Our Last Week…

IMG_4818All good things must come to an end, and as we start our last week of harvest and CSA distribution….

Thanks to all of your for your support of all of us here and what we do. This is your farm and we are very proud to be your farmers.

This has been a good year for all of us eating what the farm has grown. While every crop didn’t perform perfectly, as farmers we are happy with the season as a whole. This fall has been one of a kind. In the ten years we have farmed here we’ve never seen a September or October that was so dry and so mild.  The greens we have been cutting the last few weeks have been so abundant and such high quality they looked like they were grown in May, not October.

What a gift all of these greens have been. As winter approaches we all have full fridges and can eat healthy, fresh meals when we sit down to eat during our busy  fall days.  Trying each week to either eat or find storage for food, especially greens is challenging.  We hear you and this is our reasoning behind offering these crops in such consistently large quantities – we have it.  In the late summer we plant absurd amounts of greens for the fall, knowing that in a normal year many things will be lost to frost or the disease that come with abundant fall rain. Well this year we had neither and the greens flourished.  Rather than not harvest them at all, we chose to offer them to you. Many of you “old timers” who have been members for many years have learned not to take more than you can use, knowing that much of this overabundance will be passed on to the local food pantry or be added to our compost – which will nourish next years crops.  In seasons past we have also had folks not renew, feeling like “it’s too much.” Please understand that farming is a great gamble and while our experience allows us to beat the odds many times, if you don’t sign up again because we are doing our job too well – we all lose out.

Crop Diversity Blow-out

As you work with your share this week, making meals out of all of these different things please remember to use out website as a resource.  In the right hand menu bar is a recipe listing by vegetable. Each crop has at least two or three ideas and quite often the recipes include other crops from the fall -helping to make great meals with many of your farm ingredients.

What’s Missing

Amongst the bounty of many crops we have had a few conspicuous poor performers this year, butternut squash being the most notable. This crop was a total loss for us due to the heavy rain and heat of July. Other notes are less than expected yields in tomatoes (they tasted great) and onions.

Survey Time

Please take a moment to fill out our annual CSA member survey. We use your responses and ideas to shape the year to come and a few minutes of your time goes a long way to making the farm better each year. Follow this link to the 2013 online form.

Local Pastured Turkey

Our neighbors and fellow farmers Mike and Lucrecia Woodruff here in brunswick raise birds for thanksgiving. Our family has celebrated with their birds for many years and we are always happy. If you are interested call them @ 725.4554

Upic Has Come to an End This Year…

What’s in the Share?

Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes

Winter Squash

Carrots

Beets

Turnips

Leeks

Onions

Cabbage

Chard

Kale

Lettuce

Brussels Sprouts

Parsnips

Kohlrabi

Back to the Roots

The tsunami of fall roots begins this week with turnips and parsnips, added to the assortment of carrots, beets, celeriac and sweet potatoes we’ve been in up to this point. If you are feeling overwhelmed or even just a bit challenged by all these roots there are 3 simple things to remember. One, all of these crops keep forever in a bag in your fridge, giving you lots of time to work with them.  Two, roots go well with just about all other roots. You can roast, braise and mash your way into some pretty great meals on the blustery days and nights coming up soon. Remember to check the website for recipes. Here’s the link to the best simple roasting recipe.  Last, we have come into soup season.  Surprisingly easy.  Simply chop up your roots, sauté some onions & garlic, and then cover with water or broth, and simmer until the veggies are soft.  We use a hand blender to puree, sometimes adding coconut milk and Indian spices.

IMG_4783We dug the first of the parsnips yesterday and its been a long wait. Parsnips are generally the first crop we sow into the fields each spring, generally in early April. The seeds germinated very slowly -about three weeks, and don’t begin to look like something we planted deliberately until almost mid-summer. During this time they have been setting insanely long tap roots, penetrating about four feet underground. By the fall the foliage is bushy and about eighteen inches tall and the taproots average 8 feet long. Luckily we only harvest the twelve inches or so closest to the soil surface!  Yesterday we dug two 350 foot rows, using the tractor and a undercutting blade to get underneath the roots and lift them, making it possible to pull them easily.

From the field we bring them up to the farm and run them through the same root washer as the potatoes, carrots, etc. and then get them into the cooler, waiting for you to come and take them home at long last.

