Open house was a lot of fun this weekend; thanks to all who came. We really enjoyed showing everyone around the farm, and sharing great food made from our crops. I know Gavriel couldn't wait for some kids to show up to show the around, and how to pull carrots. We hope everyone had a good time, and enjoyed being able to pick crops to bring home, meet Grindstone's pigs and turkeys and take a dip in the pond. . While it won't include swimming, we will be hosting a similar event in October. It is always such a pleasure to meet our CSA members and get feedback from you and to put faces to the names!  

 I didn't bring my camera out for the tours, but my friend Denessa Statler from The Dreaming Crow did! All the open house picture this week are from her. Loads of thanks to her and her family for helping out, along with my parents, Joan and Dan Wells, and the whole crew at Grindstone for the barn tidy up, and letting us host the potluck at the pond. 

One couple found an almost ripe acorn squash on their u pick trek through the fields. It's a bit early yet, but it's a good sign that they are doing better than we realized. I'll be touching base with them at the Regional Market on Saturday to find out how it tasted. We pulled quite a few handfuls of carrots (which helped to thin them to give the others more room to grow) the first picking of string beans as well as a couple handfuls of cherry tomatoes. While we are still a week out on having enough cherry tomatoes or cucumbers to put in shares, you will be getting purple or green string beans  this week. 

 If you missed our open house, Grindstone Farm is holding their's from 2-8 Saturday the 26th of July. You will still be able to tour the farm, u pick blueberries ($3/lb) a potluck dinner, swimming and live music. Go to their website: www.grindstonefarm.com for details.  The blueberries are just starting to come on nicely and we expect to start getting them in CSA shares in the next week or two.  If you'd prefer to order by the flat, you can always place an order with Grindstone Farm to be delivered with your share, along with many of the other great products  they carry, from organic fruits, to pastured meats, as well as Wholeshare orders. 

In my rush to get things ready for our Open House Saturday night, I  stepped off the truck wrong and rolled my knee pretty bad. I have not been as useful in the fields as I'd like to be. That being said, Workshare Folks,  this would be a great time  to come fulfill some hours, it would give Travis the extra bit of help he needs while my knee gets back to normal and get some of your hours out of the way. Please contact us ASAP if you have time to come in this week (not Thursdays)

Some field notes for what you can look forward to. The tomatoes while not quite ripening up yet are heavy with fruit. Hopefully with this week's forecast of sun and high 80's they should be ripening up in abundance and be in shares next week, along with carrots and cucumbers.  Lettuces want to bolt (or flower) in the high temps so we are picking a lot this week along with some baby bagged lettuces for shares. As  I stated previously the winter squash is doing very well with softball sized pie pumpkins already and full sized acorn squash! The leeks are loving their deep raised beds and the brussels sprouts are starting to put out their little bulbs of sweetness. We have quite a few hot peppers starting already, mostly the early jalapenos, and some bell peppers starting to fruit as well. Some of the melons have baseball sized fruit on them We haven't successfully grown melons here in many years, but it looks like we may have a nice crop this season. When Joseph's are ready, we'll try to get some to you as well.  The green and purple string beans are coming on great in all 4 plantings we have. We may be opening these up for u-pick in the coming weeks after we've picked for shares, so keep an eye out for a note on them if you'd like some for canning for freezing.  

This week we will be harvesting the following:
Basil
kale
lettuce
mixed salad greens
string beans (purple or green)
snow peas
summer squash
swiss chard
and we will be getting some Garlic Scapes from Grindstone, and possibly cucumbers from Joseph Gingerich.

In addition to your veggies this week, our friends at Cranberry Ridge Farm in Williamstown have offered samples of their fine goats milk soap to put in shares this week. Using all natural ingredients including their pastured goats milk, essential oils and natural colorings for their soaps, we hope you enjoy it! In addition to the soap they also make artisan goats milk cheeses, and fine whole grain breads. Many of their breads and cheeses are available from Grindstone. If you like the soap and would like more, you can place an order with Matt or Rhonda to be delivered with your share. 

