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Waltham Fields Community Farm
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CSA NEWSLETTER
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Week 6: July 15, 2013  
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Summer Programs for Youth in our Learning Garden!
Click here to learn more...
Drop-In Volunteers welcome on Mondays (high school and older) and Saturdays (all ages), arrive at 9am sharp.
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From David Lebovitz who adapted it from Joanne Weir's From Tapas to Meze (Ten Speed). David says "After I wrote this post, I made the salad twice; the second time I added some chopped fresh savory to it. I plan to make it again next week and might added some finely chopped black olives to it."
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded & diced into pea-sized pieces
coarse salt
8 ounces (225g) feta cheese (see Note)
1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
2-3 T freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1 T water
freshly ground black pepper
1 small red onion, peeled and finely-diced
1 T (each) chopped fresh mint, parsley and fresh dill
1. Place the cucumber pieces in a colander, mix with a light sprinkling salt, and let drain 30 minutes to an hour, shaking the colander from time to time.
2. Crumble the feta into a bowl and mash together with the olive oil, lemon juice, water, and a few turns of black pepper.
3. Mix in the cucumbers, onions, and herbs.
Taste, and add more salt if desired. Serve with toasted or soft pita triangles or crackers.
Do you have a recipe you'd like to share? We love to include shareholder recipes in the newsletter! Please send it in to Susan Cassidy. |
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What's In the Share This Week
Each week, we do our best to predict what will be available in the CSA barn and in the fields. The CSA newsletter is prepared before we start harvesting for the week, so sometimes you'll see vegetables in the barn that weren't on the list, and sometimes vegetables will be on the list but won't make it to the barn. Carrots: Our first carrot planting was kind of a mess, with lots of wireworm and tiny carrots that had been in the ground way too long without sizing up. Another farm mystery. This week we'll try again with our second planting. zucchini pile
Zucchini and Summer Squash: We grow several types of summer squash, including standard yellow squash, star-shaped patty pans, striped 'zephyr' squash and gold and green zucchini at our Gateways field in Weston. This time of year, farmers use squash as the base for enchiladas, salads, refined no-cook meals like sliced zucchini on toast with ricotta, olive oil and basil, simple but nutritious meals like lentils and quinoa with grilled squash, and many others. Enjoy!
Cucumbers: Cukes are such a key part of any July harvest. Our first planting was set back by cucumber beetles, but seems to be recovering to make a fine performance now.
Potatoes: These little beauties are "new potatoes", with delicate skins and delicious flavor. Try them on the grill!
Kale or Swiss Chard: Our greens are suffering in this very dry weather we're having. We've got fall successions of both kale and chard in the ground and growing, but until they're ready, we'll have to eke it out with the older generation. We'll try to make sure there's a cooking green in the share this week, but we're not sure yet what it will be!
Beets with Greens: Still going! For some reason our early beet crop has been beautiful. Not sure why, but we'll take it!
Fresh Onions: We grow some beautiful varieties of fresh-eating onions on the farm that are perfect for salads, sandwiches, or anything else you can imagine. We'll be harvesting them over the next few weeks. They keep best in the refrigerator; you can keep their tops on or cut them off, but keep them in a bag for best results.
Fresh Garlic: We plant garlic during the World Series and harvest around the time of the All-Star Break. You'll see the majority of the crop hanging in the barn to cure for a couple of weeks, but you can use this versatile vegetable now, too. Use it fresh just like you would cured garlic (keep it in the fridge for best results), or hang it in a cool, dry spot in your house to cure if you want it to last longer.
And a few surprises from Picadilly Farm, the great New Hampshire family farmers who provide us with 100 shares each week!
Pick-Your-Own Crops This Week Pick-your-own fields are open to all shareholders any day of the week during daylight hours. Please check the pick-your-own stand for maps and a list of available crops, along with amounts to pick. Please harvest only in labelled rows, and pay close attention to the amounts you harvest in order to ensure that there will be enough for all shareholders. Hot Peppers: Jalapenos and serranos are early this year! Enjoy them, but pick carefully only where signs are. Cilantro Dill Parsley Basil: Just to make things more interesting on the farm, there's a relatively new disease called basil downy mildew out there that will take down even a beautiful basil crop. In order to keep it from spreading to our second and third successions, we're asking you to pull or cut whole plants this week. The disease is not harmful to humans, and doesn't affect the quality of the basil as long as you can't see it. Time to make pesto with some of that fresh garlic! Perennial Garden Herbs & Flowers: Please pick carefully (use scissors), pay attention to signs, and watch your step in the perennial garden. There are many great herbs that are going to be ready later in the season!
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NOTES FROM THE FIELD: The All-Star Break
Many thanks to Saul Blumenthal for kindly sharing the exceptional photos below.
This short break for baseball is no break on the farm. It's high season, and it always seems to be the week when it's over 90 degrees with no rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future. Our neighbors to the west and north have been slammed with rain, but the spot thunderstorms that have been popping up in eastern Massachusetts have missed us so far. The last week when we got over a half inch of rain was back in mid-June, and we've had less than a quarter inch in total so far this month. Vegetables need about an inch of water a week to grow the way we'd like them to. Do the math, and it quickly becomes clear that we've been doing a lot of irrigating.
 As soon as the weed crew finishes a project, we scramble to move the big aluminum irrigation pipes to get water on the newly exposed plants so that they won't expire in the heat. As fast as we can harvest, we move the crops to the wash station to be plunged in cold water and packed in the 38 degree cooler. Zannah and Sutton fire up their pumps throughout the week to keep drip irrigation flowing to the peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, melons and tomatoes at the Lyman and Gateways fields. It's hard weather to work in, but it's good weather for hot-weather crops, if they can get enough water. On the other hand, it is tough weather for crops like chard, lettuce and kale, as well as the broccoli and cauliflower we put in over the last two weeks. Our first planting of greens is suffering in the dry weather, but we're watering the second planting like crazy to try to get it to move along for an August harvest.
 The good news is that this upcoming week of hot, dry weather will help keep the late blight that was found in Western Massachusetts last week at bay; the organism that causes late blight, a devastating disease of tomatoes and potatoes, does not thrive in hot weather. Other diseases, like basil downy mildew, and pests, like onion thrips, Mexican bean beetle, flea beetle and potato leaf hopper, don't seem to mind the heat. This season, we've entered into a new relationship with the University of Massachusetts Extension Service in which they visit us every two weeks to scout the farm for pest and disease issues and make recommendations to help us deal with them. As a result, we know a great deal about all the issues our crops are having this year (onion maggot! cabbage root maggot! pythium! heat damage followed by alternaria spread by irrigation water! thrips! tomato fungal disease!) in a season in which we seem to have hit the jackpot of those issues. Our continuing education in plant pathology and entomology, while fascinating, is also a little discouraging, since it usually involves a recommendation to spray one of the two effective insecticides we're allowed to use as organic growers or to rotate the crop far away from its current location for many years.
 This week also marks the beginning of our Outreach Market in downtown Waltham. The Market, now in its fifth year, is our most powerful tool for doing the important work for which the farm was founded -- helping provide access to healthy food for all people, regardless of income. With the help of donations from our members, including CSA shareholders, we work with local social service agencies who have connections with Waltham's low-income population to distribute vouchers to their clients for a free bag of vegetables at the Market. Folks who don't have vouchers can purchase a bag of vegetables for five dollars, filling it to the brim with their choice of whatever veggies we have available that week. People who happen by and are curious about the market get lots of information about the farm and the purpose of the market -- and if they still feel like they qualify for a five dollar bag of vegetables, they get one, no questions asked. Thanks to Martha Creedon and the Waltham Farmers' Market, we can also accept EBT payments for vegetables at the market. More than $45,000 worth of produce moved through the Outreach Market last season. It is a project of which we are very proud and to which we are deeply committed, even in a challenging season.
 Weeds, water, diseases, markets, lots of plants waiting to go into the ground -- no, it's no break, it's mid-season. We're hopeful that soon the harvests will take off and we'll have less time to worry -- I mean, think. Until then, we'll enjoy this moment of midsummer when, as Hal Borland wrote, "the beat of time is like the throb of a healthy heart, strong, steady and reassuring...it is the richness and the ripeness of the earth again made manifest. And man participates, if he will, not as proprietor but as a participant in life itself."
Amanda, for the farm staff
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Marla Rhodes, Development AssistantAmanda Cather, Farm ManagerErinn Roberts, Greenhouse and Field ManagerDan Roberts, Field ManagerSutton Kiplinger, Assistant Grower Zannah Porter, Assistant Grower Andy Scherer, Farmer Hector Cruz, Maricela Escobar, Amber Carmer Sandager and Lauren Trotogott, Field Crew Lizzie Callaghan, Sage Dumont, Jesse Santosuosso, Weed Crew Mikaela Burns, Andrea Coughlan, Matthew Crawford, Farm Educators
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