The End is Near…

Next week will be our last week of harvest and CSA for the season. It’s been a good year all in all. With a great fall to cap it off. Thank you for your support of what we do here.  We never really know what to expect from each season.  Farmers juggle so many variables in the process of growing good food.  We don’t take you, our loyal customers, our farm share members, for granted.  Thank you for being the steady component on the farm!

Sign up for 2014

Thank you for signing up for 2014!  We appreciate those of you willing to throw your hat in with us again this fall.  If you have yet to sign up here’s the easy link to our online sign-up.

Please don’t delay in signing up – once again we have accumulated a long wait list and will be opening that up this week to new members.  We truly don’t want you to miss out if the CSA is full next Spring.  Please be in touch if you do want to sign up but something is getting in your way (uncertain plans, share partners, money, etc) so we can hold a spot for you.

Pork

For those of you that missed our pork order or who don’t have the freezer space for a side will be happy to know we have hams, chops steaks and shoulders for sale in the freezer.

 Winter Shares

Wolf Pine Farm once again will be delivering their winter shares right here to Crystal Spring Farm.  We are just a drop off host & all the info can be found on their website: http://wolfpinefarm.com

Upic

Cherry Toms

Flowers

Herbs

What’s in the Share

Dumpling Squash

Sweet Potatoes

Asian Greens

Lettuce

Carrots/Beets

Kale

Chickories

Chard

Peppers

Red Onions

Parsnips

Turnips

Roasted Root Vegetables

Reprinted from the NYT

INGREDIENTS
  • 3 pounds assorted root vegetables: carrots, parsnips, celeriac, potatoes, turnips, etc.
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • Salt and black pepper
  • Chopped rosemary, thyme or parsley, plus more for garnish

PREPARATION

1.
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Peel vegetables (optional) and cut them into 1- to 2-inch chunks, put them in a baking pan and toss with the oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper.
2.
Put the vegetables in the oven and roast without stirring for 20 minutes, then check. If they look dry and are sticking to the pan, drizzle with more oil. Continue roasting, stirring or turning the vegetables once, for another 20 minutes or so. Stir in the herbs, then return the pan to the oven for another 20 to 40 minutes, until crisp. Remove from the oven. Garnish with rosemary or thyme.

 

Fall Forward

Mother nature still has her finger on the hold button for fall with another week of crazy warm weather. The leaves are coming off the trees and the wind is picking up but the temps are still more like early September. Besides being quite pleasant to work in for us humans, the plants are soaking up this weather and growing like gangbusters. We have lettuce heads that are twice the size and weight of our standard for this time of year, kale and chard are leafing out with the vigor of our August crop and the grass in our pastures is keeping the sheep busy trying keep up.

Kristin running the sorter
Kristin running the sorter
Sydney waiting for clean spuds to come out of the washer.
Sydney waiting for clean spuds to come out of the washer.

While the leafy crops are a large part of our weekly harvest, we have slowly been spending more and more time sorting and washing crops that were harvested in September and are coming out of storage. Winter squash, onions, and potatoes are all taken out of the fields en mass and we work away at them each week, cleaning and sorting them for the CSA. One of our biggest tasks is sorting the potato crop. Unlike most vegetables, potatoes are sown each spring using tubers from the previous years crop. “Seed” potatoes we save over the winter are set out and the new crop grows from these tubers. Unlike our other crops that come from true seed that is the product of a flower and pollination potatoes are clones, genetically identical to the previous years crop. While we grow spuds for all of you to enjoy in your share this fall, we are also growing our seed for the coming year. The whole crop is harvested and when we wash them to give to to all of you, the smaller tubers are sorted out to save. Many years ago we were lucky to find some old potato equipment that sorts by size, sending the bigger spuds into our washer and the smaller ones into bags that go into the cooler. The cooler keeps everything at about 35 degrees for the winter -cool enough to keep the potatoes asleep but not below freezing, which would kill them. Farmers are like squirrels, storing away the bounty on hand for the coming year….

Sign Up for 2014

Thanks to all of you who have signed up for the CSA again for the coming year. If you haven’t reserved your share yet follow this link to our no frills online sign-up page. The process takes just a few minutes and provides easy options to reserve your share for next summer. If you have friends, co-workers and neighbors who are interested in joining we will open sign-up to non-members on October 21st.

Order Lamb for the Freezer

We have order sheets for whole and half lambs for the freezer available. Pre-order and have the butcher process your cuts as you like them. Talk to us at pick-up or send us and email for a copy of the order form….

