Notes from Your Farm

Thurs 3-7  (friendly reminder--we close at these times--even farmers have to call it a day sometime)
Fri 11-7
Sat 9-1


Mid summer at the farm: tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, cantaloupes galore, the fields are yielding many of our favorites right now.  The cantaloupes seem especially delicious this year and we just cut open an Orangeglo watermelon and boy howdy, it is good.  We are harvesting and curing sweet onions that go by the variety name Candy.  So good even young children ask for them on sandwiches!

Dirt is Dirt Right?

Where does your food come from--good soil or poor?  Perhaps one of biggest reasons for many of the "western" health problems is that soils do not have the same level of nutrients in them that they did fifty or one hundred years ago before industrial farming became widespread.   What we are not getting in our diet is probably more important than the additives and residues that we are exposed to in modern eating.

The body being one incredible chemistry orchestra, things like calcium, manganese, even copper and boron are extrememely important in their proper levels however trace that may be, like one part per million. However, if they are not in the soil, they are not in your food.  We go to great lengths to preserve and put back these minerals through composts, kelp, cover cropping and even by growing giant radishes that bring up micronutrients from the subsoil.  Healthy soil=healthy food=healthy people.


Grass-Fed Beef from Ironstone Springs Farm:
Neighbor Liz Martin is again donating 25% of sales to our farm program for orders placed here.
Order deadline is Auguest 1st--see information at sign-in table when you come for your veggies. 


Sweet Onions:  we're glad to have a great sweet onion harvest this season.  Sweet onions are incredibly versatile--some of us eat them plain.  These are great on burgers or in salads.  My wife carmelizes them on medium low heat with butter stirring occasionally and then adds them to broiled sandwiches or as a side for just about anything.  Outstanding.  This morning's breakfast featured them with sauteed oyster mushroom from a stump in the backyard, with pumpernickel bread, fried duck egg and broiled muenster cheese--I know it's tough. Anyway, the possibilities are endless and enjoyable.


Bee eautiful sunflower patch--Time to Pick


Pick Your Own Update:
 Sunflowers are oustanding today--this week's limit is 5 and 10 (half and full share respectively)
 Basil--no limit.
 Zinnias--5 and 10 stems this week
 Hot Peppers:  1 quart total per season
 Celosia--use as an accent--not a whole lot there
 Stevia--try a few leaves as a sweetener--no glycemic load and few/no calories
 Sungold cherry tomatoes--not real strong this year--take sparingly as a meal accent.
 Herbs at the barn: in general, cut the top third of the plant--not sure ask us.

Serving Suggestions for the Harvest: 
sweet onions: mild, yummy--salads, burgers, cuke and tomato salad, carmelize
watermelon: harvesting Orangeglo this week--orange fleshed, super sweet and tasteey!
cantaloupes: wow, these are good.  Try serving with a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.
tomatoes: super tomatoes--are we in Washington Boro? :-)  tomato cucumber salad, anything and everything
carrots:  eat fresh, roast in oven, boil and add maple syrup and butter.
garlic: great in everything
cucumbers: great plain, salads, sandwiches, cucumber salad
zucchini: grate and freeze for zucchini bread and cookies, stir fry, raw in salads.
cabbage: raw in wedges with a touch of salt, cabbage soup, salad
scallions: use in salad, or anywhere onions are appreciated.

 Enjoy!

 Your farmers

Notes from Your Farm

A warm hello from your farmers!

As the carrot lifter blade slices through soil just below the carrots to loosen them, we are thankful for this simple tool that lends a helping hand, but still allows us the joy of pulling the carrots out of ground.  With 2400 feet of carrots to dig in hard dry soil you can see why we are pleased.  One hundred degrees not withstanding, this is a great time of the season when the tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupes and watermelons all become part of the bounty.

