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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!
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Farm Wish List
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Used rain gear in good condition (all adult sizes welcome!)
5 gallon buckets, preferably with lids
Tools: shovels, metal rakes (not leaf rakes), and pitchforks
55 gallon containers
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Garlic Scape Pesto |
A shareholder sent us this recipe, though it was a little late for the first havest, it's good to have this in mind for the next time! Cut scapes into 1/4" lengths and process 1
cup of them in food processor with 1/3 cup walnuts or pignolia nuts.
Drizzle in olive oil (1/4 cup plus) while still processing. Remove from
processor and stir in maybe 3/4 cup finely grated parmesan or romano.
Put in a quart freezer bag and press down into a sheet 1/4" thick and
freeze. Use raw or add to recipes in place of garlic.Packs a wallop!
Many thanks for the recipe suggestions and links you sent in last week --
keep 'em coming! Need
more ideas? Visit our Produce Info and Recipes |
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Welcome to the 2008 Harvest Season!
CSA Pickups at the Farm this Week:
- Tuesday, July 8 from 3-7 PM
- Thursday, July 11 from 3-7 PM
- Sunday, July 13 from 3-7 PM
CSA Pickup in Davis Square (for pre-registered shareholders only):
- Tuesday, July 8 from 5-7 PM
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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.
- Lettuce
- Beets
- Carrots
- Summer squash and zucchini
- Cucumbers
- Swiss chard or kale
- Fresh eating onions
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Pick-Your-Own Crops This Week
 Shareholders are welcome to pick-your-own during daylight hours Mondays through Thursdays and Sundays. (Be sure to see what's happening at the Children's Garden!) Check the white board on the red kiosk for PYO information.
- Basil
- Parsley
- Fava Beans
- Snap Beans
- Perennial Herbs and Flowers
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Notes from the Field
Hail
Last Wednesday morning, we were working all three tractors out in the fields. I was making beds for the fall brassicas with the Massey-Ferguson, Erinn was cultivating squash and sweet potatoes with Gus, one of our little Super A tractors, and Jonathan had just finished cultivating our newest planting of carrots with Gretta, the other Super A. We were making good progress on weed killing, which has been a challenge so far this year because of the intermittent storms.
As we finished up to come in for lunch, we noticed the quickening wing and the black clouds in the southwest -- nothing new for us over the past few weeks, but the lightning and thunder were ominous against the dark sky.
The storm hit while we were eating. The wind howled across the fields, rain poured off the top of the wash station and the building next to it -- and then the hail began. Dime- and penny-sized hail pelted the fields for twenty minutes before it eased up, then began again. At first, we stood in the doorway, watching open-mouthed as the icy pellets piled up in the parking lot. Finally, Andy turned away. "I can't watch it any more," he muttered. We got over an inch of rain in those twenty to thirty minutes, washing out newly seeded carrots and flattening young watermelon vines, turning our arugula beds into mud flats with the consistency of chocolate pudding and pooling in our normally well-drained fields.
After the lightning moved off to the east, we walked around the fields in our mudboots, marvelling at the standing water in the center field and the resilience of the tender lettuce, planted only the day before, whose growing tips stood up out of the mud. Older lettuce, particularly the tender butterhead varieties, looked like confetti. Tomato and pepper plants were blown sideways, with broken limbs dangling and young fruit studded with bruises. Squash and zucchini plants had shredded leaves and dented fruit, and melon vines were pounded into the soil, in some places broken completely off by the hailstones. Cucumbers bore white scars along their vines, like the toothmarks of some icy woodchuck spirit. The Lyman field, less than a mile away, was undamaged.
Most things here at the farm will recover from the storm. The squash and zucchini we picked on Thursday and Sunday after the hail, covered with scars that stretched as they grew, would have been frowned upon at a market stand, but were received with murmurs of understanding by shareholders. The new squash, only flowers at the time of the hail, are sizing up quickly in this week's heat. The watermelons and tomatoes may be delayed a little as they recover, but the intensity of July's growth is difficult to deter.
The biggest trauma of the day was probably to our farmers' risk-taking souls -- but the biggest comfort is the security of the CSA model, where those risks aren't borne by the farmers alone. Yes, the weather still keeps us up at night -- and we are constantly aware of the responsibility we have to our remarkable and supportive shareholders. It's clear, as if we needed a reminder, that all the efforts of our hardworking farm crew could ultimately be powerless in the face of a real natural disaster. But a crisis, even a small one like this one, reminds us of the relative resiliency and flexibility of the type of farming we do, where the diversity of crops mimics that of a natural ecosystem and the support of our community means we are never completely at the mercy of that howling wind.
A couple of days after the storm, the daylily grower who rents space here at the field station called me over to look at his bed of lilies, just sending up their flower scapes. "I wait all year for this," he said, " and now something's been eating my scapes! I have no idea what it could be. I'm thinking of spraying something odiferous over the whole bed to keep them away. I only get one shot at these lilies in a season, and I can't figure out what is happening to them."
I looked at them. The white scars up the stem of each flower did look like the gnawing of an animal. The nodding, broken blossoms were all too familiar. One shot. One flower stalk. One storm. "I think I have an idea what might have happened to these," I said slowly, and once again, even as we shook our heads over the ferocity of the season's weather, I was filled with gratitude.
Enjoy the battle-scarred harvest,
Amanda
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Honey Shares from The Honey Farm
Waltham Fields is proud to announce a partnership with a new farming operation: The Honey Farm, a local bee and honey project managed by Natasha Hawke, our Tuesday night distribution coordinator. Natasha writes:
"The Honey Farm is a small honey project operating on the CSA model to support local agriculture, the survival of honey bee, donations to help feed the hungry, and education for all --not to mention delicious local honey!!!--. We are in our first year, and as these things go that's the most risky year when it comes to honey production. There could be little to no honey flow this time around. However, there are definitely bee education activites taking place, and the Waltham Fields Community Farm farmers have seen a crop increase due to their presence - in itself worth the time and money! While we are not directly a part of WFCF, we have 8 happy hives on WFCF land, and will do share pick-ups at the same location as the farm share pick ups, and are excited to offer farm share holders this opportunity.
Membership is $15 per year and entitles you to a free monthly hive tour and our newsletter. Share holder price for those interested is an additional $50. this first year (it will go up a good bit next year when there is a much greater chance of more honey) and entitles you to first dibs on next year's membership.
To register for membership or membership plus shareholding, visit The Honey Farm's website. For more information on The Honey Farm you may email Natasha, for more information on membership please contact Julie. Welcome!"
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Warmly,
The Staff of Waltham Fields Community Farm
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Amanda Cather, Farm Manager
Debra Guttormsen, Administrative and Finance Coordinator
Amanda Jellen, Farm Crew
Paula Jordan, Children's Learning Garden Assistant
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 Coordinator
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Waltham Fields Community Farm