CSA week 12

         We’re at that point of the season where we’ve clearly crested the peak and begun the steady descent into the fall. The garden has shrunk significantly, much of it having been put into cover crop. The Summer share has ended and the full share members have only three weeks of pick-ups remaining. The greenhouse is being slowly transitioned from tomatoes to winter greens one bed at a time. We’re scheduling our last few major harvests of winter squash, potatoes, leeks, carrots, beets, and cabbage. School has started back up and the farmers’ markets have slowed. There are faint shades of yellow amongst the trees on Hosac Mountain as the colors of fall are on their way. We’ve been cleaning out the storage rooms making space for all the produce that will be filling them up and slowly distributed throughout the winter. Our resident bees will be packing up, soon to be transported back to their winter home for safe keeping. The pastures have put on significant growth with recent rains, but the rate of growth is slowing. The animals are looking forward to the end of harvest season, when we turn them loose on the gardens to clean up any scraps or seconds and extend their grazing season on some of the cover crops. With all of this, we as the farmers fall into a slower rhythm as well. It feels like we’re just waking up out of the blur that was another busy summer gone by. We begin daydreaming of late fall and winter activities. Plans to spend more meaningful time with friends and family. Anticipating that time to rest, recover, and plan for the next year.

In the share:

• Brussels

• Sungolds

• Broccoli

• Rutabaga

• Hot Peppers

• Bok Choi

• Cippolinis

• Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 red bell pepper diced

• 1 small eggplant diced

• 1 small zucchini diced

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• Salt and black pepper to taste

• 21 jumbo pasta shells we use DeLallo and I always cook a few extra in case they break

• 15 oz ricotta cheese

• 1 large egg

• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese divided

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach thawed and drained

• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil

• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

• Pinch of nutmeg

• Salt and black pepper to taste

• 2 1/2 cups marinara sauce

• Chopped fresh basil for garnish, if desired

Got a fun idea for a vegetable loaded easy meal from someone at the market last week:

Roasted Vegetable Stuffed Shells

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place the diced red pepper, eggplant, and zucchini on a large baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and toss. Season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes, or until veggies are tender, stirring once. Remove from oven and set aside. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees F.

• Cook the pasta al dente, according to package directions. Drain and place the shells on large plate or cutting board so they are not touching. This will prevent them from sticking together.

• Meanwhile, in a large bowl, stir together ricotta, egg, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, spinach, roasted veggies, basil, and oregano. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste.

• Pour 1 cup of the marinara sauce into the bottom of 9 x 13 baking dish. Stuff each pasta shell with a generous amount of the roasted veggie ricotta mixture, and place in the baking dish.

• Cover shells with the remaining sauce and sprinkle remaining mozzarella cheese over the top. Bake covered with aluminum foil for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking until the top begins to brown and the sauce begins the bubble, another 10-15 minutes. Garnish with fresh basil, if desired, and serve warm.

• Note-For easier filling, fill a gallon ziplock bag with the roasted veggie ricotta filling and cut a hole off the corner of the bag. Pipe the filling into the shells. The stuffed shells freeze well. I like to bake the pan, let them cool, and then put them in a freezer container. Reheat when ready to eat!

C.S.A. Week 11

The sound of the rain was amplified in the greenhouse, where we spent the day today. Two beds of tomatoes got released from their string trellises, pulled from the ground, and dragged to the compost pile. Next the landscape fabric was taken up and folded for next year. Kyle added compost and fertilizer to each bed and then raked them smooth, laid drip tape and turned the water on. I dug three shallow trenches in one bed with a hoe and sprinkled arugula seed in each one, then covered them back up with a light layer of soil. The other bed became a long row of baby spinach seedlings, gently removed from their starter trays and then set into the ground. The three remaining beds of tomatoes will remain for a few weeks longer, until the rest of the winter green seedlings have sized up and are ready. It’s always a mix of excitement and disappointment to pull the tomatoes. They put on such impressive growth over the course of just a few months, a shame to pull them before a frost, but we are pressured by our upcoming winter shares to transition to greens by mid-September and in that way, it is exciting thinking of food to come.

In the share:

• Red Onions

• Leeks

• Sweet Peppers

• Eggplant

• Red Russian Kale

• Sungold Tomatoes

• Carrots

PAN ROASTED EGGPLANT

• 1 eggplant, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch slices

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika

• ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning

• 1 teaspoon salt

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

• Step 2

  Place eggplant slices in a single layer on the baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic powder, smoked paprika, and Italian seasoning.

• Step 3

  Roast in the preheated oven until golden and crispy, about 25 minutes. Sprinkle with salt.

C.S.A. week 10

In the share:

• Spaghetti squash

• Brussels Sprouts

• Yellow Onions

• Butterhead Lettuce

• Celery

• Red Tomatoes

• Potatoes

SPAGHETTI SQUASH LASAGNA

• 1 spaghetti squash, halved lengthwise and seeded

• 1 onion, chopped

• 2 tablespoons minced garlic

• 2 chopped tomatoes

• 1 tablespoon dried basil

• 1 cube vegetable bouillon

• black pepper to taste

• 1 (15 ounce) can black olives, chopped

• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

• 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

Instructions Checklist

• Step 1

  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

• Step 2

  Spray a baking sheet with a thin layer of cooking spray. Place squash halves cut-side down on the baking sheet.

• Step 3

  Bake squash in the preheated oven until a knife can be easily inserted, about 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.

• Step 4

  Grease a nonstick saucepan with cooking spray and place over medium heat. Sauté onion and garlic until golden brown. Stir in tomatoes, basil, bouillon cube, and black pepper. Cook until thickened, about 15 minutes.

• Step 5

  Remove squash strands with a fork, reserving shells. Layer each half with a spoonful of sauce, a layer of spaghetti squash strands, olives, and mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers until shells are full or until all ingredients are used. Top with Parmesan cheese.

• Step 6

  Bake in the preheated oven until Parmesan cheese melts, about 20 minutes.

