The last week of the season has arrived and with the last harvest we hope to send you home with some great produce and a feeling of accomplishment.  Whether his is your ninth year with us or your first there’s reason to pause, reflect and celebrate having eaten your way through a  Maine summer.  We as a society spend so much time rushing from one experience to the next, rarely having time or consciousness to devote to processing or feeling what is happening along the way. Having a CSA share can be one of or maybe our only experience where we look, feel, and taste the season as it’s happening.  Hopefully you can look back on the past months and mark at least a few of the days with the meals that you’ve had from your produce from the farm.

As farmers, we can definitely link many days with the meals we’ve had whether at our weekly crew lunches, nightly family dinner, or taking produce to friends and family.  The great flavor of his years tomatoes alone fill my mental calendar for August and September. We also have the weekly experience of watching you take our work home to share and enjoy and in the cold days ahead that, as much as the meals, keeps us warm and keeps us working and dreaming up the flavors of the season to come. Happy eating.

Goodbye to a Friend

The farm lost a good friend this last week with the passing of Larry Nies.  Larry and his family have been members of the farm for many years. He and his share partner Fred were always the first faces in the door each Tuesday, and in true New England Early bird fashion, they were 5 minutes early! Always warm and excited, and usually with a question about the food or fields Larry could be counted on for a positive spin on the weather or the produce.  Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He will be missed here at the farm.

Sign-up for 2013!!

If you are thinking about a share again for next year I encourage you to take a moment to sign up this week.  We have the longest wait list we have ever had and will begin taking new members this week.  A separate email will include all the details, including a link to sign up online.  You can always give us a check at distribution to hold your spot if that is easier for you.  We’ll be available to answer any questions.

THANK YOU to all of you who have signed up to join us again!

Survey-time

Here’s a link to our annual survey. It’s very short and is quite helpful for us as we look back over the season and plan the year to come.  We will also send out the link in a separate email.

Winter Eating

Our friends Tom and Amy of Wolf Pine Farm down in Alfred, Maine are offering a winter CSA share that will be delivered to Crystal Spring every 3 weeks during the winter.  Local produce, eggs, meat and bread are available in this share and its a great way to stay connected to Maine’s farms even though the snow is deep. Check out their share at http://wolfpinefarm.com/foodWinter.html

Thank you for a great season – for showing up and for making this community farm successful for us all.  We will continue to be in touch over the coming weeks and months ahead.

What’s in the share…

Pumpkins -2 per share, share on or both with larger families at our pumpkin swap table.

Turnips

Parsnips

Potatoes

Butternut

Kale

Chard

Lettuce mix

Onions

Leeks

Sweet potatoes

Friday night was cold, really cold. By the looks of the burning the crops and perrinials around here, I would guess we had a temp somewhere around 26. I could have given you a more exact number but I as not here…more on that later.  This kind of cold usually doesn’t really hurt the crops we have around this time of year except when it comes out of nowhere. Frost-hardy crops like kale, chard and cabbage that we’ve been enjoying the past couple of weeks usually do fine with anything above twenty.  The exception is when we have really mild temps and then we get a crash – just like last week when we had balmy days and nights prior to friday night’s cold. The plants get used to the warmth and can’t adjust to the quick drop – especially when the drop is so far below freezing.

The good news is that most of our remaining kale, chard, cabbage, leeks, parsnips and turnips are doing well. The heartbreaker is that the broccoli we had hoped to harvest this week and next is a total loss. The upic field as well is done, as you can see from the photo of the Zinnias below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we wind down the CSA season Mother Nature is assuring us that our timing is right and winter is on its way.

Two Weeks Left…

Next week will be our last harvest and we hope to send you home with a good load of stuff including two pumpkins, potatoes, parsnips and turnips. Its always sad to come to them end of a season but winter helps us make the most of the summer to come.

