Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Farm News

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

The buying club IS open this week!  Ordering began this morning and deliveries will be Friday and Saturday.  Look for some beautiful fresh cut herbs and a bit of greens on the list, as well as lots of protein.  Our first harvests of arugula and turnip greens made the list this week, as well as a tender young braising mix consisting of Chinese cabbage, bok choy, kale and other early spring cooking greens.  We continue to have a good supply of eggs, apple orchard pork and pastured chicken available and our friends and neighbors at Stillwater Fields Farm are supplying us with some delicious grass fed beef.

We have once again been dealing with summer like heat and humidity, with a cool down later this week.  I am seeing predicted overnight lows in the upper 30's by the end of the week!  Looks like we will be watching the weather closely and could be doing the row cover shuffle again this week.  Last week most of our crops fared well under their covers.  We did get a bit of frost damage on our early planting of beans, but we expect them to grow out of the damage. 

Last night we took a crop walk to get a good look at how our earliest plantings are doing.  We peaked under the row covers and it was nice to see beautiful stands of arugula and turnip greens .  We also have bok choy, Chinese cabbage, kale, chard and mustard growing nicely.  Most plants are still small, but looking healthy and well established.  Our first plantings of summer squash and beans are also small, but well established and growing nicely.  The early planted potatoes are looking beautiful and our peas are moving along nicely. 

This year Farmer Don is experimenting with a super early planting of cucumbers in one of our unheated greenhouses and wow, those plants look great!  It is amazing how quickly they seem to be growing.  I walk through this greenhouse daily and I can actually see them getting bigger every day.  They will be trellised this week and hopefully we will have our first cucumber harvest in the next several weeks.  Maybe by Week 2 of our CSA!

For the past few years we have been working to establish some perennial herb beds on the farm and it is nice to see some vigorous early growth on these plants.  We have beautifully established beds of oregano, sage, lemon thyme, and pineapple mint.  In addition, we have several huge lovage plants. Lovage is sometime called cutting celery and makes a nice substitute for celery.  Here is an article featuring lovage, including recipes, from the Wall Street Journal a few years ago. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324866904578515731301003910

As long as I am talking recipes and cooking.  Turnip greens.  Turnip greens are loaded with good phytochemicals and vitamins, including calcium.  This variety of turnip we planted is known for its greens and we will most likely not be harvesting turnips from this plot.  The turnip greens we are harvesting right now are very young and tender and will not require the long cooking times often associated with cooked greens.  Saute them as you would any green, with a bit of olive oil and garlic.  Watch your pan carefully, as they will cook very quickly.  These young turnip greens are also good in any massaged kale salad recipe you have. 

This Saturday Farmer Don will be at Forks Farm Market.  He will have lots of cut herbs, some greens and transplants for sale.  The weather looks beautiful for another great market day!  Stop by early for the best selection!  If you are placing a buying club order this week and would prefer to pick up at market, send us an email and we will gladly have your box available at our table.  As always, if you are at market, please stop by our table and say hello to Farmer Don.

We will be opening our farm to visitors on Sunday, May 31 from 1 to 3 pm.  Everyone is welcome!  Come on by, see where your food is being grown and meet the farmers.  Farmer Don will be conducting a farm tour at 1:30.  We are hoping to open our nursery for transplant sales that day as well.   If you plan to attend, be sure to wear comfortable clothes and shoes and be prepared for the sun.  We do have two farm dogs who are very much a part of our farm family.  Shady and Rosie are friendly, but will bark when you arrive and have been known to jump on people. 

We still have CSA memberships available for the 2015 season.  CSA news includes the announcement of our 2015 start date and the addition of a new drop site.  We are excited to announce that we are adding a drop site in the Bear Creek area of Luzerne County.  This site will be at the Bear Creek Association Clubhouse, directly across from the Bear Creek Cafe.  We will be adding  this pick up site to our website in the next day or so.  As for our start date, Farmer Don has been evaluating what we have planted and what we will have to harvest in the coming weeks.  This year, as was the case last year, he has decided to delay the start of our CSA.  Week one for the CSA will be the week of June 15 and our final week, week 22, will be the second week of November.  Another long cold winter delayed our ability get into our fields and therefore delayed our early spring plantings.  Farmer Don believes strongly in having a nice selection of vegetables for week one and he feels the week of June 15 will allow for that.  Please watch your email for additional details.

We have a new addition to our farm.  The rooster fairies visited over the weekend and delivered, well  most likely dropped, a new rooster at the farm.  Sunday morning, while doing chores, Farmer Don discovered a small, mostly white, young rooster hanging out with our newest flock of hens.  He has been named Black Tail, or BT for short.  BT is bit shy and is still trying to figure out his new surroundings.  We hope he blends well with our established flocks of chickens, including the two roosters we already have!  We will gladly take care of him, but dropped animals are not often a welcomed at farms by other farm animals or by farmers.

As always, thank you for your continued support of small family farms and local agriculture.  Have a happy and safe holiday weekend.

Until next week.......

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