This week's recipe uses the beans. While the purple beans are pretty exciting to most folks, they do lose their color when steamed. They hold some of their pigment when sauteed though. 




String beans with garlic

From www.foodnetwork.com
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds  string beans, both ends removed
Kosher salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon good olive oil
2 to 3 garlic cloves, sliced (you can substitute the scapes for cloves in this recipe)
Freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Blanch the string beans in a large pot of boiling salted water for just 1 1/2 minutes. Drain immediately and immerse in a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. When they are cool, drain and set aside.

Heat the butter and olive oil in a very large saute pan over medium heat and cook the garlic for 1 to 2 minutes, tossing occasionally, until lightly browned. Add the string beans, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss together. Reheat the string beans and serve.

In conclusion I'd like to share just a few fun pictures of the relaxing part of family life on the farm. 

I apologize in advance, as this week will include none of my photos... I've been way too busy to take many pictures the past week. However, Gavriel took my camera for a stroll through the field Monday, and asked me to share some of her photos. So all of this week's pictures have been taken by our 9 year old daughter. 

We hope everyone enjoyed their shares last week and found creative uses for many of the greens. Last week was the last week you'll see onions/ scallions in shares for a while. We will have more scallions in a few weeks and onions we will begin to harvest later in August. We have started wild harvesting black raspberries and blackberries are starting to ripen up as well. Since this is a crop that doesn't store well, we can't guarantee, but would like to try and get everyone a 1/2 pint at least once from now until they're done for the season. 

While on the subject of berries, Grindstone Farm has begun to pick the first of their blueberries. We will get everyone blueberries from Grindstone at least once once they become available wholesale from them. If you'd like to order more for freezing or canning, please contact them. They should be available in bulk and for special orders in the next two weeks. Also as crops like pickling cucumbers and tomatoes start really coming in, we will offer bulk 1/2 bushels to CSA members first, as well as u-pick,  so keep your eye out in the blog if these canning crops interest you! We have San Marzano paste tomatoes and gilbert (orange) pastes loaded, just waiting for some sun to start ripening them!


Update from the fields:  Last week's rain we feared had washed away our most recent planting of carrots, but they are popping up all straight in their rows! We hope everyone fared the storms last week unscathed. I know we lost power Tuesday night and I drove through insane rains on my way to the Rome Farmer's Market Wednesday. Something seems to have munched on our purple string beans, as the babies I thought we'd be harvesting were gone! But fear not as another planting is fruiting and looking great with lots of beans and no sign of pests. We've been picking progressively more cherry tomatoes and there should be enough to give to share members NEXT week, and the suyo long cucumbers are getting big and will be ready for harvest next week too. Winter squash is doing beautifully and starting to fruit, and the leeks are really starting to take off in their deep beds. 

This week's harvest includes:


Mizuna/ mustard greens
swiss chard
lettuce
dino or red russian kale
peas
summer squash (green or yellow zucchini, or yellow crookneck)
tat soi
basil
dandelion greens



We hope to see many of you at the open house this coming Sunday. If you can't make it and would like to schedule a tour another time, please let us know.  Keep in mind we have another event scheduled in October too, so if you miss the festivities this weekend there will be more to  come!

This week's recipe uses both the summer squash and basil. Summer squash is all interchangeable, so try using yellow squash in breads to add vibrant color, or patty pans in ratatouille. We are growing 4 varieties of summer squash this season; zucchini, green and gold, yellow crookneck summer squash and green patty pans. (The patty pans take a bit longer than the others to start coming on, but once they do, they are very productive plants.)


Lemon Basil Roasted Summer Squash with Garlic Crisp
from www.yummly.com
Serves 4

• 4 mediumzucchini and/or yellow squash
• 2tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 largegarlic cloves
• 3/4cups bread crumbs
• Olive Oil
• 5large leaves of fresh Basil finely sliced

1. Cut the squashes in bite size cubes and dressed with at least 1 tbsp of Olive Oil (according to your taste), salt, black pepper and the lemon juice. Quickly roast it at 360 for 15min. Remove and reserve. In a small fry pan heat 2 tbsp of olive oil, add the 3 clove of garlic chopped and 1 to 2 tsp of salt. When garlic starts to brown, turn heat down and add the bread crumbs. Mix to obtain small clusters. Remove from the heat once the clusters are browned. Add more olive oil if not moist enough. Top the roasted squash with the garlic crisp and the sliced basil. Enjoy it!

