June 25, 2012
CSA Distribution Week #3
closeup chard

Waltham Fields Community Farm

 

CSA Newsletter

 Find us on FacebookVisit our blog

What's in the shares this week

 This list is prepared before we harvest your share. Some guesswork is involved! We do our best to predict which crops will be ready to harvest, but sometimes crops are on the list that are not in the share, and sometimes crops will be in the share even  though they're not on the list.  

 

Mix-and-Match eight items this week from the following list: 


Lettuce:  It's still salad season! Red and green butterheads, dark red "Cherokee" lettuce, and crinkly green "Two Star" join the lettuce offerings this week.  

 

Spinach We plant three rounds of spinach in the spring and three rounds in the fall.  We aim to offer spinach for the first three weeks of the CSA with the spring plantings.  We hope last week's very hot temperatures don't thwart our plans for this cool-season crop!   
  
Escarole:  A farmer's favorite from the lettuce family, well known to the Egyptians and ancient Romans,  escarole helps make up for the fact that we have a hard time growing mustard-family greens like arugula in the springtime.  Traditionally used in soups, the flavor of this versatile green pairs well with rich or smoky flavors like balsamic vinegar, bacon or smoked cheeses.  Escarole is also great grilled, braised, or wilted in a spring risotto. 

Frisee Endive:  Great mixed with mild lettuces, fruits and nuts in a salad.  Another spring favorite we won't see again until fall. 

Kale:  We grow the familiar curly kale kale closeupas well as the more robust black Tuscan variety (hint:  also called dinosaur kale for those of you for whom this might be an incentive).  Both are delicious steamed as a simple side dish, chopped raw into a salad, or cooked in any number of recipes. 

Swiss Chard:  Colorful and packed with folate, vitamins A, K and C, magnesium, potassium and fiber, chard is one of the healthiest vegetables we grow -- good thing it's also one of the most tasty.  Use it in frittatas and pasta dishes, soups and casseroles, or use the leaves to wrap rice and meat combinations or salmon. 

 

Radishes:  You might see French breakfast (white and red), Rover (red round) or Easter Egg (multi-colored) radishes this week -- or possibly a combination of the three.

Beets:  Everyone has their favorite way to prepare beets.  Sliced thin and roasted into beet chips, pureed into bright-pink hummus, in the classic salad with goat cheese and walnuts... the possibilities are endless.  Well start the season with a couple of weeks of red beets and then bring on the candy-striped and golden beets with the warmer weather.  

Cabbage:  Our sweet, delicious early-season green cabbage is perfect for coleslaw and sauerkraut, wrapped around meat or rice fillings, or chopped with fish tacos.  Napa cabbage will be along in a week or two, followed by red cabbage before we take a break for the summer.

Carrots:  Sweet, juicy Mokum carrots are one of the highlights of early summer on the farm.  Take off the tops before storing them -- but we don't think you'll need to store them for very long.

Fennel:  Fennel is another ancient vegetable that was first enjoyed by the ancient Romans.  It can be used raw, slivered into salads or served as a crudite, or cooked in a variety of ways -- braised, roasted, grilled, sauteed and tossed through pasta with cream, lemon and parsley. 

'Pearl Drop' Mini Onions:  Tasty raw or cooked, the first of our fresh eating onions is here!

And a farmers' choice of a few other surprise items throughout the week!

Pick-your-own crops this week:thyme
  • Perennial Garden Herbs   
  • Sugar Snap Peas
  • Snow Peas  
  • Fava Beans 
  • Basil
  • Dill
  • Cilantro
  • Parsley 

logo smaller

Quick Links

Events and Programs

 

Children's Learning Garden Programs!

 

Join us for our last drop-in Little Sprouts program until the fall.  For caregivers and Pre-K children. Thurs., 6/28

9-10am in the Learning Garden.  Just $10/family!

Let us know if you're coming!

 

Registration is now open for our well-loved summer programs!  Sign up for Garden Explorers, Farmer for a Week, or perhaps you want to arrange a special one-time Farm Visit as a birthday party or for a youth group you work with.

   

Breakfast on the Farm w chef Joh Kokubo from Kitchen on Common 

 

Sat., July 14th

Come anytime between 10am and 1pm at the Farm.

All are welcome - bring a blanket or some chairs and your friends!

 

$5/plate per person, $10/family

Green Goddess Pesto

Ashley wrote in: This is from Tastespotting.com. Personal commentary about the recipe is below. [See the blog for a truly magnificent Grilled Cheese.]