C.S.A. week 9

Onions, Onions, Onions. Today we spent most of the day harvesting onions from lower Hosac and laying them out to dry in our Seedhouse and garage. Ebyn who works with us on Mondays was here as well as Joyce and Sara. Joyce has been volunteering with us for three years now, and Sara, a neighbor, jumped in for the first time to help today. It was nice to have such a crew, pulling onions into crates, while Kyle spent most of the time carrying the crates to the truck and then making trips delivering them to me in the Seedhouse. We will all smell like onions for at least three days, even after three showers. The onions will dry for about a month, and then the tops will get trimmed off and they will go in bags into our basement for winter storage. Its the first of our big fall harvests and feels really good to have them out of the ground.

Interested in Winter Food, check out our collaborative CSA the foothill farm alliance. www.thefoothillfarmalliance.com

In the share:

• Cippolini Onions

• Red Tomatoes

• Cherry Tomatoes (if you’re feeling overloaded, these can go right into a freezer bag as is for winter soup)

• Rutabaga

• Cabbage

• Green Beans

• Squash

• Basil

Oven Roasted Rutabaga

Directions

1. Toss 1 large peeled and cubed rutabaga with 3 tablespoons olive oil, and salt and pepper on a baking sheet. Roast at 425 degrees F until golden and soft, 40 minutes. Toss with 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar and chopped parsley.

Rutabaga Fries

1. 1 rutabaga, peeled and cut into spears

   1 teaspoon olive oil

   4 sprigs fresh rosemary, minced

   3 cloves garlic, minced

   1 pinch salt to taste

   Step 1

   Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

   Step 2

   Combine rutabaga spears with oil, minced rosemary, garlic, and salt. Toss until evenly coated.

   Step 3

   Lay rutabaga spears onto a baking sheet, leaving space between for even crisping. Bake until rutabaga fries are cooked through and crisped on the outside, about 30 minutes.
   

C.S.A. Week 8

We are weeding things for the last time this week. At lower Hosac today I made my way slowly on hands and knees down the bed of leeks. Crawling between the two rows of plants on the soft center line of soil, I felt like I was in a tunnel, the blue green outer leaves of the leeks and the tips of tall crab crass from the field brushing against my arms and draping over me. Each hand worked a row, pulling and brushing back purslane, grass, pigweed, removing all nutrient competition and giving the leeks a last needed growth advantage to bulk up for winter. Next week we will be back down to pull the onion patch, as their tops have browned and begun to tip over at the neck. They will go into our Seedhouse to dry for a month before being trimmed and bagged and placed into winter storage. Each moment in the farming season is spent preparing for the next, and we are looking ahead to fall and winter.

In the share:

• Sweet Corn from Earle Farm

• Sweet Carmen Peppers

• Hot Jalepeno Peppers

• Red Slicing Tomatoes

• Sungold Cherry Tomatoes

• Leeks

• Celery

• Carrots

We have inadvertently given out the best ingredients for a delicious salsa, recipe below.

FARM SALSA

Ingredients:

• 3 cups chopped tomatoes, slicers, cherries or a mix

• ½ cup chopped green pepper

• 1 cup onion, diced

• ¼ cup minced fresh cilantro

• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh jalapeno pepper (including seeds)

• ½ teaspoon ground cumin

• ½ teaspoon kosher salt

• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

• 1 cup fresh corn

Directions: 

• Combine

• Serve.

C.S.A. Week 6

Everything on the farm is in either a state of growth or decay. The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are reaching for the sky, bushing out, loaded with fruit. The squash plants are getting tired, slowly wilting under the pressure of bugs. Broccoli and Cauliflower plants having had their flowering heads chopped now lay on the ground waiting to get turned back into the soil. Full sized cabbage heads are coming out to be stored and sold out of the walk-in cooler. We are on a crash course towards fall, plants that are done are coming out to make room for cool loving greens. We watch the big storage roots get slowly bigger and have one eye on the onions waiting for their tops to brown and topple the sure sign they are ready to harvest. I walk the field temporarily overwhelmed by the amount of food that will have to be harvested and put into storage for the winter but remind myself it happens in pieces over several months, always pleasantly surprised when we finally finish.

A more accurate list than last week, had some last-minute changes when I stepped into the field last Tuesday morning.

In the share:

• Celery

• Sungolds

• Red Slicing tomatoes

• Kohlrabi

• Green Sweet Peppers

• Carrots

• Kale

• Cukes

Kohlrabi SLAW

Ingredients

3 cups kohlrabi (about 3/4 pound), peeled and cut into matchsticks

• 1 cup carrots (about 2 large carrots), julienned or shredded

• 1 apple, cut into matchsticks

• 2 green onions, thinly sliced

• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

• 1 tablespoon maple syrup, honey or sugar

• ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard

• ½ teaspoon salt

Remove any attached greens from the kohlrabi. Chop the kohlrabi, carrots, apple, green onion, into matchsticks, cut up parsley.

1. Mix in a bowl with the olive oil, white wine vinegar, maple syrup, Dijon mustard, and salt Enjoy immediately or refrigerate 1 to 2 days.

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS

6Medium Fresh Tomatoes (peeled, seeded and chopped)

1Medium Onion (chopped)3Celery Ribs (diced)

8 ounces Tomato Sauce

1 cup Water

2 teaspoons Salt (divided)

½ teaspoon Pepper (divided)

4Medium Green Peppers

1 pound Lean Ground Beef (90% lean)

1 cup Instant Rice (cooked

)1 teaspoon Dried Basil

In a large saucepan, combine the tomatoes, onion, celery, tomato sauce, water, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, cut tops off of green peppers and remove seeds; set aside.

1. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, rice, basil and remaining salt and pepper. Fill peppers with beef mixture. Carefully place peppers in tomato sauce. Spoon some sauce over tops of peppers.

