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July 18, 2011
| Distribution Week #6 |
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Waltham Fields Community Farm
CSA Newsletter
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What's in the share this week... | |
This list is prepared before we harvest 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.
Mix-and-Match nine items this week from a list that may include:
Pick-Your-Own Crops
You are welcome to harvest the PYO portion of the share during any daylight hours, 7 days a week. Please check the board at the little red kiosk for information on amounts, locations and picking instructions. Remember, you can pick one time per week but it doesn't necessarily have to be at the same time you are picking up your share.
- Cilantro
- Thai, purple and Italian basil
- Dill
- Flat leaf and curly parsley
- Green beans
- Herbs and flowers in the perennial garden and flower patch
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Quick Links |
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Apple Shares from Autumn Hills Orchard!
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 We got an exciting and unexpected phone call from Ann Harris of Autumn Hills Orchard this week. After the death of orchard owner and manager Lyn Harris last November, we weren't sure what would happen with Autumn Hills, with whom we have had a relationship for the last eight years. But Ann is carrying on operations at Autumn Hills; she's hired a new orchard manager and tells us that the fall crop looks beautiful! She's offering Waltham Fields shareholders the opportunity to purchase apple shares again this year. Beginning around Labor Day and lasting eight or nine weeks, the shares will be distributed in 1/2 peck bags, will include a sampling of whatever apples and other fruits are available that week, and will cost $80. If you are interested in purchasing an apple share, don't wait -- bring a check to CSA pickup this week! Or mail us a check, but please don't forget to write the name of the primary shareholder (the name you check in under each week) on the memo line. We will only be accepting payment for apple shares until August 1.We're looking forward to fall apples -- hope you are too! |
| Article Headline |  Please park on the gravel, not the grass, when you visit the farm.
Thank you! |
| Barley and Lentil soup with Swiss Chard | |
Shareholder Sheela writes in... Would you believe that my first year with you guys, I didn't even know what half of the foods were that I went to my neighbors trying to pawn off the "rhubarb". After finding out it was chard, I remember that a friend had made me a wonderful barley and lentil soup with Swiss Chard. (Recipe from epicurious.)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups chopped onions
- 1 1/2 cups chopped peeled carrots
- 3 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 10 cups (or more) low-salt chicken or vegetable broth
- 2/3 cup pearl barley
- 1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
- 2/3 cup dried lentils
- 4 cups (packed) coarsely chopped Swiss chard (about 1/2 large bunch)
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Heat oil in heavy large nonreactive pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and carrots; sauté until onions are golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and stir 1 minute. Mix in cumin; stir 30 seconds. Add 10 cups broth and barley; bring to boil. Reduce heat; partially cover and simmer 25 minutes. Stir in tomatoes with juice and lentils; cover and simmer until barley and lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.
Add chard to soup; cover and simmer until chard is tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in dill. Season soup with salt and pepper. Thin with more broth, if desired.
Do you have a favorite recipe you make with farm produce that you'd like to share!? Send it on in! |
| Upcoming events at the Farm |
Farmer For A Week Learning Garden Program
Monday-Friday August 8th-12th, 9am-3pm
Click here to learn more about the program, including fees and registration. |
| Notes from the Field - The All-Star Break |
 Though it comes only a quarter of the way through summer CSA pickups, the baseball All-Star Break marks the midway point of the April-to-October marathon that is the main growing season in New England. Halfway through July, with no baseball game on the radio to lull me to sleep, I suddenly have evenings free to reflect on the progress of the season so far and look ahead to what's to come.
This spring, now a distant memory, was cold and wet (remember cold and wet? Sounds pretty good this week.). We planted anyway, and got most of our crops in on time. Although some came in slower and smaller than we would have liked (mini cabbages, anyone?) most have responded well to  the summer's good growing weather and come on strong this month. Potatoes, beets, cucumbers, summer squash and zucchini have been notable standouts so far, while our carrots seem to be having a harder time despite our best efforts with the tractor cultivator, flame weeder and our hard core weed crew. We're watering them heavily and hoping that they will size up for us in the coming weeks. Strawberries were a mixed bag this spring; our earliest harvests were flavorful and abundant, while rain at key points in the harvest brought gray mold into the planting in its later weeks. We are happy to know that our efforts at renovating, fertilizing and weeding the strawberry beds took us in the right direction -- we can only hope for better weather during the harvest next year, but we were definitely grateful for the berries we got this spring! Our spring peas were also a little bit of a mixed bag -- while the new snow pea variety "Blizzard"  produced abundantly for us, our sugar snap peas didn't germinate well at all for various reasons. In retrospect, we should probably have turned in all the beds of sugar snaps and planted again in late April instead of trying to coax along beds that were spotty at best and got pretty weedy before they were done -- we'll know better for next season. We tried a new variety of salad turnips this spring which also did not do very well for us, making beautiful greens with no turnip roots attached to them (hence the bunches of turnip greens we've had in the shares!). But our spring bunching greens -- kale, collards and Swiss chard -- have been very nice, responding well to our fertility regimen and the well-timed rain showers. We hope that they'll continue to produce for another month or so until the fall plantings come in around Labor Day.
