1st Week – 2010 Season
Learning to truly value food means
truly valuing growers and eaters
Food’s true beauty and blessing is in its seed, its fertile soil, its animals, its minerals and vitamins. It’s in the entire year of work, toil, planning, tending leading up to a single, flavorful bite. What we do together is always so much more than exchanging money over food. We nurture values around food, not simply “value” in conventional food systems that have made a cheap date of the Earth. We seek a personal relationship that is fed from commitment, community, sustainability. We have flaws and failings. We are not perfect. We try to tend food with organic practices in a world that is hostile to Nature, hostile to independence, hostile to everything local. You can find better growers, just as you could probably find a better mate somewhere, or a better job somewhere, or a better place to live somewhere. If we want the world to be a better place, a safer place, a more secure place, however, we know we need each other to make firm commitments. We know that like food from deeply rooted plants, we get the greatest long-term yields when we give our all to a place, a plant, a practice, a person. We welcome you into this relationship with Scotch Hill Farm, more than 100 varieties of certified organic and heirloom vegetables, Dela and Tony Ends, our family and all who work here with us. Thank you! More than delivery sites – we have some great new vegetable delivery hosts this year. Hospice Care of Janesville, Swim Café of Chicago, Bariques Wine and Coffee shops in Fitchburg and Madison, Provenance Food and Wine Store in Lincoln Square, several subscribers who’ve let us use their porches. We’re grateful to all, as well as our established hosts. We urge you to support them. One host, Dominic’s Kitchen Store, is scheduling 4 talks with Dela and me on organic gardening, farmstead soap-making, food as health and sustainability. Dominic is a Kendall College premier culinary program grad and a 6-year storeowner in Park Ridge, Ill. He’s a strong “Buy Local” promoter. He rallied nearly 30 people to sign up for our produce in his store in less than a month. He’s selling our organic and heirloom vegetable starts in his store, as well as our coalition’s CSA survival primer, the “Asparagus to Zucchini Foodbook.” Stuff for salad prep: Lettuce we grow for you is not iceberg. It has minerals and vitamins, not simply water and roughage. It is the most delicate crop we grow. Washing a delicate vegetable variety ahead of delivery often damages it. It’s best the consumer rinse it just before food preparation and eating. Dominic has salad spinners, varying in size and price from $19.99 to $24.99, to help salad washing in the kitchen. You can find salad choppers, private label dressings, plastic lettuce knives that don’t brown the lettuce ends in cutting and many other items for the kitchen, pictured at http://www.justchefit.com/product/8308.html He sells online at www.justCHEFit.com. Or you can call 847-698-1255 to place an order by phone.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Greens Mix (spinach, kale, mustard and turnip greens)
v Garlic Scapes (a cutting from the plant, which helps the bulb grow larger before typical harvest in July, chop it up and use it just like garlic cloves)
v Lettuce Mix with Nasturtiums (edible flowers)
v Bibb / Romaine Mix Lettuce
v Hakuri Turnips
v Radishes (you can work their nutritious greens into salads and stir fry)
v Leeks
v Oregano
v Snow Peas
Leeks can be used as you would many types of onions. Chop and sauté, into stir-fry or omelets Use in soups, especially with potatoes. Try them in salads. They are commended by some of the doctors and physicians whose works Dela and I read over winter and will be sharing with you this season. We have an entry on them in the A to Z Foodbook, which you can still purchase from us at a discount. Our Dela and Micah contributed recipes to this book. It’s sold nationwide and funds the work and organic farming of our 45 members in central Wisconsin. Email tony@scotchhillfarm.com to procure a copy from us.
2nd Week – 2010 Season
Glimpse into the lives of snow peas
and those who tend them for you
Son Micah and I planted our snow peas months ago in the corner of a field where squash grew last year. We lay down the seed in double rows, which we stake about every 10 feet. A white mesh is strung the length of each row for the snow peas to climb. There are 6 early rows of peas, 3 more later ones just beginning to flower their tiny, delicate white petals. In early spring, all these empty “fences” look as if we’re setting up some strange and voluminous midget volleyball tournament. The rows run about the length of a football field, and it takes weeks before the peas reach up to the net, fan out their lovely green leaves and wind their way toward the sky. It’s better not to look at that distant row’s end when picking peas alone. Better to focus on the peas and their steady plunking into 5-gallon buckets. Dela and I went Sunday to this field. We first started weeding beets around noon. After a few hours, though, it began to pour down rain on us. We drove the mile back to our farmstead to see if it would let up and change clothes. I put on boots and a raincoat. I went back to weeding beets almost immediately. Weekends are my only time to help us catch up on some things. Weeds are putting a lot of pressure on us now. When Dela rejoined me, we turned to picking peas. We picked until dark, about 1/5 of the 100 lbs needed to give each household ¾ of a lb. I rose at dawn Monday and went back to pick peas. We weed as we harvest if time permits, or we take breaks from harvesting to stretch different muscles with long hoes and hand garden tools. Rain came upon us mid-morning and stayed with us most of the day. From where I picked peas, I could see Dela and Trish now and then, rising from long rows of radishes they were picking and bundling. By day’s end, they looked like mud wrestling contestants. Our part-time workers and volunteers joined us Tuesday for another day of harvesting, weeding and mulching in, of course, rain. Ruth Banwell of Janesville, who’s subscribed with our farm for 14 of the past 16 years, was among them. What good friends so many subscribers have become over the years. When you make your salads this week, think of these hands that have planted, tended, harvested, weighed, bagged, delivered it to you. Weed, wine and cheese – We started this event just two seasons ago. It drew greatest participation in its first year from Chicago. Yet we’ve never had so many on-farm pickup subscribers. They may outnumber Chicagoans this time around, Saturday, June 26. Come work as long or as short a time as you like, 9 a.m. until late. Potluck with us at meal times. Enjoy Dela’s cream cheese and Trish’s ice cream from our goat milk. Bring a beverage of your choice. Experience the work and joy of garden and field. Get to know the plants, animals, people and place that are your farm. The boost you give us will pay off wonderfully when later in the season you see yield what you helped grow. Markets and such: I’ll be staying out late Wednesday nights, starting this week, working a new 4 to 9 p.m. farmers market in Oak Park, Ill. I’ll be selling our goat milk soap, birdhouse gourds, potted herb gardens and other great farmstead gifts for Father’s Day, birthdays and everyday use. I’ll also be taking part in a sale at Dominic’s Kitchen Store on Saturday, June 19, in Park Ridge, Ill. Such events and mail orders through the year contribute about 20 percent of our farm income. We need and appreciate your support in this way, too.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Lettuce mix
v Garlic Scapes (a cutting from the plant, which helps the bulb grow larger before harvest in July, chop it up and use it just like garlic cloves)
v Turnips
v Radishes
v Fennel
v Basil
v Nasturtiums edible flowers
v Snow Peas
A good week for gourmet salads, you need not cook any of our produce this time around. Incorporate all of these vegetables into salads with your meals this week. If you want to cook, you may sauté garlic scapes, fennel stalks and snow peas in butter. Top this off with fresh fennel leaves. We put Dela’s cheese on homemade pizza this week and topped that with fennel and basil. Nasturtiums taste great with Dela’s goat cheese, too.