2. Cover and simmer for 40-45 minutes or until beef is cooked and peppers are tender.

C.S.A. Week 4

Thunder had started in the distance last week as I packed up at the Earle Farm CSA drop. Homer in his older age has developed the not unusual, but what I disappointingly deem neurotic, fear of thunderstorms and was whining and drooling under the folding tables. I’m afraid I caused him this anxiety as I also get nervous in storms, stemming from an old high school job working at a horse barn. The bus used to drop me off at the stable where it was my responsibility to bring the 50 or so horses in from their daytime paddocks into their stalls. Many of the paddocks were way up on a hill and often in the summer, thunderstorms would roll in over the hill and I would rush to get them all in, disrupting the ideal order of bring-ins that I had developed based on the behavior quirks of each horse. Nothing terrible ever came of the storms, but the combination of naughty horses, electric fences, wind, and thunder has left a residual unsettledness that still creeps up in me during big storms.

As we made our way south on Rt. 160 with Homer breathing extra heavily from the backseat onto my neck, huge arcs of lightning streaked across the sky. Shortly after entering Cornish the tops of the trees went from still to wild. When I arrived home, I was relieved to see the greenhouse sides rolled closed and the electric fence unhooked to prevent a strike from traveling the line back up into the charger. Homer flew inside and went to breathe closely on Kyle and Joni who were both happily sitting on our screened porch watching the storm. Joni’s excitement over the storm was clear, pointing at the trees bending heavily in the now wild wind, and talking about the bangs and flash of thunder and lightning. I asked her if she was scared, and she said no. I told her Homer, and I were a little scared, and she digested this and went back to watching.

The storm passed, thankfully bringing with the wild winds some much needed rain. For the rest of the week Joni talked about the storm a lot. How it “came over the trees, made big bangs, and then went away from us”. A milder storm blew through Thursday, and we watched the dark clouds roll in from the raspberry patch, and I tried to be excited about them with Joni, relived that so far, my residual dislike has only transferred itself to Homer.

In the share:

• Beets

• Carrots

• Broccoli or Cauliflower

• Sungold Tomatoes

• Parsley

• Green Beans

• Summer Squash/Zucchini

A note about recipes: While the recipes I post make for amazing dishes, I encourage you all to try all of this week’s items raw or lightly sauteed over some greens. This time of year is one I look forward to in the cold months of winter after we’ve been eating storage food for what feels like forever, and I dream of fresh salad topped with sweet summer carrots. snap beans, and candy-like tomatoes. The summer squash can take a very light sauté and then be added right on top. Cook up a couple of eggs, add cheese, and you’ll be eating our almost nightly meal.

GARLIC ROATED GREEN BEANS

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1-1/2 pounds fresh green beans, trimmed

• 1 cup thinly sliced onion

• 12 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

Directions

1. Brush a 15x10x1-in. baking pan with the oil. Place the green beans, onion and garlic in a single layer in pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake, uncovered, at 400° for 25-30 minutes or until crisp-tender, stirring twice.

2. Transfer to a serving bowl. Drizzle with vinegar and toss to coat. Sprinkle with pine nuts.

C.S.A. Week 3

Hi Everyone,

we are hosting a farm tour tonight for our fellow farming friends so no newsletter this week, just food list and a recipe.

In the Share

• Bok Choi

• Sugar Snap Peas

• Green Cabbage

• Basil

• Green Cauliflower

• Mixed Greens

• Hot Peppers

• Head Lettuce

WARM CABBAGE AND FENNEL SALAD

Ingredients

• 2 firm medium pears

• 1/4 cup brandy or Cognac, optional

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 large fennel bulb, halved, cored and thinly sliced

• 4 cups shredded or thinly sliced cabbage

• 1/4 cup water

• 3 tablespoons lemon juice

• 2 teaspoons honey or agave nectar

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• 3/4 cup crumbled or sliced Gorgonzola cheese

• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

Directions

1. Peel and core pears; cut into 1/2-in. slices. If desired, toss with brandy. Set pears aside.

2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add fennel; saute until crisp-tender, 2-3 minutes. Add cabbage; toss with fennel. Cook until both are tender, 2-3 minutes longer. Add pears, water, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper to skillet, gently combining ingredients. Cook until liquid is evaporated, 6-8 minutes.

3. Transfer to a serving bowl. Top with Gorgonzola cheese and toasted walnuts. Serve warm or at room temperature.

C.S.A. Week 2

I lay in bed on our screened porch gazing at the tops of the big trees backlit by the setting sun. The calm associated with evening has come; plants perk back up after a day in hot sun, Joni is asleep recharging for tomorrow, Stetson and the sheep are tucked in the barn, the two cats curled together in an Adirondack chair worn out from those mysterious cat adventures they had all day long. Sleep sometimes takes a long time to come, my body, tired from the farm, rests easy, but my mind takes longer to settle. I retrace steps taken in the day, steps that will be taken tomorrow, and steps to be taken next week. When darkness finally falls completely, the scale of the world is magnified in summer night sounds. Thousands of crickets’ peep, the breeze sways in the tree tops that I can no longer see, and the fireflies flicker and dance around our yard. Surrounded by the smallest and biggest things of nature I eventually drift off to sleep, ready to farm again tomorrow.

In the share:

• Sugar snap peas

• Summer squash/zucchini

• scallions

• kale

• oak leaf head lettuce

• baby carrots (seriously baby and so good raw)

• Fennel

GRILLED FENNEL

• 2 fennel bulbs

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

• 1 lemon, juiced

• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

• 1 pinch dried thyme

• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat and lightly oil the grate.

• Step 2

  Use a vegetable peeler or paring knife to slice a very thin layer from the bottom of each fennel bulb; leave core in place to hold bulb intact. Remove fennel stalks, reserving fronds. Slice bulbs vertically into 1/4-inch slices. Brush slices with 1 tablespoon olive oil; sprinkle ground black pepper and salt on each side.

• Step 3

  Grill fennel slices in the preheated grill until charred, about 5 minutes per side; transfer to a serving platter.

• Step 4

  Whisk remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, basil, parsley, lemon juice, lemon zest, freshly ground black pepper, thyme, and reserved fennel fronds together in a bowl.

