A note on the eve of our first pick-up of ‘09

Dear Farm Boxers,

“The taste of summer arrives in a bite. Someone must be doing somethin’ right”.

These were Ron’s words after tasting the first strawberry of the season.

We are just fine here at Colchester Neighborhood Farm.  Ron, Nicholas and I have been at the farm each day preparing for our first CSA pick up. Our organic farm intern, Paul Knox, has been working with us 3 days each week. We have a wonderful bunch of volunteers, who we are so grateful for… some of them come faithfully each week and others have come sporadically but each one contributes their valuable time and and helps us to accomplish our goals of planting, weeding and harvesting. THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS!!!

This time of year, I have dreams of the nightmarish torrential rain in 2006 which flooded one field and wiped out an entire planting of tomatoes, or thoughts of a hail storm which could wipe out tender leafy greens or the fear of an unexpected scorcher which could cook plants right in the ground, or an unexpected cold snap which could… gotta stop … am scaring myself!   You get the picture; bunnies, cabbage moths, extreme weather, …potential hazards to crops are everywhere.

But, so far all looks fine and for your first farm box pick up, you can expect rhubarb and head lettuce from Frank Albani, at Soule Farm Homestead, in Middleboro.   Frank is a long time organic farmer, owner of Golden Rule Farm in Middleboro and 2009 growing partner for the CNF. He will be providing various specialty crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants through out the season.  We will have the following including but not limited to: onion tops, greens such as kale, collard, Swiss chard, arugula, some Asian greens, some peas and strawberries.

From our retail days, you will notice lots of “ stuff” at the barn. There are old time farm tools and implements, pots for plants, pottery decorations, new and used handmade and manufactured baskets, old wooden boxes, old bottles, hand painted slates, etc… all of these items are for sale.  If you see something that you’d like and do not see a price on it; just make an offer.  You will also see items on sale for $1.00. There are 2 and 3 foot hardwood stakes, 4 foot bamboo stakes, used picture frames, brackets of several types, hose couplings, several sizes of saucers to be placed under your potted plants,… and more!

We have a few misnomers at Colchester Neighborhood Farm.   The actual term Farm Box:  Originally we commissioned a local carpenter to craft our wooden farm box. This is no longer financially possible so the term “farm box” really now refers to the contents of the box. Please bring your own containers to bring your produce home in. Many people rinse out the plastic boxes that lettuce and salad mixes come in from the store and re-fill them with fresh organic green leaves for their farm box. Others bring the plastic, paper or canvass or recycled grocery bags and refill them. Some folks bring boxes or baskets, whatever works best for you is what we hope you will bring.

Goat Salad : When we had goats, we encouraged folks to bring their table scraps (old but not mushy fruits and vegetables) to be hand fed to the goats. We referred to this as “goat salad”. We are not keeping goats at the moment, but, we still encourage people to bring “ goat salad” to the chickens. The chickens are also fond of stale bread and crackers. Dapple is especially fond of carrots and apples and the pigs will eat just about anything. We prefer that the animals receive fruits and vegetables only 2 or 3 days old, but if you have produce that is less fresh, it can go into our compost.  Please check with us if you have anything that you question.

When you come for your farm box, please notice the 2 large chalk boards in the barn. One has the list of people that we expect to pick up their farm box that day. If your name is not there or if the spelling is incorrect, please take no offense, but please do let me know.  So that we can keep track, we would appreciate it if you would cross your name off the list after you gather your items. The other board has the offerings of the day. We look forward to a bountiful season where the farm box contents will be increasing each week. … remember, the concept of the CSA is that you receive a “share” of the harvest. If we harvest 15 pounds of peas and there are 30 people expected that day, each shareholder receives a half pound. So, we harvest first thing in the morning and then divide it up according to how many of each size share we are expecting.

The Maribetts

A stream of consciousness from Ron…

We did some good work on Saturday morning- it was a beautiful day to be in the garden.  Here’s Ron’s take:

A morning green and growing…

It was overcast and cool. Perfect morning for planting, on the eve of the strawberry moon. Connie and Taylor were in the Lower Children’s Garden planting tomatoes and more greens. Ron was making hills for the “3 sisters” in the new plot which, for the last 8 years, has been our composting area. Thick, rich and deep dark soil. Moist from the steady rain from the night before. Lots of worms everywhere.

When he got about half done, about 40 Hills, Taylor came over and joined him with the corn seed that was soaking in a smallish container. She knew well how to plant corn in preparation for the 3 sisters garden (North and South Native American plantings of corn, beans and squashes) from working with her Dad when she was a girl growing up in Alabama. While she was planting and as Ron continued with his hoe, the Schibleys- Mom, Pop and youngsters, James and Edison- arrived and set upon the strawberry patch just east of the Middle Earth Garden patch nearby. Later they delighted in feeding the chickens watermelon rinds and collecting eggs.

Shortly after noon, the 86th hill was sown. Our hands were soiled and nostrils sweetened by the morning’s labor. The Sun had broken through and Paul had returned from his very much unsweet task of separating goat manure from Beth’s barn and loading it into her trailer. Beth Corbett is our local animal husbandry-wise-woman, goatherder and source of the goat milk and cheeses we offer from time to time at the Colchester. He had worked with Nick who had to break away to perform on clarinet for a veteran’s memorial parade. It’s the same barn where a good deal of the material that we composted over the last 8 years came from.

Full circle, I guess you could say, on a morning green and growing at the Colchester Neighborhood Farm.

Celebrating the Circle, we look forward to meeting all of you,

the Maribetts

Recipe: Braised Baby Bok Choy

Here a recipe for an early spring green that Colchester farm loves.  This recipe is from the wonderful Chef Carol d’Espinosa.

Braised Baby Bok Choy

• 1 lb. baby bok choy or mature bok choy

• 2 T. EV olive oil

• 1/2 C.chopped red onion

• 1/2 t. salt

• 1/2 t. pepper

• 2 T. rice vinegar

1.  Trim the base of the Bok Choy then chop off the leaves.  Cut the base in  half lengthwise then cut the halves crosswise on a diagonal into 1/4-inch thick strips.  Cut the leaves crosswise on a diagonal into 1 1/2 inch-wide strips.

2.  Place a large wok or pot (big enough to hold all of the bok choy) over medium heat.  When it is hot, add the olive oil and rotate the wok or pot a bit to coat it evenly.  When the oil is hot, add the onion and stir-fry until softened- 2 to 3 minutes.  Add the bok choy and season with the salt and pepper.  Cover and cook until tender, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.  Stir in the vinegar and serve hot.

Serves 2-3

An exciting announcement!

From Connie:

Here is the news you’ve all been waiting for:  CSA Share pick-ups begin officially  on June 16 for Tuesday pick-ups and on June 20 for Saturdays.

Many of you have already told me which day you will be picking up your share but, please send me (colchesterfarm *at* mac *dot* com) an e-mail telling me which day; as I understand some folks circumstances and schedules have changed since you filled out your registration form or since you told me.

Full Strawberry Moon – June This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

We are harvesting strawberries and peas a full week ahead of last year!… climate change?

Somebody asked me this morning when the first CSA pick up would be, I said, ‘as soon as the peas are ready’. We have been picking just a few pints of berries per day for about a week now and picked our first handful of peas (not quite mature) this afternoon, so, whew… (wipe the brow)… (barring exceptional unexpected weather) we WILL have these items for you for our first pick up day! Yea!

If you have time to come by on Sunday, 06-07-09 after 3:00 pm or during the week next week or next weekend, maybe you can help us out with a little weeding and then harvest for yourself some small amounts of greens, strawberries and peas.

Please call to let me know to expect you… 781-588-4255

Floating an idea…Would any of you be interested in purchasing an egg share for the season? This would work the same way as our vegetable share. You would pre-pay for the eggs and then pick them up with your vegetable share each week. Purchasing eggs currently costs $3.50 per dozen. You could save .25 per dozen, and would be assured each week of getting eggs because we would set them aside for you each week.