3rd Week – 2010 Season
Organic food is Nature’s medicine
for you, for the Earth, for the future
All true wealth comes from fertile soil. Health comes from it, too. Dr. Mimi Guarneri, respected cardiologist and popular teacher, notes in her beautiful book “The Heart Speaks,” that the father of modern medicine firmly advocated that food is medicine, food is Nature, food is health. All human communities that tended soil eventually learned that to exploit soil for wealth was to exhaust, sicken and ultimately destroy it. What each of us does on this ground that covers about 1/5 of Earth’s surface can ruin every inch of vital water, climate, ecology, soil, health for us and our children. Or it can heal, conserve, enrich, sustain it. These thoughts race in my mind when someone asks me what food I grow and sell to them costs. We’re all taught to price food, but not health. What is health worth? What price would you put on a child’s health? As I delivered vegetables around Madison, I saw a timeless bumper sticker. It read, “If you’re not upset, you’re not paying attention.” To read, hear, view competent sources of information, is to feel gravely concerned about the world’s sustainability. Yet to step into a garden or field in the Upper Midwest, is to realize every solution is in the community of one of the world’s richest deposits of fertile soil. Together, we tend about 40 acres of it. It takes about 250 households to sustain a CSA farm family. Through this family, these households can manage soil organically; localize food production; keep poisons out of water, food, air; cut carbon emissions, keep children healthy. Scotch Hill Farm has about 150 subscribers. We’re working hard to become self-sustaining. As the many vegetables we’ve planted for summer bounty begin to yield, we’ll add 15-week, 10-week and fall subscriptions. If you can commend us to a friend, relative, co-worker, neighbor, we’ll all benefit. Information and order forms will be at www.scotchhillfarm.com Weed, wine and cheese – Some of our plants are cultivated with a tractor in rows. Others are sown thickly in beds inches apart and must be weeded by hand. Every vegetable has some essential, vital mineral, vitamin, healing property. All contribute to human health. When subscribers help weed vegetable beds early on, the boost is huge. Even one visit for a few hours at a critical stage of plant development, gives crops the ability to increase in size and health over the weeds that would rob them of light, water, space to grow. This Saturday, June 26, is a designated day in the life of our farm for those able to lend a hand weeding. Come work as long or as short a time as you like (9 a.m. until late). Potluck with us at meal times. Enjoy Dela’s cream cheese and Trish’s ice cream from our goat milk. Bring a beverage of your choice. Experience the work and joy of garden and field. Get to know the plants, animals, people and place that are your farm. Storm damage: 70-mile-per-hour winds that swept northern Illinois this past week reached our farm. The drenching rain seemed to affect our chard more than any other crop. It shredded leaves of this otherwise indestructible member of the spinach family. Not all leaves sustained damage. We salvaged as much of this vitamin-rich crop for you as we could. The plants should begin to yield more now as the weather settles down. Be sure to try our son Micah’s Yummy Chard Pie recipe in the A to Z Cookbook.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Lettuce mix
v Garlic Scapes (a cutting from the plant, which helps the bulb grow larger before harvest in July, chop it up and use it just like garlic cloves)
v Young Bright Lights Chard
v Basil
v Season’s first carrots with last of early turnips
v Broccoli (an early taste of an heirloom variety called Di Cicco; more will come as this plant grows along with another variety called Marathon)
v Heirloom celery (a small, especially flavorful variety, try drying its leaves to use in soups after cutting stems into salads)
v Snow Peas
You can use all of the vegetable fixings this week in hot or cold pasta recipes. Try them with sesame seed oil or your favorite salad dressing. Again this week, all of your subscription’s ingredients can be prepared raw in salads. Many crops are very close to yielding now, increasing in size and number. Shares should start to increase in size very soon. Our cucumber and pole bean vines are making their way to the sky in our high tunnel greenhouse. Surely, a giant will join Jack and us for our potluck this weekend. Bring a camera!
4thWeek – 2010 Season
Learning to make our world safe
in the places our food is grown
Life is good and bad, birth and death, success and defeat. We all strive for balance. We know it’s unhealthy to dwell on even normal struggles and turmoil. We also know very bad things can and do happen to those who live in denial of truths we must face to survive. I was not surprised to hear this week that modern herbicides are becoming ineffective as weeds build resistance. For this reason, many corn and soybean farms are reviving use of powerful sprays from the WWII era. With mass production of cheap foodstuffs come dangers to health and safety, as well as imbalances to Nature. Organic farmers, along with consumers, have sets of challenges to face, too. Many letters regarding our 15- and 10-week subscriptions, which we mailed last week to past and present customers, came back. So many people have moved in search of jobs and affordable places to live. Just before the economic crisis really hit America, 44 people turned out for our Wine, Weeds and Cheese volunteer workday and potluck. Just after the big crash, only one person out of more than 200 subscribers showed up. This year, ten people came to our first scheduled workday. Together, we weeded squash, celery, cabbage. We harvested snow peas. We even worked to resolve problems with a tractor generator and a 50-inch tilling machine. These subscribers experienced miracles and challenges of an organic farm, firsthand. They witnessed our family’s joys and difficulties at Scotch Hill. They saw the real, deep, complex dimensions behind a bag of fresh produce. I wish you all could see the ground you protect here. I wish you could ride round the field we planted to prairie grass, which I mowed last week with tractor and rotary mower. The mowing helps establish the switch grass (a 3-year process). It helps this grass overcome an infinite seed bank of weeds. This field is part of a national study comparing oat, wheat and prairie grass straw mulch. We’ve rented and planted fields to those small grains, too. The oats and wheat are turning golden and near ready for harvest. Tending them is as stressful as it is rewarding. It’s hard to manage these other crops and do a good job at growing vegetables, too. I caught the weeds in the switch grass field just before they’d gone to seed. My little 1940s combine for harvesting small grains is broken down and not ready for oat and wheat harvest fast approaching. Yet tending these other crops is essential to grow vegetables for you, too. For an organic system to work, one should plant at least 5 acres of other crops for every acre planted to vegetables. Rotating crops through these fields breaks up plant disease and pest cycles. It restores fertility that vegetables rob from the soil. It feeds goats, sheep and poultry, which help sustain the farm, too. The switch grass will provide bedding for our animals in winter, mulch to keep down weeds in acres of vegetables and extra income for our farm. Last week, I left a cluster of tall prairie grasses where I saw a nest that nervous birds were circling. Again this week, as I finally got a break from wet weather to cut our hay, I watched the tall Timothy, sweet rye grass and alfalfa in yet another field, for signs of nesting birds. I was relieved to see the young there were up and taking flight. I hate to disturb their habitat, yet I need to harvest that hay. Soil recovers so well (from crops that deplete it) with the help of perennial grasses and their massive root systems. So much is going on in an organic farming system. Nature is teaching us all the time. Insects and birds, plants and animals are interacting with the safe crops we grow without chemicals.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Lettuce mix
v Fennel
v Greens
v Basil
v Radishes
v Broccoli (Marathon and Green King varieties)
v Cucumbers
v Snow Peas
Broccoli dipped in wonderful peanut sauce (from Vegetable Dishes I can’t live without” by Mollie Katzen):
Broccoli can be cooked up ahead of time. Serve it at any temperature with room-temperature or warm sauce. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Trim and discard tough stem ends of one large bunch of broccoli (1.5 lbs.). Slice the rest lengthwise into about 6 to 8 hefty spears. When the water boils, lower the heat to a simmer and plunge in the broccoli for 2 minutes if you like it tender-crisp, and 3 minutes if you like it tender-tender. Drain in a colander, then put the broccoli under cold running water to cool it down. Drain thoroughly. Dry the broccoli by first shaking it emphatically, then by patting it with paper towels. Transfer to a zip-style plastic bag, seal and store until use. Place 1 cup smooth peanut butter and 3 to 4 tablespoons light-colored honey in a bowl with 1 cup hot water. Mash and stir patiently with a spoon or a small whisk until uniformly blended. Stir in 2 to 3 tablespoons soy or tamari sauce, 1 ½ teaspoon minced or crushed garlic, 2 teaspoons cider vinegar, 3 to 4 tablespoons finely minced cilantro. Add salt and Cayenne pepper to taste. Serve right away, surrounded by steamed broccoli.
5thWeek – 2010 Season
What it takes to grow organic food
in healthful ways for the Earth
Visiting an organic farm 5 times bigger than we are (as I did this week) was sobering. Plant disease and insect specialists from a research station also attended this field day. They were not at all quiet about signs of pests and blight they discovered in almost every vegetable bed we walked with the host farmers. The growers in turn described all the many things they do to combat the aphids, worms, fungus, moths, beetles and bacteria that intensify when one grows volumes of crop varieties in huge blocks such as I saw at this farm. It tests every skill, knowledge and ability of an organic grower. I returned to Scotch Hill convinced of the importance of many things we do here to break up plant pest and disease cycles. I was challenged to think, think, think with Dela, our family and friends of how to be better organic growers. First cutting of hay – Right through the July 4th weekend, we cut, raked, dried, baled and stored more than 1,300 bales of hay. We completed this work even as we harvested, tended and planted vegetables. Some hay compensated a couple who rent us machine shed space for our equipment near fields we also rent a mile from our farmstead. Some was sold to help pay machinery, gasoline and haymaking expenses. Some hay is already feeding animals here at Scotch Hill. It was a beautiful week for putting up hay, and many folks helped out before heat and storms of this week. Thank you! Anti Cancer: A new way of Life – Dr. David Servan-Schreiber’s experience and insight in this book, from surviving two bouts of cancer, resonates with us here at Scotch Hill. Dela had surgery for malignant melanoma about 12 years ago. We commend this book to you for all its research-based information. It can help us fend off cancers that afflict so many in the Western world because of our diet, lifestyle and use of so many chemicals. In one University of Montreal study, researchers found that “The more fruits and vegetables these genetically at-risk women ate, the lower their risk of developing cancer. Women who consumed up to 27 different fruits and vegetables a week (and variety does seem to be important here) saw their risk diminished by fully 73 percent.” What is your health and that of those you feed worth? Is it worth the time and expense we all invest in growing, cooking, eating organic vegetable varieties? Keep working what we grow into your diet. It’s vital! Coming soon – Summer squash, eggplant and peppers are forming on plant and vine now. Look for them in your share bags soon. And get ready for tomatoes! Please keep recycling brown paper grocery bags our direction. We need plastic 5-gallon buckets and yellow bowls of any size, too.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Lettuce mix
v Cabbage
v Beans (1/2 lb.)
v Basil
v Garlic
v Broccoli (Marathon and Green King varieties)
v Cucumbers
v Chives
v Celery (Red Venture heirloom variety; use the leaves in soups and stir fry; add great flavor to salads with the stalks)
Cucumbers with Cream and Mint from Alice Waters “The Art of Simple Food” (2007):
There are many varieties of cucumbers, each with its own flavor and texture. I especially like Armenian, Japanese and lemon cucumbers (Your varieties this week at Scotch Hill include “Parade” from Seed Savors and H19 Little Leaf – trellising toward the sky in our hoop house) For this dish, peel and slice up to 2 cucumbers. If the seeds are large and tough, cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with as spoon before slicing. Place in a medium-size bowl and sprinkle with salt. In another bowl, combine ¼-cup heavy cream, 3 tablespoons olive oil, juice of ½-lemon and fresh-ground black pepper to taste. Stir well. If water has accumulated with the cucumbers, drain it off. Pour the dressing over the cucumbers and combine. Coarsely chop 3 mint sprigs, leaves only (you can substitute basil from our farm). And toss with the cucumbers. Taste and add just the salt as needed. Serve cool.