Sign up Now for 2013

The time has come to sign up for 2013. Some of you may know that our CSA filled up early in the spring and many members from 2011 who intended to sign up were disappointed to miss the opportunity.  In fact since late spring we have been maintaining a growing wait list of people who are not currently members who would like to join for 2013.  With this in mind we would like all current members who are interested to sign up in the next couple of weeks before we open it up to former members and then new members on the wait list on October 22nd.

What Happens to the Farm in the Winter?

I wish I could report that us farmers begin our hibernation sleep on November 1st, eating mashed potatoes for every meal and barring the door until the next spring, but it’s not true. While winter is a slower pace than our 80 hour weeks during the season, once the last harvest is done we begin the process of getting ready for the season to come. Almost everything you could imagine that goes into making the CSA work during the summer is usually broken, lost or in desperate need of updating this time of year.  If we’re lucky a lot of this rebuilding is done during November and December.  Before the end of the year we start planning the season to come; signing up new CSA members, ordering seeds and supplies, hiring apprentices, working on the website and catching up on sleep.  With February comes lambing (we expect somewhere near 100 lambs next spring) and by March we are back in the greenhouse starting the first seedlings of the year. The new farm crew arrives in April and then the momentum starts again, finally coasting to a stop right back where we are in October.

Farmer Seth in Haiti

I was lucky enough to travel to Northeastern Haiti this past week. There I met several groups of farmers and learned about their crops, seasons, pests, and livelihoods. One of the many things I worked on was the identification of a pest that has been ravaging almost every crop they grow for the past couple seasons. These farmers have no access to entomologists, USDA scientists or cooperative extension agents and as a result have been just suffering through the damage this one pest has done to their livelihoods. Within 24 hours of taking a photo of the bug and sending it off to a USDA research station in Puerto Rico I had the it identified and was tracking down sources for two beneficial insects that have been used effectively to control this pest on neighboring islands. In the next few weeks we hope to import a population of these beneficials to the area and hopefully impact next years crop for the farmers of this area.

If you missed the description of the trip in last weeks newsletter here’s a link. I also hope to send out a mid-week posting with photos and more information about my travels.

Pumpkins for the People

We will have pumpkins for you this season. The crew  harvested over 700 many weeks ago and have been curing them in the barn.  This year’s crop is only jack o’lanterns.  In the past we grew pie pumpkins but the feedback we received was that people were using the pie pumpkins for decoration.  We should have enough for 2 per share but if you would like to donate one or both of yours to a family with more than 2 kids let us know.  Look for pumpkin distribution to happen next week.

Turnips and Parsnips Are Great. Read on and you’ll believe me.

You are lucky enough to be getting not one but two kinds of turnips this week. The small turnips that you’re getting by the bunch are japaneese Hakurei and the are great raw, sliced into a salad or eaten right off the greens. Sweet and creamy these are great. We also have the classic purple top turnip that is a great high vitamin starch root that goes great with mashed potatoes or greens. Here’s  a few recipes from the website.

Also this week are New England’s best kept secret (vegetable), parsnips. This sweet and nutty root is a relative of the carrot and gets sweet and delectable when roasted or mashed. Here’s a couple recipes from the website as well.

What’s in the Share

Parsnips

Turnips

Potatoes

Kale/chard

Lettuce

Chickories

Hakurei turnips

Sweet potatoes

Butternut squash

This week the cycle of seasons has hit home. Leaves are filling up every bin bucket and tractor seat left out for more than a  few hours and the sun, even when the skies are cloudless, has lost it ability to really warm us in the fields. We’ve all watched the trees change color for a few weeks now but the grass in the pasture is also beginning to yellow. The weeds that have geminated late are quickly changing their focus from growing leaves to producing as many seeds as possible, even though they are only an inch or two tall.

On our weekly field walk we’ve noticed the crops we still have in the ground have slowed in their growth and we come to the point where we can’t expect much more out them this season. That said we have lots of food out there still. Parsnips, leeks, turnips, cabbage, broccoli and hundreds of feet of greens look great and with the frosts we have forecasted for the coming days will only get sweeter.

