EverGreen Farm

CSA Newsletter, Week #1

In your share this week:

• Salad Mix

Sorry, the only produce that was available to harvest this week was the salad.  There is a lot more growing and will be available in a week or two.  Some of the crops we hope to harvest soon are the arugula, Chinese cabbage and boc choi.

This CSA season is shaping up a little differetnly (as compared to the past few years).  I remember the excitement of seeing the snow melt "early" and talking to people about getting a head start on our farm season.  Then came the snow, more snow, many dark days, and some very cold spring temperatures.  So while we were ahead on some projects, there isn't much produce yets to show for our efforts.  There are a few things the plants absolutely need to grow–sun shine and warm temperatures.  We just didn't get much of either in the early spring like we needed to ensure a nice May harvest.

Meanwhile, we keep working, planting seeds, and transplating seedlings according to the schedule Shain has developed over our many years of farming.  My guess is we are going to experience an abundance of crops all ready to harvest at once.  So much for trying to space out the plantings a little.

A few recent pictures from the farm:

This is greenhouse 1 from where I cut this week's salad greens (two multi-colored rows).  The two rows to the left of the white row cover are Japanese turnips and radishes.  The row on the far right is arugula.  The crops in this greenhouse have struggled through the worst of our awful spring weather.  After a few nights of single digit temperatures, we thought to call it all a loss, so Shain immediately planted greenhouse 2 with these same crops.  From experience, we knew the salad would proably pull through.  The turnips, radishes and especially the arugula, however, looked pretty bad.  At one point we even decided to turn these rows under and start from scratch, but got too busy.  Forward a few weeks and now they are growing again.  Isn't nature amazing!  The growth of these crops is delayed by a few weeks, but we will still get some good eating out of everything planted in this greenhouse afterall.

Greenhouse 4 is filled to the max with multiple, very long rows of kale, Swiss chard, red onions, sweet Walla Walla yellow onions, Chinese Cabbage, Boc Choi, and head cabbage.  It was a little extra work to rake the wood chip mulch out of the way to make long rows for tranplanting, but it appears to be well worth the effort.  Weeding this space is really being kept to a minimum and the ground is holding moisture very well. 

One of our big projects each spring is getting the plastic covers over greenhouses 3 & 4.  They are not built to withstand a heavy snow load, so off the covers come each fall.  Getting them on again requires at least 6 people and takes about 2.5 hours.  In this picure, we are starting to pull over the plastic with ropes.  Very carefully, slowly, a little at a time, and all together.  There is usually a lot of laughing and teasing going on too.

Can you see all the weeds that will soon be under cover here?  This is the only greenhouse we were not able to compost and mulch before winter set in.  We will be weeding in here a LOT this year. There will be a significant amount of weeding to do before we can plant and then more of it all summer long.  We've observed that even if it is a lot of work to mulch with the wood chips, it doesn't require as much effort as weeding the same area multiple times per season.

Hope you have a great week.  Enjoy your salad!  It's kind of famous.

Tara

 

CSA Newsletter, Week 24

In your share this week: 

• Red Norland Potatoes
• Leeks
• Golden Beets - I apologize for the dirty beets.  It is quite cold now on harvest mornings (some of us are working in snow clothes) and I opted to spare the workshares from washing any produce outside in the rain and wind.  The positive thing about leaving dirt on the beets is that they will store longer this way.  I've kept beets for well over a month in my refrigerator drawer this way.
• Scallions - a little "ugly" and you'll need to spend some time cleaning them up, but they'll be worth it.

This is our last delivery of produce for the 2012 CSA season.  You've received 24 weeks of fresh, organic veggies and herbs from this farm and we are proud to have served you so well.  It has been a great season in so many ways.  Thank you for your support.  Thank you for the kind words, praise and encouragement.  We are happy to have been a positive part of your lives.

I was very hopeful to have a nice surprise of a bigger share this week.  There were several crops I've been tending (still watering and covering) in hopes they'd bounce back for one last week.  Nope.  Dead.  So, we go out with what's been stored in our basement (the potatoes) and a few last root crops from the greenhouses. 

Some years we've ended the CSA season because the weeks ran out on the calendar.  Some years it was because the weather turned too challenging to continue.  This is the first time in all our years of farming that we've literally ran out of food.  We aren't complaining, it's just a new experience.  Shain is meticulous in his planning and planting.  He keeps records of years past to know how much to plant, when to plant, etc. for a full season.  As I look back at this year, I can see how the warmer weather affected our growing season giving us spikes of abundance at times and less of an even long, steady flow.  Again, not complaining, just observing.

