06-13-2009 Farm Message

STAR HOLLOW FARM NEWS

For the week preceding Saturday, June 13^th, 2009

General news & info

Hello all!

Produce: new (or back) this week are..

• Greens: Lacinato kale, collards, baby arugula.

• Veggies: Organic asparagus, broccoli, shell and snow peas, new red potatoes, gold squash.

• Mushrooms: Star Hollow shiitakes

• Cheese: Keswick Creamery's cheddar, feta, dragon's breath, ricotta. Pipe Dream's goat ash log and demi-sec.

• Berries: Strawberries

• Herbs: a dozen kinds of herbs total, this week with larger basil, cilantro, dill, tarragon, summer savory.

On the farm: I just looked back over the message I wrote last year on this week. We had just begun planting potatoes because it had been so wet. Onions were just going in also. So, even though the wetness has held us back this spring, we did have some dry earlier that we didn't have last year, and we're actually well ahead of planting over last year. Our 5 varieties of winter squash are all ready to go out into the fields whenever it's dry enough. I had about 4 hours on Monday afternoon that the ground was dry enough to work, but I chose to hill and cultivate the potatoes that were already a foot tall and pretty weedy over planting squash. Always tradeoffs. It rained again during the night, and so we're waiting for dry ground again.

Shiitake mushrooms: We're tickled that our shiitake mushrooms are starting to produce. We go up each morning and harvest the mushrooms that look ready from the soaked logs on the fruiting stand and then start soaking more logs for the next batch. Within a day or two the mushrooms start popping out of the logs. We've also soaked the oyster mushroom logs, but aren't seeing any action there yet. We've reduced the portion size on the shiitakes to just a quarter pound, so that they're not so expensive. (Shiitakes are typically the most expensive of the commonly available fresh mushrooms around, and the log-grown versions are notably more flavorful and more highly regarded than the house-grown ones.)

What does LOCAL mean? And why should we care? Local food has been touted lately as being better for the environment, more nutritious, better tasting, and good for local communities. We're always reading the ag press and seeing what they have to say on the subject. We got the "Local Harvest" e-newsletter last week, and it contained their definition, which I'll include. "Local food is grown near here, on a human scale, by people who care deeply about the land and make thoughtful, conscientious choices for its stewardship. It is nutritionally intact and fantastic tasting (!)... Its history is knowable and unsullied... In other words, local goes way beyond geography. It is food we know in our bellies we can trust... Real food." A bit pretentious and self-serving, but we agree!

PASA gathering: We had about 40 or so folks over last Sunday afternoon for a tour and potluck, people from our south-central region that are members of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. It's PASA's winter conference that we take a week off to attend, and then tell you about afterwards, when we're all “charged up.” It was fun, and we had a beautiful afternoon / evening to enjoy it. I hope that we are as lucky with our CSA open farms, starting next month!

Open-farm dates: The first “open farm” is less than a month away. Below are the dates we've set aside for our open-farm get-togethers.

• July 4^th and 5^th, August 1^st and 2^nd, September 5^th and 6th

Star Hollow CSA blog: (http://starhollowfarmcsa.blogspot.com/) Email Michele (smcasto@gmail.com) if you want to become a “contributor.”

CSA-Specific News

Planned CSA produce for this week:

This week the plan is for a pint of strawberries, a bunch of Lacinato kale (aka Dyno, Black, or Tuscan), a small bag of lambsquarters (wild spinach), a pint of snow peas, a pound of new red potatoes – the first of the season, a head of bibb lettuce and a few radishes to go on top, along with some onions. Enjoy!

CSA box values. Someone asked a week or so ago about why the dollar value of the CSA boxes isn't always $15.00, as it was last year. Since we had said the box would be $15 originally, we felt locked into that amount. Then, about this time last year, it occurred to me that the way our bookkeeping works there was not really any reason why it had to come out to exactly $15, which was often a challenge for us. So we did a survey and asked for any comments about having a “roughly” $15 box, but variable from week to week. Every person who responded said fine. It's only been since we've gotten under way this year that we've actually enacted that, and so now perhaps you're seeing it for the first time, depending on whether you've been ordering all along or not.

Adams Morgan CSA volunteers. Thanks to Barbara & Chuckie and Lily & Tyler for their help handing out orders last weekend.

Thanks for your support!

Randy, Chris and all at Star Hollow Farm

recipes for greens?

I'm preemptively trying to find a (vegetarian) recipe where I cook the kale and possibly wild spinach (in this week's box). Any suggestions?

Pesto

Unfortunately I haven't had much luck with herbs in my apartment (my windowsill is either too sunny or too shady), so I'm quite fond of the herbs from Star Hollow. As such, I've made a number of pesto's, since I usually have leftovers from whatever it is I'm cooking. Making pesto is a great way to use herbs, and it freezes really well (and defrosts quickly for an easy after work dinner). I've made pesto with any combination of herbs and nuts that I have on hand (basil, sage, tarragon, almonds, walnuts, pine nuts...). I bought this tarragon for a terrific potato salad recipe, and had a bunch left. This pesto is about half a large garlic clove, a scant one cup of tarragon, Pecorino Romano, toasted pine nuts, salt and olive oil. I will likely use with pasta, or, if I'm motivated, use in a variation of a pork chop recipe that was in the NYT the other week. For now, though, it's in the freezer!