Join the Farm for 2013

Current members can sign up using the link we will send via email. If you are interested in joining us again next season please sign up now.  We will start taking new members and past members who are interested in joining again on October 22nd but would like to give you, our current members the opportunity to renew with us first.  Sign ups will be online, (which many, but not all of you, used this past year) which makes electronic/credit payment and payment plans a  breeze.

Pumpkins for the People

We will have pumpkins for you this season. The crew  harvested over 700 many weeks ago and have been curing them in the barn.  This year’s crop is only jack o’lanterns.  In the past we grew pie pumpkins but the feedback we received was that people were using the pie pumpkins for decoration.  We should have enough for 2 per share but if you would like to donate one or both of yours to a family with more than 2 kids let us know.  Look for pumpkin distribution to happen the week before Halloween.

Sweet Potatoes

Our first round of cured sweet potatoes come in this week. Nothing warms you like one of these. Here’s our recipes.

When is the Last Harvest?

The last pick-up will be the last full week of October, the 23rd or the 26th.

The Farmer is Away…

I will be away this week on a short trip to Haiti. Maura and I have a friend who is coordinating a group of NGO’s involved in several social entrepreneur projects around Ouanaminthe which borders the Dominican Republic in the north of the country. My job will be to help talk with a local farmers cooperative and identify problems they have with all stages of planning, planting, harvesting and getting a crop to market.  Once we can understand the core problems the larger goal will be identifying where micro finance and social entrepreneurship models might be of help.

I’m quite excited to be able to meet and work with farmers and will report back next week with photos and more information. If you would like to read more about The organizations I’ll be working with or an article from the New York Times about social entrepreneurship here are a few links –  Community Enterprise Solutions Earthspark  NY Times

While I’m away you can trust that the farm will be in tip top shape under the skilled eyes of Ailish, Jacqueline and Mike.

Upic…?

Upic is in it’s twilight this week as the weather cools. There are still lots of flowers and hardy herbs like thyme and dill so feel free to take these home before Jack Frost does.

What’s in the Share?

Asian greens

Arugula

Buttercup/Acorn/Sweet Dumpling Squash

Potato mix and match

Kale

Chard

Kohlrabi

Spinach

Sweet Potatoes

I  misspoke last when I said that you were getting the last tomato. In fact you were getting the last red tomato and this week we have the last green tomato. Now if you are not from south of the Mason-Dixon this may seem like a horrible suggestion but with a open mind and some hot oil I think you may come around.  Here’s our fried green tomato recipe.

We have picked the plants clean in anticipation of next week’s colder weather and to save what fruit we can (green as it may be).  All in all this was a pretty good tomato season.  Flavor was the best we’ve had in ten years and except for the end our yield was good as well.

 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. This year we sold out of shares in early spring and some longtime members who waited were unfortunately not able to join.  These folks along with a long wait list of new members are ready to sign up this fall. We will start taking new members on October 22nd but would like to give you, our current members the opportunity to renew with us first.  Sign ups will be online, which many, but not all of you, used this past year, which makes electronic/credit payment and payment plans a  breeze. Look for our email shortly with all the details.

What’s In The Share?

The last green tomato

Asian greens

Arugula

Lettuce

Acorn/Delicata/Sweet Dumpling

Radishes

Kueka Gold Potatoes

Kale

Chard

Kohlrabi

Carrots

Peppers

 

 

After two weeks n the greenhouse squash arrives this week with our first offerings of both acorn and delicata. The acorn are deep green and the delicata are oblong with green stripes. The delicata have very tender skins and if you oil them prior to roasting you can eat the skins right along with the squash. Both do well in the oven for a fast simple meal. We like  to halve them, scoop out the seeds and cook them cut side down on a baking sheet at 400 degrees. For an added bonus and to further entice reluctant diners, after baking until tender, turn them cut side up and brush with butter and or maple syrup and broil until they start to brown.

Cider is here. Who needs water?