I've already had some folks request to sign up for 2013, but we aren't set up for that quite yet.  Shain and I have started thinking about next year and we have every intention of operating the farm and CSA very similar to how it's gone this past year.  As you can imagine, there are many details that need to fit into place just right to make this all work well.  Honestly, having enough help is one of our biggest concerns. This factor is taken into consideration when we decide how many shares we'll have in the CSA, the price of the shares, what areas of the community we'll deliver food to, how long the season lasts, etc.  We can't do this alone, it's a community effort, which is the idea behind CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in the first place.  So, we'll start making plans for another great season and we ask you to spread the word about our farm.  Those who live closer to Smoot, please consider our workshare program and talk us up to your friends.  EverGreen Farm is a great cause to support!

I will continue posting farm updates here on this website throughout the winter.  Information about signing up for the 2013 season will be posted here in January.  Current 2012 CSA members will also be contacted by email and regular mail.

We welcome your feedback on this past season.  Please let us know if you noticed anything we need to imporve (in regards to the veggies or the procedures we use).  Did you get to much of any one crop?  Not enough of another?  What were your favorites you want us to keep growing?  Least favorite?  Is there anything you want Farmer Shain to try growing in the future (keep in mind our challenging growing climate)?  We'd love to hear from you!

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week 23

In your share this week:

• Red Onions -We dug up the last of them so this is it for the season. They should store well in your fridge for a few weeks.  We've had some sitting out on the counter top for a while too and they are doing well, just a little dried out.
• Leeks
• Golden Beets
• Yukon Gold Potatoes - used up the very last of these too.
• Scallions - I was a little unsure if we should include these in your share.  The tops are heavily damaged from last week's freeze making them "ugly" and not up to our standards.  However, it's one of the few things left "living" on the farm this week so I'll get over my hangup.  Take a little time to clean them up nice and they'll be quite good.  I recommend using them up quick because they probably won't store long (freezing makes some crops spoil more quickly).

We had some very low temperatures here last week.  10 and 13 degrees on two mornings and several more nights right around 20 degrees.  If I weren't so happy about the garlic planting going so well, I would be more depressed about the toll the freeze took on our crops.  We did our very best with row covers and heaters but in the end, most of our greenhouses were a complete loss. 

Farmer Shain really wanted this season to go out with a *#!BANG!#*  He wanted our last share of the season to leave quite an impression - a really BIG share that everyone would "Ooo" and "Ahh" over.  Unfortunately, that big share he was hoping to end on isn't going to materialize.  We are down to only a few surviving crops and that is what you'll be getting these last weeks of the season.  Mother Nature has spoken and that's just the way it is.

The CSA season will end with our last delivery next week, Wednesday, October 17th.  That will be our 24th delivery.  We may be going out with less of a bang, but I feel like it's been an incredible season and just as impressive as we hoped it would be.

Have a great week and ENJOY!

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week 22

In your share this week:

• Red Onions
• Carrots, last of the season
• Golden Beets
• Leeks
• Dill, chopped it all down, last of the season
• Basil, a nice surprise that some grew back again, last of the season
• French Fillet Beans, finally got some to grow on our half frozen plants, that's probably all we'll get this year.
• Tomatoes, picked some less ripe tomoates because it's a posibility this coming cold stretch will kill them off for good.  Let them ripen on your counter and they'll be better in few days.
• Peppers, a mixture of green bells and Hungarian wax peppers.  Picked all that was left before it freezes tonight.
• Red Norland Potatoes

This week's harvest schedule was switched up a bit half way through the process in an effort to pick the crops we think will suffer the worst from this coming week of forecasted below freezing temperatures.  We chopped down the rest of the basil and dill.  Picked nearly every pepper off all the plants.  And picked all the tomatoes even close to being ripe in greenhouse 6.  We are concentrating our heaters in the smaller tomato greenhouse with high hopes of pulling them through longer.  We'll see.  Otherwise, the root crops will stay good for a while longer.  There's still food growing here.  Just not sure what will be left by next week.

This weekend we are planting our garlic  This is a very big project!  I've got some extra helpers who are going to come pitch in so we are hopeful it goes quickly and that we can get back to harvesting on Monday.

