On the Upswing

It’s late July and things are moving a bit slowly here at the farm. The crew is working hard and putting in long days and our weekly punch list always has several items that rollover to the next, but the crops aren’t doing their part this year. Our greens supply is short right now, cucumbers are waning, peppers and eggplant are flowering but not making fruit of size yet, tomatoes look great but are still green, watermelon are bulging but not sweet enough, etc., etc. We’re doing everything we can while we wait for the pieces of the puzzle to come together. To understand why the produce supply is a bit skinny right now we have to look at the big picture of how we plan a farm season and the variables that make it all come together.

Each year we count on 22 weeks of harvests starting at the beginning of June and running until the end of October. Some years fall a week shorter due to the calendar or a particularly cold/wet spring but the majority of the years we have grown here have all hit the mark for all 22 weeks. (This year we will actually have 23 weeks due to a particularly mild and dry spring, pushing crops ahead and allowing us to start the CSA the last week of May…) When we put our planting schedule together in the fall preceding each summer we don’t plan specific crops for specific weeks. Those of you who have ever had a garden and looked at a seed packet guaranteeing big beets in exactly 68 days or tender arugula 28 days after sowing know that the science of vegetables isn’t exact -no matter what the seed companies put on the packet. Because of this we do our best to hit the starting date with as many spring crops as possible (radishes, lettuce mix, kale, chard, baby bok choi, etc.) and then build in the rest of the season using succession plantings that are designed to give us good variation in the kinds of crops each week of the summer until Halloween. For example we try and plant broccoli and arugula every three weeks, carrots every two weeks, cabbage once a month, fennel every eight weeks, etc. As these crops are ready we harvest and generally the difference in time between the maturity of each crop and the demand for diversity and quantity in the CSA share dovetails one crop with the next, giving all of you some variety as well as enough produce to make real meals each week. We hone this system each fall, adding and subtracting plantings or moving their dates one week forward or back on the calendar. When the system works well, which is most of the time, we have lots of interesting food and we feel like we have found harmony and symbiosis with natural world. When the odds stack up the other direction and the share is a bit thinner we’re left  feeling clumsy and harried. Luckily this doesn’t happen that often! Our hope is that you understand this crazy process and can ride through the fog of this week, hoping for sun on the other side.

Organic Maine Wild Blueberries…Preorder This Week for Delivery Next Week…

The Harvey family will be raking beautiful, high quality berries for us again this year in Oxford Co. They will rake the day before, if its not raining in western Maine,so the quality will be amazing.  Berries will be offered by the quart (quarts are 1.7 pounds each (3 qts.=5lbs.) for $9each. Pre-order at pick-up this Tuesday or Friday for delivery next Tuesday or Friday.  You can also order by email  (by Saturday at noon for pickup Tuesday or Tuesday at noon for pickup Friday). We usually freeze 10-15 pounds for winter muffins, crepes and pancakes…

Weeds Like Rain…Let’s Stop Them Together

The wet weather has really been helpful to the plants in the fields. Unfortunately the weeds are starting to out number the crops as the prevalent greenery this year. As in years past we would like to invite to out to join the crew as we beat back the competition in the fields. Look for us along Pleasant Hill Road east of the Farmstead from 9-11 each Wednesday in August (starting this Wednesday…July 31st). We will be in the fields near the blue or white farm trucks. Park where you can and jump in. We have a big crew this year and the work is fast and satisfying!

Pre-Labor Day Potato Harvest Save the Date

We are planning a mini potato harvest party on Saturday August 10th at 9am (more on this event as it get’s closer…) to pull early spuds. -Don’t worry we will also have our annual labor on Labor Day  potato harvest as well. But this one will give those of you with Labor Day travel plans another option to jump in. If you can’t get enough potato harvest come to both days!

Farm Camp In Action

This is fifth and final week of farm camp and we have had a great summer with our local kids, feeding animals, pulling weeds, harvesting and just getting dirty. These kids know local food from the ground up! Thanks to all of you who have shared your kids with us this season and we hope maybe a few of them will add farmer to their list of possible occupations…

What’s In Upic?