What goes better with squash than a crisp glass of cider?  We now have the world’s best cider from Willow Pond Farm in Sabattus.  Jill and Charlie are like magicians with their apples blending together just the right amount of tart and sweet to deliver a consistent outstanding product.  If you haven’t tried this stuff take home a couple gallons (one for the freezer) and toast the  fall.

Fall Color

You’ll find some great color in your potatoes this week as we bring out the red and blue varieties. Mix and match them equally and roast, fry or coarsely mash them together for a feast fit for the eyes as well as the taste buds. Both varieties keep their color when color when cooked!

Radishes are beautiful this week…they go with everything. Sliced and tossed with rice vinegar is particularly lovely.

What’s Coming…

We start harvesting sweet potatoes this week. This is a crop we been growing for the past four or five years and we have really come to love them. Sweets are from a radically different climate than coastal Maine but a few short season, tasty varieties have made them somewhat common on our local produce scene. Like squash and onions, this fall crop needs curing before they can be eaten. After we get them out of the ground this week we will pack them into our second produce cooler. Instead of cooling them we’ll add a heater and bring the temp up to 80-85 degrees and hold them there for a couple weeks until the skins harden and they start to taste like sweet heaven…start dreaming up your meals now.

Whats in Upic?

Dill

Thyme

Cilantro

Flowers

What’s in the share?

The last tomato

Asian greens

Arugula

Shallots

Acorn/Delicata Squash

Radishes

Red/Blue Potatoes

Kale

Chard

 

 

 

 

Fall is here. These beautiful days we have been enjoying are some of my favorite of the year. The sun is still warm enough to make us sweat but the nights are cool and the air is dry.  We woke up Monday morning to our first frost of the year. It was light and gone by 9 am but was enough to put a little color on the basil and keep us out of the fields until the sun had warmed everything up. I have yet to see a frost, light or not, this early before.  The farm  crew is beginning to question both my memory and my honesty as many times I as I have said “I’ve never seen this before.”   It’s never boring at the farm.

Russets

Russet spuds arrive in your share this week. This is the all time best baking potato, so fire up the oven to 400 on one of these cold nights, rub the potatoes with butter or oil and let them go for 30-45 minutes. There will be more of these to come so enjoy.

Tomatoes Continue

The cold and dry has slowed the spread of late blight in our houses and we are picking fruit that is just starting to turn and letting them finish ripening in the barn. Enjoy these with the last round of basil this week.

Squash Cures

We hope to start sending out squash next week. We finished harvesting last Friday and will let them cure and sweeten before they arrive in your share.

What’s In Upic…

Flowers

Herbs

Whats in the Share…

Russet Potatoes

Cabbage

Peppers

Chard

Asian Greens

Tomatoes

Basil

Lettuce Mix

 

Farmers are are creative people. We take a mish-mash of variables every year (weather, plants, labor, etc.) and fit it together into an odd creation that this time of year we can stand back and look at. Every year is different and parts of the picture that we’re proud of one year may be embarrassing the next. Many of you may remember the great tomato blight of 2009 where almost every tomato plant in the northeast was destroyed by mid-August.  We all survived, but after that year most farmers took evasive action to try and prevent a repeat. For most of us that meant moving tomato production into greenhouses or plastic field tunnels. These structures are closable and allow growers to control the temperature and most importantly the moisture on the leaves of the plants where blight get started.

We’ve been quite lucky up to this point with a summer as warm and humid as it has been to avoid the dreaded tomato late blight. All summer there have been sporadic outbreaks of blight around the region and the state but most of us have avoided infection. This disease is amazing in it’s ability to rapidly take down large numbers of plants and their fruit. It’s a fungus that creates spores, like a mushroom, and these spores travel freely on the wind for miles and miles. The spores that by chance land on tomato plants then wait for a little moisture and germinate, making an ugly green lesions that look like the plant has been spattered with hot grease. These lesions grow, make more spores and in a very short time the infection spreads to every available host around. On Saturday I found five infected plants in two of our three tomato houses. By Monday all three houses had widespread infection. The crew quickly went to work and we picked heavily, harvesting over a ton of tomatoes during the morning. We picked fruit that had color of any kind knowing that the will ripen in the barn and a tomato in hand is worth two in the field. We hope the infection won’t spread to the remaining fruit right away and these tomatoes will get some color on the vine. It’s not all doom and gloom as we have a great tomato share for you this week and hope to have another next week as well. If we had been hit two weeks ago it would have been a sadder story….