Cabbage – We grow Copenhagen and Early Jersey Wakefield varieties. Try braising your cabbage with other vegetables, with a favorite meat if you prefer. Or, make up a cool coleslaw. Beans this week are Kentucky Wonder, grown in the ground and climbing to the sky in our high tunnel greenhouse, and Provider, just starting to yield in beds we weeded this week by hand outside.
6thWeek – 2010 Season
Watering thirsty vegetable crops,
safeguarding against blight
Like a mugging, drought slams an organic garden to the ground. It does sudden violence to life in every way. It’s frightening. Plentiful, even excessive rain, of the early season left us expecting even 20 percent chance of rain forecasts would come through for us the past 2 weeks. A number of strong rain prospects have passed us by. We’ve gotten less than a quarter inch of rain once or twice – when we needed an inch and one-half minimum each week. Many of our plants are suffering. We drove into Madison Tuesday night after packing our subscriptions so Dela could attend a Madison Area CSA Coalition board meeting and I could shop for irrigation supplies and hose replacements. We’ve been hand watering and hosing, using sprinklers and drip tape in both fields we rent and own for several days. It’s time-consuming work, and in many cases just keeping our crops alive. When we have harvesting and fieldwork to do for fall planting, it stretches us plenty thin. Water is the single-most important determinant to size and yield for almost all vegetable and herb varieties. Please trust that we’re doing everything possible and within our means to get our vegetables back on track for growth – including praying really hard for rain. Blight prevention – We’ve been getting warnings through professional affiliations about guarding against the plant disease that ravaged tomato and potato crops last year. It was also the talk of organic growers and horticulture crop researchers at the field day on a neighboring farm last week. Like so many other growers, we’ve invested months and months of time and expense in establishing thousands of tomato plants in portions of three fields. We’re trying hard to protect these crops from a disease that can destroy them in 3 days. We’re employing the only organic-approved means of guarding against this blight – a copper spray mixed with water. Copper is an essential mineral found in the plant, the ground and the body. Like everything, though, it must be kept in proper balance. In gardening and crop production, it is also effective in preventing plant disease on limited other varieties, such as Brussels Sprouts. We’re trying to be selective in using this spray, but it’s important that everyone who eats our vegetables wash and rinse varieties thoroughly before cooking or eating them. Specialists from Arlington Research Station at the organic field day last week assured us that the copper spray was safe to use, but encouraged us to advise washing to our subscribers.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v First tomatoes (Oregon Spring and Jet Star varieties)
v Patty Pan yellow squash
v Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans
v Oregano
v Lettuce Mix
v Zucchini or Hyrdra or Yellow Crookneck squash)
v Cucumbers
v End of snow peas (better to stir fry than eat raw at this end of the season)
v Dela’s cream cheese, a gift from our goat milk
A Dinner of Sautéed Vegetables from Mollie Katzen “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest” (1982)
This classic cookbook has simple, detailed instructions for breaking vegetables into three groups and preparing them in a wok. Cabbage, broccoli, snow peas and pole beans fall into the first group, for longest cooking time. Summer squash falls into group 2, adding them second for shorter time length. Greens, sprouts, scallions and tomatoes fall into the third group, cooking almost on contact with the other cooked or hot vegetables. The more thinly a vegetable is sliced the more quickly it cooks, and Katzen emphasizes slicing or dicing everything before you start stir-frying. The basic goal is to cook the vegetables quickly (over high heat, stirring almost constantly) so that each vegetable is done to its own individual perfection. Hover over the wok as you sauté. Stir very much. Keep the heat high and keep the vegetables moving in the wok. Work quickly.
7thWeek – 2010 Season
Putting beautiful vegetable varieties
to sustainability test for the Earth
For several weeks, we’ve been weeding and paying part-time help to weed 17 rows of melons. Sugar Baby, Yellow Doll, Jenny Lynn – little ice box heirloom varieties that fit so nicely in a refrigerator. Before we transplanted those plants into black plastic mulch, we moved the fence along the garden pathway back from the vegetable end rows. This let me maneuver tractor and water wheel trans-planter along each vegetable bed and circle around, back and forth. Two people rode the trans-planter, putting hundreds and hundreds of melon starts neatly into the ground in a couple of hours. Yet the whole process – preparing the ground, laying down the black plastic mulch, seeding the plants in greenhouses, transplanting, mulching straw into the paths between each bed, weeding what comes up through the straw and melon vines, squashing insect eggs (leaf by leaf), watering thirsty plants through drought – can easily take 5 or 6 months before you get melons in your delivery. By chance early last week, I saw a farmer friend I’d not seen in several years. He stopped to talk to me from his tractor. His family has been farming for several generations, and I used to adore going through his greenhouses to admire so many plants he tended with his wife and children. To my shock, he told me he wasn’t growing any melons anymore. He’s driving down to southern Indiana to buy truckloads of melons wholesale and resell them in Wisconsin. He doesn’t sell in farmers markets anymore either. He got sick and tired of dealing with people who needled him about $2, $3, $4 prices – and then drove away in cars worth $30,000 or more. I understand my friend’s bitterness. I sold in farmers markets for 13 years. I don’t condone what he’s doing, though. It only makes me more stubbornly committed to sustainability. Earth has no hope of working out of the formidable challenges it faces, if we do not commit ourselves to knowing the person who grows what we consume, being able to travel to the place this person grows, gaining an intimate knowledge of the practices employed in the production, ensuring that the products are just, ecological and organic. Water, water everywhere but here – Last Thursday, several families in a new subdivision west of Middleton asked me to visit their new organic garden to help determine why nothing is growing there. I located the garden and walked around the two 20-foot-by-30-foot garden plots, which these folks paid $5,000 to establish organically. Pretty much every variety but the celery looked sick – wilting, losing leaves, fading color to a lime green. The rain gauge showed water several inches deep from a storm that swept across Wisconsin, dumping as much as 5 inches in places that get annual rainfall of 29 inches. Storm after storm like that has been missing Scotch Hill Farm, north and south, for several weeks. This garden, however, has had so much rain and irrigation that water was pooling up at the end of each bed and lingering for days from shallow top soil and too much clay in the subsoil. Nutrients are apparently leaching out of the soil, and waterlogged roots may be rotting in a hardpan holding water in the ground. If any of you subscribers has time during the week or on weekends to help us move sprinklers, soaker hoses, and buckets of water along our many vegetable beds, we’d be so grateful. We need rain to increase sizes and yields, to get our fall plantings off to a good start. Until it comes, we’re struggling to do double duty in garden and field.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (Oregon Spring and Jet Star)
v Summer squash
v Beans (assorted varieties, including Maxi-bell, Kentucky Wonder and Dragon Tongue wax beans)
v Peppers (both hot and sweet)
v Chard
v Beets
v Cucumbers
v Garlic
v Basil
v Eggplant
Stuffed Tomatoes from “Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant” published by Simon and Schuster (1990)
Cut several small, firm, ripe tomatoes in half and remove the stems. Arrange them, cut side up in an oiled baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Heat ¼ cup olive oil in a heavy skillet and carefully sauté 8 minced garlic cloves for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly and taking care not to brown. Add ¼ cup chopped fresh basil and/or parsley. Stir briefly. Add 1 cup breadcrumbs, fresh or dry. Stir until the oil is evenly distributed. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Spoon the topping onto the tomatoes. Back, uncovered at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Serve as a side dish for soup, salad Ncose, potato cakes, etc.
