V I L L A G E F A R M

Vegetable Pre Buy Season is (almost!) Here!

2012-01-11T08:18:00.002-05:00

Though it seems that all we grow is ice crystals around here, we are in fact dreaming, thinking and working towards Spring. Today I will embark upon a website 'fluffing' and 'buffing' and hopefully we will be looking a bit spiffier and more up to date (website-wise) very soon. Working on online CSA signups and some exciting new offerings. Can't wait to share.

We will be in touch with an earnest call for members soon but in the meantime, don't hesitate to call or email with questions.

All the best from here!
Polly

The Abundance of 2011

2012-01-04T15:27:00.003-05:00

This lovely picture is our computer's desktop picture right now. To me, it is all Abundance. Smiles. Sunshine. Green grass. Friends. Family. And yes, Abel's hair is quite abundant. I believe we took this picture with the self-timer the afternoon of Zelie's farewell party in September. Goodbyes have a way of bringing out the cameras, right? Let's preserve this perfect moment forever. It does feel nice to gaze at it and it helps us to remember all the lovely, amazing people who we spent the 2011 growing season with.

This here is a small, earnest thank you to Willie and Zac who spent the greater part of 2011 at Village Farm and to Nate who joined the crew in the fall for a couple of months. Zelie joined the farm and family for 8 weeks in July, August and September and her presence was nothing but wonderful.

Would you send your youngest child off in this truck with these fellas? I would and did, many times. Abe loves all rides in the J20, as this old jaloppy (Prentice might object to that description) is called. Abe insists, actually.

We could not do this art/science/life experiment that is Village Farm without the help of farm workers. We have opted for the apprenticeship model as we both worked on many a farm as apprentices and we enjoy the community that creates itself when we work with people who live on the same piece of land with us. We could hire hourly or per diem farm workers, yes. That would be simpler in some ways but we would miss out on the after hours goat walks, card games, sunsets, porch tunes and meals that we end up sharing with the apprentices who choose to come here.

It is not always easy.

But from this point in the seasonal wheel, the glowing faces in that first picture feel like the loveliest and most rewarding of harvests.

We grow a lot of food here in Freedom Village. We are honored to do that buggy, sweaty, heavy, dirty, WONDERFUL work alongside some fine human beings.

We are indebted to this year's crew: Willie, Zac, Zelie and Nate,
all of their friends who pitched in many hours for good food and company,
the sporadic per diem workers (Shana! Dina! Teddy! Alicia! Others!),
the many college students from Unity and Colby and their instructors,
the high school students from Mount View and their instructors,
our parents, siblings and cousins who supported us in countless ways from childcare to deliveries to laundry to construction projects.

Thank you to the earth and sun, the rains, the moon, the creatures and plants that grace Village Farm with their gifts.
Thank you to the humans for their company and efforts as we all work with these gifts.

Best wishes for the year ahead,
Polly

Late fall 2011

2011-11-25T14:12:00.003-05:00

There are still a lot of vegetables in our days and weeks. I harvested 20# of brussels sprouts this morning from the field; the hoophouse is green with succulent arugula and spinach; leeks, carrots, parsnips and more are holding well in the walk-in cooler for fall CSA members and for the produce department at the Belfast Coop.
This season is the end of a long fall exhale. Around the first of the year we begin the greater farm inhale again with seed orders, tax preparation, wholesale account meetings and of course, CSA brochures, posters and membership efforts.
For the moment, we are loving up the last days of 2011.
We have been building fairy houses with the children,

enjoying tracks in the snow,

spotting sunny spaces to play

chasing rainbows,

enjoying each others' company,

and the company of elders. . .

Wishing all of you the very best of the season.
Because of a certain burst appendix (Abe's) this fall, we did not properly send the crew off with a word on this here blog. Stay tuned for the Thanks to the Crew, coming soon.
All the best from here, Polly

Pasture raised and organically fed chickens!

2011-10-22T10:07:00.000-04:00

Our pastured broilers live their lives on fresh green grass, in these breezy structures.

It is chicken time once more. We are getting 120 birds back from the butchers (a state inspected facility in Gardiner) today and so we will have fresh chickens available for the next 5 days or so. This batch are actually Red Bros, so red feathered rather than these white Cornish cross breed that we raised last year. These slower growing Red Bros have fewer growth issues (lame legs, etc) than the Cornish crosses and we like that they are far better grazers and not hyper-bred to size as quickly as possible.

Our customers repeatedly say that "that was the best chicken I have ever tasted."