So far this season weeds have been a little tricky to manage. The weed crew is doing an incredible job, clearing a very scary-looking onion and leek field and working hard to keep on top of sensitive root crops like carrots and parsnips. They are also spending a good deal of time in the PYO fields to make picking easier for all of you. Every time it rains, though, weeds germinate and grow like crazy (opportunistic little critters that they are), and it seems like overnight a bed of cilantro or dill can go from squeaky clean to overrun with lamb's quarters, amaranth or... husk cherries?! Fortunately, many of our weeds are edible, particularly in their small and tasty incarnations -- let us know if you'd like to try any! We have had lots of incredible weeding help from shareholders who volunteer (special shout outs to our excellent Saturday morning crew, the DInnar family, and Jane Rosen), and we are doing our best with the challenging conditions this summer.
 Coming up, our tomato crop looks great so far, with heavy fruit set and very little disease as of now. The hot, dry weather forecast for this week will hopefully help us keep disease at bay, and we may see our first tomato harvests by the end of the week. Peppers, eggplant and okra are a little behind but are catching up quickly in this hot weather and look like they are on track for an August harvest. Cantaloupes and watermelons are vining out beautifully in our back west field. Sweet potatoes are also vining out and will be putting on lots of vegetative growth in the next two weeks before they turn their energy towards making roots around the 1st of August. Our storage onions and shallots got a little stressed out by weeds; a few matured sooner than we would have liked, and some may be smaller than would be ideal, but many look great. Fall parsnips and celeriac, which are a definite challenge on our farm because they are in the ground for so long, requiring multiple hand weedings as well as additional fertility and water throughout the season, are looking great this year. Rutabagas, on the other hand, continue to confound us. We seeded five beds three times this year and only ended up with one viable bed of ruties -- who knew they could be so tricky?
This week, we'll be finishing our last big round of planting -- fall broccoli, kale, collards, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, and beets will all be in the ground by Saturday. Our garlic harvest is finished and curing in the greenhouse. You are seeing some of the smaller heads as fresh garlic now, and we'll give out the remainder as cured garlic in the fall. Fresh garlic lasts for weeks, but cured garlic will last for months under the right conditions -- though it probably won't last that long in our kitchens. August 1 is the deadline to plant fall crops like purple top turnips; it's also the time when we start thinking hard about getting fall cover crops on.
Cicadas are already singing in the treetops. The All-Star Break has come and gone, and the second half of the season is upon us. As Hal Borland writes, "the solstice is now three weeks past and already the quiet, fundamental songs have a few notes of August's theme, and even September's. Looking, listening, sensing, we know that this is summer's song; but we also know that no summer's song lasts forever."
Enjoy the harvest, everyone.
-- Amanda, for Andy, Erinn, Dan, Larisa and Lauren |
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Waltham Fields Community Farm Staff
Claire Kozower, Executive Director
Jericho Bicknell, Education & Volunteer Coordinator
Amanda Cather, Farm Manager
Andy Scherer, Field Manager
Dan Roberts, Field Manager
Erinn Roberts, Greenhouse & Field Manager
Marla Rhodes, Development Coordinator
Deb Guttormsen, Bookkeeper & Tech Coordinator
Assistant Growers/Farmers in Training:
Larisa Jacobson, Lauren Weinberg
Farm Crew:
Rachel Dutton, Andy Friedberg, Courtney Giancaterino, Rachel Kaplan, Shira Tiffany, Laura Van Tassel
Learning Garden Educators:
Marie Benkley, Rebekah Carter, Kristin Cleveland, Dede Dussault, Paula Jordan
Summer Fellow (from Stanford's Center for Public Service):
Joanna Rosene-Mirvis
www.communityfarms.org 781-899-2403
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