8thWeek – 2010 Season
Rains, volunteers helping this farm
to recover from 3-week drought
You didn’t buy a weekly delivery of produce. You bought a whole season of fresh, local, certified organic vegetables from a southern Wisconsin farm. This week’s share really shows that. It’s bigger. It has some varieties that are new, like sweet corn that takes 10 to 20 days longer to grow than early crops. It’s recovering from drought, with help of last week’s downpours and the extra hands of your community volunteers. A couple from Chicago, a good friend from Brodhead, two sisters and their lovely children all came to help Saturday. They weeded melons, squash and beans. They placed wheat and switch grass straw mulch around plants to retain moisture from that rain and deter weeds from springing back. They harvested some vegetables and got them safely into the walk-in cooler. Two more sisters and their husbands came to the farm from Park Ridge Sunday to celebrate anniversaries by supporting our farm. Got to love them! As everyone worked, alternately along side Dela and me, they asked so many questions about the crops, organic practices, the land, our lives. We work so often alone. We work very long hours every day. It was gratifying and rewarding to feel everyone’s keen interest in this place, these people, these practices that raise your produce. Food is never just food. It’s a whole system of production. It’s people, growers and consumers. It’s a relationship, either ignorant and anonymous, or educated and personal. Some things you’ll never know about your food unless you travel to the source and see for yourself whether it is fair or unfair, safe or unsafe, sustainable or out-of-control, long-term stewardship or short-term exploitation. Come visit us, know us, share with us in the joys and struggles, rewards and losses. It’s what you buy in food, whether you know it or not. About the drought – It can take plants 12 days to recover from serious lack of rain. Some have the ability to bounce back. Some never make it. Your dragon tongue wax beans this week almost always stay moist and crunchy. The Maxi-bell beans really took a hit and are just now taking up moisture. The pole beans in the high tunnel are nearing end of their fantastic run. You might want to dill them with tips in the “A to Z Cookbook“(25%t discount still available) or some other good canning resource. We’re mixing it with broccoli this week. It’s smaller because it simply got too much rain early on and needed more water later than it got. We hope rain (and volunteers) will keep coming. We all need this.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes)
v Summer squash
v Beans (assorted varieties, including Maxi-bell, Kentucky Wonder, Dragon Tongue wax beans)
v Peppers (both hot and sweet)
v Early sweet corn variety (naturally small ears)
v Eggplant
v Cucumbers
v Cabbage
Crunchy Peanut Lemon Beans from “The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without” by Mollie Katzen--Place 1 to 1 ½ cups of unsalted or lightly salted peanuts in a blender and grind briefly until they form a coarse meal. Set aside. Place a large, deep skillet over medium heat. After about a minute, add 1 tablespoon of canola or peanut oil. Swirl to coat the pan. Add 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger. Sauté for a few minutes. Add the crushed peanuts, plus ½ teaspoon grated lemon zest. And 1 tablespoon minced garlic. Cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Stir often until the peanuts are lightly toasted. Transfer this mixture to a medium-large bowl. If the peanuts are unsalted, stir in some alt to taste. Set aside. Wipe out the pan with a paper towel. Return it to the stove over medium heat. Wait about a minute. Add another tablespoon of oil and swirl to coat the pan. Turn up the heat. Add t1 pound fresh beans, trimmed and cut into 1 ½ inch pieces. Stir-fry over high heat for about 5 minutes. Somewhere along the way, sprinkle with about ¼ teaspoon salt and a big pinch of red pepper flakes to taste. Stir-fry just a few minutes longer, or until the beans are divinely tender-crisp. Add the peanut mixture and th1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice. Toss everything together. Taste to adjust salt and red pepper flakes. Serve right away.
10thWeek – 2010 Season
Maybe it’s just the heat of August
that makes plants seem like people
August – the days that try organic farmers’ souls. It’s a world apart from the sea of conventional corn and soybeans that engulf the Midwest. On foot in one of our fields, convention is as distant as the moon Slogging through expanses of sweet corn as big as city blocks. Weeds and grasses (incredibly high despite four early passes with field cultivating knives) pull at our every appendage. We wrestle ear after ear of corn from stalks into buckets. We weave through so much green mass of foliage, struggling on to the end of endless rows, sweating like drunkards in the 90-degree heat. Slapping at gnats, flies and mosquitoes, but there’s no out running them. And inevitably, two or three buckets piled so high the corn is spilling from them, we come up short of space with corn left to pick at row’s end. Intern Trish took at this point to stuffing corn in her clothing to avoid returning a second time down the row from the pickup truck so far away. Imagine what the heat is like this time of year in our first high tunnel greenhouse! Pole bean plants stand as dense as a tropical rainforest in there. They sprang along 72 feet from double rows of seed. Each plant is easily 9 feet tall now. Some reach the peak of the 12-foot structure. I slide my ladder sideways down the rows of vining plants to ascend and reach the top of each cluster of leaves. By 8 or 9 a.m., it’s steamy as a jungle. I probe about the baby elephant ear leaves, searching for beans. They’re usually hanging from stems in pairs, like loving couples, some even entwined in vines together. I pluck them one-handed, pronouncing their final union into a bucket balanced on my wobbly ladder. My senses can only stand a few hours at a time in that heat. Even with sides upraised, it is like a sauna in the high tunnel. But there are dense beds of beans to pick outside, too. Rain is helping revive them from the drought of several weeks past. Again, I’m reminded of how like people bean plants are. I come across a plant, so lush and thick with beautiful leaves. Yet I search in vain for beans on its stems. I turn to a second plant, spindly and bare of leaves, yet loaded with crisp dragon tongue beans. It has put all its being into useful production, rather than looking pretty. Like plants, our legacy is in our work, friendship, love of life. We withstand every challenge to make the world a better place. Even in times like August. Ways to help –We promised Dominic’s Kitchen we’d give a series of talks this year. If we can schedule a couple of these talks on Wednesdays it will save us 8 hours of travel. If someone can work our table, sell our farmstead soap and dispense subscriptions in Oak Park’s Wednesday Farmers Market, email or call me. We need your help for most of the market, which runs until 9 p.m. (tony@scotchhillfarm.com / 608 354-3243) .Volunteers on-farm are always welcome and needed, too. Just let us know in advance when to expect your visit. A couple from Chicago is looking for someone to carpool with to volunteer at the farm. They are seeking someone able to drive to Scotch Hill either of the last two weekends in August, or any weekend in September except Labor Day weekend. Contact me, and I’ll relay your message.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes)
v Summer squash
v Beans (assorted varieties, including Maxi-bell, Kentucky Wonder, Dragon Tongue wax beans)
v Peppers)
v Chard
v Organic sweet corn (you may have to soak your corn in salt water after shucking to eliminate a worm or two; a small price we pay for avoiding cancer-causing pesticides)
v Eggplant
v Cucumbers
v Mint
v Ice Box Melons (small, heirloom varieties that fit nicely in the frige_
1 small box of pasta prepared
4 cloves garlic or several garlic scapes chopped
½ cup of packed dried tomatoes (optional) OR one
small fresh tomato
6 cups torn fresh spinach, beet greens, mustard
greens, spicy greens, OR chard
Salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste
¼ cup crumbled feta cheese OR your favorite
cheese
2 TBSP olive oil
Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. Return pasta and garlic to pan. In heated olive oil, add garlic, greens, tomato, salt, and pepper sauté lightly. Cover pan for 2 minutes. If using beet greens or chard, cover pan and cook over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until greens are slightly wilted and tender. Toss gently with pasta to combine. Sprinkle with cheese. Serve warm or cold. Serves 4.
11thWeek – 2010 Season
What may be CSA food’s
greatest gift of each season
I wonder how many meaningful relationships would last if they depended solely on email. No reassuring voice. No smile. No eye contact. No grasp or touch of encouragement. No personal warmth. We’ve done this CSA vegetable business long enough that we’ve seen subscribers age and even pass away, couples celebrate anniversaries, couples break up, children graduate, job advancements take people far away, friends get married. Some CSA members have come to know this place as well as they know us. The feel of the soil. The beds of plants. The folds in the fields and their tree lines. The weathered boards of buildings. Sounds of the animals, birds and farm machines. What we call Scotch Hill Farm has a soul and character as real as any person we’ve tried to serve over the years. Our moods and feelings may vary as much as the weather. Challenges may dampen our spirits or rouse grand impulses. Discoveries may sparkle in our hearts or fade with repetition. Community Supported Agriculture’s greatest gift to you is in the depth of relationship it gives to the food we grow, and the food you eat. We’re halfway through our season now. Schedule a time to come visit us before our work and collaboration together end for winter. Last of the corn – Scorching heat of the past week gave way to cool weather and first hints of fall in the air. Alas, that heat managed to ruin more than half our last large block of sweet corn. Our helpers stayed up late inspecting absolutely every ear of corn as they packed your vegetable subscriptions this week. We tried to give everyone the best of what was left. It’s not as good as past weeks. It reminds us that we’re eating from a garden, from an organic food system, from Nature’s imperfections and not strictly from business’ or man’s efficiencies of scale. Want to can? –Over the weekend, a friend of our intern Trish DeCoster joined our niece Maggie and Dela in the commercial-size kitchen we built and use for weighing, bagging, sorting, cleaning produce. Together they canned and preserved vegetables. Some years we’ve not had abundance of some vegetable varieties, tomatoes especially, enough to invite subscribers to come can with Dela. This year we do. If you’d like to put up sauces and salsa for winter, bring your own canning jars and lids. Call or email Dela ahead of time (dela@scotchhillfarm.com ). Make sure you can come on a time when you can preserve food together.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Summer squash
v Beans (assorted varieties, including Maxi-bell, Kentucky Wonder, Dragon Tongue wax beans)
v Peppers
v Chard
v Organic sweet corn (you may have to soak your corn in salt water after shucking to eliminate a worm or two; a small price we pay for avoiding cancer-causing pesticides)
v Eggplant
v Basil
v Ice Box Melons (small, heirloom varieties that fit nicely in the frige)
Creole Green Bean (from Salads and Vegetables Cookbook: Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers)
3 slices bacon or similar quantity meat of your choice
¼ cup chopped onions or a chopped hot pepper
¼ cup chopped celery
¼ cup chopped green pepper
Several medium tomatoes, sliced
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
½ lb of sliced green beans
Fry bacon or meat of your choice until crisp. Drain. Saute onion or hot pepper, celery and green pepper in bacon drippings. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in green beans. Simmer for 5 more minutes. Pour into serving bowl, sprinkle with crumbled bacon or meat of your choice. Serves 6.