The best thing we've tasted since pear season...

Many thanks to the Macks and Martins!

Log-grown shiitakes at Star Hollow Farm

June 6, 2009 Farm Message

STAR HOLLOW FARM NEWS

For the week preceding Saturday, June 6^th, 2009

General news & info

Hello all!

Produce: new (or back) this week are..

• Greens: Rainbow chard, green kale, red Boston lettuce, bunched spinach.

• Veggies: Sugar snap peas, Baby beets with tops, baby sweet white turnips with tops, kohlrabi with tops, French breakfast radishes, yellow tomatoes.

• Cheese: Goat cheese: ash log and demi-sec.

• Berries: STRAWBERRIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Other: This season's strawberry jam.

More changes to store checkout pages: Last week we added a graphic look to the pages, highlighting “page 1 of 4,” etc. with the idea of reducing the number of people that didn't get to page 4 of 4 (and thus not really submitting the order they thought they placed). It was not 100% effective. This week we've added a larger, more conspicuous “Continue” button, in a bright color, and renamed it “Next Step.” Maybe that will also call attention to the need to keep going. (It's our Star Hollow Farm “Next Step” program for recovering order abandoners.)

Another thing we're going to try to improve is the “SELECT PICK-UP SITE” drop-down box. Every week there are folks who don't select anything, or people in a hurry who select the wrong site. Until we get to that, however, if you would try to be extra thoughtful to select a site, and have it be the one you really want...

On the farm: We've been hard at it, trying to get field work done in between cloudbursts and thunderstorms. We got in our second acre of potatoes before a rain on Monday, and then were able to cultivate the first-planted potatoes that are already a foot tall and were weedy as could be, so now all of our potatoes are under control. For the moment. (And you don't want to mess with Out-of-Control potatoes, believe me.) (It's early, I'm tired, and this is what happens.) (Sorry.) (!)

Now it's time to shift over to our next largest crop, winter squash. We have planted 1200 plants each of butternut, acorn, delicata, and gray, green and red kabocha squash in the greenhouse. Still to go are 1200 buttercup. After the ground dries out again – we had a tremendous thunderstorm and downpour, knocking out our power last night – we'll start laying plastic mulch and transplanting out the squash.

We're also tickled that our shiitake mushrooms are starting to produce, although rather slowly. We've set up our “fruiting stand” and soak logs each day. Within a day or two the mushrooms start popping out of the logs! Pretty cool, though at first observation, it's not as many as we would have hoped :( I'm sure there is a lot more to learn about them, and they don't exactly have my undivided attention at this time of the year.

Star Hollow CSA blog: Why not cut and paste this link into your “bookmarks” now? (http://starhollowfarmcsa.blogspot.com/) We'll also put it in the weekly emails. Thanks Michele! email her (smcasto@gmail.com) if you want to become a “contributor.”

Open-farm dates: The first “open farm” is just 4 weeks away. Below are the dates we've set aside for our open-farm get-togethers. Those weekends are:

• July 4^th and 5^th

• August 1^st and 2^nd

• September 5^th and 6th

You're invited to spend anytime from Saturday noon to Sunday afternoon with us here. We'll show you around, talk, relax, eat, etc. We ask you to bring a dinner dish with you for Saturday evening, and we'll make you eggs and potatoes for breakfast Sunday. Camping is available anywhere on the farm... no indoor facilities are available for sleeping. If you're interested, let us know in advance and we'll email you directions.

CSA-Specific News

Planned CSA produce for this week: (“Strawberries,” he shouted.)

This week the plan is for a quart of our first strawberries, some Boston lettuce, microgreens, a few garlic scapes, an onion, one or two log-grown shiitake mushrooms, a red tomato, and a bunch of herbs (spearmint or oregano or chives). Enjoy!

Adams Morgan CSA volunteers. Thanks to Ruth and Eva and Jodie and her daughter for their help handing out orders last weekend. (Request from the farm: if you decide you can't make your shift the following week, and you cross out your name on the volunteer calendar, please tell Randy right then so he can ask people to sign up there at the truck.)

Thanks for your support!

Randy, Chris and all at Star Hollow Farm

Tuscarora Frittata

This frittata was made entirely with ingredients from the farmer's market: onions, mushrooms, spinach, eggs, and soft goat cheese. The goat cheese is so delicious, I could add it to just about any dish. I've been using it mostly for salads - greens, toasted nuts, dried cranberries, oil/lemon/mustard and the goat cheese crumbled over it all - lovely. I've had it spread on a grilled hamburger - mouthwatering. It's also nice on a cracker with a little slice of fruit. If you haven't ordered the goat cheese yet, you really should. It's divine.