Grass-Fed Beef from Ironstone Springs Farm 
Looking for grass-fed, chemical-free meat?  You can order grass-fed beef from neighbor Liz Martin's farm. Last year she generously donated 25% of the proceeds to the farm program and will do so again this year.  Thank you Liz.
Orders must be placed by August 1st


Serving Suggestions for the Harvest: 
cantaloupes: wow, these are good.  Try serving with a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.
tomatoes: tomato cucumber salad, anything and everything
carrots:  eat fresh, roast in oven, boil and add maple syrup and butter
beans: great boiled, pan fried, oven roasted, raw in salad--purple ones turn green when heated.
garlic: great in everything
cucumbers: great plain, salads, sandwiches, cucumber salad
zucchini: grate and freeze for zucchini bread and cookies, stir fry, raw in salads.
cabbage: raw in wedges with a touch of salt, cabbage soup, salad
scallions: use in salad, or anywhere onions are appreciated.
 

Thank You:

 A hearty thank you this week to Bruce Flanagan, just down the road at Flanagan Welding.  "Doc" Flanagan came out on short notice and quickly revised and welded up our potato plow to get us ready for the pending potato harvest.  He has been very good to us:  if you need any welding done--commercial, residential, backyard or farm related, give Bruce a call at: 872-6099

 Enjoy!

 Your farmers 

Notes from Your Farm

Thurs: 3-7
Fri 11-7
Sat 9-1

Cool morning air and sunshine wash over the fields this morning as we get into another harvest. July is an excitingly abundant month as the summer crops kick and the spring crops fade away. We're excited about carrots, as carrots fresh from the farm have a great flavor and crispness, and the cantaloupes are also starting to ripen--you may see some of them today, if not, definitely next week.

Farming Fun and the Art of Failure: 

I'm sure there are other endeavors in which you can do everything right and the results are far below what you expected, but farming is great way to have fabulous failures.  Many of these are critter related.  A few years ago some very active mice ate almost all of our pricey pepper transplants in the greenhouse--they love the seed.  The deer really get a kick out of eating off  the edamame (green soybeans) when they are about five inches tall.  The deer also relish mowing off sweet potato vines--you'll notice we are not growing them this year because feeding deer is not our priority.  In spite of using deer tape, hot pepper solution, and garlic juice repellents, the animals love to come out of woods for our organic produce. Other crops are finicky in requirements for sprouting: too hot or too cold soil,  or inadequate moisture keeps crops like spinach, carrots, parsnips and beets from germinating. In spite of this we still blessed with lots of good harvests, so we persevere with joy.

Serving Suggestions for the Harvest: 
carrots:  eat fresh, roast in oven, boil and add maple syrup and butter
beans: great boiled, pan fried, oven roasted, raw in salad--purple ones turn green when heated.
garlic: great in everything
cucumbers: great plain, salads, sandwiches, cucumber salad, see recipe below.
zucchini: grate and freeze for zucchini bread and cookies, stir fry, raw in salads.
cabbage: raw in wedges with a touch of salt, cabbage soup, salad--see recipe below for spicy cabbage salad--it is very simple and delicious
scallions: use in salad, or anywhere onions are appreciated.

Scott’s Simple but Super Cuke Salad


This is my version of a salad that I was served by Mikhail and Anna Zotov, Russian friends who were learning English in Virginia.
Dice and combine in a bowl:
An onion
A few tomatoes
One or two cucumbers
Two cloves of garlic
Add a healthy shot of olive oil, stir and let sit for a while before eating, or refrigerate for later
--add black pepper and salt if desired


Lorena’s Spicy Cabbage Salad(adapted from the Extending the Table cookbook)
Half of a cabbage, sliced fine
Half of a medium onion, sliced
½ cup cider vinegar
1 T. oil
1 1/2t. salt
1 t. black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 ½ t. sugar
1/8 t. cayenne pepper or more as desired—(I used 1 ½ t. last time and it was hot!—Scott)
½ c. of chopped peanuts
Combine everything except peanuts and marinate at room temp for 30 minutes or more. Top with peanuts, chill and serve.  --from Lorena Breneman, farmer's wife

Thank You:
 Thank you this week to Homefields, for being the founder of the farm, and hosting both the residential and farm programs here.  Thank you Kim Stoltzfus, for being the smile that many shareholders meet when they come to the farm, and for the neatly-done distribution area and herb beds.  Thank you to the Goodwill Foundation for funding the bulk of the new tractor that will be used for tilling the additional land with a chisel plow, running the transplanter without difficulty, cultivating maturing crops all the way throught their season to stay ahead of the weeds, and for ergonomic harvesting of crops in a farm crew-friendly way. Thank you very much for supporting our mission now and for helping to equip us for the years ahead.