12thWeek – 2010 Season
What’s the real difference
between a farm and a store?
First light. A chorus of crickets. A rooster crows. Others respond. Wild birds raise their first songs of the morning. A milestone passes in the wee hours of daylight, the 24th of August. Dela’s still fast asleep beside me. How tired harvesting and everything else we do this time of year make her. From her face, a memory stirs. I’m so much younger. It’s nighttime in one of our first spring seasons in this farmstead, silent in the countryside. Children are sleeping. I can’t find Dela. I follow soft sounds all the way to the basement. There beside the huge wooden box I’ve made to protect hatchery chicks from cold sits Dela. I see her face so clearly under the heat lamp. She’s gazing in rapture at the little peeping birds. They’re scratching in straw; eating heartily from little metal feed trays; drinking, heads tilted way back, from the plastic poultry waterer. All the intelligence, thought and wonder of a human being are in Dela’s eyes. She’s one with the moment. She’s one with life. Miracles, beautiful miracles of life and breath have her undivided attention. Fifteen years later, I long to be a baby bird before her. Our grown children are so often preoccupied with other work, school, their individual quests. In their absence, it seems we try to do even more than we did in past years. That often separates us. Different fields. Different chores. Different hats on different days. All necessary tasks to accomplish the whole. Some subscribers seem not to understand that we’re just a couple of 50-somethings, with a common past rooted in the ground we tend. Passion. Feeling. Joys. Longings. Not an army of anonymous drones, churning out cheap food mechanically and efficiently. We make mistakes. You must tell us to make it right. We need honest encouragement, though, too. Helping hands now and then are essential. We value your friendship. Across the years the path seems more certainly to lead toward sustainability for us all. Field day next week – you are welcome to view prairie grass and small grains straw mulch at Scotch Hill Farm, 1 to 4 p.m., Monday, Aug. 30. An optional potluck meal at noon will precede the field day. We’ve been comparing switch grass, wheat and oat straw mulches for two seasons. We’re trying to cut reliance on rolled black plastic mulch, which we use to control weeds in thousands of transplanted bedding plants. UW Extension Rock County and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources staff have been taking part with us in this USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education farmer-rancher study. Switch grass, oat and wheat straw are mulching several types of beans, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, sweet potato and other vegetable crop varieties at Scotch Hill Black plastic mulch has increasingly helped vegetable crop farmers control weeds since the 1950s. By 1999, the practice had spread globally to more than 30 million acres. Mulches conserve soil moisture, prevent erosion, cut soil compaction and eliminate root damage deep cultivation or hoeing may cause. Their weed suppression cuts labor expenses, too. Extracting and disposing of plastic mulch after the growing season pose challenges for most growers. Organic mulches contribute plant matter back to the soil, increasing soil fertility and mineral production for subsequent crops. The Scotch Hill study is comparing how readily different kinds of straw mulch break down and make nutrients available to the soil. Applied Ecological Services of Brodhead, which restores native species plantings, provided switch grass seed for this study. Switch grass is also drawing interest as a bio-fuel alternative to gasoline. A map and driving directions to the farm and field day are at www.scotchhillfarm.com
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Summer squash
v Dragon Tongue wax beans
v Green beans
v Cabbage
v Peppers
v Basil
v Ice Box Melons (small, heirloom varieties that fit nicely in the frige)
v Beets
v Cucumbers
Orzo and Pesto Stuffed Tomatoes
Bring 2 quarts water to a boil in a large pot. Add 1 ½ cups of raw orzo, stir , lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 7 minutes, stirring as needed. While the orzo cooks, make the pesto. Combine 1 ½ cups fresh basil leaves, packed , 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed; ¼ cup pine nuts, and ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese in a food processor and whirl until well chopped. Add ¼ cup olive oil in a thin stream to make a smooth paste, scraping down the sides a couple of times as needed. Add salt and pepper to taste. Drain the orzo. Toss it lightly with a teaspoon of olive oil and allow it to cool to room temperature, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cut a hole about 2 inches in the top of each of 6 large tomatoes and remove the core. Scoop out the seeds and inner pup with a small spoon to leave a ½ inch thick shell. Lightly sprinkle the inside of each tomato with salt and pepper. When the orzo is at room temperature, mix it with the Pesto Genovese and, if using the cheese cubes. Stuff each tomato with about a cup of filling. Decorate with olives and/or basil and serve at room temperature.
13thWeek – 2010 Season
Different sort of organic life cycle
that you help make possible
We came full circle this week. The experience in an instance took us back 17 years. Picture it. Mother Dela, father Tony, children, Joel, Micah, Holly and Jim a lot younger than we are now. We arrived in 1993 at what we came to call Scotch Hill Farm. A family of six at that time, since the oldest child was already on her own in college, we were almost penniless. We’d worked for 7 years to come up with a down payment on a century-old collection of weathered farm buildings. Now we had an empty chicken coop, an empty calving barn, an empty dairy barn, an empty hog house, an empty machine shed, an empty pasture and a couple of 1930s farmhouses. In the outbuildings, roofs were beginning to give way, no safe electrical service, no water, some walls falling down. Worst of all, we had no plan for restoring life to a farm that hadn’t operated in 20 years. We floundered at first. We had no teachers, no support system, no guidance. We finally saw a public service announcement about a Community Supported Agriculture farm tour. We went to at least 3 of the farms on the tour. Monday of this week, we found ourselves looking into the eyes of more than 20 people on a tour of our farm Most of them are today what Dela, our family and I were 17 years ago. We took them through greenhouses and gardens, renovated buildings and entire working fields in rotation. We showed them a full set of equipment and tractors. We shared with them the workings of Nature’s plan for restoring soil fertility; feeding plant and animal life cycles; managing disease and pests safely; healing human bodies, minds and souls. You and everyone who has subscribed to seasons of vegetable production at Scotch Hill made all this possible. Your relationship through us to this place gave us experience, answers, history, models, resources to encourage others to walk this path, too. We sincerely thank you. Lessons from the Land series – Coming Wednesday, Sept.22. Wednesday, Oct. 20 (both at 6:30 p.m.), and two Friday evenings in November and December , we’ll be giving four talks at Dominic’s Kitchen Store in Park Ridge, Ill. You can find talk descriptions in the cooking calendar listings at http://www.justchefit.com/Cooking%20Classes.html We’ll also try to get the full schedule of talks and details up on our web site at www.scotchhillfarm.com There is no added charge to Park Ridge CSA members of our farm to attend these talks; there’s a $10 fee to everyone else.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Greens Mix
v Lettuce Mix
v Beans
v Eggplant
v Peppers
v Celery
v Ice Box Melons (small, heirloom varieties that fit nicely in the frige; chill them well before serving)
v Oregano
Yummy rigatoni, vegetables and herbs, from intern Trish DeCoster
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup milk (not low fat)
1/2 cup chicken broth
14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes--substitute with 14.5 oz diced tomatoes from the farm
1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons fresh oregano, finely chopped (can also use 1 teaspoon dried oregano)
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup grated Romano cheese
1 pound rigatoni
Melt butter. Add flour and stir 3 minutes. Gradually whisk in broth and milk. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently; add drained tomatoes, red pepper flakes, pepper and oregano. Simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Add cheddar and Romano cheeses. Stir until melted and well blended. Pour over cooked pasta and toss. Serve with a fresh salad and garlic bread!