 

Sauce Recipe to Try

This recipe calls for golden tomatoes but the ones you are receiving in your share will work great.  This comes highly recommended by CSA member Liz Pierson from the website 101 Cookbooks  http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/golden-tomato-sauce-recipe.html

Golden Tomato Sauce Recipe

I don’t bother peeling the tomatoes here, but you certainly could. You can also do a double or triple batch. The sauce will keep refrigerated for about a week. Also, the color of your tomatoes will dramatically impact the color of your sauce. I like to choose tomatoes that are bright yellow in color, like you see here. Alternatively, yellow tomatoes with a hint of orange make a striking sauce as well.

1 1/2 pounds / 24 oz / 680g ripe yellow tomatoes, cored and halved

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 medium cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Run your finger along the inside of each tomato to remove and discard the seeds. Chop the tomatoes into 1/4-inch chunks, reserve any juice, and set aside.

Combine the olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper flakes in a cold medium sauce pan. Now, heat the ingredients, stirring occasionally, until the garlic begins to sizzle and take on a bit of color. Stir in the tomatoes and reserved juices, and bring to a simmer. Cook for just a couple minutes, long enough for the tomatoes to start breaking down a bit. Remove from heat, taste, and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Makes 2 cups / 475 ml.

Here’s the first share of potatoes. These are our ugly but tasty rose golds and they are amazing. Our favorite was to prepare them is to preheat the oven to 425, have the potatoes and pre-boil them until they just begin to soften. Drain the spuds toss them in butter/oil and add salt (a little more than you think you should) and bake them in a single layer in a cooking sheet until the begin to crisp around the edges.

Shallots are the Best

Shallots arrive this week as well and they do well anywhere you would use garlic or onions…

Willow Pond Farm Apples

Paula Reds are for sale by the 5 lb bag -this is a great early fall apple -crisp and sweet.

What’s in Upic…

Flowers

Herbs

What’s in the share this week….

Tomatoes

Basil

Shallots

Carrots

Asian Greens

Chard/Kale

Chickories

Eggplant

Peppers

Potatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you to all of you that came to help with the potato harvest!  It was a great event and we will have a good crop of potatoes to share with you over the next couple of months. We have five varieties this year that range from red waxy to old fashioned grainy russet and after a week of curing in the barn you should start seeing them in your share.  2011 was the benchmark year for us in potato production with just over 14,000 pounds harvested. This year, while more challenging in moisture, weed pressure, and temperatures, still looks to be a good one as we expect somewhere between 12 and 13,000 pounds when we finish the harvest and tally.  The Maine potato harvest made the news this week  with harvests expected to be markedly down for the state, especially for commercial chip and french fry producers up in the county.  Here’s a link to the Portland Press Herald article and video doc.

In addition to potatoes we hope to get our winter squash crop in this week.  This crop looks great and if we can beat the deer this year we should have plenty of butternut, acorn, and sugar dumplings to fill your homes with that lovely fall smell.  Like potatoes, this crop has to cure for a week or two but instead of going in the barn we set them out in the now empty green house to gather warmth and sweeten up.

As we move into new crops we say goodbye to some of summers standbys.  Eggplant and cucumbers will make their last appearance of the season this week.  The last round of these crops, along with zucchini and summer squash in the recent weeks brings one of the hottest summers in living memory to a close.  It has been beautiful and a marked change to the abnormally cold and wet of the last few years.  Our hope as farmers is that we can adapt to the swings in temperature and rainfall that seem to be the new normal as opposed to “extremes.”