 
1 clove garlic
1 (or 2 if you're ballsy) anchovy fillet (in oil)
½ small shallot, chopped (~1 T)
1 t lemon juice
handful chopped Italian parsley
handful chopped kale
2-3 T chopped fresh tarragon
1 T chopped chives
¼ cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste  

Pulse garlic, anchovy, and shallot in food processor until chopped. With the food processor running, add lemon juice, parsley, kale, tarragon and chives. (It won't process very well yet, don't worry).
Very slowly drizzle in olive oil until kale and herbs get sufficiently chopped and everything is the consistency of a pesto. You may need more or less of the olive oil depending on how big a "handful" of herbs is to you. You can also turn off the food processor and push herbs down the side of the bowl with a spatula every once in a while.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

*Personal notes: We don't add the anchovies (mostly because we never end up eating the rest of the tin, and we feel guilty about wasting them), and normally just use whatever type of onions we have around instead of shallots. We have also forgotten to put the avocado on, and it still turned out really wonderful.


Have a recipe to share? Just send it on in -- please do let us know where you found it so we can reference the source. 
Kids Corner - Beets
FAMILY: Chenopodiaceae. 
NUTRITIONAL FACTS: Beets are high in vitamin C, vitamin B, iron, and magnesium.
FUN FACT: Did you know that beets and chard are the same plant? Some varieties were grown to have bigger sweeter roots. while others have bigger leaves. You can also do the same things with beet tops as you can with chard tops. So don't ever let your mom compost them again!
RECIPE: One of our favorite recipe with beets in it! You can find it on page 416 in Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. 
 

Ensalada mixta
beets pastel
Beets and Carrots in a Lime Vinaigrette (serves 4)

2 medium beets, peeled and cubed
2 medium carrots, sliced diagonally
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1 medium cucumber peeled seeded and cubed

 

DRESSING     
6 tbs. vegetable oil
3 tbs. of fresh lime juice
2 tbs. chopped fresh cilantro
1 small garlic clove, minced or pressed
Salt to taste

 

Directions:
Lightly steam the beets, carrots, and peas in separate batches until just tender, but still bright in color. Mix them in a large bowl and add the cucumber. Combine the dressing ingredients. Toss the vegetables with the dressing and chill.
Notes from the Field: Jonah's Pick-Your-Own Tips

Yup, it was hot.  Really hot.  It was hard on the people, and the spinach, but it's over -- for now -- and this week's heavy rain and cool temperatures may actually be a little harder on the upcoming harvest.  We'll have to wait and see. 

In the meantime, I was walking around with my family on Saturday morning and noticed that a few people were wandering into rows of abundant, delicious sugar snap peas and coming out with empty pint containers. The peas were hidden under the vines, and were not immediately visible as you walked down the rows, so I stopped to show two kids at the end of one of the beds how to lift the plants and gently reach in to find the peas.  Jonah, my soon-to-be nine year old, was slightly indignant.  "You're showing them the secrets!" he whispered loudly.  "Then they'll be able to find all the secret peas!"  Well, yes.  That's kind of the point of pick-your-own.  Having the chance to get out in the fields, weeds, bugs, heat and all, and harvest your own peas, beans, herbs, cherry tomatoes, and other crops is part of the magic of coming to the farm to pick up your CSA share.  It's a chance to see an organic farm in action, up close and personal, and we really want it to be a good experience for everyone. 

So, after some consideration, Jonah agreed to share his pick-your-own tips with you all.  They are simple, but he hopes that they'll be helpful.

1.  Don't pick on rainy days.  This isn't just about comfort, although Jonah thinks that it is pretty awful to walk through wet fields.  Being in the fields when it's wet spreads disease in many crops.  If it's raining, try to come back another day.

2.  Stay in the pathways and be respectful of the crops
show rows
The row of beans in the center of the picture is one of two in this bed.  The pathway is the tire track to the right; the other row of beans in the bed is at the left.   
in the beds. 
We plant our crops on "beds", which are three
foot wide swaths of soil with tractor tire track pathways on either side.  You should be able to stand in the pathway and reach into the center of the beds to harvest (Jonah confirmed that this works for kids too).  This helps keep the soil loose in the beds and helps prevent damage to the crops.  You can step carefully over beds (tougher for kids) in order to move through the fields if you need to, but we encourage you to use the pathways as much as possible.  There are definitely crops where it's harder to tell where the pathways are (ahem, fava beans), but even then, please do your best and try not to create your own pathways by stepping on the plants in the beds (this comment is aimed specifically at Jonah, from his mother).
  
3.  Look carefully.  Like the peas, many crops hide their fruits under their leaves.  You can gently lift plants to look underneath for peas, beans, or cherry tomatoes; don't assume that they're not there if you can't see them at first glance.  Handle plants as if they were fine china; most are very resilient, but we have lots of people in the fields and it helps to be very gentle.