• Step 5

  Sprinkle fennel slices with Parmesan cheese and drizzle lemon mixture on top.

C.S.A. Week 1

6/23/22

Kyle has been picking up rocks this week. Hours spent out in the field bending over, filling buckets and wheelbarrows bringing them to giant piles reminiscent of hiking cairns at the edge of the garden to be later picked up with the tractor. This is the second rock sweep this year, as he and I did a thorough rock clean up at the end of March when the lack of snow had us energized for anything resembling garden work. I remember one morning in March, I headed out to the field ready to go and realized the cold night had left the surface of the field completely frozen, rocks included. It was a weird and good reminder of how early the snow was gone, and to take a minute to enjoy the last of our leisure season. Each round of rock cleanup has the cycling feelings of productivity, meditation, endlessness, and back again. Right now, mid-season, there are garden beds and aisles giving visual context to the chore and Kyle is working his way down the garden one aisle at a time. Once this spring, when the garden was just open, brown and bare, I thought I was being spatially organized but got confused after emptying my bucket and couldn’t tell where I had or hadn’t done even though I had been at it for hours. I momentarily had the absurd image of the field refilling itself with rocks every time I went to empty a bucket like some farmer version of Dante’s concentric circles of Hell. The thought made me smile, and I bent down and got back to work. The work is paying off though, and we are seeing it in how much easier it is to get our field prep equipment through each season, in straighter carrots, and gentler hand weeding.

Garden Notes:

Things are growing well, despite the cold nights and seemingly ceaseless wind. We are starting off with a green heavy week, but the squash is flowering, beans plants are coming in at proper successions, tomatoes have green fruit, and tiny peppers have appeared on our plants, so all good things of summer soon…

We are growing again at “Lower Hosac”, we have onions, leeks, and potatoes down there. Sharon who owns the property has generously given us almost free rein on her beautiful fields for the second summer, which has allowed us to expand our storage crop production.

We are also doing our cooperative winter squash growing at the Albany town forest thanks to Jake Davis lending myself, and two other farmer friends, Joanne and Jennie, some of his river bottom land row space and tractor use, and irrigation.

In the share:

• Garlic Scape -from Old Wells Farm

• Bok Choi

• Chioggia baby beets and greens

• Romaine Lettuce

• Yellow Scallions

• Red and Purple Radishes

• Kohlrabi

BEET GREEN SCALLION PESTO

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 5.5 ounces beet leaves (from approximately 2 medium beets)

• 2.5 ounces scallions (3 pieces)

• 3.5 ounces walnuts, toasted

• 5 small cloves garlic, peeled

• 3 ounces ricotta

• 1.5 ounces parmesan, grated

• Lemon juice of 1/2 small lemon

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• A good grind of black pepper

Instructions

Tear the leaves off the stalks and chop them up roughly (reserve the stalks to use later in a soup or stew). Chop the scallions too.

Heat up 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the beet leaves and scallions and fry them, stirring occasionally, until soft, but not browned, for about 4 minutes.

Add the beet leaves and scallions, walnuts, garlic, and 130 ml (4.5 ounces) of olive oil into a blender and blend until you get a smooth uniform paste. Transfer to a bowl. Add ricotta, parmesan, lemon juice, salt and black pepper and mix well.

Roasted Kohlrabi with Garlic

• 2 pounds kohlrabi

• 1 teaspoon olive oil

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 3 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced (about 3 Tbsp.)- can sub scapes here

• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon)

• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

• 2 tablespoons water

Step 1

Preheat oven to 400°F. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high. Remove kohlrabi leaves from bulb, and thinly slice leaves to equal 1 packed cup; set aside. (Reserve remaining greens for another use.) Peel kohlrabi bulbs and cut into small wedges. Toss together kohlrabi wedges and 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large bowl. Place wedges in hot skillet, and cook, undisturbed, until brown around edges, about 6 minutes.

Step 2

Transfer skillet to preheated oven, and roast wedges, stirring occasionally, until tender when pierced with tip of a knife, 12 to 15 minutes. Place kohlrabi wedges in a large bowl.

Step 3

While kohlrabi cooks, heat extra-virgin olive oil in a small skillet over low. Add , garlic, and crushed red pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, until sizzling and garlic is tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a mini food processor. Add lemon juice and white wine vinegar to anchovy mixture, and process until blended, about 10 seconds. Transfer to a small bowl, and stir in parsley.

Step 4

Add sliced kohlrabi greens and water to skillet over medium. Cook, stirring constantly, until greens are wilted, about 1 minute. Transfer greens to bowl with wedges, and toss

April 2022

April 2022

Before things started getting busy, I was able to take a field trip to a farm in northern Vermont. I went with a friend, Steve, who initiated the visit. Steve and his partner Michelle are the owners of Steady Soils Farm in Baldwin, ME. As a former diesel tractor mechanic, Steve contacted Roger Rainville of Borderview Farm, who had been growing sunflowers and canola to produce biodiesel fuel. We had both watched videos on youtube and on the University of Vermont’s website of Roger and his operations but were interested in seeing it in person.

We left early on a rainy morning to make the four hour drive up to Alburgh, Vermont. Borderview Farm is located less than 2 miles from Lake Champlain and abuts the border of Canada. You could literally see the nearest border checkpoint from his driveway. Roger welcomed us into one of his buildings to show us his equipment. For many years, and to this day, Borderview Farm has been a research farm for the University of Vermont’s extension agency. Growing different crops such as sunflowers, canola, switchgrass, and many others, Roger helped run experiments with producing biodiesel from oilseeds. Landing on sunflowers as his favorite for both growing and aesthetic purposes, he walked us through his process.
The sunflower seeds, once harvested, are left to dry in giant totes with the help of fans that pull air through the totes. The seeds are then run through a press. Out of the press comes oil as well as a meal from the seed shells. The meal can be used as feed for livestock. Roger has also experimented with pressing the meal into pellets to burn as biofuel in heaters. The virgin oil is then sent through a machine that “washes” the oil pulling out the glycerin. I’m still not entirely sure how this machine works, but it was smaller than I thought it would be and seemed rather simple. Methane is put into the machine to aid in the washing process. Roger then runs the glycerin through a still that would pull out the methane to be recycled for the next washing. The glycerin he sold to local soap makers for very low cost, just happy they would take it from him. The oil, after being washed, is sent through a set of filters, and is then ready to be used.

This virgin biofuel can be run in any diesel engine without any conversions. In fact, the biodiesel burns cleaner than the diesel that can be purchased at the station and is carbon neutral so it’s better for the environment. It could be used to heat as well, as long as the biodiesel is kept at temperatures above 45 degrees to avoid gelling. Roger told us that he doesn’t think this could be done on a really large scale but is very possible on a small to medium size scale. Roger claims that his biodiesel was cheaper to produce than the diesel being sold at the local station, and that was 5 years ago when prices were relatively lower.

Based on my own calculations from the University of Vermont’s website, they published the data from all of Roger’s experiments over the years, an acre of sunflowers could produce on average 100 gallons of biodiesel.

Roger showed us some of his other equipment and buildings, which were fascinating. He raised dairy cows as well as ostriches for a number of years on top of the research farming. Here is a link to more information on Borderview Farm: http://vermontbioenergy.com/borderview-research-farm/#.YlRqYkg03IV

On the long drive back, Steve and I were reeling with ideas. With the current conversations around PFAS chemicals being found on some farms in Maine, perhaps oilseed production could be a solution for those farmers. Recent testing has showed that PFAS chemicals don’t seem to make their way into the seeds and grains of plants. These contaminated fields could be providing green biodiesel for other farmers in the area. Henry Ford had a vision for American farmers, that each farmer would dedicate a plot of their fields to oilseed production. Each community, Ford dreamed, would have a communal biodiesel production operation for the farmers to run their equipment on local, sustainable biodiesel. -Kyle

FARM NOTES

• Our summer CSA is filling up. CSA will be on Tuesday evenings from 4-6 at our farm and Earle Farm.

• Earle Farm spaces are limited. Please sign up on our website

• www.hosacfarm.com/csa

• We are offering a flower share option in addition on its own.

We are attending the Bridgton Winter Farmers Market this Saturday 4/16/22 with greens. We will have spinach, mizuna, arugula, kale, radishes, leeks. Find us there at the redemption center on Nulty Street from 9-12. We are waiting to see if we can get enough consistency in our greens maturing to offer a green share, in the meanwhile we will be at the market for a few weeks.

The seedlings are growing, and we are waiting for the garden to dry out enough to drive the tractor on it. We have been filling our days with odd spring jobs like replacing fence posts and picking up the endless supply of rocks that appear out of the earth every spring.

Happy April

February 2022 and POP-UP Share

For pop-up share sign up info see below…

February 2022

I watch the Almond tree out the window on these cold winter days, its tall upright branches easily bending back and forth obeying the direction of the blowing wind.   I wonder how the tree is handling these extreme nighttime temperatures we’ve been getting. The reading was -18 here one morning last week when I woke up.  Neither we or the Almond tree has experienced prolonged low nighttime temperatures in our short time here.  Kyle got it in his head shortly after moving here, we should be growing Almond trees.  The idea was a combination of advice from old time farmers saying they wished they had planted more trees in early years, and a little bit of Almond industry news and research. The Almond industry was newsworthy around the time California entered the most recent, now many years of drought.  Almond trees are grown on huge thousand-acre plantations and they require millions of gallons of pumped in water for irrigation.   One single almond nut takes about 1.1 gallons of water to mature, so multiply that by hundreds of nuts per tree, times thousands of trees per farm and you quickly have a water issue.  Kyle figured we had the perfect environment for these thirsty Almond trees, with our wet springs and our large pond, the exception being Almond trees don’t grow in cold climates.  Kyle was determined and did some internet searching and found a new variety being trialed that was supposed to be cold hardy down to zone 6.  We are zone 4-5, so it would be a stretch, but we figured we would try.  We ordered two trees from a very un-legit looking online nursery.  The nursery seemed to be using desperate measures to sell product, pictures of pinup type girls holding different greenery (they shortly went out of business).  The trees showed up on a UPS truck a few weeks later.  We’ve planted a fair number of trees now, and these were pretty bad looking starts.  They were 3-4 feet tall each, with now visible roots of branches.  We carefully dug our holes, added compost and stuck them both in the ground in our front yard.  It looked like we had planted two sticks. Kyle dutifully watered them weekly, and throughout the summer, one stick did absolutely nothing, and one started to produce green shoots, the beginning of branches.  By the time fall came around, the one tree had almost tripled in height and began to claim its shape, branches reaching slightly out from the trunk and then shooting up.  We wondered if it would make it through the that first winter, but sure enough in the spring the shoots turned green and started to grow again.  It’s now been 7 winters, and each year the Almond tree grows taller, now over 25 feet high, and is covered in delicate pink flowers each spring.  A few years back the saw our first fruit forming after the flowers had dropped and that fall the seedpod fell to the ground.  We peeled back the green husk resembling a peach and inside was the shell of the nut.  Kyle eagerly cracked the shell, and sure enough inside was an almond. The funny part was, it was 90% shell, 10% edible nut.  We don’t know if the weirdly small size is due to lack of a second pollinating tree, the climate, or lack of tree maturity.  The tree has continued to produce more and more nuts each year, although still small, but it gives us immense pleasure to be maybe one of the first farms in Maine growing Almonds, definitely a good talking point.    

Sign up using the Google Form:sign up here we have been having periodic form issues, so please email hosacfarm@gmail.com if the link does not work and youd like to sign up. Thanks!

POP-UP SHARE:

2 Carnival Acorn Squash

2lbs Carrots

2lbs Yellow Onions

4lbs Kohlrabi 

3lbs Potatoes

2lbs Beets

2lbs Leeks

-note, we are working with another farm to try and get some greens, we won’t know until next week if this is possible due to temperatures.  There will be a place on the sign-up form to select if you would like the addition of greens to the share. 