Green Beans

Flowers

Herbs

What’s In  The Share This Week?

Lettuce

Chard

Summer squash

Cucumbers

Sweet Onions

Basil

 

 

Two Sides of the Coin

Beating the Beetles at Their Own Game

This week we practiced some radical triage on the farm. Colorado potato beetle is one of our worst pests year after year. They over winter in the boundaries of the field emerge and find our potato crop -no matter where we have moved them each summer. Starting in June we pick them off one by one and then at some point in July we usually reach the point where this method of control is no longer possible on our almost one acre potato plot. The next solution is to use an organic soil-born bacteria that we spray on the crop and knocks the beetles back, usually setting them back enough that we can get a good crop. The day we should have used this bacteria this year was day one of the most recent nine day stretch of rain we had. Needless to say we missed our window. In those nine days the beetles went to town and while we were able to apply the bateria, Last weekend it was very late for many of the rows. Much of the crop will bounce back but about 1500 row feet were virtually skeletonized by the beetle. When this happens there are just a couple options. Leave the plants as they are and hope for some leaves to regenerate or mow them off completely and harvest those rows early. You may have guessed by this point that we decide to mow off these rows and work to give the rest of the crop the best chance. The up shot is that we will we have potatoes starting in mid August -rather than mid-September! We are planning a mini potato harvest party on Saturday August 10th at 9am (more on this event as it get’s closer…) to pull these early spuds. -Don’t worry we will also have our annual labor on Labor Day  potato harvest as well.

Roll Out the Onions

Sweet summer onions appear this week and we are all so happy. Ailsa Craig onions are the north’s answer to the Georgia Vidailia, large and sweet, they lack the pungency of the storage red and yellow varieties coming later. Best suited to using raw or barely cooked, the sweetness is the real prize here. If you prefer your onions cooked try brushing these with butter/oil and grilling/broiling them or chopping them on top of something that will be in a high heat oven like focaccia or fritatta. This beautiful crop will be in regular supply for a few weeks and they will keep well in your fridge for a month or so. This open pollenated variety has been a prize winner since it was introduced in 1877…

Grilling Leeks…

We are teasing you with a few small leeks this week. We have several beds of leeks planted and one has been giving us a hard time, filling with weeds again and again. Rather than continue this battle we decided to harvest this one bed a bit early and give you something exciting to throw on the grill. Like so many things in life it is the preparation for, rather than the actual cooking that makes or breaks the experience. Leeks have a unique ability to gather soil on their leaves that then settles alongside the shaft of the plant and is almost impossible to wash away without destroying the leek. The trick to cleaning this vegetable  and also keeping it together on the grill or under the broiler is using the roots. Most of us are taught to cut the roots away first off as we prep any vegetable -don’t do it. Instead take the point of a sharp knife and starting 1/4 inch above the roots, slice the shaft longways all the way through the leaves. Now you should be able to clean the leek under the faucet, removing all of the dirt from between the leaves as the root end holds everything together. After this you can separate the two sides, again leaving the root in place to hold the leaves on each half together. If you are headed to the grill pat each side dry and generously bathe them in olive oil, adding salt and pepper just before they hit the fire. We like to cook them until the are almost black on the outside and the inside starts to caramelize. A hot pan or the broiler work well here too or you can also just use this sweet mellow member of the onion family as you would a scallion…

What’s In Upic?

Green Beans

Flowers

Herbs

What’s In  The Share This Week?

Lettuce

Chard

Summer squash

Kohlrabi/Beets

Cucumbers

Leeks

Sweet Onions

 

The Weather Breaks

Wet and warm has given way to hot and humid…preferable for plants but not optimum for the humans…

Mid-summer has arrived and we starting the great transition from planting all the time to harvesting all the time. Last week we finished putting in an are of winter squash, our last big crop of the year. We still have small weekly plantings of succession crops like greens and radishes but for the most part we are done adding crops. From here we start harvesting -all the time. At this point we are pulling about 650 lbs. of carrots, 1200 cucumbers, 450 heads  of lettuce, and 450 kohlrabi and each week. Add to this melons, leeks tomatoes and peppers in the weeks to come and you can see we start to have no time to do anything else but try to keep up with the food that is ready!