Red peppers arrive this week and while they look great it will be a short-lived season for this crop. We’ll enjoy them roasted and raw while we can as they did not fair well in the humid days of August.  The bells are sweet and wonderful but also try the pointed frying peppers -these are even sweeter!  We have another appearance of fennel this week and hope that you will be inspired to explore this great italian vegetable again. Here’s a simple carrot fennel soup recipe from the NY Times that would go great with sliced tomatoes and basil!

Happy First Day of School to all of our eager students and teachers!

What’s in Upic

Beans -this is the last week – the leaves may look weak, but keep your eyes open for the beans underneath!

Cherry tomatos – waning

Flowers

Herbs

What’s in the share

Basil

Lettuce

Chickories

Asian Greens

Arugula

Fennel

Eggplant

Tomatoes

Carrots

Cucumbers

Peppers

Each year at this time we celebrate the transition to fall with our annual Labor on Labor Day Potato Harvest Party.  This coming Monday, September 3rd, from 10am to 1pm in the fields along Pleasant Hill Road we will harvest our potato crop. This has come to be a favorite event for CSA members of all ages.  Join us in picking up spuds that our harvesting machine has already dug from the soil. Last year was a bumper crop and we were able to bring in over 14,000 pounds in a little over 2 hours with the help of about fifty folks! If you’re looking for something fun to do before the barbecues and picnics get rolling in the afternoon come out and jump in with us. Look for us (and the tractors and trucks) along the south side of Pleasant Hill Road and  park where you can.   Or ride your bike if you can!

First Potatoes

You’ll find the first of the year’s spuds in your share this week. These Rose Golds are my favorite potato hands down. Yellow fleshed and buttery they do well roasted or boiled. We’ll dig three more varieties next week and should have a steady supply in your shares from here through October.

The Pig Scramble

Wonderful children’s book by local author and CSA member Jessica Kinney – available for sale now!

What’s in the share this week…

Tomatoes

Chard

Carrots

Eggplant

Broccoli

Scallions

Peppers

Rose Gold Potatoes

Watermelon is in the share this week and by the skin of our teeth. This heat loving crop is always a waiting game. We wait until the first warm week of June to set these plants out and then they start the process of gathering the long daylight hours and July heat to coalesce water and soil into this sweet goodness. Knowing when the growing process has finished and the sugars are right is a bit of trial and error, and for the past couple weeks we have been looking and sampling to find that right time. Everyone has there own ways of knowing when a melon is ready but we look for two signs. First is the spot on the underside of the fruit where the melon has been resting on the ground. For the past month this spot has been light yellow and when its ready to go the yellow turns slightly orange. The second sign is the bonk.  Taking your thumb and striking with the bony side of of the joint the melon should feel almost like a drum. The rap on its side resonates in the fruit and makes the whole thing vibrate in your hand (this takes a bit of practice).

When we harvest watermelon we harvest is all at once. This is unlike most of our other fruiting crops (tomatoes included) that are picked one by one over weeks and weeks.  When this crop is ready, it is all ready at the same time.  When this day arrives we head down to the field with huge 20 bushel wooden bins that fit on the tractor’s pallet forks and we clear the beds. When we come away with a good looking crop it is always a glorious thing to see a four foot by four foot crate of melon coming up the road. This year this triumph was all the more sweet as all of us were not the only ones waiting for the watermelon.  The crows that live well on this farm have also been waiting and testing this crop over the past weeks, pecking holes in countless numbers of these fruits trying to find just the right one (I should teach them the bonk technique as it might help save more melons).  In years past we have lost all of our melons to these birds that are too smart for their small heads.  This year the contest goes to the farmers.  Next year, your guess is as good as mine.

Pork

We still have a couple pigs left to preorder for your freezer. There’s nothing like chops, hams and bacon, glorious bacon to brave the cold winter months. Talk to us a pick-up for all the details.

What’s in the share this week…

Tomatoes

Lettuce

Kale/chard

Carrots

Eggplant

Summer squash/cukes

Watermelon

Broccoli

Chickories