Pickup Info: Choose either Earle Farm or Hosac Farm, Saturday February 19th. 10am-12pm. 

Cost: 45.00

Its never to early to sign up for our Summer 2022 CSA: www.hosacfarm.com/csa

Winter 2022

Joni discovered running in the dark late this fall.  We had friends over with a toddler close in age, and ate dinner outside, with a table set up between the house and barns.  With the shortening daylength of the fall season, darkness fell early.  I’m not sure how it began, but aimless toddler wandering transformed into somewhat coordinated “racing” from the animal barn to our dinner table and back again.  Over and over, they ran together, sort of.  Homer joined in, needing only to barely jog to keep up.  He knocked each of them over several times not out of roughness. Luckily the falls ended only in hysterical laughter from each of them. Homer was a little confused as to why a gentle bump sent them tumbling.  Joni has a strict early bedtime, so Kyle I and I realized she really had never experienced darkness under the sky before. 

I remember loving the sensation of running in the dark as a child too.  My strongest memories of it being playing massive games of “manhunt” with all the neighborhood kids on late summer nights.  I always felt so much faster, able to evade my pursuer, sprinting through backyards, down driveways, and under streetlights. 

The running in the dark discovery got us nicely through late fall and early winter.  As the cold set in, Joni started resisting going outside, mostly because it meant getting stuffed into her stiff snowsuit, hat and gloves, and boots. None of these things are very appealing to a two-year-old.  I was able to take her out at least once daily to do evening animals chores with me, once she could see darkness had fallen through our windows.  “Dark.  Moon up, Stars up.  Run in the Dark.” If it wasn’t too cold, I’d even let her out in just a jacket and her hiking boots, knowing 20 minutes of running would keep her plenty warm.  Joni would run, back and forth from the barn to the car, while I fed the animals and filled their water bucket for the night.  Then the barn light went off and sometimes we both ran, or I was commanded to “Stay!” and just Joni and Homer ran.  In the moments of stillness, I’d look up, marveling at the clarity of the stars in the winter sky, wishing I had more energy to enjoy it in the summer.  In the summer I’m often in bed as darkness is falling, and although we sleep on our screened porch where I can see the tops of the trees and hear the symphony of bugs, birds, and animals, the leaves and roof block my view of the sky.  Maybe as Joni’s bedtime creeps later, and if her fascination with nighttime running and moon gazing continues, we’ll be out there doing what I’m always wishing I’d do. 

Farm:

As many of you know we are finishing up our winter CSA!  Hooray!  We have a decent assortment of winter food left and will likely be putting together a pop-up share sometime in the end of February or March. 

It may feel crazy early but our summer CSA sign-ups are open as well as the option for a flower share: www.hosacfarm.com/csa

We are planning on having a full garden this year and growing our cooperative winter squash and sweet potatoes in the Albany Town Forest.  We will also be growing potatoes again down the road at “Lower Hosac” as well as our onions and leeks. 

Kyle has a Drone and is enjoying taking videos of our property, trying to catch the best light.  Its long, but nice, check it out on our blog if you are reading this on email:

If you are motivated to see part 2 of the flight you can find it on our youtube channel.

Pop up Fall Share

Hi Everyone

We are basking in this weirdly long warm fall. Running about 4 weeks past the usual first frost date, we still have outdoor eggplant and sweet peppers! Most of the garden is put away into winter storage, and the animals have been released into the big field to clean up, except for a few fenced areas that we are saving.

Pop up share:

SUNDAY OCTOBER 17th

10am-12pm @ Earle Farm or Hosac Farm

Cost:40$

In the share:

• 1 bag red head lettuce

• 1 bunch parsley

• 2lbs Sweet Potatoes

• 2lbs Carrots

• 2lbs Potatoes

• `1-2 heads Celery

• Some kind(s) of winter squash, likely some choice here

• Sweet Peppers

If you would like a share please EMAIL back yes, with your pickup location. I will send out a reminder email about pickup to those who sign up by the end of next week.

Otherwise Happy Fall!

CSA week 14

The Last Share

Thank you for another farming season soon to be in the rearview.

I was in the Albany town forest today harvesting our cooperative sweet potatoes. Kyle was home on what we call “Joni” duty and managed to sneak in this newsletter during her thankfully lengthy mid day nap. Photos from the sweet potato field.

Earlier this year, a large study out of a university in Mexico was published studying the level of bioactive compounds in organic produce vs. conventionally grown produce. Bioactive compounds exist in plants and help to aid plants in fending off pests and diseases. When we consume these plants, or the animals that eat these plants, we ingest the compounds ourselves. The bioactives then work to help us fend off disease, inflammation, infections, and cognitive decline. Bioactive compounds are quickly becoming very important to those researching the effects of food and health, particularly caner.

It’s been found that a plant undergoing stress from pests and/or disease will produce more of these bioactive compounds than a plant that is not experiencing stress. The argument in favor of organic produce containing higher levels of bioactive compounds is that organic plants, which are free of pesticides and herbicides, are exposed to higher levels of natural stress from bugs and disease. The higher levels of stress cause the plant to produce more bioactive compounds. The argument in favor of produce grown conventionally is that the chemical fertilizers used actually put stress on the plants because of their concentrations/application methods. Studies in the past have been fairly inconclusive, but also not as comprehensive as this recent study.

The study out of Mexico specifically studied raspberries due to their naturally high levels of certain bioactive compounds, and concludes, “The content of total bioactive compounds and the activity of the enzymes CAT, SOD, APX, GPX, and PAL were considerably superior in organic management, changing significantly during the maturation process. In general, in organic raspberry, as the maturity stage advanced, the sum phenolic compounds increased as well as the activity of the antioxidant enzymes CAT, APX, and GPX. Ripe raspberries with organic fertilization were characterized by the synthesis a higher content of ellagic acid, as well as presenting higher activity of SOD and PAL, and greater antioxidant capacity. ”

Here is a link to the full text published in the foods journal: Foods | Free Full-Text | Quality, Bioactive Compounds, Antioxidant Capacity, and Enzymes of Raspberries at Different Maturity Stages, Effects of Organic vs. Conventional Fertilization (mdpi.com)

In this week’s share:

Beets

Leeks

Rutabaga

Honey Nut Winter Squash

Another type of winter squash, likely choice here.