The season is 16 weeks long and the eggs cost $3.25 so the cost of the egg share would be $52.00 for the season. Please let me know.

When you come to the farm, please remember to:

§ keep your dog on a leash,

§ bring fruit and vegetable table scraps for the chickens, (Dapple loves apples and carots,)

§ bring or wear boots if it has been raining (tall grass)

§ when you get home, check for ticks

We re-use:

• sturdy and clean egg boxes,
• paper and plastic shopping bags
• plastic containers ( it is very helpful if you bring your own
• We would be happy to use your oak and maple leaves and pine needles for mulch

If it is hot and you aren’t going straight home, bring a cooler so you leafy greens won’t wilt

We ran out of goat cheese at our Food Fair last month. How many people would be interested in purchasing goat cheese or the hard cheeses from Narraganset Creamery at your first pick up?

Welcome to Summer!

Well, this is the official start of summer and we’ve been busy, busy, busy down at Colchester!  So busy, in fact, that we haven’t been great at updating!  We’ll do our best to keep things moving along here, but we have to stay ahead of those weeds, too!

Here are a couple of pictures from the May 16th Food Fair at Colchester.  Beth Corbett of Ladies Choice Farm brought our her adorable kids and does (and yes, we mean animals here!) so that everyone could enjoy their antics.  They got to play on one of our haystacks and entertained us all.

Recipe: Sauteed Greens and Garlic

Another delicious recipe from Chef Carol.  This preparation method can be used with any leafy greens (the earliest vegetables!), and you won’t believe how easy and quick it is:

Sauteed Greens and Garlic

by Chef Carol D’Espinosa

1-3 sliced or chopped Garlic cloves

1 T. of Extra Virgin Olive Oil  in a skillet on med. heat saute until garlic starts to turn light golden (1 min?).

About 3 cups of tender greens, well drained but not dried.

1.  Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium  heat.  Add garlic and sautee until it begins to turn light golden- about 1 minute

2.  Add greens and toss 1-2 minutes until just wilted.  Serve immediately.

I used this recipe on Tender Greens such as Dandelions, Spinach, Beet Greens, Broccoli Raab etc.

ENJOY,

Carol D’

April Thanks from Connie

Dear Friends of the Colchester Neighborhood Farm,

Great Big THANKS  to Smokey Joe for repairing all of the leaks in all of the pipes from the winter weather and to Ben and Josh for replacing the toilet. We now have the water turned on at the front greenhouse, and the rest of the barn! (no more lugging 5 gallon jugs form home or from the potting shed), YEAH!!

We even have hot and cold running water to wash our hands… what luxury!

Thanks to Chef Carol and Michele for defrosting the freezers and updating the inventory of meats.

Thanks to Jennifer for picking up the flower plugs from the PCCS plant sale

Chef Carol also spent an afternoon potting up those flower plugs that will be going into our flower bed when the wattle fence is done.

Peter and Nick and Evan have spent the better part of 2 Saturdays working on that wattle fence for the flower bed. As with many jobs, there is a lot of nearly invisible prep work to be done before anything noticeable is evident. It is finally beginning to take shape as a fence. Using the cadence of PULL, PUSH, SNIP to lay the saplings horizontally, they now have 2 layers down.

Thanks to Dominique and Taylor for continuing to prune blueberries, potting up (and planting in the ground) lots of bulbs, renovating the rhubarb bed, lots of planting seeds in the greenhouse.

Simba- thanks for catching at least a rodent a day.

Taylor and Kate for keeping up with our blog

Mark for maintaining our website

Beth for wizardry with spread sheets

Juli for animal care, plus planting and pruning

Hannah - animal care, planting and watering and moving seedlings about

Ana for filling the seed pots with soil

Cogan family, plus Josh, Matt, Bobby and Alexis for getting a start on weeding the strawberries

To all of our volunteers, thank you for helping out wherever needed and keeping the cheeriness and youthful enthusiasm level on high.

