Hello from the farm,

We've had a warm and full week here in these fertile fields while keeping an eye toward the sky for some rain. We transplanted 1500 winter squash plants down on the Baker field: butternuts, acorn, Long Island Cheese and some specialty varieties for trial. We planted fast and furiously in ancipation of the forecasted rains which didn't actually arrive then, but such is late June-August. The summer squash, zucchini and patty pans are making a great showing, as are the cucumbers.

Serving Suggestions for the Harvest:

• Summer Squash: add raw to salads, steam lightly, or stir-fry. Don't overcook. See recipe below.
• Cucumbers: add to your lettuce and greens for salad. Dice and add to yogurt with onions and garlic scapes.
• Napa Cabbage: see Kimchee recipe below or use in salad or stir fries. Mild and crisp.
• Chard or Swiss Chard: sautee, oil, garlic, parmesan etc.
• Lettuce Heads: Beautiful Cherokee or Solix red lettuce or green heads.
• Kale: this nutritional powerhouse is great stir-fried with olive oil and garlic (scapes)
• Garlic Scapes: the soft neck of the garlic--wonderful garlic flavor, cooked or raw. Discard any firm portion unless you enjoy the crunchiness. Collards: similar to kale--highly nutritious--butter or bacon fat flavor greens superbly!
• Scallions: mild green onion, use fresh or cooked.
• Bok Choi: this Asian cabbage is excellent stir-fried, w/peanut butter, peanut sauce, soy sauce, garlic onion, etc...Otherwise use as a substitute for regular cabbage in cooking.

For the Birds

When we planted the first blueberries back in 2001, we did not know just how much the birds were anticipating the fruit as well. In the early years, a few birds, especially robins, came and ate a small portion of the crop. The next few years became increasingly worse, culminating in a weekend where they ate every berry off that had any hint of color--probably half of the entire crop. That began the netting of the rows, as our visual scare devices were always rendered ineffective after a few days. After a few seasons of netting and its inherent trapped and/or dead birds, a friend from Berks County told me that an electronic bird call repelling speaker had turned his 95 percent loss of blueberries into 95 percent saved. With a testimonial like that, we hooked ours up about three weeks ago, and it is amazing to see birds cruising in for the berries, then hearing the warning calls, and then doing a U-turn away from the berry patch! Enjoy the berries and lack of netting this year.Fresh picked, sun warmed blueberries are amazingly good.

Food to Share?

If you are making, or have made a dish with veggies from the farm and would like to share your success and recipe with other shareholders, please feel free to bring in some samples and a recipe to display with it here at the distribution table.

Zucchini Patties (Summer Squash) Recipe
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup grated raw zucchini
2 tablespoons minced onion
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
2 tablespoon mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoons butter

Preparation:
Press excess moisture out of grated zucchini between paper towels. Mix together everything but butter to make the batter. Melt butter in skillet. Spoon batter (about 2 heaping tablespoons per patty) into skillet. Flatten lightly with spatula. Cook over medium heat until nicely browned on both sides. Serve plain or top with tomato sauce and grated cheese.

Serves 4.--from southernfood.about.com

Eating Seasonally--Great Cookbooks

We have some excellent cookbooks for sale at the farm.

• Our long awaited Goodwill at Homefields Farm Cookbook is a compilation of shareholder recipes and information from us. It was compiled by shareholder Virginia Brown, and Farm staff Elizabeth Swope. Available for a donation.
• The Simply in Season cookbook does an excellent job of taking you through each season--summer vegetables and how to use, winter veggies, spring recipes and fall recommendations. A staff favorite.
• Simply in Season Children's Cookbook: fun child-orient recipes and pictures.
• Farmer John Cookbook: Eccentric, eclectic, Farmer John of "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" movie, his Angelic Organics CSA is one of the best known in the country.

Did you know that you can pickle almost any vegetable with salt and water? see http://awesomepickle.com/archives/tag/bok-choi

Kim Chee Recipe:

This Korean spicy "sauerkraut" of a sort is outstanding. It is enjoyed in Korea and Japan. I like to get it from the Viet My Asian grocery across from McCaskey High School--the brand they carry is Kimchee Pride from NYC and my favorite of the kimchee I've purchased.