Upic

Cherry Toms

Flowers

Herbs

What’s in the Share

Broccoli

Delicata Squash

Potatoes

Asian Greens

Lettuce

Carrots/Beets

Kale

Chickories

Chard

Peppers

Red Onions

Warmth of the Sun

One  morning of frost is a small price to pay for this string of outstanding fall days and nights we have been having.

We have been living it up on the farm these cloudless days. Getting all of our major crops in and slowly beginning the task of closing down the fields bed by bed. This time of year we transition from crazy harvest mode to long-term mode like mowing fields one last time, gathering/organizing equipment and strategizing where all of our stuff will rest for the coming winter. Bring the farm and all of its parts to a slow halt where we can pick them up and use them again next year.

The great weather is giving all of us the chance to dream we are still in living in the Mediterranean with eggplant, fennel, tomatoes and peppers still trickling in. Please make a point to prioritize these ingredients in your cooking so that you can soak up the last of the summer sun and it’s produce together this week.

Sweets

Sweet potatoes make their first appearance this week after spending the past 10 days sweetening up at 85 degrees in our curing room. This crop, like winter squash, needs to rest for a while after harvest to come into it’s full sweetness. These orange tubers like high temps and humidity to transition their starches to sugars. The process also helps them keep in your kitchen for longer as well. Our favorite way to enjoy these is to brush them with butter/oil and  just roast them at 375 until they are soft and the skin starts to separate from the flesh…

Much Lettuce AgainIMG_4644

So much lettuce right now. All of our leafy heads for the next month are starting to come now so bone up on your vinaigrette recipes and get ready. Aside from all of it coming at once, this is a great crop and has none of the toughness that the post-hard frost heads will in the weeks to come. The heads keep well in plastic bags in your chiller drawer.

Many Thanks

We are so grateful to all of your who have thrown joined the CSA again for the coming year. There has been a record number of sign-ups so far and your enthusiasm has buoyed some tired farmers, giving us vigor to start the process of imagining the bounty another season ahead. If you haven’t reserved your share yet follow this link to our no frills online sign-up page. The process takes just a few minutes and provides easy options to reserve your share for next summer.

Pumpkins No More

After growing jack-o-lanterns for the past ten years we made an executive decision this past winter to drop them from our  list of crops. We have so many great memories of kids picking out their own pumpkins and the site of the hay wagon overflowing with orange was always amazing against the fall leaves but we felt we needed to take this crop off our list. For a couple of functional reasons this growing pumpkins has become tough to justify. One, it requires a lot of space, almost half an acre, and two, it is a huge attractanct and host to one of our more significant pests, the cucumber beetle. We hope this early warning gives you some time to find some local pumpkins before halloween is upon us .

Upic

Cherry Toms

Flowers

Herbs

What’s in the Share

Broccoli

Sweet Dumpling Squash

Sweet Potatoes

Asian Greens

Lettuce

Radishes

Carrots

Kale

Chickories

Eggplant

Peppers

Lentil Curry with Celeriac and Winter Squash

 

-Half, seed, and peel 1 winter squash–or other winter squash–with a sharp knife (the skin is actually not too hard to peel if your knife is good). Cut squash into 1/4 inch chunks. Similarly, carefully peel and chop 1 celery root into 1/4 chunks. Set aside.

-Heat a large pot over medium heat with 4 tablespoons of olive or coconut oil (I like coconut for this recipe) and toss squash and celery root in with:

1 large white onion, chopped3 cloves of garlic, minced2 medium carrots2 tablespoons of fresh, grated ginger1 teaspoon of salt

-Saute veggies for about 15-20 minutes until tender.

-Add 1 tablespoon of curry powder and 1/4 teaspoon (or more) of red chili flakes. Mix well and cook for 2 minutes.

-Add 1 cup of lentils (any type will do), 1 cup of water or chicken stock, and 1 cup of coconut milk. **Coconut milk can be omitted…just add stock or water instead.

-Cover and simmer mixture for 25-40 minutes until lentils are tender. Adding more stock or water if the mixture is getting to thick.

-Let cool slightly and serve with brown or wild rice. Garnish with a fresh herb like chive, cilantro or parsley! ENJOY!

Serves 4 to 5 large portions.