14thWeek – 2010 Season
Upcoming work weekend at farm
has added features in the kitchen
Lists of things to do at Scotch Hill sometimes run right off the table. Farm tasks now abound as we work past the 2/3s mark of our regular growing season. Many scattered varieties of vegetables will probably peak this week. Days are shortening and becoming cooler toward autumn’s arrival. Vegetable growth slows down. This weekend is last call to can and preserve vegetables along side Dela. Bring your own canning jars and lids. It’s also a designated work weekend at the farm for subscribers. One or the other of us will be working here all day each day of the weekend. We need help at a number of tasks in addition to weeding and mulching crops. Newly planted areas need protection against frost. Withering pole bean vines must make way in the 3rd-year high tunnel greenhouse for fall plantings. Roll-up curtains and spreading plastic are next steps over nearly 100 feet of the new high tunnel. Old greenhouses need repairs from storm damage and weather’s constant impact. Farm trucks need oil changes. Garden paths need mowing. The list goes on and on. Joining us for this work weekend are 2nd-year subscribers and great friends Anna and Matthew Petersen, who have roots in Iowa farm country and make their home in Chicago. Matthew is a Kendall College graduate of that premiere culinary school. He’s a great chef with ties to The Weary Traveler (one of Dela and my favorite restaurants in Madison). Matthew is a great resource for cooking ideas. We invite you to work along side him here at the farm and pick his brain. We may even persuade him to do a little demo cooking this weekend. Anna has also been busy canning produce from our summer bounty as the couple looks forward to winter meals from Scotch Hill. Stay as long as you like Saturday or Sunday. Bring a dish to pass for afternoon potlucks. Camp out in our driving paths if you want to spend the night. Farmstead Soap – Gifts for loved ones, guests, employees or friends can help Scotch Hill meet many livestock expenses. For more than 10 years, Dela has made a moisturizing all-natural ingredient soap with our goat milk. Somehow, despite all she does to manage us in the garden, she makes between 5,000 and 8,000 bars of soap every year, too. She mills the soap for longer-lasting, hardening qualities. She molds the soap into pleasing shapes in more than 20 fragrances. Halloween shapes, Thanksgiving gift boxes, Christmas and Hanukah symbols, too, our soap has provided meaningful and useful gifts. I’ll be carrying both liquid and bar soap with me on deliveries in final months of our season. I’m also looking for special events where I can sell soap and sign up new subscribers for next year. Contact me if you’re interested or can direct me to new marketplaces and school or non-profit benefit opportunities. Thanks.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Chard
v Dragon Tongue Beans
v Green Beans
v Squash
v Peppers
v Eggplant
v Basil
v Ice Box Melons (small, heirloom varieties that fit nicely in the frige; chill them well before serving)
Vegetable Stir Fry and Soup
This time of year, with so much to do in garden and field, none of our crew has much ambition for concentrating on new recipes. Working outside in cool weather, though, sure works up an appetite. I’ve been washing and chopping up almost everything on our vegetable list this week into evening stir-fry or soup. I try to incorporate as many varieties as I can. I select “harder” varieties to chop or slice into lightly boiling water and a little butter first, working down the list to faster cooking vegetables and ending with tomatoes that need the least cooking. About the time I finish chopping the last variety of vegetable, the soup or stir fry is ready to eat. It is awful to overcook vegetables. Dela has been adding to whatever I come up with, from a crock-pot of our son in-law’s rabbit. Vadal’s buffalo burgers (longtime friends Val and Dave Heider of Janesville), or grilled cheese (with local Wisconsin varieties, of course) have helped round out the soup and sandwich menu , which keeps our strength up for weekly harvests, fall planting and farm chores. Even our chard and spicy greens mix can go into stir-fry and soup. Use your favorite stock or sauces, or contact us to connect with small-scale farmstead producers (tony@scotchhillfarm.com or 608 354-3243).
15thWeek – 2010 Season
Work day on the farm gives all
chance to find, test, share skills
Some wonderful households from Oak Park and Berwyn, Ill., came to our work weekend this past Saturday and Sunday. They harvested vegetables, helped construct our high tunnel greenhouse and canned vegetables. Everyone got along famously and contributed so much to the life of our farm. We pitched in with Matthew and Anna Petersen for some wonderful meals, too. It was all so fun and energizing to have everyone working in crews with our Maggie and Trish, Dela and me. In fact, when a couple of wayward dairy goats strayed past old wire along our fence line, forcing me to tend to them and complete repairs, volunteers continued just fine without me. Two couples even promised to return this weekend to help us complete the high tunnel. We invite anyone who wants to join them to another all-farm workday. Come anytime Saturday to help cover and protect as many beds of plants as we can against the coming frost. Upcoming – We may be harvesting sweet potatoes and fall squash over the weekend. Visitors can help with dairy goat, sheep and poultry chores, morning and night. This week and next will be lighter subscriptions as the garden transitions to fall crops. After next week, expect a series of potato varieties and assorted fall squashes. The spicy greens in your subscriptions this week can be stir-fried with other vegetables and herbs, or incorporated into morning scrambled eggs, or used to liven up all sorts of evening soups. Best of all, they add mustard and “hot” flavor to salads. Our fall crops really need rain. We’re hoping Mother Nature comes through with the forecast this week comes through with a good soaking of garden and field. We have spinach, carrots, kale, turnips, lettuce and other crops planted for our final weeks and into fall shares in November. This weekend – National Weather Service is predicting a partly sunny weather pattern for next Saturday. Come camp out in our garden paths, check out the two bed and breakfast establishments in Brodhead, or spend part or all of a day actively supporting organic and sustainable agriculture. We so enjoy getting to know you all and letting you all know our farm, firsthand. Fall shares – Our second year of double-share delivery (about 15 items) the first week of November and the week before Thanksgiving feast is almost filled up. We can still take on a few new people for this offering. In Madison in particular, there were a lot of folks who called us about fall shares at the last minute. If that happens again, we’ll have to turn a number of people away. We don’t want to disappoint our regular subscribers. If you want a fall share, better to sign up as soon as possible.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Greens mix
v Dragon Tongue Beans
v Green Beans
v Garlic
v Peppers (sweet & hot)
v Eggplant
v Basil (possibly last week)
v Melon
v Broccoli
Roasted Eggplant from Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food” (2007)
Eggplant can be roasted whole, cut in half, or cut in wedges. Large eggplant are most commonly roasted whole or in halves to make a puree. Cut the eggplant in half and with a sharp knife score the flesh in a cross-hatch pattern. Season with salt and pepper. Place the eggplant cut side down on an oiled sheet pan. Put whole eggplant directly on the oiled sheet pan. Roast at 400 degrees F until the eggplant is soft, always testing at the stem end. Scoop out the tender flesh. Eggplant can also be roasted in slices or wedges to serve warm as a side dish or marinated as part of an antipasto or salad. First trim off the stem and blossom ends and then cut the eggplant lengthwise into thick wedges or crosswise into fairly thick slices (1/2 inch thick is good). When cut too think, the wedges and slices will dry out before they’ve cooked through. Salt the pieces generously and let them stand for a few minutes. Meanwhile, hat the oven to 400 and oil a baking sheet or shallow pan. Lay the pieces flat on the pan and oil the upper side. Bake for 20 to 35 minutes, depending on the size of the wedges or slices. The eggplant is done when it is soft all over and brown on the underside. IF the pieces are sticking, let them cool for a few moments and they will be easier to lift. Serve right away, or dress with wine vinegar, slices of garlic, chopped herbs, extra-virgin olive oil, slat and fresh-ground black pepper. Serve at room temperature. You can also grill eggplant, and it is great in sweet and sour Caponata vegetable stews. Alice Waters also has a great recipe for that, and we commend her book to you.
16hWeek – 2010 Season
Food for thought, energy for farm
top off successes you helped this week
A heart specialist, a cancer researcher who survived cancer, a New York Times deputy science editor writing about the aging of mental function have all told Dela and me this year (in great books about health and NPR radio interviews) essentially the same thing: eat more fresh vegetables and fruits, stay away from industrial livestock and food system products, get more exercise and never discount the value of community and nurturing of our spirits to our health. Now thanks to a Milwaukee subscriber comes a great book from the director of both an arthritis institute and an arthritis research center that says many, many of the same things: if we want to prevent diabetes, heart disease, cancer, arthritis and more, we do all of the same things the others recommend. In The Vitamin D Cure, James E. Dowd, M.D., for instance, shares research recommending we eat fresh, especially green, vegetables by a ratio of 3 to 1 with lean meat from pasture-based farms. He notes that our bodies can absorb as much as ten times the vitamins and minerals from fresh vegetables that we can from supplements. And he urges us to get more sunshine in reasonable lengths of time, active outside. It increases Vitamin D we need to be and feel physically and emotionally well. Thank you – Over the past 2 months, 14 high-energy people have helped with scores of tasks necessary to construct our second high tunnel greenhouse. Saturday, we stretched the plastic over the 12-foot high structure, completed 96-foot, roll-down, side curtains and finished the 30-foot end walls. This greenhouse cost more than $7,000. All our subscribers have contributed to its successful raising by supporting Scotch Hill. Kale, carrots, turnips and greens we planted in this space are coming along nicely. We have one bed to replant and mature chard protected under this space. The added warmth will help these plants grow safely into fall. We’re also trying to get a 2nd crop of snow peas growing in our other high tunnel, which we built in 2008. By this time last year, we’d suffered a blast of frost. The forecast for this week shows continued mild temperatures. We have purchased 100 ten-foot lengths of metal conduit to construct low tunnel greenhouses over at least 400 additional feet of bedding plants. We’re modeling these structures after Elliot Coleman’s in Maine. We’re trying to protect as many varieties, existing and planted, as possible for these final weeks of delivery into the fall subscription. Each year, we grow a little, improve a little, invest a lot in so many things needed to raise food organically on a small scale for so many households. Thanks so much for your support. This weekend – Our niece Maggie Jones, 24, is returning home to North Carolina after helping out 12 weeks on our farm. She was a huge help and will be truly missed. Volunteer help from subscribers each week are needed in her absence. Some of our Milwaukee subscribers who couldn’t make the past 2 volunteer work weekends wanted to help out at Scotch Hill this Saturday. We’ll be available to work in morning and early-afternoon shifts 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. around a potluck noon meal. We’ll conclude work in time to attend the annual Green-Rock Audubon Society meeting and dinner in Evansville. Anyone free to help out with many different garden and field task is welcome.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Spicy Greens mix
v Dragon Tongue Beans
v Green Beans
v Chard
v Peppers (sweet & hot)
v Squash
v Bok Choi
v Melon
Chard Frittatat from Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food” (2007)
Wash and separate the stems from 1 bunch of chard. Cut the stems into 1/4 –inch slices. Coarsely chop the leaves. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a heavy pan over medium heat. Add 1 medium onion, peeled and sliced thin. Cook for 5 minutes and add the chard stems. Season with a little salt. Cook for 4 minutes and add the leaves. Cook until the leaves are tender, adding a splash of water if the pan dries out. Turn out of the pan onto a plate. Crack into a large bowl 6 eggs. Add 2 teaspoons olive oil, fresh-ground black pepper, a pinch of cayenne (or chopped hot pepper), 4 garlic cloves, chopped. Beat lightly. Gently squeeze the chard with your hands, wringing out most, but not all of the liquid. Stir the chard into the beaten eggs. Thoroughly preheat a 10-inch heavy or nonstick pan over medium-low heat. Pour in 2 tablespoons olive oil. After a few seconds, pour in the egg mixture. As the eggs set on the bottom, lift the edges to allow the uncooked egg to flow underneath. Continue to cook until mostly set. Invert a plate on top of the pan, turn the plate and pan upside down to turn out the frittata onto the plate. Pour in 1 teaspoon olive oil. Slide the frittata back into the pan. Cook for 2 or 3 more minutes. Slide onto a plate and serve warm or at room temperature. As a variation, substitute any greens, broccoli rabe or nettles for or add to the chard. Sliced tomatoes go well with this dish. Serves 4.
17hWeek – 2010 Season
Values you make possible in food
by subscribing to our farm each year
A truly rich person has many values. Dignity that comes from an ability to work and earn a decent living. Humility that puts in perspective our individual limitations and need for others. Goodwill toward all people. Peace from a clear conscience, what Merton calls “the face of one’s soul.” When you and others in sufficient numbers subscribe directly to a farm family for their produce, you make possible so many of those values. You make possible, at least as far as food for a subscription’s duration, economic justice, earth stewardship, community, even a certain spirituality. Justice is itself an extremely valuable and important check on liberty and equality in a democratic society. So many health, environmental, social, economic and government problems would be brought under control if each individual in this country staunchly made justice a guidepost for all transactions. Because we do not, we legitimately fear for the safety and future of all children where so many problems seem to be spiraling out of control. Honestly, there is nowhere to hide. We’re impoverishing everyone when we do injustice. It grieves me to hear from a volunteer in a farmers market I used to attend, that a number of the growers who still vend there face pressure from banks to make good on loans they can’t pay. In my own rural community, a vet’s son told my family that his father had not been paid by any of the farmers he served in several months. When farmers cannot pay a vet who helps keep their livestock and livelihood well, they are in a very, very bad way. The vet is one of the first obligations they meet. If all our vital services are to be sound and secure, we must value ongoing direct and personal relationships. Dela and I decided to do that almost two decades ago now, when we committed ourselves to this vocation, this place, this soil. We value your relationship. We value your support of the local, independent businesses that host our delivery points. We value your support and friendship of the other subscribers in our Community Supported Agriculture farm. We value your input on how we can deepen our values together, improve our production and delivery of food that brings us together. Now that we have no other income but our farm, we need to secure our subscriptions over the next month to meet our farm budget over the next entire year. All our production expenses are rising. Electricity alone has risen from under $100 a month to more than $300 a month. Fuel and vehicle expenses eat up 10 percent of every dollar we earn. We are over the next month using savings to restore a building on our farm into a shop where we plan to work on projects with our family to become more energy self-sufficient with sunflower fuel and possibly solar and wind. We can’t do this alone. Help us keep values first in our joint food system. Frost is finally coming – Over the weekend, we enjoyed help from three Milwaukee subscribers and family. Much work Saturday and Sunday had an eye to gathering in sweet potatoes, peppers, beans and tomatoes from patchy frost that skirted our area Sunday night. Temperatures rose for a 5-day reprieve this week, but patchy frost is again in the forecast Friday night. And southern Wisconsin is likely to sustain vegetable crop damage Saturday and Sunday night, as temperatures dip to 34 degrees F. We’re protecting greens and other cool season crops with new and old coverings. We’re gathering in fall crops. Organic potatoes should be in at least 3 of your final 4 weeks, too. Volunteer help is always needed and welcome. Call or email ahead of visits.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Autumn Salad Mix
v Dragon Tongue Beans
v Green Beans
v Beets
v Peppers
v Eggplant (last time)
v Bok Choi
v Kohlrabi
v Delicata Fall Squash
Marinated Beet Salad from Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food” (2007)
Trim the greens to ½ inch from 1 pound of beets. Wash thoroughly. Put them in a baking dish with a little water (enough to cover the bottom of the dish to a depth of 1/8 inch) and sprinkle with salt. Cover tightly and bake the beets in a 350 degree F oven until they can be easily pierced with a sharp knife, 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on their size. Uncover and cool. Cut off the tops and roots and slip off the skins. Cut the peeled beets into small wedges or ¼-inch dice and spinkle with 1 teaspoon vinegar (red wine, sherry or white wine vinegar. Salt. Let stand for a few minutes to allow the beets to absorb the flavor. Taste and add more salt or vinegar as needed. Toss with 1 to 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil. Serve alone or with other salads. Variations: You can vary this dish by tossing with a tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs (mint, tarragon, and/or cilantro would all do well). Walnut or some other nut oil may be substituted for olive oil. You may also substitute fresh orange juice for some of the vinegar. And you may try baking the beets with 1 teaspoon fennel or cumin seeds sprinkled over them.
18hWeek – 2010 Season
Frost teaches farmers to listen
when Nature and time speak
Frost is never pretty to a vegetable crop farmer. Plants still thriving, still flowering, still producing, suddenly wither, blacken, shrivel unto death. Frost killed off many long rows of our summer plants this week. It’s descending on our gardens and fields almost every night now. We know with our minds that we have to let our plants go. It’s their natural life cycle. In our hearts, it’s always as difficult to let living things die. It’s as difficult as it is to say goodbye to a cherished friend or a child grown up. Yet as Dela and I grow older in this work, we understand that frost is Nature’s way of letting farmers know when “enough is enough.” We tire more easily. We move more slowly. Working 7 days a week, tending so many varieties of plants year after year takes a toll. We gathered in as many tomatoes and peppers as we could in the days before the predicted frost reached into southern Wisconsin. Even as we scrambled to protect what we could among acres of production in scattered fields, we moved on with preparations for next year. Corn stalks are being mowed and disked to plant winter wheat and rye. Melon beds are being cleared of withered vines and black plastic mulch to make way for next summer’s garlic. The shift in tasks stretches different muscles and limbs. The days shorten, forcing us in to the house to rest from cold and darkness. There’s still a lot that needs to be done, putting beds to sleep for winter, tending to cool season crops we grow in high and low tunnels. Volunteer help is still needed. Come visit and help us in our final two weeks of the regular season if you can. Soap sales – Many farm life skills became livelihoods over the course of history. Business and industry specialized production of clothing, linens, woolen goods from plant and animal fibers. From the simple rendering of fat and its soaponification with lye, soaps and skin care products were made on the farm. Yet they eventually inspired manufacturing processes far from the countryside where they originated. And like so much production of goods in this country, we no longer physically or financially control the making of things we need and use everyday. The top 30 skin care companies in the United States, for instance, are all foreign-owned. Dela taught herself to make soap about 12 years ago, and it has consistently provided 20 to 30 percent of our farm income, even as we’ve grown from 30 vegetable crop subscriptions to more than 200. Eighty percent or more of these gross sales meet farm production and operation expenses, especially over winter when crop production falls off even as farm work and life go on and animals need our care and feeding. You can find soap descriptions at www.scotchhillfarm.com . There’s an order form there, too. Over the next few weeks and through the holidays, we’ll be in Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee and Janesville selling or delivering our soap. You can pay with cash or credit card. You can order over the phone, by mail or email. Dominic’s Kitchen Store in Park Ridge and the Green Home Experts in Oak Park sell our soap. We typically sell between 5,000 and 8,000 bars of soap per year; most sales are during holidays. It’s another way you can help restore local control, local business.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Tomatoes (heirloom varieties)
v Chard
v Celery
v Brussels sprouts
v Red Norland Potatoes
v Winter Squash (Acorn)
v Peppers
v Arugula
v Garlic
v Carrots
Brussels sprouts Gratin from Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food” (2007)
Trim the outer leaves and stems from 1 pound Brussels sprouts. Cook them until tender in abundant salted boiling water, about 10 to 12 minutes. Drain the sprouts well and chop coarse. Into a heavy pan over medium heat, put 2 slices bacon or 3 slices pancetta, cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Cook until just rendered and limp. Add the chopped sprouts. Season with salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Stir and cook for a few minutes. Butter a gratin or baking dish. Add the sprouts and bacon and spread evenly. Pour over ½ cup half-and-half, or a mixture of half-and-half and heavy cream. Sprinkle evenly over the sprouts ½ cup fresh breadcrumbs. Top with a thin shaving of butter. Bake in a 400-degree F oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the crumbs are golden and the liquid is bubbling. Variations: Add chopped thyme and garlic to the sprouts with the bacon.
