First week of the CSA!

Hey and welcome to the 2008 csa season! Things here have been busy as the often are in the spring, and they have also continued to be pretty dry lately. We are watching the weather forecast carefully and hoping for some of those thunder showers that are on tap for later in the week. We have been irrigating from our pond, but are a cautious bunch and would like to keep some water in the pond for later in the summer in case its even drier during the blistering heat of August and September.

Last time, i mentioned the killdeer couple that had taken up residence in our field. I had estimated that the chicks would hatch about june 7th, but the nest is now empty. Either my estimate was wrong and they hatched and we'll start to see them around the farm, especially around the pond, or they were eaten by something. If they were eaten, then someone else got a nice meal, and the killdeer had a better chance than normal, with their nest safely within a half mile of electric fence that keeps out larger predators, but not smaller things like weasels. If they hatched, they are tiny and hard to see since they hide well and keep it pretty quiet until they can fly, last year we saw them several times before they grew wing feathers and fledged (takes about a month). We'll certainly be keeping our eyes peeled for them, they are super cute with little stilty legs and two white bands around their necks.

GREENS, Glorious greens! I know, I know, its that time of year. See, we live in new york state, and no matter how much we may want to eat vine ripe tomatoes in June, we can't eat local ones yet. If you see large lovely red tomatoes at a local farmers market, chances are extremely good that they were grown somewhere much warmer, picked by low paid labor, probably immigrants, shipped up here, sold at a produce auction, and passed off if not on purpose, at least on perception as being grown by the person who is selling them on their stand. This is a practice that i personally find deplorable. Not so much buying produce for resale, but passing off produce purchased at auction as one's one. Farming is a noble, some times trying profession that takes planning, ingenuity, and a certain amount of luck to excel at. For someone to buy an agricultural product on the cheap, mark it up and sell it for more than they got it for, but often still much less than the cost to produce it on a localized scale and to then to pretend either on purpose or by omission that they grew it is irksome, but more deplorable yet, is that it tells local people that tomatoes in June in New York must be possible and there is something wrong with a farmer that doesn't have them at that point in the season.

This is a great disservice to people attending farmer's market. At a farmers market, we should be demonstrating what is in season, that is locally available, not shipped 1,500 miles (the average for a piece of food in america, before it is consumed) at this time of year. We as a society have become so disconnected from our food that we don't know what we can eat that is local anymore, but with oil at $127 a barrel today, we need to begin to transition to local food economies again, and we need to learn the beauty of eating our way through the seasons. And that, my friends is the journey we are embarking on this week! For the next five months, we will eat what new york state provides, or at least we will provide what new york provides, you can eat what ever you want of course, but we hope that with your CSA share and some recipes, you can enjoy what is local and in season now!


Now, why is it that we can't have tomatoes in NY in june? Because tomatoes are a warm season crop. Prefering days in the mid 70s to mid 80s and nights in the mid 50s to mid 60s. Tomato plants will be killed at temperatures below 32 degrees. They take between 60-90 days to make those beautiful, colorful fruits after being transplanted into the ground. (Generally plants are about 4-7 weeks old at transplant, so they are started in a greenhouse around mid march or early april.) Night time temperatures are not guaranteed to be above freezing every night around here until the end of May, and in fact we did have freeze here last monday night, and woke up on the 27th wondering if we had covered the plants that we had in the ground well enough- we did- but tomatoes can't go in much earlier than memorial day weekend. First local field grown tomatoes aren't around until mid July or so.

Comments-- we have been receiving some feed back on this new on-line newsletter and we really appreciate it! We want to know how you like it, things you'd like to see, and things that are easier or more difficult for you this way. You can contact us by email or by hitting the post a comment link. Please do keep in touch with us one way or the other! We are definately still perfecting the system, so help us make it very user-friendly.

This weeks share is Rainbow Swiss Chard, Baby Carrots, Baby Spinach, Arugula, and Cilantro. Also we will have tomato plants that produce tomatoes in all colors of the rainbow if you would like to take a couple home to plant and see for yourself first hand when local tomatoes are ripe. I can see some killer salads this week, we enjoyed one tonight, with cilantro just snipped up and tossed with the greens, yum! Another idea, here for your eating pleasure is a dressing recipe that uses that fresh cilantro.


Creamy Cilantro Vinaigrette:
6T sesame oil
2T apple cider vinegar
2T cilantro, coarsely chopped
½ tsp. Sea salt
Blend ingredients until frothy (or shake in a jar), best prepared just before serving to retain pretty green color of the cilantro. Makes about a half cup.


Swiss Chard is nice lightly cooked (steaming or sauteing preferred) or raw in salads torn into smaller pieces. Here is a basic recipe that we enjoy...

Super Simple Savory Chard:
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 T water
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Lemon cut into wedges
Wash chard and coarsely chop. Heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes until golden
Turn heat to medium high add greens and stir to coat with oil. Add the water, cover and cook until greens are wilted, about 5 minutes.
Taste the greens to make sure there is no raw edge to the flavor, turn off the heat, season with salt and fresh ground pepper. Serve hot with lemon wedges for squeezing.
From Greens Glorious Greens


We still have some space in our Elmira pickup that we'd love to fill up. So, if you know anyone who likes to eat food that is grown locally and without herbicides, pestices, fungicides, insecticides or other junk, and would like to pick those vegetables up in elmira, please get us in touch with each other. Hope you have a great week! liz