Multi-Species Interaction

Pigs and sheep are enjoying the summer grasses and both are growing quickly. Look for info on ordering custom pork and lamb in the August!

Peas Give Up

The peas have given up the fight and and succumbed to the heat. Pea root systems sit very close to the surface and are highly affected by heat. The last few days have done them in…

What’s in Upic?

Flowers

Herbs

What’s in  the Share this Week?

Carrots

Lettuce

Chard

Summer squash

Kohlrabi

Cucumbers

Running Between the Raindrops

Hey Everyone-

We are at full sprint this week trying to work between rainstorms, shower and heavy mist…

What’s in Upic?

Peas

Flowers

What’s in  the Share this Week?

Carrots

Beets

Lettuce

Chard

Kale

Chickories

Summer squash

Kohlrabi

Cucumbers

Wet Enough

Rain, Rain, go away…We are done with rain here at the farm -or more accurately, the humidity. There actually hasn’t been too much rain in the past week (less than 2 inches by our gauge) there just hasn’t been enough sun and enough wind in between  to dry off the leaves of the plants. Nothing is worse for most of the crops we grow here than constant moisture.

A vegetable farm is like a exotic plant collection. We have species native to central India (eggplant), the mountains of Peru (potatoes), the meditereanean (arugula, cabbage, kale) and Africa (watermelon). Each crop we grow evolved in a drastically different environment from the majority of the other crops around it. Because of this most of our work as farmers involves trying to level the playing field or adapt what we expect from our Maine climate to make this short season work for all of these well travelled species. While these crops hail from many environments, very few are products of the rain forest -which is what we have been living in the past week! The forecast look better for the coming days and hopefully the wind will blow this tropical stuff out and get us back to the cold, dry summer we have come to expect around here.

The Upic Field Opens this Week with Peas…here’s how it works:

This is the official opening week of our Upic field with snow and snap peas as well as a few flowers. We are asking that you limit your pea picking to 1 pint this week to ensure that everyone can enjoy this crop. We will have pint boxes in the field. If you are new to the CSA and the upic field here’s how it works…

Here’s the skinny on how Upic works. We prepare, plant, and weed this ½ acres plot just for you, the members of the farm. Growing there you will find green beans, herbs, flowers, and most notably this week, peas. These are crops that are particularly rewarding to harvest and can add a lot of value to your share as they often are great accompaniments to the “field crops” we harvest and wash for you each week.

The important thing to understand about this field is that it belongs to everyone who has a share in the farm. There are 275 shares this year and we try very hard to plan each planting so that everyone will be able to enjoy every crop. The idea is that all of these crops are compliments to the field crops and not necessarily staples in and of themselves. While we would love to be able to plant enough Upic basil for everyone to make pesto for the winter or sow enough beans to share with your neighbors, it’s just not possible in the space we have to work with. Those of you that split shares, we ask that you be particularly aware of your picking quantities.

With the exception of these first couple weeks we will not suggest amounts for you to take from the upic field. The idea is that we all take our share and consciously leave behind enough for everyone else. The upic field has always been our grand experiment in community spirit and in thirteen years of CSA growing all over the Northeast we have never been disappointed.

Carrots on the Menu

We have our first carrots of the season this week. Sweet and crisp this first variety is my favorite of the season. The crew harvested about 450 lbs in the rain yesterday, deepening our already close relationship to mud.

Cabbage is New England Soulfood

Try this classic cole slaw recipe. I’ts from Los Angeles’ famous pantry diner and is what all other american slaw recipes aspire to…You can use any cabbage (savoy, green, chinese) and it never hurts to shred in a few carrots…

What’s in Upic?

Peas

Flowers

What’s in  the Share this Week?

Carrots

Beets

Lettuce

Chard

Kale

Chickories

Summer squash