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July 25, 2011
| Distribution Week #7 |
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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
- Possibly some cherry tomatoes!
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Quick Links
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| 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. |
| Parking reminder... |
Please park on the gravel, not the grass, when you visit the farm.
Thank you! |
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Apple Shares from Autumn Hills Orchard!
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 Don't forget to sign up for an apple share from Autumn Hills Orchard this week! Owner Ann Harris is offering Waltham Fields shareholders the opportunity to purchase apple shares that will begin around Labor Day and last 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 apple season -- hope you are too!
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Napa Cabbage Salad
|  Shareholder Syndie writes in: "Since you provide us with so much delicious Napa, I came up with a great summer slaw type salad that everyone really liked. It is not an "exact" recipe since I am the kind of person who eyeballs stuff. Just the same this should do it and it is cool, delicious and perfectly summer."
- Shred and wash about 1/3 of a head of Napa cabbage.
- Slice or dice one large raw carrot.
- Chop up two green onions and include the green part too!
- Add about 3 tablespoons of white rice vinegar.
- Add slightly less than one tablespoon of sesame oil and two splashes of low sodium soy or teriyaki sauce.
- A few shakes of sesame seeds.
- You can add a few grates of fresh ginger too if you have some (keeps well in the freezer btw).
- Toss well until well mixed and cabbage is lightly coated.
- Enjoy!
Do you have a favorite recipe you make with farm produce that you'd like to share!? Send it on in! |
| Notes from the Field: Endurance |
When I was little, my father left every morning for work at the marina that he owns. The marina shop and store are right across the driveway from the house, but the short walk seemed like a long journey from the air conditioned comfort in which the rest of our family spent the days, away from the blazing heat and oppressive humidity of the Maryland summer. At that time, his business was relatively new. I don't remember him having a regular day off during the week when the summer boating season was underway. He complained about the heat, but there was never a morning when he did not get up as usual and go to work. I think I thought he was crazy. I know that I definitely believed that I would grow up to work in air conditioned comfort, emerging at the end of the workday to blink in the light and the heat and wonder how folks could make it through the day outside, and why they would want to.
 I remembered all of this quite vividly last week, while the farm crew struggled through a few days of 95+ degree heat. As one of our farmer friends likes to say, "vegetables don't take a vacation". Weather of any kind is really no excuse for veggie growers not to work, unless there's something in that weather that means it would damage the plants to work with them. That's usually excessive moisture, which is definitely not the conditions we've been dealing with for the last few weeks.
Last week our vegetables did not take a vacation. They kept growing, needing lots of water to counteract the very hot air and very dry soil. Andy spend the entire week moving irrigation pipe and drip irrigation from field to field and section to section, often following the weed crew to help keep the recently weeded crops from being too surprised by their abrupt exposure to the sun. The squash kept on making squash, the cucumbers kept on making cucumbers, and the okra, bless its southern soul, started making okra despite the fact that we were not remotely ready to start harvesting it. The tomatoes began to ripen. The sweet potatoes, delighted at what they apparently believed was a return to their homeland, seemed to put on a new leaf every time we walked by them -- it would not be an exaggeration to say that they doubled in size last week. In the heat, we kept harvesting the crops that rolled in. We drank gallons of water and everything else under the sun. We got tired, got cranky, snapped at each other,  moved pipe, kept planting, stopped planting (too hot and dry), kept weeding, stopped weeding (too hot and dry) and finally got out into the field with hoes to take advantage of one of the benefits of hot dry weather: it can kill weeds really well, if you can keep from damaging the roots of the crop while you're at it. I came home at night clean instead of dirty, because I had sweated so much over the course of the day that the soil had washed off. And I remembered my dad, getting up, going to work, day after day.
Some things, of course, should not be endured. There is sometimes great wisdom in knowing when to walk away. But there are so many opportunities for fortitude and staying power, which we may practice at any time -- in a challenging yoga class, the daily demands of parenthood or faithfulness, all the little commitments that make up a life. Farming is a constant exercise in endurance, the odd liberation of bowing to what is asked of you, day after day, submerging yourself in the task until you sweat clean and the harvest is in. There is some grace in being responsible to things that call you daily to harvest and tend and endure. There is some grace in being able to respond.
Last week the weed crew showed up to work every morning, smiling and ready to go. They worked through the morning when the thermometer showed 106 in the sun, but paced themselves, taking breaks so that they never overdid it. Andy and Rachel, who most recently farmed in Georgia, smiled and shook their heads at our New England "heat". Kind shareholders brought coolers full of water, electrolyte drinks, bananas, ice-cold lemony golden zucchini cake. My husband Mark put up our big tent so we would have a cool place to eat lunch, and made us milkshakes on Friday. I called my father Friday evening to see how he was faring in the heat, which reached 111 degrees in Maryland. I was glad to hear that he had spent the day taking care of a sick neighbor instead of bent over in the bottom of a boat. On Saturday morning, an unexpected  shower cooled the air and moistened the top layer of soil, helping the irrigation water soak in better (the term "capillary action" made its annual appearance on the farm). By Sunday the brief heat wave was over, replaced by more manageable summer temperatures. We returned to the regular day to day endurance of farm work, which looks more like commitment and less like what Dan calls "bone-headedness". There will be more hot days, and more work to do in them. For now, 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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Waltham Fields Community Farm | 240 Beaver Street | Waltham | MA | 02452
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