 

IMG_2701The end of another farm year feels real this week. We are rushing to gather up the last tender crops of summer so we can give them out to you over the next few weeks. Winter squash, eggplant, fennel, tomatoes are all coming in, ripe just in time to be brought out from under the cold nights that are getting colder. The last couple weeks of September are always a bit crazier than normal as we move in several directions, closing one season and getting ready for the next. With one eye focussed we harvest like mad all these tender crops, while with the other we are look ahead to the next summer. Adding compost to fields to enrich them, mowing high grass in the pastures to allow the young grass to emerge and sowing fertility enhancing crops to gather this year’s lost nutrients and protect the soil over the winter are all acts of devotion to the season to come. These late season sowings of what we call “cover crops” (meant to cover the ground for the winter) always seems the craziest task we undertake. The season is closing, we are overflowing with food and yet we work extra-hard to sow hundreds of pounds of seed over acres of ground all in the name of next year’s fertility. Most of these cover crops are a combination of traditional grain crops (rye, barley, oats and wheat) combined with a legume (peas, clover and vetch). The grain quickly covers the ground, shading out late season weeds and soaking up nutrients left behind after the vegetable crop. The grain crop also provides a protected environment for the slower growing legume to develop slowly in the understory. As the legume gets larger it gathers nitrogen and outgrows the early grain crop until both die over the winter or become late season sheep feed or wake up and grow stronger next spring.

 Sign Up for 2013 Now!

We’ll be sending out a sign-up email later today about signing up for your 2013 CSA share. If you are interested in joining us again next season we urge you to sign up now. Your commitment now allows us to plan, purchase and hire for next year.  We will start taking new members from the wait list on October 21st but would like to give you, our current members the opportunity to renew with us first.  Sign ups will be online with a new system that is easier to understand but still allows for the use of credit cards, electronic checks and payment plans. It is also possible to sign-up online and mail us a check the old fashioned way.

Lamb for the Freezer

There are still order forms for whole and half lamb for your freezer. these are our grass fed lambs, processed with your directions to the butcher. Pickup a order form at pick-up or email us for a digital copy…

What’s In Upic?

Cherry Toms

Green Beans -last week

Flowers

Herbs

What’s In  The Share This Week?

Broccoli

Tomatoes

Lettuce

Chickories

Chard

Beets
Eggplant
Peppers
Cabbage
Celeriac
Scallions

Harvest Frost

The crew starts cutting on harvest days at 6am, at least until the lack of light pushes the time forward, and this am was our first really cold morning. Standing at the farmhouse the thermometer read 36 before we all loaded into the trucks and headed down to the fields.  The usual routine is to divide the crew of 7 into groups by crop and jump in, today we had chard, lettuce mix and kale to work on right off. Five of us cut 125lbs of lettuce in less than 15 minutes  and with chilly hands we moved into the next crop.  Three folks broke off to head to another field to cut lettuce heads while the rest of us jumped into chard. Almost as soon as the lettuce crew drove off they came back -frost was blanketing all of the heads they planned to cut. This happens alot in October and we have to postpone the morning cut to let the crops thaw. Lettuce, chard, kale and most of our greens generally handle light frosts very well. The sun comes up, they thaw and are good as new. The tough part for us is that we can’t touch them until they are completely frost free. Any movement at all and those frozen cells in the plant break and in a short time turn to green mush. Waiting for frost is expected a month from now, but I can’t remember a mid-September morning in the last ten years that has had a frost.IMG_4553

The crew diverted from lettuce heads to other crops in the first field where we had started with the lettuce mix and cut for another 20 minutes or so until we started to notice the chard and kale in our hands was looking different. It was beginning to freeze up right in front of us. We call this a harvest frost. When the temperature is just above freezing as the sun comes up the air above the field is warmed and pushes a mass of concentrated cold air below it down upon us and the greens -freezing them right before our eyes. Needless to say we all stopped cutting, loaded up the trucks and headed back up to wash what we had cut, have some breakfast and wait while the morning warmed up.

 Last week for Freezer Pork….

Our own pigs, raised with care on pasture. Know your food. If you have been thinking about a whole of a half for your freezer this is the last week. Talk to us at pick-up for more info….

What’s In Upic?

Cherry Toms

Green Beans

Flowers

Herbs

What’s In  The Share This Week?

Red Onions

Tomatoes

Lettuce

Chickories

Chard

Carrots/Beets
Eggplant
Rose Gold Potatoes

Fall

Hopefully all of you are settling in to your post-summer routines, enjoying the crisp sleeping weather and good meals. September is my favorite eating month. It’s the crossover time between the heat loving crops of summer and the hearty satisfying roots of fall. Meals that include potatoes and tomatoes, hot peppers and cabbage -the options are endless.

Most of our days are filled with harvest as we try to keep up with what’s coming in. Potatoes, squash and Sweet potatoes are the big crops yet to be finished amongst are the smaller ones you see each week. All of our days begin at 6am and on Tuesdays and Fridays we have a bigger crew as some of our able hourly help jumps in to cut greens, wash roots and help with the sorting and cleaning of onions, melons, etc. Here a shot our our crew this am…IMG_4545

San Marzano Roma Toms

This is the first picking of these roma tomatoes, a new addition to the share this year. Famous for their concentrated flavor and low moisture a few of these sliced into a pan with onion and olive oil is a pasta sauce in itself.

Potato Thanks

Thanks to all of you who came out to lend a hand with the potato harvest last Saturday am. We picked up about 4000 row feet of Rosegolds and Adirondack Reds which you will start seeing in your share next week after we grade and wash them.

Fennel

Another round of this under appreciated mediterranean mainstay. If you missed enjoying this one last time try some of the recipes on the website. Especially the Tunisian stew with Greens and Chickpeas…

IMG_4551Monster Carrots

Carrots this week are mega big. Last week they weren’t consistent enough in size to harvest but the rain caused a growth explosion! We had a hard time getting these monsters out of the ground!

Last Round of Watermelon This Week…IMG_4552

This peace watermelon is a great variety and yes, it is supposed to be yellow in the inside.

Breeding Time Again for Sheep

If you are on the farm you may notice our various flocks here and there, some of them sporting bright swashes of red and green. Two of our ewe groups have rams in with them and the color comes from a pigment paste we apply to the rams chest. He then marks the ewe when they come together and we now know that our ram is doing his job, and by the number of marked ewes, how well…IMG_4549

What’s In Upic?

Cherry Toms

Green Beans

Flowers

Herbs

What’s In  The Share This Week?

Roma Tomatoes

Watermelon

Tomatoes

Fennel

Lettuce

Asian Greens

Chard

Carrots
Broccoli
Ancho Peppers
Gold Potatoes

Tunisian Fennel, Greens, Chickpea Stew

Adapted fron  the New York Times

1/2 pound (1 1/8 cups) chickpeas, soaked in 1 quart water for four to six hours or overnight (or 1 can chickpeas rinsed and drained)

1 bunch Swiss chard or Kale , stemmed, leaves washed and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 leek, white part only, cleaned and sliced

2 medium or 1 large fennel bulb, cored and chopped

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon coriander seeds, ground

1 teaspoon caraway seeds, ground

2 teaspoons cumin seeds, ground

1 tablespoon harissa (more to taste; substitute 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper if harissa is unavailable), plus additional for serving. Try using a flavorful mildly spice pepper, minced, like and ancho or even jalapeño here as well.

1 tablespoon tomato paste dissolved in 1/2 cup water

Salt to taste

1 1/3 cups couscous (optional)

1. Drain the chickpeas and transfer to a large pot. Add 1 1/2 quarts water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer one hour while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

2. Tear the chard leaves off the stems. Wash the stems and dice. Wash the leaves thoroughly and chop coarsely. Set aside. Chop the fennel fronds, and set aside.

3. Heat the oil over medium heat in a heavy casserole, Dutch oven or in any heavy pan with a lid. Add the onion, leek, fennel and a generous pinch of salt, and cook, stirring, until tender, five to eight minutes. Add the chard stems, and stir together for a couple of minutes until they begin to soften. Add the garlic and ground spices, and stir together for 30 seconds to a minute until the garlic is fragrant. Add the harissa or cayenne and the dissolved tomato paste, and stir together for another minute or two. Add the chickpeas with their cooking liquid, plus another cup of water if you think there should be more liquid in the pot. Stir together, and bring back to a simmer. Add salt, cover and simmer 30 minutes to an hour until the chickpeas are thoroughly tender and the broth fragrant. If using canned chickpeas simmer at the lowest heat just to bring the flavors together.

4. Stir in the chard greens and chopped fennel fronds. Simmer 10 to 15 minutes, until the greens are very tender and fragrant. Remove from the heat. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding salt, garlic or harissa/pepper as desired.

5. Reconstitute and steam the couscous. Serve in wide bowls, top with the stew and serve.