This is a picture from inside greenhouse 5, the "little tomato greenhouse".  These tomato plants are five feet tall and loaded with tomatoes.  We hope to keep the plants alive longer by using row covers and plug in space heaters.  It's a smaller space so it usually maintains heat better than other greenhouses.  We are hoping for the best.

This is the inside of greenhouse 7.  I wanted to show the mulching process we've started doing in the greenhouses.  Under this wood mulch is a layer of compost.  It's a system we are implementing  gradually throughout the entire farm.  It has many benefits that Shain could explain in detail, but my favorite is that it blocks out weeds!  Less weeding?  Yes, I'll take that!

If you are curious how the farm does through this next week of crazy weather, I'll post updates on our EverGreen Farm Facebook page.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies.

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week 21

In your share this week:

• Red Onions
• Golden Beets
• Carrots
• Leeks
• Zucchini or Squash - last of the season
• Cilantro - last of the season
• Salad Mix - last of the season
• Tomatoes
• Bell Pepper
• Hungarian Pepper
• Yukon Gold Potatoes

As you can see from the list above, we are slowly going through the last of some crops.  I'm pretty amazed the leafy greens lasted this long, especially since they were growing outside.  We are happy about the cilantro because it means we can make a few more batches of Shain' incredible salsa.  I'm a little sad about the zucchini and squash coming to an end because it usually signifies summer is finally over.

We dug up the Yukon Gold potatoes last Saturday.  They usually out produce the Red Norland potato plants, but not this year.  The yield was down significantly.  There will only be enough Yukon Gold potatoes to give to the CSA one more time.

Can you feel the hard work, love and positive energy that goes into this produce we are growing for you?  That may sound crazy to some, but I can feel it.  It's so much more than great taste.  This food is alive and I'm so glad my senses are accute enough to notice when I eat it.  When I eat dead foods (I confess to eating store bought, processed food on occassion), there is a noticeable difference.  This is anohter reason why I am happy to be a farmer, your farmer.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!  (I mean that!  Sincerely.)

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week 20

In your share this week:

• Carrots
• Basil - last of the season
• Salad Mix
• Zucchini and/or Squash - randomly distributed among all the shares
• Red Norland Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Bell Pepper
• Hugarian Pepper
• Leeks

Leek & potato soup!  We have a really tasty recipe here, but it calls for bacon and a pint of heavy cream.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but Shain's on the look out for a healhiter version that still tastes great.  He's lost 75 lbs. since April 1st and is still going strong!  Go Farmer Shain!

We experienced a few nights of hard freeze last week.  Temps got down to the low 20's!  Fortunately, our only remaining outside crops were the potatoes and the last rows of salad mix.  When the tops of the potato plants die back, it's time for us to harvest them.  Last Saturday we got all the Red Norlands dug up.  This weekend we'll get all the Yukon Golds.  As for the salad, these greens have an amazing way of rebounding after a hard frost.  It took a few days, but by Monday morning the salad was nice enough to cut.  I left about half of it for another week but at this point it all depends on the weather. 

With seven greenhouses, most of our plants are growing under cover and can be closed up for the cold nights.  We also use row covers over sensitive crops that we hope to pull through the rest of the season.  Even with all this protection, some crops didn't make it.  We lost the cucumbers and half the squash plants entirely.  The yellow onions look pretty bad too.  About 25% of the tomato plants froze.  And the sadest loss for me is seeing the brown leaves on the fillet beans.  I hope they'll still grow beans down low, but Shain doesnt' think so.  He has decided this was not the year for us to have beans, despite all our efforts.

The next big project underway is preparing a section of field for planting the garlic.  We usually plant garlic around the first weekend of October, again, depending on the weather.  And we are slowly starting some clean up projects, pulling up dead plants, drip lines, and such.  Lots to do before the weather turns ugly.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week 19

It's been a mixed up, hectic, change of plans, take care of this now kind of weak here on the farm.  Nothing life altering, just time cosuming when time isn't available.  Fall is a beautiful time of year, but it's also a busy time of year!  As a result, this week's CSA share is smaller than what we planned on harvesting for you this week.  Still, a pretty good amount of food.

In your share this week:

• Red Onions
• Yellow Onions
• Head Cabbage - last of the season
• Golden Beets
• Garlic - a 1 lb. bag of a variety called Music.  It's Shain's new favorite.
• Dill - probably the last of the season
• Tomatoes
• Green Bell Pepper
• Hungarian Wax Pepper - unfortunately, they are not changing color yet (they should be going yellow, which is when they really taste good) but we hate to keep waiting and risk loosing them entirely in a hard freeze
• Zucchini
• Squash
• Cucumbers

The weather has changed a bit on us this week.  With forecasted temps in the low 30's we are closing all the greenhouses at night and covering all sensitive produce with row covers.  (Then reversing the process every morning.)  Our daily chores just increased significantly, but it's well worth the effort.  While many gardeners will loose crops this week, we expect to pull everything through with little or no damage.  (Confession - I won't be too upset if the zucchini or squash plants die, but we'll cover them anyways.)  Looks like the weather will warm up again later this weekend, who knows what to expect around here.

Update:  According to Farmer Shain, it got down to 27 degrees last night.  That's a hard enough freeze to kill off the potato plants.  I also noticed some damage to our bean plants, basil and cucumbers.  Everything else looked OK - so far...

Linda, a long time CSA member, shares this recipe with us - Refrigerator Pickles: Cauliflower, Carrots, Cukes, You Name It.  She says "We tried this and we love it!  My husband says to cut the jalapeno in half, but I thought it was good whole."  Here's the link.  Sounds like a good way to use up some extra veggies.

Shain's newest wonderful meal creation is a veggie quesadilla.  In one pan he sautee's a lot of veggies (peppers, squash, zucchini, onions, whatever is on hand) in their own juices (no oil or butter necessary). In another pan he cooks and smashes up a can of organic black beans to make his own refried beans.  I think he also adds some seasoning to taste, freshly ground garlic powder or chili pepper maybe?  In a third dish, he drizzles sliced tomatoes with freshly squeezed lime juice and allows this to marinade for a few mintues.  Then he spreads the beans on a corn tortilla, adds a scoup of veggies and tomatoes, sprinkles a thin layer of grated cheese (which means even our son will eat this) and then tops off with another tortilla.  The quesadilla is heated through (both sides) in a large frying pan until the cheese melts.  Served with with salsa on top.  Very tasty!

We have some extra garlic for sale.  Mostly Music but also a little German Extra Hardy (smaller sized bulbs).  $8/lb.  Contact me if you are interested.

We invite anyone who'd like to come help on the farm to join us on Saturdays.  We'd love to have work crews here every Saturday to help dig potoatoes, harvest other produce, prepare new ground for planting garlic, and other projects.  There's a lot to do here and we are finding ourselves a little short on helpers.  Contact me for more specific details.

Have a good week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week 18

I'm back.  Edited.  See italics.

In your share this week:

• Yellow Onions
• Red Onions
• Broccoli - last of the season
• Head Cabbage
• Carrots
• Beets
• Leeks - our first time growing leeks in a greenhouse.  Some of them are huge.  Many more for weeks to come.
• Cucumbers
• Basil
• Dill
• Parsley
• Salad Mix
• Garlic - a 1 lb. bag of German Extra Hardy garlic in this week's share.  It's a little on the small side as we kept back the largest garlic to plant this fall.  Remember, we are just working our way out of a complete garlic crop failure from a few years ago.  It will take years to get back to what our garlic looked like before.
• Tomatoes
• Zucchini - it's starting to get much colder at night so the squash and zucchini plants are going to start slowing down, even dieing back with freezing temps.  We've already enjoyed a great harvest of squash and zucchini so we've decided to let nature take it's course and spend our energies helping other delicate crops through the cold nights.
• Squash
• Green Bell Pepper - don't they look great!

When the workshares saw this list of produce today, they couldn't believe it.  I told them "I know you'll make it work".  And that's just what we did.  Now it's my turn to make all this fit in my truck to make the delivery.  Wow!  That's a lot of food, again!

I'm sorry to keep this so short.  I'm finding myself very short on time today.  Just got too excited and bit off more harvesting this morning than we should have attempted.  I didn't anticipate the tomato plants being loaded like they were.  We picked over 160 lb. of tomatoes! (Was actually more like 175 lbs.)

We are making pesto with our basil and garlic this week.  Some for the freezer too.  I've read some recipes that also call for adding parsley to the mix.  And it's all in your share this week! 

With all this great produce, we've started preserving extra food for the winter months.  Most veggies freeze, dehydrate, or bottle very well.  If you have any questions, speak up.  We've been doing food preservation for many years now and I'd love to share our experiences.  Here are just a few to start with:

• Onions freeze very well without any work.  Just chop and put in baggies.  I like to use the snack sized baggies because it's about the quantity of onion I need for winter recipes.  I haven't found they get freezer burn if I pack the bag full.  Dehydrating onions is also very easy, especially if you have a good dehydrator.  I like to do a rough slice/chop (bigger pieces so they don't fall through the holes in the trays).  I dehydrate our onions on a low setting over night.  The house smells of onions pretty strong (this is good or bad, depending on the day) and then store in glass jars or zip lock bags.  Shain eats dehydrated onions like a treat.  They rehydrate very well.  
• Leeks - I chop them into thin round discs and either freeze or dehydrate as explained above.
• Beets - we love pickled beets in our home so I do a large batch of these every once in a while.  There are many recipes online.  I like the simplest ones best.  I've never personally canned the golden beets, but one of our workshares has and she says they taste just the same as regular red beets.  I'm told beets don't dehydrate very well, though I've never tried.  They can be frozen with some preparation work.  Freezing instructions usually call for the beet to be blanched first (put in boiling hot water for a few minutes), but I have been told by many people that they just roast the beets, eat some and freeze the rest.  Not as great as fresh, but still better than store bought.
• Carrots dehydrate very easily.  Just chop and put in the dehydrator on a low setting overnight.  To make this process very easy, I use a Salad Shooter.  Great tool for people who do a lot of dehydrating.  Personally, I haven't had much success with canning or freezing carrots.  I find they get too mushy, but if you are doing it for soups that wouldn't matter.  Shain uses our dehydrated carrots in stir fry and they taste fresh.  It's amazing.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week 17

If this isn't the biggest share of the season, it's pretty close.

• Head Cabbage
• Yellow Walla Walla Onions
• Red Onion
• Carrots
• Golden Beets
• Cucumbers
• Shell Peas - last of the season
• Salad Mix
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower - possibly the last of the season, depending on the bug situation
• Tomatoes
• Squash
• Zucchini

Shain headed back to work this week.  I miss him already.  Not just because of his help with the harvest.  Not because he sometimes has lunch ready for me when I come in from work.  Not because he takes care of so many small details so I can focus on managing the harvesting and workshares.  We are a team running this farm and it's hard with out him here.  Most of all, I miss seeing him throughout the day and his random acts of kindness he does to make my day go a little better.

Eli heads back to school next week.  He starts middle school this year and will be at the same school Shain teaches at.  I may just miss him too.  It gets pretty interesting around here when school is in session.  I'm confident the workshares and I are up to the task of keeping this place running smoothly through the end of the season.  (Though I'm sure I don't always look so calm in the process.)

We've been making some wonderful bruschetta with our tomatoes.  Heavenly!  Shain is also making this Restaurant Style Cabbage Slaw/Salsa recipe.  It doesn't quite taste like the appetizer at our local Mexican restaurant, but it's very tasty and addicting.  (Sometimes I get frustrated wanting to figure out a restaurant recipe so we can make it exactly the same way.  Recently a friend reminded me that sometimes restaurants or other store bought foods are not necessarily made with fresh, raw, organic ingredients.  This means there could be MSG or other chemicals in the recipe that trick my mind into loving it so much.  Something to think about.)

It's been absolutely busy here lately.  We've crammed a lot of end of summer activities into these past two weeks and have been away from the farm for several weekends in a row.  I'm ready to stay home for a while.  We start a new harvest schedule this week, which includes harvesting some crops on Saturday.  This will help ease the workload on our other work days.  A few new crops are ready to harvest and will be in the shares soon.  We are starting to watch night time temperatures and taking precautions with the forecast looks threatening.  It's hard to believe we could be getting frosts already.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies.

Tara

 

CSA Newsletter, Week 16

In your share this week:

• Salad Mix - Yeah!
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Italian Parsley
• Dill
• Zucchini and/or Squash 
• Tomatoes
• Shell Peas
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Sweet Walla Walla Yellow Onions
• Red Onion

A mighty fine haul of veggies again this week.  We are at the height of the season and the farm is producing more food than we can keep up with.  Sometimes we have to decide what not to harvest based on our limitations of time and help.  A good dilemma to be in.  We hope you are enjoying the abundance.  If you have any great recipes, please share.  Shain is learning to cook vegan/vegetarian as part of our new, healthier lifestyle.  Today for lunch he made a vegetable curry dish (with yellow onion, broccoli, peas, squash, zucchini and carrots) served over wild rice.  Yummy! 

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara