Weekly Abundance, Vol 12-09

Weekly Harvest

Beets – Golden, Pacemaker and Chioggia

Lettuce Leaf Basil

Tomatoes – Dry farmed Early Girls, and several Heirloom Varieties

Melons and Watermelon – Honey Pearl Honey Dews, Maverick Muskmelon, Haoggen dessert melon, Moon Beam watermelon.

Sweet Peppers – Jimmy Nordello, and a classic bell pepper

Hot Peppers – Hungarian Wax and Aci Sivri

Summer Squash and Zucchini

Onions – Siskiyou Sweet

Lettuce – Simpson Black Seeded, Butterking, and Fireball

Farm Life

The weather has cooled considerably in the last two weeks.  Some days it feels like fall.  You can see this weather change in the production of the tomatoes.  They are now ripening much more slowly.  Not to worry, there are still many, many tomatoes on the vine.   When the weather warms up again, the tomatoes will ripen quickly.

After the next heat spell, we will have quantities of paste tomatoes available.   This year, we are growing Stripped Romans.  In my opinion they are, by far, the best tomato for making sauces and ketchup.

The new item this week is peppers.  We have ripe, red Jimmy Nordello’s. This pepper is thin skinned, and curly and is best used for cooking.  It looks like it should be a hot pepper but is actually quite sweet.  We also have the first harvest of our Sunset Orange peppers.  As the season progresses these peppers will turn a beautiful glowing orange

Our hot peppers include  Aci Sivri and Hungarian Wax.  Both are Eastern European peppers that are more suited to our relatively cool growing environment than are the classic chilis and other peppers originating in Central and South America.  The Aci Sivri is a deep red and the Hungarian Wax are yellow to red.  Both can range widely in their heat qualities.  Some years they will be much hotter than others.

The next event on the calendar is our Potato Gathering and Harvest Party on Sunday, Sept. 20.  The event begins in the afternoon, followed by at Potluck Party.  Our friends at North Valley Farm will join us.  Christianne will have her wonderful sausage available and will also be taking orders for lamb.

Veggie of the Week

Are you still struggling to include the USDA recommended five to seven fruits and vegetables in your daily diet?   Fortunately for you, squash is a mild flavored vegetable that combines well with almost anything.  Try it for breakfast in a frittata using our wonderful eggs.  The best thing about this dish is that you can make it in the evening then re-heat it the next morning.  Serve it with a piece of whole wheat toast and a small slice of melon and you have a healthy breakfast that includes one serving of a whole grain and two servings of vegetables/fruit.

Recently, my spouse and I had a fabulous dinner, and everything but the cheese came from the farm.  The menu included Oven Fried Chicken; mashed  Yellow Finn potatoes;  baked tomatoes, peppers and squash ; and a green salad.

To bake the vegetables, I used onion, garlic, sliced Jimmy Nordello peppers, Golden Zucchini sliced thinly lengthwise,  Taxi tomatoes, basil and parsley.  I sautéed the  onions and garlic until translucent then added the peppers, tomatoes, basil and parsley and left this to simmer until the tomatoes began to release their juices.  I then removed them from the pan and set them aside.  Next, I sautéed the squash until it was soft but not falling apart.  I layered the squash in a baking dish, poured the onion/pepper/tomato/herb mixture on top then sprinkled with grated Parmesan Cheese.  I baked it in a 325 oven until the cheese browned.  It tasted great and the combination of the red pepper, yellow squash and tomatoes, and green herbs made a great presentation.

Another great idea for squash is to slice it thinly and substitute it for the noodles in your favorite lasagna recipe.  If you have family members that think they don’t care for squash, this is a great way to disguise it.

The Oregonian recently included a recipe for Linguine with Zucchini, Garlic and Capers that looks quite tasty.  At this writing, the recipe is still available in the FOODday section of their web site at OregonLive.com.

Tender, baby Crookneck Squash

Note: The Oregonion recipe and many others assume that you have large, overly mature zucchini that you are trying to find a use for.  At Artisan Organics, we harvest our squash seven days a week in order to provide you with tender, gourmet quality vegetables.  We prefer to incur the expense of harvesting it, even if we donate it to the food pantry, than let it stay on the vine and become overly mature.  Please keep this in mind when you review squash recipes.

Weekly Abundance, Vol 11-09

Weekly Harvest

Chard – Silverado

Lettuce – Buttercrunch and Simpson Black Seeded

Melons – Honey Pearl Honey Dew, Maveric” Muskmelon, Haoggen Dessert Melon and Eel River

Tomatoes – Green Zebra, Taxi, Brandywine, Oregon Spring, Moskvich, Bellstar, and Early Girl

Summer Squash – Yellow Crookneck, Sunburst, Golden Zucchini, and Cozelle Zucchini

Onions – Siskiyou Sweet

Basil – Genovese

Parsley – Italian Flat Leaf

Watermelon – Moon Beam

Farm Life

This week, we said goodbye to our intern, Ian Hensel.  I greatly enjoyed having him around the farm and wish him much luck as he returns to school at UC Berkeley.

Those of you that have visited the farm have seen our laying hens out under the old orchard.  After a very long wait, they are now laying reliably.  Baring any unforeseen incidents, we should have eggs through the winter.

We have learned that the hens lay the vast majority of their eggs mid-day. We have changed our routine to collect eggs in the early afternoon to ensure that they are as fresh as possible.  Here I am after collecting eggs with our Jr. Interns, Bennett and Julie.

Yellow Watermelon

Veggie of the Week

Our featured item this week isn’t a veggie… it’s your watermelon.  Watermelons produce the largest, sweetest fruits in areas with long, hot summers.  Consequently, I searched hard for a variety that would grow well  in our climate.  Fortunately, I found it in “Moon Beam” This early and productive variety grows well in northern climates.  The lemon-yellow fleshed fruits are thin-skinned, sweet and of the finest quality.  At five to eight pounds, you can think of it as a “personal size” watermelon.

Weekly Abundance, Vol 10-09

Weekly Harvest

Beets

Baby Chard

Tomatoes – Dry Farmed Early Girls, Taxis, and Silvery Fir Tree

Summer Squash and Zucchini

Lettuce Leaf Basil

Yellow Finn New Potatoes

Cipollini Onions

Lisbon White Bunching Onions

We also have Peaches, Apricots, and Nectarines available from our friends at Heirloom Orchards.  These are tree ripened fruit, ready for the eatin’!

Farm Life

We had a great time at the Picnic and Berry picking this weekend.  Folks went home with lots of berries, both in their tummies and in containers.  I particularly enjoyed giving a tour of the back of our property along Gordon Creek.   This area of the farm is very special to me.  It is wonderful to stand beside the irrigation pond and listen to the gurgle of water as it flows over the spill way.  It often spot wildlife as I stand there… Blue Herons, ducks, deer and the occasional Nutria.

This week you get to enjoy lots of tomatoes.  In addition to the dry farmed Early Girls you received last week, we are offering beautiful yellow Taxis and heirloom Silvery Fir Trees.  We also harvested the first of our Brandywines.  My taste testers tell me that the dry farmed Early Girls are the best, hands down.  What do you think?

This week we are also featuring the first of our potatoes.  These Yellow Finns have an unusual pear shape (large flattened oval), deep yellow-tan skin and waxy yellow flesh. The taste is naturally butter-like, and is good boiled, baked, fried or included in soups. This excellent keeper needs the lush, long season of the maritime Northwest to really perform. With even moisture, it will continue to yield until frost kills.  Normally considered a late season potato, we have harvested them early for you to enjoy as new potatoes.  We will offer them again later in the season at their full growth.

Weekly Abundance, Vol. 9-09

This Week’s Harvest

Sweet Basil

Chard

Yellow Crook Neck Squash

Golden Zucchini

Green Zucchini

Patty Pan Squash

Kestral Beets

Chioggia Beets

Golden Beets

Dry Farmed Early Girl Tomatoes

Cippollini Onions

Italian Flat Leaf Parsley

Cabbage

Also available from our friends at Heirloom Orchards, blue berries and first of the season Apricots.  If you’ve eaten store bought apricots before and found them wanting, be prepared for a taste sensation.  These are tree ripened fruits.  Not those blobs picked green and ripened in a gas chamber.

Upcoming Events

This Sunday, August 9, is our Annual Berry Picking event.  We will begin with a potluck picnic under the trees at noon.  After we have eaten we will spread out around the farm to pick blackberries.

Last year, we had copious amounts of blackberries.  This year’s harvest will not be as bountiful.  The hot weather withered many of the berries before they had a chance to ripen.  There are certainly enough berries for every one to take home a couple of baskets.   But, if you are looking for sufficient quantities to make a big batch of jam you will need to pick elsewhere too.

Please bring a blanket to sit on, a potluck dish to share, and your plates, cups, and utensils for the picnic and containers for your berries.  Artisan Organics will provide Iced Tea, Lemonade, and hard boiled eggs from our very own hens.   Please RSVP so I know how many eggs to boil.

We will harvest blackberries from several areas of the farm.  Some are quite easy to access and are appropriate for the youngest pickers.  Others require long pants and an adventurous spirit.  You won’t find as many berries along this route but you will get to see the forested area of the land and our lovely little creek and irrigation pond.

Farm Life

The first harvest of the Dry Farmed, Early Girl Tomatoes is in.  They are wonderful!  As mentioned in a previous blog entry, we are trialing dry farming tomatoes in order to reduce our impact on the Tualatin River Watershed.  The early results are very promising.  Despite the recent hot weather, the yield is acceptable and the flavor is outstanding.

We’ve also had other “firsts” this week.  Our first eggs!  The hens have finally begun laying.  The eggs are infrequent and tiny.  We will hard boil them for the picnic so that you can sample them.    As soon as the eggs reach a reasonable size, we will begin offering them to you for purchase.

Our harvest this week reflects what is meant when we talk about sharing the risk of farming with the farmer.  Both the Chard and Cabbage are cosmetically affected by insect damage, the result of bugs that like hot, dusty weather.

If we were growing for the wholesale market, even the Organic wholesale market, these crops would be considered unsalable, despite the fact that they are still quit edible.  The farmer would have to till them in and absorb the loss.    In our case though, you help cushion the loss by using them in recipes that don’t require an attractive presentation.

Believe it our not, we have completed one third of our season already.  It seems to me that we just began yesterday.  The time is flying by.  It is August already and I am immersed in planning for the winter shares.  This week, we plant the cabbage that you will find in your share in December.  I hope you are happy with your veggies so far.

Veggie of the Week

Some of you have asked why you are getting so much Parsley.  The answer is, “Because this is the time of year  parsley grows”.   Come winter, when you are using the dried parsley to flavor your soups and stews, you will wonder how you ever tired of it.

But… if you are finding that you are receiving the parsley faster than you can dry it, don’t forget that it can be used fresh too.  I particularly like to chop up the  leaves and sauté them with my chard and beet greens.  It really brightens up the flavor of the greens.

And, parsley makes great pesto.  If you don’t believe me try this simple recipe for Linguini with Parsley Pesto from Cooks.com

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,178,155167-239201,00.html