pulled and waiting to go in
One of many loads
It has been a busy and full week as it so often is around here. So busy in fact, that i am almost two days late in writing the newsletter. This past week has been full of the lovely smell of lots and lots of garlic! We have pulled about 3/4 of our garlic and have it all drying in the green barn on tables. It is quite a lovely site to look over all of the bulbs hanging upside down with their stems hanging through the table, i'll have to take a photo of it and post it next time.
In between the garlic pulling, we've been doing lots of other harvesting as well, we currently have an almost unprecidented three beds of beans being picked all at one time and it seems that we are either picking beans, squash, or (just starting to be) cherry tomatoes every time we turn around. I am so glad that Sarah and Margot are here right now and are helping us out so much. Margot enjoys feeding the green bean duds to gemnini and the dog sure enjoys getting the hand outs so it works out for all involved.
One thing that we will not be picking a lot of soon is cucumbers. We had our first experience this week with a mysterious disease, that turned out to be downy mildew and its an experience that i wouldn't have minded skipping. Last week Matthew commented that some of the cucumber plants were looking bad and then before we knew it, 5 were looking bad, then ten, then half the row, and it was spreading fast! Apparantly downy mildew comes in on storms from as far away as the midwest and then spreads through out the field. We were afraid that it would spread to our two other beds of cucumbers and so we pulled out the diseased row. But, it turns out that it has already spread to the other cucumber plants and so now we are just waiting for death to take them, it may take a week or weeks, but they are surely toast at some point. We'll have them as long as we can provide enough for the CSA, but it seems this year may (again) be a wash for cukes for us. We do have some more plants in the greenhouse waiting for a spot in the field, and we will try to keep them isolated in our other field, but even if those plants do survive, it will be several weeks before they are producing. We learned that currently the strain that is traveling around doesn't affect other plants in the cucumber family (we were especially worried about our winter squash, melon, and summer squash plants) so at this point we are willing to just watch the cucumber plants die.
We picked some delicious peaches this week at Silver Queen farm in trumansburg. I spent some time today canning them up for the winter not to mention we devoured 2 delicious peach cobblers this week. a few more weren't ripe and we look forward to some fresh peach pie in a few days once they soften up. Still in season are blueberries and raspberries. So if you want to you pick, then get on out to enjoy some local fresh fruit.
here is the scoop on the next csa event that we will be holding. It will be a community rather than an agriculture related event. It will be August 16th into the 17th. we'll have a campfire, make smores, maybe play some music, lay out and look at the stars and hopefully see some shooting ones.
Each year the Comet Swift-Tuttle's tail intersectsEarth's orbit in mid august and tiny bits of cometdust hit Earth's atmosphere traveling 132,000 mph.Going that fast, even a smidgen of dust makes a vividstreak of light--a meteor--when it disintegrates.Because Swift-Tuttle's meteors fly out of theconstellation Perseus, they are called "Perseids."
More details in an email soon, but here are the basics, arrive any time after 7. We will be eating dinner around 7:30, if you'll be here at that time, bring some food to share, or come fed later.
We have a telescope, and while it will not help see meteors,there are several planets that we could gaze at. If you live in a city at all, and have not spent anytime outside after dark, where it is really dark, in awhile, you are invited to be reaquanited with the night sky. There are lots of stars up there!! And they are gorgeous! Even if you didn't see a single meteor, the plain old stars are a breath-taking view. It will be a great time for kids, too, so please bring them on up! Hope you can make it. A breakfast of homemade granola, with fresh seasonal fruit will be available. RSVP to the email to let us know how many to plan for.
This week's share:
Potatoes
Garlic
cabbage
squash
celery
cukes
lettuce
chard/kale
tomatoes
dill
Pick Your Own cherry tomatoes, and beans!
Cabbage and Kale Saute:
1 T Butter
2 onions diced
2 ½ cups water
6 cups coarsely chopped kale
4 cups cabbage, shredded
Salt to taste
Umeboshi vinegar or lemon juice to taste
Heat butter over medium heat, add onions, and sauté for 10-15 minutes until soft. DON’T BURN
While onions are cooking, boil 2 cups water, add kale, cover and cook 4-5 minutes until tender. Drain and set aside.
When onions are tender, stir in cabbage and remaining water. Cover and cook 6-8 minutes. Stirring occasionally until cabbage is tender but still bright in color.
Stir in kale and heat through. Season to taste with salt and vinegar/lemon juice.
Here is the raw blueberry pie recipe from last month's CSA event.
Crust: 2 cups almonds
1/2 cup dates, pitted and soaked
Filling: 5 cups blueberries
2 bananas
1 1/2 Tablespoons honey or honey flavored rice syrup
For Crust:
1. In a food processor, grind the almonds until fine.
2. Add the dates and blend until smooth.
3. Remove from processor and pat down into a pie plate.
For Filling: 1. In a food processor, combine 4 cups of blueberries, 2 bananas, and 1 1/2 Table spoons of honey or rice syrup. Blend until smooth.
2. Remove from food processor and add in 1 cup of whole blueberries.
3. Pour into crust.
4. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Enjoy!
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