4.  Check the far ends of beds.  Most people (even farmers) tend to walk into the first bed they come to and pick from the first 20 feet of that bed.  Jonah likes to walk all the way to the far end in order to look for crops that are harder to find at the beginning of the bed.  It's important to try to pick beds as evenly as possible, since many crops will continue to produce longer if we harvest them completely.  I would add that the middle parts of the beds can sometimes be even more abundant, since they are the furthest from either entry point.  The simple rule of thumb is, check the whole bed. 

peas in pint container
In this picture, Susan is holding a pint container inside a quart container.  A quart is equal to two pints, so it's important not to substitute one for the other.
5.  Take only the amount that the farmers tell you.  This is a tip reinforced by Jonah's 4-year-old friend, Sam, who reminds us that it's up to all of us to make sure there's enough to go around.  Sometimes you may feel like there is SO MUCH of a crop that you absolutely have to take more than a handful, or two pints, or whatever the amount on the pick-your-own white board says.  But let us reassure you that we have a little experience with guessing how much is out there in the field and we don't like to see things go to waste any more than you do.  If we say a "handful", yes, we know that's a little vague, but the traditional definition is "what you can hold in one hand", not "as much as you can stuff into a plastic cup or other container".  A "taste" of something generally means what you can eat in the field -- and yes, we do encourage snacking while you're picking.  We'll do our best to offer amounts that make it possible for everyone to pick that amount -- and yes, the amounts available may change over time, even over the course of a week as a crop comes in and becomes more abundant, or as the weather changes and affects the harvest.  So please read the board each week and stick to the amounts we suggest -- and let us know, as always, if you have questions about it.  It's helpful also to use our pint or half-pint containers to measure the right amount; you don't have to take them home if you don't want to, but it's easy to over- or under-estimate if you don't have a measuring tool in the field with you.  Even for Jonah. 

6.  Pick only from labelled beds.  Jonah likes to remind everyone that there are many different plantings of most crops on the farm at any one time, but it's helpful to only harvest from the beds that the farmers have labelled open for picking (unless of course there's a note on the white board that tells you otherwise, like there is this week).  Beds without labels won't be ready to harvest yet, and waiting to pick until they are harvestable will help ensure that there's enough to continue to pick later in the season. 

7.  Please leave leashed dogs at the edge of the fields.  We love people to bring their dogs to the farm, and leashed dogs are welcome on any farm roads and around the edges of the fields.  It can be very difficult for dogs to tell the pathways from the beds, however, so we ask that you not bring them into the fields while you're picking.  Jonah's dog Heidi loves sugar snap peas, but she has to wait at the edge of the field for them. 

barn8.  Ask the farmers if you need help.  We are on the farm Monday through Saturday, 6:30 AM to sometime in the evening, and we're happy to help you find something if you need it.  During CSA pickups there is always at least one farmer in the barn.  Jonah is always tracking us down to ask where he can find something or other in the fields.  He doesn't like to be told what to do after all these years on the farm, but he definitely knows that sometimes you just have to ask.  Other shareholders can also be a great resource, since some of them have been around longer than the farmers (and Jonah)!

9.  Enjoy the harvest.

Amanda (for the farm crew) 

Waltham Fields Community Farm Year-Round Staff  

Claire Kozower, Executive Director

Kim Hunter, Education & Volunteer Coordinator (on maternity leave)

Fan Watkinson, Interim Education & Volunteer Coordinator 

Amanda Cather, Farm Manager

Andy Scherer, Gateways Field Manager

Dan Roberts, Field Manager

Erinn Roberts, Greenhouse & Field Manager

Marla Rhodes, Development Coordinator

Deb Guttormsen, Bookkeeper & Tech Coordinator

 

Assistant Growers

Sutton Kiplinger, Zannah Porter   

Field Crew

Alison Denn, Anna Linck, Katherine Murray, David Taberner 

Weed Crew  

Becca Carden, Kathryn Cole, Annabelle Ho, Meghan Seifert

Learning Garden Educators

Rebecca Byrd, Alison Dagger, Ian Howes

 

Work Sharers

Graphic Design, Neva Corbo-Hudak

CSA Newsletter, Susan Cassidy

Learning Garden Maintenance, Rebekah Carter

Container Garden, Dede Dussault

Perennial Garden Maintenance, Sabine Gerbatsch and Amy Hendrickson

Farm Work, Naomi Shea

CSA Distribution Coordinators: Joy Grimes, Natasha Hawke, Deepika Madan, Eileen Rojas, and Aneiage Van Bean  

www.communityfarms.org          781-899-2403  

Waltham Fields Community Farm | 240 Beaver Street | Waltham | MA | 02452