon, pickling, and slicing varieties. You can guess which ones are the lemons, right? They only look like lemons, though – still taste just like cukes.

• Zucchini –  it can’t stop, it won’t stop. There are a lot of wonderful things to be done with this stuff, get creative and have fun!

• Garlic

• Salad Turnips with greens –  These are the absurdly tasty turnips that you can munch on raw like an apple! Also, try a tender little turnip green raw, they are seriously delicious. And the big ones are great cooked of course.

• Sweet corn – eat it tonight if you can, they lose sweetness quickly!
  

• Parsley & Basil & Dill, oh my

• Cabbage –  no, not another ‘giant Napa Cabbage challenge,’ just a nice modest regular cabbage, of the Early Jersey Wakefield variety.

• Broccoli – bagged with:

• Beans –  mix of dragon tongue (the purple spotted guys) & green beans

• Okra – maybe. We had a handful which we randomized into the boxes.

• Pre-Adolescent Dinosaur Kale – older than baby kale, but definitely not full grown – young and not at all tough, perfect for salads or gentle cooking.

• A Mixed Bag of Early Summer Stuff:
  • Peppers – assortment of Czech black, jalepeno, & green peppers. Plus one of you got a mysterious big reddish one that I can’t figure out just now.

• Eggplant or tomato – only a little of each are ripe enough yet, so we randomized it into the boxes …

• Tomatillos – great in salsa, or nibbled fresh

 Weekly Critters

PS – I just remembered that weeks ago I told you that the peas were stringless. I thought they were; yet they weren’t. But the strings were pretty slender and tender, so hopefully no one noticed my big fat lie!