CSA Weekly Newsletter: June 11-17, 2006 (Week #1)

2. Pick-Your-Own Crops

• Oregano
• Thyme
• Chive blossoms
• Salad burnett (adds a cucumber flavor to salads and soups)
• Small bunches of each!

Welcome (back) to Waltham Fields Community Farm!

As usual, there's nothing about this spring's weather that can be described as predictable. Spring in New England is a notoriously tricky proposition, combining chilly rain and bursts of 85-degree heat, hungry bugs and fast-growing weeds. This year's weather has set our crops back in the field a little, but we have filled and emptied our greenhouse several times, getting most crops in the ground on time despite two weeks of rain and a broken tillage tractor right at our busiest planting time of the season. Crops are growing a bit more slowly than we'd like (particularly carrots and beets), and a round of several different kinds of maggots (one that likes onions, one that likes crops in the broccoli family) put a dent in our spring plantings. Woodchucks at the Lyman Estate ate all our spring collards, a major donation crop for us. Geese ate the cauliflower. But all that is secondary to how wonderful and consistent our help in the fields has been this spring, which has kept us up to speed and even allowed us to take some new steps toward sustainability on our farm.

I am truly privileged to work with this year's farm staff, including our awesome assistant growers: Meryl LaTronica, who returns to Waltham from a year with the United Teen Equality Center in Lowell; Nate Frigard, a Holliston native who has worked on farms from the East Coast to the West Coast, and joins us most recently from two years with the University of California at Santa Cruz's Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture; and Jennifer Smith, this year's flower garden manager and resident beekeeper, also most recently at UCSC, but with experience farming on both coasts. Our interns, Danny MacPhee, Kathleen Jones and Charlotte Vallaeys, combine incredible people skills with the ability to do hard physical work for hours at a time. All of these folks share a deep passion for agriculture and good food, and our farm is lucky to have them with us this season.

I'm amazed at how it has taken me three years at this farm to notice that spring is also a beautiful season. Every year until now, I've gritted my teeth and mumbled "April is the cruelest month" whenever anyone asks me how things are going. This year, despite all the bugs and the woodchucks and the truly crazy weather, I've been noticing things like orioles in the trees and the worms in the soil, little things that I honestly don't think I've seen since I was an intern at Drumlin Farm. It helps that Jen brings bouquets of flowers into the office. It helps that my son Jonah likes to hunt for toads around the hoop house and nibble pea tendrils from the cover crops. It helps that we have a new executive director, Meg Coward, who is bringing our organization to healthy new places in ways big and small. Every spring I feel so fortunate to eat these first salads and stir-fries of the season, and this year isn't really any different - but somehow I am filled with deeper gratitude than ever for all those little things. Hope you enjoy the first harvests. See you at the farm.

This is YOUR Newsletter

Welcome to the 2006 CSA season. You have on your screen or are holding in your hand the first of 20 weekly CSA newsletters that will appear this season. Each newsletter will have an article written by a staff member. We plan to include recipes that contain ingredients that people will be picking up that week (not always easy to predict). We also make announcements about the CSA.

Please send me your favorite recipes and we will include them when one or more of the ingredients are likely to be in your share that week. I also invite you to write letters or articles to the newsletter, making suggestions or asking questions. It would be wonderful to hear about each other's experiences at the farm. Here are some topics that people would probably be interested in reading about:

• How do you wrestle all that food into your fridge on pickup day?
• What foods need to be cooked first? How do you store your greens?
• What are we supposed to do with collards? celeriac? fennel? kohlrabi? tomatillos?
• Describe your family's experience picking up at the farm.
• Describe your experience volunteering at the farm.

Maybe you have something to say about sustainable agriculture, organic farming, seasonal eating, the disappearance of small farms, the built-up nature of suburbs, being in touch with where our food comes from, the importance of community, etc.

Because the newsletter is now email, we have more flexibility in the size of contributions.

5. Recipes

KOHLRABI AND APPLE SALAD WITH CREAMY MUSTARD DRESSING

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon coarse-grained mustard
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 2 bunches kohlrabi (about 2 pounds), bulbs peeled and cut into julienne strips, stems discarded, and the leaves reserved for another use
• 1 Granny Smith apple

In a bowl whisk the cream until it holds soft peaks and whisk in the lemon juice, the mustard, the parsley, the sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the kohlrabi strips and the apple, peeled, cored, and diced, and combine the salad well.

Serve with: A green salad and crusty bread.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 14 1/2-ounce cans vegetable broth
• 2 cups (about) water, divided
• 1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice with Italian herbs
• 1/2 cup farfallini or other small pasta
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh marjoram
• 1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
• 5 cups thinly sliced escarole (about 1 medium head)
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add broth, 1 cup water, and tomatoes with juice; bring to boil. Add pasta; cover and boil until pasta is tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes. Add marjoram, beans, then escarole. Simmer until escarole is tender, about 5 minutes, adding up to 1 cup water if pasta absorbs broth. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Third Sunday Gathering: June 18 at 4 PM. Bring tea-time treats to share and questions for the farm staff. Meet at the picnic table.

Shareholder workday: June 18 at 1 PM. Bring your family for the afternoon!