The following picture are again all taken by our 9 year old daughter, Gavriel. I went through the camera to see if there was anything I could use on the blog and found it hard to choose which ones to use! She took all these photos with my Canon DSLR and wanted to share her view of the farm and was excited that I would be putting them on our website. And I am excited to share! So here's a bit of our farm through the eyes of a child.

We're at week Six of CSA already! Where has the time gone?
We hope everyone isn't burned out on Kale yet. I know some people can't get enough, and some feel 1 bunch every other week is more than enough... Last week, we gave a few extras to members being a holiday week and having many kale plants that needed to be picked to get them going. Also the lettuce wants to bolt in the heat we've been having, so we harvested extra for members as well. We promise there will be less greens and more of other things in the coming weeks as more crops start coming in. 
 By next week you should start seeing summer squashes in shares, and possibly purple string beans. I picked a few cherry tomatoes yesterday from the fields too. In 2-3 weeks, you can expect more beets, some cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and even carrots. Also Grindstone Farm has started harvesting their blueberries from under the cover of their high tunnels, so field blues are about 2 weeks from now! The carrots pictured below are about the width of a pen and longer than one... We will thin some baby ones soon (about three weeks) to make room for the others to get bigger! As you can see from the photo there are purple, yellow and orange carrots to look forward to.

This week's harvest will include the following:
Collards (to give you a break from the kales and because they're finally looking great after the woodchuck assault)
lettuce
snow peas
mustard greens (green, red, or mizuna)
turnips greens
hakurei turnips (tender sweet salad turnips)
bunching onions
radishes (a mix of multi colored easter egg and french breakfast varieties)
Italian Dandelion Greens
basil 
kale
swiss chard
and the start of summer squashes

There is much weeding that needs to gotten to, and with the frequent rains it's been difficult to get to much of it. Travis has spent many a late night till the sun goes down tackling this task. We also have to finish trellising our tomatoes and cucumbers. Any workshare members, or folks who would just plain like to vounteer are encouraged to come help with some of these tasks this week. Friday is looking like the best day weather wise at this point.  Please contact us if you are available to come lend a hand!

We have gotten many of our fall harvest crops in the ground as well, leeks, more carrots and beets, and the rutabagas are already getting huge. Cauliflower, romanesco broccoli and other broccoli, escarole, and more lettuce.   Later plantings of spinach we hope will get you some spinach in shares later in the season, as right now it's just way too hot for it! Turnip greens that we'll be harvesting this week will give many of the purple top turnips room to grow and get bigger!

We have scheduled our Open House for Sunday July 20th. Everyone is welcome to attend, come tour the farm and partake in a potluck dinner. From 1-3p.m. we will be giving walking tours of the farm, including free u-pick crops for all in attendance. For families we will offer a kid oriented farm tour too. Tours start on the hour at 1, 2 and 3. Meet up at the main barn at Grindstone Farm, 780 Co Rt 28.  Also Grindstone Farm's blueberry patch will be open for CSA exclusive U-pick. (There will be a charge for this u-pick crop.) At 4p.m. join us for a potluck supper. Bring your own place setting, and a dish to pass. Grills will be available for use as well. Please include a list of ingredients for diet restricted folks. The pond will be available for swimming, so bring your swim wear, towels and floatees for the kids! (Sorry, the "grinder will be off limits for this event) After supper, folks are invited to stay and "jam" together with any musical instruments they'd like to bring or share. Electricity will not be available. I tried to get a band to come play, but I guess not many folks are willing to sing for their supper. 

Hope to see many old and new faces at the open house this year. It is a great time to come meet fellow members, and your farmers; show your kids where their food comes from and see for yourself. So invite a friend, bring the family and spread the word!

This week's recipe uses collards and the bunching onions. Just substitute the whole onion with the baby bunching onions!
Vegans and vegetarians can sub the bacon with some extra butter or olive oil and the chicken stock with vegetable broth.
 Collards are a great source of magnesium, calcium and vitamin K; all of which are better absorbed and utilized by the body with some good fatty acids (hence the traditional use of bacon grease.)

• 3-ounce slab of bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• Splash red wine vinegar
• 1 pound collard greens, trimmed and cut into 3-inch pieces
• 1 3/4 cups homemade or low sodium canned chicken stock

DIRECTIONS

1. STEP 1 In a large straight-sided skillet, combine the bacon, onion, and oil over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent and bacon renders some of its fat, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the vinegar, and cook until it evaporates, about 30 seconds.
   
   
2. STEP 2 Add the collard greens and chicken stock. Bring liquid to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Cover, and cook 15 minutes.

Please feel free to share your favorite recipes through the season with other members in the comment sections here or on our facebook page!

Just a couple shots to end with to give a taste of what to look forward to!

We hope everyone enjoyed their shares last week. We weren't able to get enough snow peas for all small share members last week, but will this week, and will switch to large shares the following week. Also small shares will get strawberries this week. 

Last week's rainfall yielded 2.5 inches of rain, quenching thirsty roots, and relieving the heat, and now many crops are really taking  off!

This week we will be harvesting the following:
lettuce
kale
swiss chard
radishes (french breakfast and easter egg varieties)
hakurei turnips (small tender salad turnips) and/ or turnip greens.
basil, 
bunching onions
snow peas
and Tat soi (and asian green similar to pac choi)

Summer squash is still tiny, but will likely start getting picked next week!

It was brought to our attention this week that there were a few mishaps at several of our drop sites resulting in some food being missing, shares not picked up etc. It is the responsibility of members to be sure to pick up their shares on their designated days. Again, if you cannot get there please let either your pod leader or myself know. The only exception is on farm, where food can be stored in the cooler until you can get there, although the barn does usually get locked up after 6pm most nights other than Thursdays when it remains unlocked for customer pickups. While we try to do right in certain situations to ensure folks get their food that goes missing or rots due to not being picked up, we cannot do this every time, as it wastes food, money, and  time. 

We value being able to offer diverse CSA Drop Sites throughout the area, however when food needs to be replaced for whatever reason, that value decreases.  Please work together at your pod to make sure things go smoothly.

We will be at the Rome and Oswego Markets this week, back on schedule from lasts week's interlude. 

This week's recipe is for radish salad. Most folks use radishes to add to a green based salad, but this spicy dish, and many others I found at www.yummly.com use radishes as the base. Try throwing some turnips into the mix too. 

from food52.com:


Serves 4 as a side salad

• 1bunch radishes, sliced thin
• 1/4cup feta, crumbled
• 2tablespoons olive oil
• 3tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 3green onion, chopped into thin slices

1. Toss everything together in a bowl. Because I love things puckery, and I know many don’t, my advice is to start with 2 Tablespoons of vinegar, give it a taste, and add more if you think it’s necessary. As a side, this salad serves 4, although I’ve taken to eating it as a main dish.

Simple and savory, and beats firing up the oven for roasted radishes I keep hearing folks rave about. They are great roasted, but I am trying to keep things cool in my house lately as I'm sure many of you are!

With our computer awaiting repair, using a borrowed computer to write this I will keep it short and simple this week. CSA-CNY's monthly meeting has been rescheduled for tomorrow the 1st of July at 7 pm at the Friends Meeting  House on Euclid Ave in Syracuse. Going forward (at least until the end of the Farmer's market season) meetings will be held the first Tuesday of every month. We will likely be planning for the upcoming open house, so if you have any ideas or concerns to share, this would be the time and place to do so!

Hope everyone enjoys their Fourth of July this week and gets to share some good food with family and freinds from their CSA share!

With summer officially upon us, we are happy to report we will be harvesting the first of the sugar snap peas and baby chioggia beets for members this week. We hope to get everyone some of one or the other. 

Some of the wild blueberries are starting to change color with no sign of pests, so that's a good sign that blueberries are on their way! 

We started the Rome Farmer's Market last Wednesday, and it was wonderful. A small market on historic James St in Franklyn Park, it was a wonderful start to their endeavors to get a welcoming market going in the city. As a vendor, being on the grass is much preferred to the asphalt our other two markets offer. This market runs from 2-7 every Wednesday until October. So spread the word to any friends in the Rome area. It is communities that make Farmer's markets successful. 

We also sponsored and attended the Cicero NOPL Library Farm open house. There were great activities for the whole family, tours of their existing gardens and views and discussion about the planned expansion. They host a Food Bank garden, where all produce goes to 1 of 3 local food banks. A couple master gardeners were on hand to answer a questions, as well as Farmer Travis for most of the day. We held a discussion about CSA's and organic agriculture.  Thanks to Adrienne and the whole library staff for inviting us to such a wonderful event. It was such a pleasure to see how much the community garden there has grown. For more information of the Library Farm, go to: http://www.nopl.org/library-farm/

Chioggia beets are one of the many heirloom variety crops we are growing this season. They are candy cane striped, and are a bit sweeter than traditional red beets. Beets are biannual which means they flower every other year, so we won't get new seeds from them until next summer. If you are adverse to beets as some people are, due to their "earthy" of "dirty" flavor, try roasting them as you would some potatoes. It really brings out the sugars to cook them like this. 

I, myself love beets. They are one of my favorite roots crops. They are wonderful enjoyed pickled, boiled, roasted, in a borscht, grated in salads, juiced.... The amount of ways one would not, could not eat green eggs and ham, one CAN eat beets. They store very well into the winter, and greens are a great substitute for spinach or swiss chard. For in depth nutritional information about the wonderful red root go here: 
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=49

The veggie of the week will be BEETS, so everyone share their best (or worst) beet recipe or story. While not all members will get them this week, they will be grown and harvested through the end of the season, so you are bound to get them later if you don't this week. 

This week's farm history update is Roses. They speak for themselves. Alice and Frances kept record of every garden plant they put in the ground, and I'll bet some of the roses are heirlooms too. Their fragrance is incredible. 

A reminder to all CSA members: grey totes are property of CSA-CNY and are not intended to be taken home. Please leave them in stacks at your drop site. We pick them up every week, which means any produce you leave sits there all week too. If something is in your share that you don't want, please take it home anyhow, or ask another member or POD leader if they would like it; chances are someone will. Our POD leaders open their homes and businesses to our CSA and don't need rotted produce sitting around. If you cannot make it to pick up your share, please call or text Beth at (315)297-8525, so we can let POD leaders know not to wait up!

On farm Pick Up members- please remove your grey tote from the walk in cooler and add to a pile on the tables or carts in the barn. If there is no pile, start one, or ask an employee where to put it. There is usually someone in the office there until about 3pm.  This is a shared space and Grindstone needs all the cooler space they can muster! 

 You can always log into your account to schedule a vacation if you'll be going out of town. This system seems to working well, as many folks have used it. Aside from our spelling errors in the confirmation emails we can't figure out how to get back to change yet, all systems go on scheduling your away time.  You have the option to have a friend pick up, double up on a later share, or donate that week's share to one of the many local food pantries (St Luke's and Sandy Creek are the ones we currently donate excess and market leftovers to) If you'd like to suggest a food pantry or organization for your share to go to, let us know!

This week's harvest:
 in addition to the sugar snap peas and baby beets, we will be harvesting the following:
Lettuce (green leaf or  romaine), 
Kale,
Garlic Scapes,
scallions 
herbs
a little broccoli before it bolts,
 and possibly dandelion greens.
Regular share will get asparagus and strawberries from Grindstone and Joseph Gingerich. Next week, we hope to switch to small shares and will find ourselves at the end of the harvest season on both crops. 

With some baby zucchini, and beans starting, peas coming on, and tomatoes laden with green fruit;  don't fret about the end of asparagus, as there are many more great favorites to come. Any Work Share members who would like to put in some hours, please contact us. Harvesting and weeding is a team effort and we are happy to have you on our team!

This week's recipe involves- you guessed it- beets. 

A link to a beet humus recipe here: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=49
I have not made it yet, but will be giving it a go. We love hummus in our house, so trying the vibrant color of beets on some pita sounds awesome. Harvard beets is another family tradition. My grandmother used to make it often, and my mother. It's one of the more often requested treats for family gatherings in the Wells/ Mahardy Clan.
http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/Harvard-Beets-Allrecipes

Many of the recipes I use and share are sourced from www.yummly.com. It is the google search engine of recipes. Lots of great ideas I would never think to create (like the beet hummus!) If you don't know what to do with something you get in a share, just type in the food and a slew of culinary options will open your imagination!

We have started carrying raw honey from Bender's Busy Bees in Adams NY. Duane and Linda Bender were neighbors at the Pulaski Farmer's Market last year, and them and their bees make incredible honey. They were going to bring bees here, but after losing a few hives to the intensely long cold winter; as many other bee keepers in the area reported, they'll stay put until next season, or if they capture a swarm. They use no chemicals in their honey production- you'd bee surprised how many "cides" there are for bees, and are greatly concerned and proactive for the health of their happy pollinators. This is one of the reasons they want to move their bees to an organic farm.  

We would like to put some of this honey is CSA shares, and will be sending emails out in the coming weeks to confirm. If you are allergic or just plain don't want it, you will be able to substitute for something else that week; all you have to do is tell us.

We will be hosting a Farm Open House Sunday, July 20th from 2-? Farm tours, recipe tours, kid tours and activities and a potluck dinner at Grindstone Farm's best kept secret, the pavilion at the pond.  Bring your drum, guitar, voice or other for some musical collaboration after dinner and invite your friends and family to come see your farm. I'll try to get to making my semi-famous-round-these-parts spring rolls. I will post more details as we get closer to the date, but mark your calendar!

Thanks to everyone who did a rain dance last week, we got a much needed rainfall accumulating around 2 1/2 inches. And while it helped the crops tremendously, it also helped the weeds take off. So much of Saturday and today were spent weeding tomatoes, kale, lettuce, brussels sprouts, and more. Sunday we spent enjoying some family time with our fathers, sharing great food from the farm. 

The snap peas have been trellised and we hope to get to the tomatoes this week too! Beets are bulging up, and peppers and summer squash have some buds starting. After the long cold winter, and slow start to spring, I thought we'd never get to that po

Our harvest this week will include
 lettuce,
 garlic scapes, 
mustard greens, spinach or radishes,
 kale,
scallions,  
Grindstone Farm's asparagus 
and Joseph Gingerichs's wonderful organic strawberries. 


While I know a harvest list is a bit different than a precise "box contents" list, as I've explained, we have found that it is easier to look at what is available for harvest and harvest it in it's prime than to say we will have exactly this many bunches of radishes, to start harvesting and find most have been attacked by root maggots. I hope folks aren't too disappointed when something listed doesn't end up in shares, as we will do our best to rotate certain crops as available so everyone gets a little of everything. 


This week's recipe is for kale chips. For many folks who love Kale, this might be old news, but for those unfamiliar with kale, this is a great way to enjoy it. Careful though, they go quick with kids in the house!


Kale Chips
About six servings

Remove the tough stems from the kale and wash and spin dry the kale thoroughly. This recipe can easily be doubled. Just be sure to rotate the baking sheets in the oven for even cooking.

Some people cook them at a higher temperature, California-style, which makes a crunchier, drier kale chip than those cooked at lower temperatures. I like them both ways. If you wish to roast them in a 425ºF (218ºC) oven, they’ll take about 12 minutes to cook.

• 6 to 8 cups (140 to 200 g) kale leaves; if large, tear them into bite-sized pieces
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• flaky sea salt or fleur de sel

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC.)

2. Put the kale on a baking sheet and drizzle with the olive oil, then massage it into the leaves.

3. Spread the kale leaves in an even layer on the baking sheet and put in the oven. After about 5 minutes, use a spatula to separate any leaves of kale that are clumping together.

4. Continue cooking the kale for about 20 minutes, until the leaves are crisp. Remove from the oven and sprinkle fairly generously with salt.



I like to vary the seasoning, nutritional yeast, or Parmesan cheese add a creamy flavor, lemon pepper, are vinegar are nice flavorings as well. Play around, and find a crunchy taste you can't stop eating, and no guilt, since they are so healthy for you!

Some folks have asked me how best to store certain veggies, and while many do well on their own in the crisper, here's a link to a helpful article on the topic of produce storage. http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/spoiled-rotten-how-to-store-fruits-and-vegetables/

We hope everyone is enjoying their CSA shares so far, and are looking forward to the warmer season crops as the summers draws close. 

Happy eating!

   On to the second week of 2014 CSA shares, and still no rain. Everyone might consider doing a rain dance for us and other CNY farmers. While we can irrigate, it is a tedious job laying the pipes, and checking for leaks throughout the day, so some good old fashioned rain would be very much appreciated. 

    Work share members may start contacting us about coming in to start putting in hours. There are many weeds to be pulled and other tasks. If you are interested in simply volunteering, let us know as well. 

     While harvesting has started full tilt, planting has not ended yet. Celery, winter squash, pumpkins and seedings of greens are still in progress. Leeks and kohlrabi are awaiting transplanting for fall harvest, and our hot peppers are almost ready to go in the ground. We've also been busy planting cover crops and pollinator friendly flower varieties. Soon when you drive by the farm there will be stands of Sunflowers greeting you as you get off the highway! 

    Gavy, Adonia, and Freyja have been enjoying helping out on Sundays with mom and dad, transplanting on the waterwheel. They are pretty darned good at it too! 

    

 

Many of our greens were a bit stunted by the dryness and are finally catching back up, so we hope to be giving more variety in coming weeks, including garlic scapes next week. Some small shares will get rhubarb this week, and we hope to get everyone rhubarb next week. Some of our broccoli is bulking up, but so sporadically, I'm not certain you'll get it in shares just yet.

Potatoes are popping through the soil, and the new asparagus beds are tall with ferns, waving in the breeze. Blueberries and wild bramble bushes (blackberries, logan berries, raspberries) are all loaded with blossoms and beginnings of fruit. Tomatoes are blossoming and starting to fruit and will need to trellised very soon.  Garlic is about waist tall and setting scapes to harvested very soon! 

We will be offering a few varieties of medicinal herbs this season too, including, chamomile, lavender, and  holy basil. If you are interested in any of these either in your share or in bulk for making teas or tinctures, let us know. 

 We're also planning to get strawberries from Gingerich Farms in the coming weeks. These are NOFA certified organic strawberries from a small family farm in Williamstown. I have dealt with them over the years through Grindstone and am happy to continue doing business with them for some of the great crops they grow that we don't, such as strawberries, yams, and Joseph's infamous cabbages. Last spring's strawberries across CNY were quite bland due to too much rain, so ideally this season's should be sweet and firm. 

We will be starting a new Farmer's Market in Franklyn Park in Rome next week, Wednesdays from 2-7. It is a beautiful historic park near Fort Stanwix, and we hope that it will be a success. New markets are tough to get off the ground, but I feel the demand is there for it to grow. It is a bit of a hike to get to, mostly because there is no direct route on highways, and is the same distance from the farm as Syracuse is. So if you have friends or family in the Rome area interested in organic produce, send them our way

This week's harvest will include  the following:
kale, swiss chard, baby pac choi, lettuce, scallions, radishes, and Grindstone Farm's asparagus and  spinach or arugula.

I won't be sharing any specific recipes for this week as many wonderful ones were shared by members in last week's comment section, using many of the same crops we will be harvesting this week. If you ever have any questions about what something is in your share, or what to do with it, just ask; either myself or another member would be happy to help. 

This week marks the start to our first CSA. Hooray!

In addition to harvesting this week, we are still transplanting and seeding. We've also had to get irrigation going. I'm not certain but I think this spring may be setting records for dryness, nationally and locally;  which beats last springs excessive rain, but somewhere in between would be nice. In addition to the dryness, we've also had to battle the usual suspects of flea beetles and woodchucks for the past couple months since we started getting crops in the ground. 
(The flea beetles did get into the pac choi a bit, so don't be alarmed by a few holes. While I know previous CSA-CNY members may be accustomed to this, we just wanted to forewarn new members. It is still a perfectly edible incredible green)

Aside from those regular challenges, we are all set to start harvesting for you; our members.

Here's a list of some of the crops we will be putting in shares this week. Please keep in mind that this a general harvest list and will not always be the exact contents of your share. We will do our best to vary items every week as available. I can say all shares will be getting lettuce and asparagus, and all regular shares will be getting Rhubarb this week, and small shares will get some next week. 

1. Asparagus
2. Pac Choi (an asian green much like Bac Choi, great sauteed or in stir fries and soups; crunchy and sweet)
3. Cooking greens; Kale, dino, green or red russian, or Swiss Chard
4. red leaf lettuce
5. herbs, oregano or mint
6. Rhubarb
7. scallions

Our littlest "foreman" inspecting the irrigation process.

A view of the high tunnel bounty.

Adonia and Travis enjoying some tractor time.

Remember that photo of the waterwheel? This is that field now; well before being weeded that is.


For your historical update, we have started our germination test on those old seeds. I started with wheat, oats, alsike clover, black and green soy and alfalfa. And guess what? The clover and soy started to germinate in their overnight soak! This is very exciting; if we can reclaim these older non GMO seeds (especially the soy, corn, and alfalfa) we can offset some of the costs of feeding the livestock and reintroduce heritage strains back to the area.

For a recipe this week, since everyone will be getting asparagus, I will share my favorite, most simple way of enjoying this wonderful nutritious spring crop. 
Soak for about 1/2 and hour in balsamic vinegar, throw on grill at medium temp, cook till seared and slightly tender, cool and enjoy.  A great way to incorporate veggies into a cookout, and simple enough for even the most novice chef.

If you have a favorite recipe to share, please do here in the comment section. By being part of a CSA, you are committing to being part of a community of like minded people, and we encourage you to share your ideas with other members, whether it's recipes, storage suggestions, gardening tips, ride shares, etc. 

First shares start going out Wednesday to Watertown Market, then most will go out Thursday, and finally Saturday's Regional Market pickup. All crops will be freshly harvested the day before or morning before you get it.

We will keep you updated when crops become available for u-pick, or  available in bulk for preserving, including some of Grindstone Farm's goodies. 

One of our oldest (3) and therefore most spoiled hens; still laying and at our doorstep every morning.

We are all looking forward to the season, and meeting many of you through events, workshares and markets.

In good health, from our family to your's;
The Pistello Family of Freedom Rains Farm.

Got some potatoes planted today, old school fashion; some transplanting as well.
 Just love this picture, so enjoy! 

Less than Three weeks until CSA shares start going out!

While we've been busy with the season in full swing, thought we'd share some images this week of the production and beauty of our farm.

Our smaller high tunnel still a skeleton in this beautiful sunset

Broccoli babies just after transplanting with the water wheel.

What is a water wheel? This is it. Mounts to the back of the tractor, marking a two row bed, watering with fertilizer as two people sit on the back and plant. Here we have broccoli, beets, hakurei turnips, rutabaga, and parsnips planted. In another field we have much more planted and coming up; peas, braising mix, mustard greens, kales, collards, lettuce, onions, radishes, carrots, swiss chard and more! We have been blessed to be able to share tools, knowledge, plants, and space with Grindstone Farm the past few weeks. Unofficially a true farming co-op.

Some seedlings just getting off to a good start; broccoli, swiss chard fennel and flowers.

Buds on the blueberries!

Our little spot at the Regional Market, which will grow as the season goes on. Small but inviting! You'll find us on the North end outside Shed E with the season's bounty!

A rainbow gracing the fields at dusk.