1 large head Chinese (celery or Nappa) cabbage
Salt--non iodized is preferred
4 green onions (including tops)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 dried hot red chili (about 2" long), crushed
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated

1. Cut cabbage into pieces, 1-inch long and 1-inch wide.
2. Sprinkle 2 Tbs salt on cabbage, mix well, and let stand 15 minutes.
3. Cut green onions in 1-1/2 inch lengths, then cut lengthwise in thin slices. Wash salted cabbage three times with cold water. Add the onions,garlic, chili, ginger, 1 Tbs salt and enough water to cover. Mix well.Cover and let stand for a few days.
4. Taste mixture every day. When it is acidic enough, cover and refrigerateup to 2 weeks.

Makes about 1 quart. --from http://www.cheriestihler.com/recipes/kchee.html

Enjoy, and see you soon!

Scott

Berries, Berries Everywhere

Hello from the sun-warmed farm,

Nostalgic about the fresh farm strawberries? Well, we can't make them magically reappear, at least not until next June, but perhaps even better, the blueberries and black raspberries are ripening.

Also very exciting--the electronic bird repelling box is working!

To maximize the amount and quality of the berries for everyone, it would be great if some of you would pick during the week, and others, during regular share hours as suits you.

Berry Amounts per Week:

• Half shares: 1 half pint box berries (mixed, if you like)


• Full shares: 2 half pint boxes berries (mixed, if you like)


• --boxes will be at the barn--self serve Mon-Wed

Hours:

• Mon-Wed 4-7pm or during the regular pickup times on Thurs/Fri/Sat until further notice


• Closed Sundays

Things to consider when picking:

• Black raspberries have thorns


• Poison ivy likes to grow under the blueberries dappled shade--leaves of 3 let them be


• Stinging insects may be feeding on berries also

Berry Confused? The are four kinds of berries that grow on canes in Lancaster County:

• Black Raspberry: rubus occidentalis - black, seedy, pulls off of a cap


• Wineberry: rubus phoenicolasius - not native, brought from Japan around the turn of last century and is naturalizing up and down the eastern seaboard. Beautiful fuzzy red canes and soft translucent glowing orange red berries. Sweet-tart flavor.


• Red Raspberry: rubus idaeus - Soft, pulls from cap, bit of strawberry-like flavor. Seeds not noticeable.


• Blackberry: rubus fructicosus - Does not pull from a cap, larger than the others, cherry-like flavor, tart unless fall-into-your-hand ripe.

Enjoy!

Scott

Third Week in June

Hello from all of us outstanding in our field! (favorite farm quip)

Hope you enjoyed the very fresh food from the farm this week. It sure is nice to be eating crisp, flavorful, colorful local food once again. As we get into mid-June, the strawberries have faded away, spinach has flowered and is finished, and the warmer crops are imminent, like summer squash and cucumbers. We spotted the first tomato blossoms yesterday and there are even some nickel sized baby watermelons in the field. We take great care to grow healthful food for you and its evident in the flavor and how long your vegetables will keep if you don't eat them right away. Each year we test the soil to make sure that we have well mineralized soils, and our soil tests this year are excellent.

Parking at the Farm: you'll notice some lines on the gravel and grass this week--it should make access easier to have two of lines of cars up in the main parking area. Your feedback is appreciated.

Serving Suggestions for the Harvest:

• Chard or Swiss Chard: sautee, oil, garlic, parmesan etc... see recipe below


• Lettuce mix: superb salad maker


• Lettuce Heads: Beautiful Cherokee or Solix red lettuce


• Kale: this nutritional powerhouse is great stir-fried with olive oil and garlic (scapes)


• Garlic Scapes: the soft neck of the garlic--wonderful garlic flavor, cooked or raw. Discard any firm portion unless you enjoy the crunchiness.


• Collards: similar to kale--highly nutritious--butter or bacon fat flavor greens superbly


• Scallions: mild green onion, use fresh or cooked


• Bok Choi: this Asian cabbage is excellent stir-fried, w/peanut butter, peanut sauce, soy sauce, garlic onion, etc...Otherwise use as a substitute for regular cabbage in cooking.

Rainbow Chard Sauteed with Mushrooms

Chard can be used in lieu of spinach, or any other green for that matter!

Strip the leaves from the stems and mince the stems separately. Rough chopped the leaves and set them aside.

Heat up some olive oil mixed with some macadamia nut oil (why not? If you have it, it adds a little bit of a nutty flavor) in a deep skillet and sautee the stems with 3 cloves of minced garlic. After a few minutes, add some thickly sliced baby portobello mushrooms. Then, toward the end, I toss in the chopped chard leaves and grate some fresh nutmeg and Parmesan cheese into it all.

--from the Intutive Cook blog: http://www.effortlesseating.com/2008/06/rainbow-chard-sauteed-with-mushrooms/

Harley Raffle: Homefields, the nonprofit founder and owner of the farm, is having a Harley Raffle fundraiser and will have a table here this weekend. Your ticket purchase supports Homefields Inc. http://www.homefields.org/. Homefields graciously invites Goodwill to operate the farm program CSA on their property and has done so for 10 years now. Tickets are 5.00.

Check out our Blog: http://www.goodwillathomefieldsfarm.blogspot.com/

Eating Seasonally--Great Cookbooks: We have some excellent cookbooks for sale at the farm.

• Our long awaited Goodwill at Homefields Farm Cookbook is a compilation of shareholder recipes and information from us. It was compiled by shareholder Virginia Brown, and Farm staff Elizabeth Swope. Available for a donation.


• The Simply in Season cookbook does an excellent job of taking you through each season--summer vegetables and how to use, winter veggies, spring recipes and fall recommendations. A staff favorite.


• Simply in Season Children's Cookbook: fun child-orient recipes and pictures.


• Farmer John Cookbook: Eccentric, eclectic, Farmer John of "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" movie, his Angelic Organics CSA is one of the best known in the country.

See you soon,

Scott

Welcome to the first harvest week!

Hello from the Farm!

Welcome to the first harvest week. This is our eleventh season of growing food and training people with disabilities in farming. The food we grow is nutritious, fresh and delicious--you'll like it.

In addition to enjoying the food, you are supporting our nonprofit program. Each week will look a bit different as we start with the spring crops and progress toward the hot weather crops in July like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, then into the August cantaloupes and watermelons, then fall crops like squash and pumpkins, root crops like sweet potatoes into November, just to name a few. It's fun to take what's in season each week and see what culinary delights can come from it!

How does this work?

First come to the farm this week, (whichever day and time suit you best weekly)
Thurs: 3-7pm
Fri: 11-7pm
Sat: 9am-1pm
--come on up to the barn, you'll see a sign from the parking lot that says "Veggie Pickup"
--find your name on the sign in sheet and initial it
--proceed down the Half or Full share list on the wall, items and amounts are specified there, put things into your bag or box (we have bags here if needed), and then check out the Pick Your Own options each week to see if there is anything that you would like - herbs, flowers, berries etc...
--If you have a payment, please give it to Kim, Elizabeth or myself, the smiling farm staff :-)

Enjoy the farm, check out the chickens, ask us if you have any questions about how to use the veggies.

Serving Suggestions for the Harvest:

• Lettuce mix: superb salad maker
• Kale: this nutritional powerhouse is great stir-fried with olive oil and garlic (scapes)
• Garlic Scapes: the soft neck of the garlic--wonderful garlic flavor, cooked or raw; discard any firm portion
• Collards: similar to kale--for either see Farmer's Breakfast recipe below
• Scallions: mild green onion, use fresh or cooked
• Bok Choi: this Asian cabbage is excellent stir-fried, w/peanut butter, peanut sauce, soy sauce, garlic onion, etc. Or use as a substitute for regular cabbage in cooking.
• Spinach: great in salad, goes well with sesame seeds and sesame oil, peanuts, cheese

Farmer’s Breakfast (a delicious way to use greens)

1T oil
6 collard leaves, chopped coarsely
1 scallion, chopped into
½ inch pieces
6 slices pepperoni, cut in fourths (optional)
1 tsp. butter
2 eggs
2 slices smoked cheddar
2 plum tomatoes, diced

Heat a skillet. When hot, add 1T oil. Toss in collard leaves, scallion, and pepperoni. Saute till scallion is tender. Push to one side of the pan and add the butter to the other side. Fry the two eggs in the butter. When done to your liking, put on two plates, top with the cooked collards, scallions and pepperoni. Lay a slice of cheese on top, tuck a tomato each on the side, and broil till golden. Serve with Tabasco Chipotle sauce, coffee and a square of dark chocolate!

--from Lorena Breneman, the farmer’s wife

Scott
Scott BrenemanFarm Manager

Our three hens, Izzy, Cricket and Cider, got a new home today. We are excited to try out the new lightweight coop in the blueberries, where there is lots of tall grass for chicken snacking. Thank you to Bob M for his good work.