Scott Breneman
Farm Manager  

Notes from Your Farm July 7

Hello from the fields,


This week we are keeping plenty warm harvesting and curing a bumper garlic crop, the bean harvest is starting, and we finished transplanting the last crop to be put in the field as plants--leeks for a fall harvest.  The cucumbers are putting on a good show as are the zucchini/summer squash.  The solar-powered ergonomic cart that we were given as part of a grant from Case New Holland last year, has been a huge help with the cucumber harvest.  We also cultivated the winter squash and pumpkins and used the flame weeder in the popcorn, Indian corn, and soybeans.  It's been quite a week of farming full speed ahead.

Work Day at Homefields New Barn: July 9th 9am
Want to help further Homefields efforts?  On  Saturday, July 9th beginning at 9:00am, join us for a Homefields work day.  We’ll be at the new property, just up the street, at 128 Letort Road.  It's a cleanup effort, so wear appropriate clothing, sturdy shoes; and, please bring gloves, a shovel and your own water, string trimmer, if you have one.

 

Lunch will be provided; come whenever and leave when you need to.  We’ll appreciate all hands…. (please let Homefields know via HawthorneA@csgonline.org  by Thursday, July 7…so we can plan for lunch)

Saturday, July 9th is also Homefields’ 2nd Shot in the Dark night golf outing at Cross Gates golf course.

Suggestions for the harvest:

beans: purple and green wax or bush beans--delicious steamed, boiled or raw in salads.  The purple beans turn green when cooked--if you want to keep the color, use raw or marinated.  
kale and collards: awesome fried with bacon fat or olive oil, sauteed onions and garlic

chard: use in salads, lasagna,  or as a spinach substitute.
scallions: great for kebabs, marinating, grilling, salads
summer squash or zucchini--steam, grill, fry, marinate, dice in salad, or shred and freeze for zuchhini bread in fall or winter.
cabbage: eat raw cut in wedges with a sprinkle of salt, make coleslaw.  See recipe below.
snow peas: steam or boil for short time, stir fry, not to be confused with hull or English peas, which are shelled out and hulls discarded, or Sugar Snaps, whose fat pods and peas are eaten.
lettuce heads: we are harvesting these while small before the heat makes them bolt--go to seed.


Berry Update:
The berries ripened in a more concentrated period this year than is typical, there are some to ripen yet, but the end is near.

Vegetable Radar:
The forecast for July is for steady tomatoes, peppers, melons and sweet onions among others.  The watermelons and canteloupes look particularly impressive.

Blue Cheese Coleslaw from shareholder Jenna Thorn
 8 bacon slices, chopped
 1/4 c. mayonnaise
 2 T. red wine vinegar
 1 T. honey
 16 oz. finely chopped cabbage or purchased coleslaw mix
 1 c. crumbled blue cheese

 Cook bacon in large skillet until crisp.  Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels.  Whisk mayonnaise, vinegar, and honey in large blowl. Stir in coleslaw mix, cheese, and bacon.  Season with salt and pepper and toss to coat.  Can be made 2 hours ahead.

 A Companion Picnic Recipe:  Blue Cheese Deviled Eggs
 6 large eggs
 2 T. mayo
 1 T. sour cream
 1/2 t. cider vinegar
 1/2 t. Dijon mustard
 1/4 t. sugar
 1/4 t. pepper
 1/4 c. blue cheese

 Thank You
 A hearty cheer going to out to each of the trainees and staff for great work during a hot week.
 Thanks Elizabeth for keeping everyone watered up and Peter for making a huge dent in the weeds and overgrowth.   Thank you for enjoying the farm and food and encouraging us in this work.


Your farmers