19hWeek – 2010 Season
Helping each other in uncertain times
enriches two-way CSA relationship
Suddenly they were sharing in the joy (and expense) of their first home and their first baby. Both were working full-time jobs and juggling shared tasks. Right away, it seemed, they had a roof that needed replacing. How could they budget for all these new responsibilities – and still manage to sign up for a second year with Scotch Hill Farm? They asked me whether Dela and I’d let them break the payment for vegetables into five checks and a deposit instead of the three staggered payments on our sign-up form. Of course, we agreed. This couple had always been enthusiastic and encouraging. He’d spent a day off in 2009, driving from Milwaukee to our farm for a volunteer work day, and he’d saved us a trip to Milwaukee by transporting a fall share back to other subscribers in his neighborhood. We share their story because we want to actively support you, too. All of us are coping with rising expenses in uncertain times. To help any returning member, we can work out individual payment schedules, with a smaller deposit and a greater number of post-dated checks. Giving us a deposit and commitment this month for the 2011 season will greatly help us plan our winter sales, marketing and production preparations. This was our first full year attempting to rely solely on farm income. To keep focusing on our CSA farm production and improving efficiencies, we need your support. We really want to keep serving, knowing, helping you. Please join us, won’t you? Work day at the farm – Come join environmental studies students and their professor from UW Madison this Saturday in fall tasks that will help put gardens and fields to bed for winter at Scotch Hill. Map and driving directions at www.scotchhillfarm.com Work begins mid-morning, breaking for a potluck lunch and conversation, then continuing in the afternoon. We’ll cease work in time for you to make your way home before dark in the shortening days, this time of year. There’s one more week of regular season vegetable delivery after this week.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Ripe and Green Tomatoes (finish ripening on your kitchen counter top, or cook as green tomatoes)
v Chives
v Russet Potatoes (great for baking; top with chives and goat cheese)
v Delicatta Fall Squash
v Cherry Belle Radishes (possibly a few white radishes in with your bundle, too)
v New lettuce mix (from the new high tunnel – check out its construction in photos on the Scotch Hill Farm face book page)
v Long Pie Pumpkins (slice in half long wise, bake at 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes in a little water; scoop the meat of the pumpkin out of the rind; can use immediately or store in a freezer bag for Thanksgiving pie; makes good pumpkin soup, too)
v Greens Mix
v Onions
v Hakurai Turnips (one pound with greens; awesome flavor in the fall season
v Last gift of Scotch Hill Farm cheese made from out goat milk this season. We love you and thank you!
Potato, Turnip and Carrot Gratin with garlic herb béchamel sauce from “The Vegetable Dishes I can’t Live Without” by Mollie Katzen (2007)
Melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter in a small saucepan over low heat, adding 1 teaspoon minced garlic and ½ teaspoon dried thyme when it’s melted. Whisk in 1 ½ tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour; keep whisking for a minute or so as it forms a thick paste; keep whisking as you drizzle in 1 ¼ cup milk; keeping the mixture moving until there are no lumps. Add 1 bay leaf and turn the heat way down. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 to 8 minutes, or until smooth and silky. Remove from heat and remove the bay leaf. Stir in a dash of salt and a few shakes of white pepper, then set aside. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly spray a 2-quart gratin dish with nonstick spray. Cut ½ pound unpeeled yellow or Yukon Gold potatoes, ½ pound turnips, ½ pound carrots (OR other root crops, such as beets or sweet potatoes) into very thin slices (about 1/8 inch). For the carrots, do this on the diagonal. Spread the cut vegetables, including 1 cup minced shallots or onions, together in the prepared pan to make a single mixed layer. Sprinkle lightly with salt and black pepper. Pour the béchamel sauce over the top of the vegetables and cover the pan tightly with foil. Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour, or until the vegetables are fork-tender. Remove the dish from the oven and remove the foil. Heat broiler. Sprinkle one cup coarse bread crumbs (from some of your favorite bread, especially home-style whole wheat or pumpernickel, and ½ cup grated Swiss cheese (Gruyere or Emmenthaler) on top of vegetables. Broil until cheese is melted and beginning to form a crust. Serve hot. Makes 4 to 5 serving.
20hWeek – 2010 Season
What we’ve done together has to do
with sustaining life, near and far
Everywhere we look we see warning signs. In the air and water. In the marketplace and on the road. In city and countryside, at home and abroad. We see depleted, exploited, exhausted non-renewable resources. We see a pound of carbon entering the atmosphere every mile what we purchase travels. We see broken-down farm equipment shipped to the other side of the globe being melted down and fabricated into cheap products people earning 12 cents an hour make. We see our used motor oil powering huge ships that bring these products back across oceans back to our big box stores for us to buy. We’re birthing children into a very insecure future, and we wonder what to do about it. We hear the word “sustainable” a lot. Mostly, we hear what cannot be sustained. In heart and mind, we cast about for cures, solutions, any way out of a world out of control. Together for nearly half a year, however, your household and ours have held the solution in our hands and in our mouths every week. We’ve funded it, worked on it, nurtured it, sustained it. Products grown within driving distance. People in production and transactions, able to talk with each other. Practices we can verify and trust. A place – Scotch Hill Farm – we can visit, even enjoy and protect. A community and an agriculture we can sustain together. We more than doubled our greenhouse space. We mechanized seeding and weeding for 40 varieties of vegetables. We made half a dozen major farm equipment repairs. We added at least 5 delivery points that have signed up for a second year. We gave two young women hands-on experiences in fundamentals of organic crop and livestock production. We hosted a field day for 25 aspiring farmers, field trips for two university classes, work days for state-line communities. We kept an expensive hybrid SUV delivery vehicle and light trailer on the road a 3rd year. We paid every bill for more than $7,000 a month in operating expenses. We certified more than 40 acres of ground another year in practices that do not poison anyone or anything. And it only cost $21 to $28.50 a week, depending on where you live. Your growers are committed to doing it all again with you, for you to sustain the Earth. Please join us. Next up – the fall/winter share deliveries – First fall shares to (a) Milwaukee will be delivered on Sunday, Oct. 31, during a morning justice event at St. Sebastian’s, and to (b) the Chicago area on Sunday, Nov. 7 (St. Clement Catholic Church has invited us to a Fair Trade /Green Market on that day between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.). More details will follow in another week. Details for on-farm and Madison first fall share delivery will also be sent by email late next week. The second delivery of this double share for all subscribers will be in the week before Thanksgiving feasts.
This Week’s Vegetables are:
v Ripe and Green Tomatoes (finish ripening on your kitchen counter top, or cook as green tomatoes)
v Butternut Fall Squash
v Yellow Potatoes (a great, all-purpose variety)
v Beets
v Garlic
v Spinach
v Turnips
v Kale
v Radishes
v Jimmy Nardello’s hot peppers (finish drying and use later in winter)
v Eggplant (from our high tunnel greenhouse)
v Sweet Potato
Baked Squash with Rosemary Garlic Wine Sauce from “Edible Madison” fall 2010 edition, www.ediblemadison.com
Used sparingly, rosemary has a haunting effect on squash. Note how the more you dig into this dish, the more the wine sauce soaks into and flavors the squash. Makes 4 servings. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Pour 2/3 cup of dry white wine into a large, deep baking dish. Add 2 garlic cloves, halved lengthwise and four rosemary sprigs. Season squash with salt and pepper. Place squash halves cut side-down in the dish so that each one covers a garlic half and a rosemary sprig. Cover with aluminum foil or fitted lid. Bake 40 minutes. Uncover. Turn squash halves right side up and continue baking until flesh is tender, another 10 to 20 minutes. Remove rosemary and garlic. Serve squash haves with wine sauce poured into the middle. (if desired, remove the sauce to a thicker consistency before serving.) Garnish each with a fresh rosemary sprig. (There’s also a column on sweet potatoes in this issue of Edible Madison, including the following: Bake or grill whole at 350 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes, choosing similarly sized roots for uniform cooking. Dip in a sauce of tamari, mirin, sugar, rice vinegar, ginger and scallions. Or split open and douse with butter and chives OR simmer peeled and cubed sweet potatoes in soup, chili, or Thai, Indian or Indonesian coconut curries.)
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