Thanks to everyone who bagged their fallen leaves so we could follow the ‘you bag ‘em, we’ll drag ‘em’ maxim and especially thanks to those who delivered leaves to the farm.

Thanks to Ron for collecting raked leaves from all over the region, and dumping, spreading and incorporating them into the Colchester soil.

As you can see, it takes a lot of helping hands to keep Colchester running.  Thanks for everything you do for us!

Recipe: Dandelion and White Bean Salad

We are very lucky to have Chef Carol D’Espinosa as one of our Farm Boxers.  If you’ve ever come over to work on a Saturday or been to one of our celebrations, you’ve probably eaten some of Chef Carol’s fabulous cooking.  She’s also generous enough to share lots of her wonderful recipes with our farm boxers, so we’ll be including many of them on the blog in the upcoming season.

We want your recipes, too!  If you’ve found a delicious way to prepare the fresh foods that you are getting from the farm, let us know!  We’d love to share it on the website.

Here’s a story about Dandelion greens from Connie:

While walking around the farm, Chef Carol spotted some of the many dandelions around the farm and asked to pick some.

I remembered my childhood disdain for the dark leafy greens and my grandmother, my namesake, Concetta saying, ‘what-a kind of an Italian are you…, you don’-a like-a greens???!!!’

I have since made an effort to  acquire a taste for the greens (so good for the blood, you know), and asked Carol to share some of her recipes with us.

This is the time to be eating dandelion greens, the flavor gets stronger and more bitter as the days get warmer and the plants become larger; once they flower, they are considered  to have gone past their prime.

We just generally toss them into a stir fry and I know many who toss them into a  green salad.

So, if you have some in your yard, you might want to snip the leaves and give them a try.

Dandelion and White Bean Salad

by Chef Carol D’Espinosa

3 cups baby Dandelions

1 C. canned Cannellini Beans, rinsed

1/4 C. sliced red Onions

Grape Tomatoes

1/4 C. Oil Cured Olives

Salt & Pepper

Extra Virgin Olive Oil & Balsamic Vinegar or any Vinaigrette

Add dressing & toss just before serving.

Work, work, work.

We have been BUSY on the farm over the past couple of weekends.  With the weather warming up there has been much to do and too few hours, as always happens this time of year.

We’re working on catching the blog up to the progress, but we wanted to share a big step with you that we finished yesterday.  If you’ve been by the farm any time over the past few months, you’ve probably noticed that the main garden in the front has been fallow and covered with big trash bags.  Those trash bags were actually bags of leaves that have been collected from farm boxers, friends, and cheerful neighbors of Colchester Farm.

Those leaves get spread out onto the soil and then ground in using the tractor.  Decomposing leaves are one of the best soil additives in the world.  Not only do they add vital nutrients, but earthworms also love them.  Any garden with happy earthworms is a good garden!  If you’ve ever had a chance to observe the soil at Colchester, you can’t help but notice how rich and beautiful it is.  Tha’ts because every year hundreds of pounds of fallen leaves are incorporated in, building the excellent soil that nourishes our veggies.

It’s a sure sign of the coming season that this garden is now prepared.  Once the weather warms up just a touch more, we’ll be able to start planting in there.  We can’t wait!

First the bags were opened and dumped into the beds:

Second, the leaves were spread to an even thickness (this is the fun part!): 

Next, Ron came in and dumped several loads of compost into the beds, then went over them with the tiller a few times to incorporate all the added goodies into the soil:

Taylor even got a lesson on the Kubota!

The final step was evening out the beds, which was done in a snap.  With all the helpers, it was finished in just a few short, fun hours.  Now the beds will sit for a few weeks while the worms go to work breaking down all those leaves and getting it ready for us to work in.

Simba Sunday: Simba on the Prowl

We’ve noticed the rodent population drop significantly since Simba came back.  Here he is, stalking his next victim: