News from Waltham Fields Community Farm CSA

Amanda Cather <farmmanager@communityfarms.org>
Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Reply-To: farmmanager@communityfarms.org
To: Shareholders
 
local food for everyoneWaltham Fields Community Farm
CSA Newsletter #19
October 13, 2008
 
In This Issue
What's In the Share This Week
Pick-Your-Own Crops
Farmer-in-Chief
Third Sunday Gathering October 19
Notes from the Field
Quick Links
Save the Date:  Harvest Potluck, November 9
Come celebrate the bounty of the season!  Bring a dish to share!

Great food, live music, children's activities and a raffle with prizes to include handmade pottery by WFCF staff, a harvest basket filled with local foods, free passes to Johnny D's, and Boston Celtics tickets!

6:00-8:00 PM
At the Farm
Field Station Auditorium
240 Beaver Street
Waltham MA

Coming up:  the NOFA Winter Conference

Save the date! The Northeast Organic Farming Association's 22nd Annual Winter Conference will be held on Saturday January 17th, 2009 at the Worcester Vocational Regional Technical High School.

Eliot Coleman will be presenting the keynote address and will also present an all day intensive workshop on four- season growing. Coleman is a long time farmer and the author of "The New Organic Grower", "Four Season Harvest" and "The Winter Harvest Manual".

The conference will include workshops geared to farmers as well as backyard gardeners, consumers and advocates for a local, organic food system. The conference includes a children's program and we welcome participants to join us for a delicious potluck lunch.

Registration will begin in early December, information can be found on the NOFA website.
Sweet and Sour Radicchio
From Bon Appétit | Nov 2003. 
 
Ingredients
2 T unsalted butter
2 T olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 T sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 large heads of radicchio (about 1 1/2 pounds), cored, each cut into 8 wedges
1/3 cup raisins
1 1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground black pepper
2 T toasted pine nuts
 
Preparation
Melt butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sugar. Sauté until onion is lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Add vinegar; stir to blend. Add radicchio, raisins, salt, and pepper. Cook until radicchio is just wilted, about 5 minutes. Transfer to serving dish; sprinkle with pine nuts.
Bring us your compost!

Bring your own household compost if you don't mind the walk to the compost piles. Acceptable compost ingredients include all vegetable and fruit scraps, eggshells, bread crusts and coffee grounds.  Please, no other animal products.  Thanks to everyone who has helped us build our compost piles!

We need plastic bags!


Please bring us your bundles of plastic bags!  We can use them for the last two distributions of the season.  Thanks so much in advance!

Welcome to the 2008 Harvest Season!

CSA Pickups at the Farm this Week:
 

braising greens 
  • Tuesday, October 14 from 3-7 PM
  • Thursday, October 16 from 3-7 PM
  • Sunday, October 19 from 3-7 PM
CSA Pickup in Davis Square (for pre-registered shareholders only):
  • Tuesday, October 14 from 5-7 PM

Our final pickups of the 2008 season will be October 21, 23 and 26. 
What's In the Share This Week

Please note: This list is prepared the week before you receive your share.  Some guesswork is involved!
 
We do our best to predict which crops will be ready to harvest, but sometimes crops are on the list that are not in the share, and sometimes crops will be in the share even though they're not on the list. eggplant and green peppers
  • Carrots
  • Acorn Squash
  • Potatoes
  • Chicory:  endive, escarole or radicchio.  Chicories have a characteristically bitter flavor that pairs well with creamy or smoky ingredients.  While they are delicious chopped fine in salads along with nuts, cheeses and apples, they are also fabulous grilled.  Our farmers love them seared, splashed with balsamic vinegar, and stirred into a winter squash risotto.  Ann Ramsay, one of our work sharers, sautees escarole with white beans, garlic, olive oil and red pepper flakes for a perfect Italian side dish; toss with whole grain pasta for a complete meal. 
  • Brussels sprouts
  • Cabbage
  • Turnips

Pick-Your-Own Crops This Week
 
purple astersShareholders are welcome to pick-your-own during daylight hours Mondays through Thursdays and Sundays.

Please remember to check the white board on the red kiosk for PYO information and current picking conditions!


  • Cilantro
  • Dill
  • Parsley
  • Perennial Herbs
Farmer-in-Chief: 
Agricultural Agenda for a New Age


While we won't tell anyone who to vote for in the upcoming election, food policy is heavily on our minds.  We hope you will take the time to read Michael Pollan's excellent article in the New York Times, which lays out the deep importance of transforming the way we grow and consume food in our country, and the leadership role that the next government can take in making these changes a reality.  You are already voting for this change with your food dollars -- let's work together to make sure the food establishment hears us!
Third Sunday:  October 19
Fall Greens Demo and Tasting

1:30-4:30 pm:  Family friendly volunteering on the farm -- help our farmers plant garlic for next season!
4:30-5:30 pm:  Eat Your Greens!

Wondering what to do with those braising greens and chicories?  Join us in hosting Verena Wieloch, farmer at Gaining Ground, Inc., for a fall greens cooking demonstration and tasting.  Verena has a culinary degree from Boston University.
Notes from the Field

Last Tuesday night, after I picked my son up from daycare and drove home to make dinner, I began to get an odd feeling.  It was a nagging, you're-forgetting-something feeling that would not go away even after I made sure that I had remembered to bring home Jonah's lunchbox and to pay the electric bill.  Every time I opened the back door to let one of the dogs in or out, a cold draft would seep into the house, making the feeling stronger.  All of a sudden, as my husband Mark walked into the house from his evening meeting, bringing with him a chilly breath of air scented with whirling dry leaves, it hit me:  there was going to be a frost, and I had forgotten to cover the lettuce.  We had seen damage on some of the leaves from the light frost we had had that morning, and some of the varieties seemed more susceptible to cold damage than others.  lettucesWith the fall's best delicate butterheads and hearty romaines still out in the field, there was no way around it -- if I didn't put a 'blanket' of white row cover over our six mature lettuce beds, I wouldn't be able to sleep that night.

There was no real rush.  The coldest part of the night is usually the clear hours just before dawn, so the temperature had a ways to fall before it posed any danger to the lettuce.  We finished up dinner (pasta with late-season tomatoes, arugula, olives and capers) and I put on my long underwear shirt, fleece vest and hat.  Mark lent me his headlamp and, after trying unsuccessfully to convince Mark and Jonah that stumbling around the fields in the dark would be fun for the whole family, I drove back to the farm. 

cultivated rowsDuring the height of the growing season, I don't spend much time alone on the farm.  Farm staff, volunteers, and shareholders -- all the folks who put the 'community' in our farm's name -- fill the fields and greenhouses, keeping me from ever being lonely.  Sometimes I come home from a day at work and think that I talked from morning until evening -- not a common feeling for a traditional farmer, but definitely an everyday occurrence at Waltham Fields.  That Tuesday night, however, was a different story.  The playing field next door to the farm was lit up by silvery floodlights and I could hear the shouts of football players and coaches practicing, but the woods and fields were dark and silent.  The chorus of cicadas and katydids that has filled the autumn evenings was silenced by the chill.  The skeletal remnants of okra plants as high as my head were silhouetted starkly against the deep blue of the sky and a sliver of waxing moon.  The lush beds of lettuce and chicory were in sharp relief in the headlights of the car as I pulled up and stepped out into the night. 

I worked quickly.  My headlamp sent a focused beam of light towards row cover, lettuce beds, pathways.  The white row cover floated over the beds easily in the still air until all six were tucked in.  There was no wind, so there was no need to weight down the edges of the row cover that night.  I was finished in under half an hour, but I wasn't quite ready to leave.  I turned off my headlamp and stood for a few minutes in the midst of the quiet fields, watching the lights of the city through the dark trees and breathing in the smell of the cooling soil, watching the mist curling off the black hulks of the compost piles, listening to the traffic on Beaver Street and the deeper, underlying silence of the earth preparing for winter.   When I had filled up my heart with the quiet, I got back into my car and drove home.

I guess everyone has a fantasy job.  Mine is to be the catcher for the Red Sox, but I think there may be some factors that make that highly unlikely (one being, I can't catch).  With that out of the picture, though, I think it's safe to say that there is no other job in the world I would choose than the one I am privileged to have.  This season's up and down weather has been a real test of that commitment, but every long-term relationship has its tests.  The REAL catcher for the Sox, Jason Varitek, is reportedly as well-prepared a player as you'll find anywhere.  He keeps statistics and video on every hitter he faces, and preps his pitchers well for each game.  catching baseballPitchers shake off Tek's signs to their peril.  I imagine that he loves the roar of the crowd, the intensity of the game, the opportunity to help bring along young players and to help them find their own talents.  But I also imagine that he must stand for a few moments on the field at Fenway after the lights go out every once in awhile and find his place in the larger order, particularly late in the season.  Standing in one field or another, we are on hallowed ground.  Thanks, once again, for making it possible.
Warmly,

The Staff of Waltham Fields Community Farm
 
Amanda Cather, Farm Manager
Debra Guttormsen, Administrative and Finance Coordinator
Paula Jordan, Children's Learning Garden
Claire Kozower, Executive Director
Jonathan Martinez, Assistant Grower
Dan Roberts, Farm Crew
Erinn Roberts, Assistant Grower
Andy Scherer, Assistant Farm Manager
Mark Walter, Children's Learning Garden
Waltham Fields Community Farm | 240 Beaver Street | Waltham | MA | 02452