Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm and Welcome to Week 15 of
our CSA. Week 15 is an egg week. After this delivery there are 7 weeks
remaining in the CSA.
It is early Monday morning, the sun has yet to rise and a
gentle rain is falling. Oh how we need
this rain, and as I have said before, I really enjoy a nice rainy day. I am sure the entire farm is soaking up this
beautiful rain. Saturday, I was up
tending to the pigs and their area was so dry and dusty. Large billows of dust drifted into the trees
as the pigs charged around, excited to be receiving their vegetable
treats. Our crops were also feeling the
lack of rain. We have several beds of
direct seeded crops for fall which also are enjoying this gentle moisture. Plant growth and germination in these beds
had pretty much stopped. Hopefully it is
not too late for them to recover.
However, as beautiful and welcome as this rain is, Monday rains are not
always a welcome site here on farm.
Mondays are our marathon day of harvesting and packing for CSA deliveries. Harvesting in the rain and mud is always a
challenge. Equally challenging is
dodging the leaks in our pack house roof as we wash and pack the harvest!
On farm, our fields are in transition. We are still harvesting summer crops, but we
are slowly moving into fall mode, with more greens becoming available as the
season progresses. We anticipate peppers
and tomatoes being available at least until we get a killing frost. I think we are starting to see an end to our
zucchini and summer squash harvest. Sweet
potatoes should be available through week 22 and we will be digging another bed
of regular potatoes soon. Our sunflower
harvest is coming to an end, as is our basil harvest. We have a nice bed of arugula planted, which
should be available for harvest in a few weeks.
Our rutabaga are planted and starting to size up. We have a small planting of kohlrabi which
will also be ready for harvest soon. This rain should push our lettuce planting
along, so look for more lettuce and salad mix coming your way. This week we started to harvest a few
radishes and hopefully the rain will help the remainder of this bed mature.
In the kitchen, well on farm as well, we are still drowning
in tomatoes. Which isn't a bad thing! I am still in canning mode. Quarts of canned tomatoes, pints of sauce,
half pints of ketchup and relish are all lining my shelves. Although I have a pressure canned, the
products I have been making this summer can all be canned in a hot water bath
canner. To me, there is something
comforting and fulfilling about my old black graniteware canner, filled with
jars, boiling away on the stove. And
once the jars are removed from the canner, there is nothing more satisfying than
the familiar plink of a sealing jar.
It seems when I am not canning tomatoes, I am eating
tomatoes! Last night we had a favorite
and simple salad of sliced heirloom tomatoes with fresh basil and dressed with
a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
With fall coming, I am looking to make some soup and I love tomato soup. With sweet potatoes being harvested this
sweet potato/tomato soup becomes a farm favorite. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe/carla-halls-tomato-sweet-potato-bisque-recipe-18228720
. The soup calls for canned tomatoes,
but fresh tomatoes can easily be used.
To quickly peel tomatoes, score the bottom of each tomato with a knife
and dip the tomatoes in boiling water.
Chill the dipped tomatoes in ice water and then slip off the skins. On farm we also often make a quick no cook
tomato sauce over pasta. No cook sauce
is an easy recipe to master. I generally
use a variety of tomatoes, cherries, slicers, plum and heirlooms. Dice the tomatoes, being sure to reserve the
juices. Place the tomatoes and the juice
in a bowl and a couple of table spoons of olive oil, some basil, minced garlic
and salt and pepper. Allow the tomatoes
to rest/marinate at room temperature for 30 or so minutes. Meanwhile cook and drain your pasta. Add the still warm pasta to the bowl of
tomatoes and top with some fresh grated parmesan cheese and enjoy.
Speaking of tomatoes, we have cases of canning tomatoes
available for purchase. These are red
slicing tomatoes, perfect for canning whole or cut up. If you are signed up with the CSA buying
club, you can order through the buying club.
If you are not a CSA buying club member, please contact the farm and we
can arrange to get tomatoes to you.
And as long as we are talking buying clubs, let me take a
moment to explain our two buying club options.
We offer a buying club as an add on to our CSA. This buying club is only available to our CSA
members and requires a $50 deposit.
Purchases will be deducted from the deposit and items will be delivered
with your CSA share. Our second buying
club is a winter buying club and is open to anyone. The winter buying club is generally only open
when our CSA is not running and we are not attending markets. For the winter buying club, we meet customers
at a designated location to deliver your purchases and collect payment. If you have questions about our buying clubs,
please do not hesitate to contact us.
We do still have a few members, who elected to pay for their
CSA memberships with a payment plan, who still owe money to the farm. If you have yet to pay your September
payment, it is now overdue. Thank you
for your cooperation!
Staying with the reminder theme. Please remember to return your share boxes,
egg cartons and berry boxes for re-use.
Also please remember to treat your pick up site with respect. Many of these sites have limited space for
box pick up and storage, so please try to keep share boxes in the space
allotted for them. Share boxes do fold
flat, to save space.
So, now it is night and harvest is done and boxes are just about
packed. It was a wet harvest, but the
rain did end in the morning and held off until afternoon, when we received
another nice gentle rain. As our chores
for the night came to an end, I finished up a batch of ketchup. The timer just went off indicating the jars are ready to be pulled
from the canner. Then I need to head to
bed, for tomorrow is another long day.
Thank you again for your support of our small farm. Be safe, be well and enjoy the veggies.
