Waltham Fields Community Farm
CSA NEWSLETTER 2016
Week 9 of 20
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In This Issue
MUSHROOM GROWING 101
Saturday, August 6th, 10-11:30am
at Waltham Fields Community Farm

Last chance to join Fat Moon Farm's Elizabeth Almeida for fun with fungi: from how mushrooms impact an ecosystem to hands-on experience about growing your own mushrooms. Participants will be bringing home everything needed to start growing mushrooms at home! 

FRIENDLY CSA REMINDER

Each week when you check in, we tell you how many different items to take inside the barn. Unless indicated, taking twice the amount of what is labeled per item and considering it two items is not allowed. We have a carefully planned system in place to meet all the needs of the farm.  The amounts of vegetables allotted for the CSA are determined from years of record keeping and what we have available from the harvests. At the end of each day the barn is open, the remaining produce is recorded and the farmers base this information towards their harvests the following day. Every week, our farmers are harvesting not only for the 445 CSA shares but also enough food for 100 low-income families to pick up at our Outreach Market, our Farm-to-School deliveries for 5 months of the year, as well as our planned, weekly donations to regional emergency food programs.  Your CSA share is just that: you are sharing a part of the harvest with your greater community. We thank you for being a part of such a wonderful program and for honoring and respecting our system as we strive to make fresh, local food available to everyone. We hope you are enjoying the bounty of the season as much as we enjoy bringing it to you!  

Pick Your Own 

Please obtain your weekly PYO sheets at the PYO stand behind the barn (in front of the high tunnel) before you go out into the fields to pick. We ask that you read the sheets to ensure you are picking the correct amounts & crops in the right manner as each day the maps can change. Thanks!
WHAT'S IN THE SHARE - Our Best Guess
This is our best guess at this point. Actual crops may vary from what's listed here due to a variety of factors. 
  
In the Barn (Picked for You)

Beets
Bok choy
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Summer squash
Zucchini
Carrots
Eggplant
Onions
Potatoes
Bell peppers
Scallions
Celery

Pick Your Own (PYO): 
Parsley, basil, dill, cilantro, cherry tomatoes & Perennial Herb & Flower Garden

SPRING RECIPES
We have a ton of great recipes on our website, including many different suggestions for eggplantClick here to check them out!
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Week 9: Trials & Tribulations of This Summer
Erinn Roberts, Farm Manager

Although last week brought more of the same - yup, hot and dry - by Friday we at least had the first cloud cover that we've seen in weeks.  The predicted rain for Friday, Saturday and Sunday didn't amount to much, and we're still very much feeling the effects of the drought that 99% of Massachusetts is experiencing.  It's not just that we're moving our irrigation systems constantly, which has accounted for many, many labor hours this year, but that it has been impossible to get a buildup of soil moisture.  The depth of dryness is so extensive, the soil particles are so desiccated and the air has been so hot that the tension between getting water on as many crops as possible over the course of a week and having water on crops long enough to really soak them has been one we can't ease.   Lack of water leads to stressed crops which in turn makes them more susceptible to pests and disease.  We're seeing this effect heavily in our spring planted kale and collards, which are staples of the CSA distribution and our Outreach Market.  It used to be that flea beetle pressure would be high in the spring but by the time we were putting fall brassicas in the ground in mid-July, pressure would be low enough to not affect them too much.  There would be a perfect lull in the population and when the second generation appeared briefly in the hot days of August, the plants would be established enough to fend them off and be less appealing to the pest.  This summer is the worst pressure I've seen of the beetle, and our newly planted cabbages, kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, and especially napa have already needed a spraying of the few approved controls we're able to use in organic production.  We seem to be in the midst of a population boom with the second generation coming on earlier than ever.  For the first time ever, we've decided to use row cover on a few beds of July planted napa seedlings, a control method we usually reserve for the cooler weather afforded by the spring.  We've had to spray our spring planting multiple times and I was surprised and disappointed to see our purple kale practically black with flea beetles last week.  And despite getting the irrigation going on them at least weekly, the plants seem to have stopped growing altogether in the droughty heat wave.  There have been many hours spent weeding, feeding and watering our earlier planting of kale and collards and I am hoping that they'll pull through the next month to bridge the gap to the new planting.  But if the flea beetle pressure on them continues to be too strong to contain then we'll have to make the tough decision to mow it early in order to ensure the health of our fall crops.  As for now, we're taking a break from harvesting both kale and collards with the hope that a little more tending will get them back on track. 

One of the other big challenges the drought has presented has been with our direct seeded crops.  Most of what we grow is started in the greenhouse and transplanted out into the fields as seedlings.  A few crops, namely carrots, dill, cilantro and beans, are seeded multiple times throughout the season directly in ground.  Usually just a little soil moisture is enough to get these guys germinated and popping through the soil, either ahead of or neck and neck with the plentiful weed seeds in our fields.   This year we're struggling with all in-field germination, which has been erratic, unreliable and sometimes just not there.  The weeds, however, are as opportunistic as ever, and the irrigation that we're putting on our direct seeded beds has frustratingly been enough to encourage weed germination but not our crops.  When this happens, it becomes extremely difficult to cultivate or even hand weed the beds.  A flush of weeds grows rapidly, and if we've got our cilantro or carrots coming up a week later at best, and another week or so before the crops are established enough to actually weed around, then we end up in quite a pickle.  At that point, the weeds are so well rooted that it becomes even more disruptive to pull them out and increases the likelihood of pulling out the small, tender, just barely there crop.  On top of that, the soil is probably pretty dry, because we probably have the irrigation going on the newly planted lettuce that we're trying to keep alive in the 95 degree heat.  Weeding small crops in these hot and dry conditions can actually disrupt the plants to create more harm than good.  My hope here is that you can start to understand why the beans, dill and cilantro you may be picking in the next couple weeks are such a hairy jungle.  Luckily, the cherry and plum tomatoes have strong fruit sets and we're starting to see some more consistent ripening with them.  We're getting water on the tomatillos and husk cherries as much as we can and hoping to see them, along with the chiles, come on in the next few weeks.

It's tough to keep energy and attitude from faltering in the kind of weather we've had this season.  The past few weeks in particular have been so hot and trying that it's demanded a real commitment to community and camaraderie from everyone working in the fields.  Thankfully, everyone was able to rise above the impossible drain of the heat waves and keep on keeping on.  By Friday we had those precious clouds all day (though not filled with nearly as much rain as we would have liked) and I was feeling the cumulative fatigue of countless 90+ degree days and relentless sun.   But with a spirit true to both farm crews this year, everyone rallied for a 3:30 power push, getting the last of our cauliflower planted in record time, all of us racing against our own exhaustion.  With a final burst of energy, we surged through the end of July together.

Enjoy the harvest!
-Erinn, for the farm staff

Potatoes freshly pulled from the ground.

Lettuce bed pathways being cultivated.
WHAT'S IN THE BARN 

  
Have you tried this authentic Lebanese food made right in Belmont? The spreads are made from fresh ingredients & contain no preservatives. We often carry hummus plus, zesty hummus plus, muhammara, baba ganoush, vegetarian stuffed grape leaves, and occasionally we'll have fresh (sometimes frozen) lavash (Lebanese-style pita bread made at Helen's Bakery in Rhode Island). They accompany any farm meal nicely or make for a satisfying snack or appetizer. 

All of our retail products are available for sale to the public. For our own produce offerings, we prioritize giving shareholders a good return on their investment and meeting our food assistance goals (22% of what we grow - which should amount to $80,000 of produce for low-income households this year)
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Early in the season, crops for sale to the public will be those that we have an abundance of, and later in the season, if production is going well, we hope to operate as a full-fledged farm store with a wide range of vegetables available to the public during our weekly CSA distribution hours.
Turkey Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers
Serves 4

Ingredients
  • 1 pound ground turkey, beef or pork
  • 1/2 cup quinoa, uncooked
  • 1 1/4 cup chicken broth (Low Sodum), separated
  • 1/2 cup tomato sauce
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 2-3 large bell peppers, halved and seeded
  • 1 cup of shredded cheese
Instructions 
  1. Heat a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Add olive oil. Sauté onions and garlic, stirring occasionally until fragrant (a couple minutes).
  2. Add ground meat, cumin, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Break up the meat using a wooden spoon/spatula, allowing it to brown (4-5 minutes).
  3. Once meat is almost completely browned, add uncooked quinoa, tomato sauce, 1 cup of chicken broth, and chopped cilantro. Stir well to combine then cover. Let simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes.
  4. While the mixture simmers, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and slice the bell peppers in half. Remove the seeds and white membranes inside.
  5. Put bell peppers halves into an oven proof dish. Fill each half with as much meat-quinoa filling as you can. Pour remaining ¼ cup of chicken broth into the baking dish and cover tightly with foil.
  6. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil, sprinkle each bell pepper with shredded cheese and bake another 10 minutes. Serve immediately.
Share Pick Up Questions
More questions about share pickup?  Check out our CSA FAQs!  You can also contact Lauren Trotogott, our Distribution Coordinator.
Quick Links
Waltham Fields Community Farm Staff

Year-Round Staff:
Shannon Taylor, Executive Director
Marla Rhodes, Volunteer & Development Coordinator
Erinn Roberts, Farm Manager
Anna Kelchlin, Assistant Farm Manager
Alexandra Lennon-Simon, Education & Outreach Manager
Lauren Trotogott, Distribution Coordinator
Kamelia Aly, Bookkeeper & Office Coordinator

Seasonal Staff:
Assistant Grower: Janelle Plummer
Greenhouse Production Supervisor: Naomi Shea
Equipment Supervisor: Dan Roberts
Field Crew: Heidi Blake, Stacey Daley, Allison Ostrowski, Andre Tufenkian
Weed Crew: Annie Carter, Jenny Grossman, Jack Spiva, Rebekah Waller
Learning Garden Educators: Autumn Cutting, Alannah Glickman, Jack Leng
CSA Assistant: Danielle Barmash

www.communityfarms.org
240 Beaver Street
Waltham, MA 02452