Carrots

Romaine Lettuce

C.S.A week 13

We were up last Monday in the Albany Town forest harvesting squash. It was a beautiful fall day, crisp blue sky, and a steady breeze blowing, keeping us cool. It was a collective effort, my two farming friends, their helpers, a volunteer, myself, and Ebyn, who has been helping us here this summer a couple of days a week. It was nice to have so many hands(and backs), as it was a lot of repetitive bending, cutting stems, stacking, boxing, and then moving boxes to the trucks, sorting varieties, then lifting into the trucks. We finished most of the harvesting and had lunch under a tree looking North over the fields with a spectacular view of South Moat Mountain. We finished up the afternoon by pulling back the vining and dying plants, so we could remove the landscape fabric we had placed down in the aisles to keep the weeds at bay. It was a tedious job of removing fabric staples one by one down each aisle, and then sloppily rolling the fabric up so we can reuse it next season. Although an initial and final time investment of laying the fabric and removing it, it made all the difference this year with the weeds. Last year, Kyle and I showed up to harvest to find we had to swat though a jungle of head-high super weeds just to get into the squash patch. Then we slowly made our way through swiping tall stems down with our clippers and smashing them to the ground with our boots just in an effort to move through and find the squash. With the trailers loaded and the field in the beginning stages of clean up, we made our way home for the day. We will be returning next week with a late first frost affording us the luxury of an unhurried sweet potato harvest.

In the share:

• Honey Boat Delicata Squash _ you can eat the skin on these.

• Some other kind of winter squash TBD

• Romaine Lettuce

• Bok Choi

• Lacinato Kale

• Carmen Sweet Peppers

• New potatoes

• The last of the red round tomatoes

CSA week 12

Spent the day in our remote Albany town forest location harvesting a couple thousand pounds of winter squash, so too tired for a blog this week. Next week!

In the share

• Red Fire Lettuce

• Arugula

• Beets

• Cippolini Onions

• Spaghetti Squash

• Carrots

• Kabocha Squash ::

C.S.A. Week 11

We toured the Earle Farm a few weeks ago with farmer friends and some of their summer interns. It was fun to walk the fields. The place has a pleasant familiarity. The farm is large in the acreage it encompasses, and different distant memories slid in and out of my brain as we walked. We started the tour at the sugar shack circling up for introductions. The sugar shack was still under construction when Kyle and I arrived for our first year on the farm. It was mid winter, and our first month or two was spent setting up sap lines and buckets for Tom’s first year of syrup production. We would take the big truck each afternoon, its metal sides squeaking loudly, collecting sap for Tom to boil in the evenings. Molly, the dog, usually ran behind the truck getting exercise, her “sap runs”.

Next we walked up behind the greenhouses to the compost pile. There I thought back to the mid summer hours spent cleaning the barns of their winter animal bedding, the bulk material needed to build the compost pile. The animals live confined mostly to the barns all winter with dropped hay and manure slowly accumulating to form a dense 2-3 foot “pack”. Tom would use the tractor to scrape the middle section out, and Kyle and I would be armed with pitchforks, pulling and prying the pack out of the sides into the tractor bucket.

From the compost pile we headed up and down the trail paralleling Baird Hill Rd,, then down through part of the sugar bush and into the big field. The grass there is lush from years of intensive grazing, and what is known as the main garden sits on the far edge. Tom talks about the field once being entirely garden, and I’ve always tried to picture it, back when the Earle Farm hosted a 100 member CSA. The contents of what was in the main garden when Kyle and I were there are blurry, blending with years of coming back to help with fall harvests, and many subsequent farm tours.

Next we turned down away from the road into the far fields. These two fields are newer, a more recent attempt to turn forest to grass and are populated by persistent fern, sapling, and stump sucker growth. Homer took to frolicking here, something about this field, his favorite since back in puppy-hood. We mostly spent time moving temporary animal fencing around and splitting wood. Homer would disappear, while we were working, bored with our stationary wood duties. Then we’d see the tops of cattails that lined a small stream rustling, and he would come out some time later covered in mud up over his eyeballs, having stuffed his nose into the muck after some intriguing scent. I share Homer’s preference for this specific place, something about its rolling quality still slightly wild, the stone wall dotted with small birch trees dividing the field in two, evidence of it being tamed in the past and hidden from the road.

From the lower field, we walk up the gravel road that runs along the woods and the main garden back to Baird Hill Rd. Each summer when the cows would exhaust the pastures, we’d move them up to the top of Baird Hill into a neighbor’s field. We would funnel them out of whatever pasture they were in, onto the road heading up the hill, and Tom would drive the big truck keeping slightly ahead of them while we ran behind making sure they kept forward momentum. The cows must have had a strong memory of greener pastures, or else it was just the rarity of complete freedom, but they would take off flying up the dirt road, us running to keep up. Usually, one would randomly veer off into the woods with us in pursuit, and then quickly decide the road was the easier place to be. Baird Hill Road goes gently up, then down, and has a final pretty severe uphill climb. The cows would make it to about the bottom of the steep hill at full throttle and then quickly slow to a walk, tuckered out by the run and climb.

We bypassed the upper garden and headed lastly to Tom’s brother and Sister in-law’s house, the house where the Earle Family grew up. The house hold has a pasture outback, and the attached barn was back when we where there the winter home to the cows. Our first winter there, one of the cows “Butternut” had a calf “Maplenut”. The Earle Farm Cows were always a bit unruly and I was determined to milk Butternut and train the calf. I made it my daily chore to groom “Butternut”, while she was in a headlock stand(so I wouldn’t get speared by her giant horns), so that she would get use to me handling her enough to let me milk her. After a week or so of regular grooming, she did allow milking, and I was able to get enough for us to have fresh milk in my coffee and to make yogurt. I did get Maplenut to be initially pretty tame, allowing me to handle her in a halter. Once the cows went out to pasture for the summer, she became a little wild again, and I lost my nerve as her horns grew in. She did keep her love for face scratches, something the other cows in the herd didn’t have, and always allowed me to rub her face or back, over the fence for years after when I came to visit. Maplenut never quite seemed like a cow, she just didn’t fit in with the other cows and I always wondered if my early handling confused her. Was she tame or wild, she just couldn’t quite tell.

In the Share:

• Leeks

• Gold Potatoes

• Eggplant

• Sweet Carmen Peppers

• Mixed Kale

• Baby Carrots

• Parsley

Maplenut April 2013

The Cow run at the Earle Farm

Gardens at the Earle Farm summer 2014 with Kyle in the distance.

CHIMICHURRI SAUCE

• 1 cup fresh parsley

• ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

• 2 tablespoons dried oregano

• 2 teaspoons ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon salt

• ½ tablespoon minced garlic

• ½ tablespoon pepper sauce

• Place the parsley, olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, cumin, salt, garlic and hot pepper sauce into the container of a blender or food processor. Blend for about 10 seconds on medium speed, or until ingredients are evenly blended.

CARROT AND LEEK QUESADILLAS

Ingredient Checklist

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 leeks, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

• 4 carrots (8 ounces), shredded (2 cups)

• 1/2 teaspoon cumin

• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

• 1 teaspoon honey

• 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha or hot sauce

• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

• Four 7 flour tortillas

• 3 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, freshly grated (3/4 cup)

In a medium nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the leeks and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 4 minutes. Stir in the carrots and cook until the vegetables are nearly tender, about 4 minutes. Add the cumin, sea salt, honey, Sriracha, lime juice and 1/4 cup of water. Continue to cook until the liquid is absorbed and the carrot mixture is tender, about 3 minutes.

• Arrange the tortillas on a work surface. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of cheese over half of each tortilla. Top each with the carrot mixture. Divide the remaining cheese between the tortillas and fold them in half, pressing to help them stick together.

  Wipe out the skillet and brush lightly with half of the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cook 2 of the quesadillas over moderately high heat, turning once, until browned and the cheese is melted, about 2 minutes per side. Repeat with the remaining oil and quesadillas. Cut each quesadilla in half and serve.

C.S.A Week 10

I read an article this week about the emergence of “super weeds”. The article talked about a weed called Amaranth Pigweed that in just a short number of years has evolved to resist up to 6 different herbicides including the main ingredient in Monsanto’s “Roundup”, glyphosate. Chemical companies have been fighting back, switching to a combination glyphosate and older chemicals like Dicamba (one drop of Dicamba can kill a human). Monsanto genetically modified their seeds of cash crops like corn and soy beans to withstand sprays from both chemicals to fight Amaranth Pigweed. But Amaranth Pigweed is winning. Select individuals of this weed have been cropping up in fields sprayed with these herbicides, and they are quickly taking over, becoming the dominant genetic variation of the weed. The article went on to discuss the possible affects of these super weeds, such as higher food prices, decline in global food supply, and the need for new farming practices. The article awoke an excitement in me. Weeds are outpacing big chemical companies, and hopefully will push us all into changing our food production means on a massive scale. If you look around our field, you will occasionally see tall purple stalks with graceful draping seed heads scattered about the garden mixed in with the vegetables. These are the cultivated cut flower amaranth, gone rouge. They have thousands of seeds that drop and scatter each fall and pop up all over the garden the following year in the spring. I leave a few each season because I think they are pretty, and they do the garden no harm. I’m looking at them now with a new appreciation.

In the Share:

• Garlic _From our friends at Steady Soils in Baldwin, Maine

• Green Beans

• Sungold Cherry Tomatoes

• Red Slicing Tomatoes

• Redfire Lettuce

• Kohlrabi

• Melons at Hosac, and Edamame at Earle

• Purple Top Turnips

PRUPLE TOP TURNIP COOKING

Peel each turnip using a vegetable peeler. Cut each one into 1-inch cubes with a sharp kitchen knife.

Add 1 tbsp. of the butter, margarine or olive oil to a skillet. Set the heat to medium. Add the maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper, according to your taste preference. Stir to combine.

Add the purple turnip cubes and enough water to equal a depth of 1/4 inch. Turn the burner to high and let the liquid come to a boil.

Lower the heat to medium and cover the pan. Let the turnip cubes simmer until they are fork tender, about 7 to 8 minutes. Remove the cover and continue cooking another 3 minutes, or until the liquid cooks away.

Add 1 tbsp. of butter, margarine or olive oil, parsley and lemon juice. Shake the pan or toss the turnip cubes lightly with a spoon to make sure the cubes are evenly coated with the maple syrup glaze.

Transfer the turnips to a serving bowl with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle on black pepper according to your taste preference. Serve hot and enjoy.

Kohlrabi Apple Slaw

• ¾ cup mayonnaise

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 1 tablespoon prepared mustard

• 1 teaspoon white sugar

• 1 large kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and grated

• 4 apples - peeled, cored, and diced

• salt and ground black pepper to taste

Whisk mayonnaise, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, and sugar together in a bowl.

• Step 2

  Toss kohlrabi and apples together in a large bowl; pour mayonnaise mixture over kohlrabi mixture and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper.

CSA week 9

We are out enjoying a farm tour with friends at the Earle Family Farm tonight so no blog, just the list, and a few photos from the beautiful misty day we had today.

In the Share:

• Carrots

• Melons

• Sungold Cherry Tomatoes

• Red Round Tomatoes

• Sweet Peppers

• Lacinato Kale

• Brussels Sprouts(from Hancock Farm)

• Cippolini Onions