So. They are large (4-6#) and at $4.35 /# that makes a hefty price tag but consider that one bird feeds four hungry adults with leftovers. Making stock with the bones, some onion skins, celery tops and carrot nubs really stretches the value and puts the yummiest soup base in your freezer.

Pass this on to others who might be interested, please and give us a call or email if you need any birds for your winter season ahead.
I can smell the chicken and rice soup bubbling away on the woodstove. . .
Best wishes from all of us,
Polly

Late Fall and Winter Shares

2011-10-13T04:08:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, October 11, was the last distribution of vegetables to our 17 week CSA season. Thank you for your part in making 2011 such a wonderful growing season. The work parties, visits from members and CSA potlucks are among our favorite summer times.
We farmers felt and continue to feel very much supported and honored by Village Farm's community of members. We are so glad to be growing some of the food that you are nourished by and enjoy!
Last year, when the distributions ceased, so many of you said "I don't want it to end!" and "What will I eat now?" that we got to thinking about continuing to serve up Village Farm's finest for a few more months through a Winter Share. So, we are going to try it. Twenty five of you have signed up for either a farm or a Belfast pick up beginning this Monday, October 17th and running through late December. We have over twenty different crops in the fields, under row cover, in cold storage and in the hoophouse. You will see some of them once or twice (e.g. fall radishes, fennel) and some of them nearly every week (e.g. various winter squash, carrots). Like our summer-fall CSA, we will aim to provide roughly the same value week to week, for a total of $200 value over 8 distributions: weekly in October and November, then every other week around the holidays. Unlike our summer-fall CSA's "farmer's market style" distributions where members pick out and bag their own produce, we will weigh and bag all of the produce for you.
Belfast members will pick up from an in-town covered porch (I will send directions and details in an email) and
Farm members will pick up from the farm's walk-in cooler
Mondays 4-6 pm

Here are the dates for your calendars: October 17, 24, 31, November 7, 14, 21, December 5 and 19.
Though we planned for 20 shares, we have a good inventory of crops available for the fall and early winter and so could take a few more members, if some of you are interested. villagefarm@fairpoint.net is the best way to reach us.

We are very much looking forward to this experiment and to seeing and feeding so many of you over the coming few months!

Again, many, many thanks to all CSA members, friends and family members for your abiding support in our Village Farm (ad)venture.
Gratefully yours, Polly

Autumn's Abundance

2011-10-10T20:52:00.001-04:00

A fine group of CSA members and farm interns cleaning onions during our last work party. Many thanks!!

The winter sqauash and pie pumpkin harvest.

The farmers and farm children got away to the western mountains for a couple of days this past weekend.

Nate raking and Zac rototilling Hoophouse 2, readying it for 5 beds of spinach. Thanksgiving harvest?

Many small bottles full of flowers headed to a friend's wedding.

Autumn winds and autumn harvests, that lower light, and shorter days all trigger a new flow to our days here. The squash fruits are all safely in the greenhouse curing away; growing thicker skins for the months of storage ahead. We salvaged some colored peppers after that hard freeze Thursday night that wiped out even plants in Hoophouse 1. The work of digging and washing many, many roots is to come.
Tomorrow is the last CSA distribution of 2011's summer season. We have had a great year. Bounteous crops grown in the fertile loam of our fields have fed all of us and many of you. We are grateful for the favorable weather, excellent farm workers, support from friends, family and CSA members and for the earth's generosity.

I dare say we have had our busiest summer ever. A lot of crops and a lot of people here on the Farm. The revolving door of visitors, guests, college students, friends, CSA members and family has been a-whirling. It makes us very happy to think back on all the feet that have padded through our dooryard, farm fields and farmyard.
Like most Mainers, we relish summer's outrageous beauty and full days but we secretly yearn for wood fires and snow drifts as soon as the autumn chill starts up. Come January, you will find us hunkered down, alright. . .but working, too. There is analysis of 2011 to do and of course, taxes to prepare. And there is always another growing season to plan for.
We look forward to growing for you again in 2012.
With all best wishes and many thanks, Polly and Prentice

Start Where You Are

2011-09-23T05:17:00.004-04:00

Prentice and the lads sowing rye in between the potato rows. Sept 1st?
Goodbye to Zelie from the Village Farm Crew!

Nightly chores include tethering Pheona in the barn so that Phoebe will have milk in the mornings.

A bit of farm art. We slaughtered a dozen Bard Rock roosters that were supposed to be hens.

As the fall arrives, the weeks and crops fly by and I am aware how seldom I have posted here with news, recipes and photos. As I work in the fields, I often think, "Oh, I wish the CSA members could see this incredible bed of fall lacinato kale. . ." or you could insert any number of vegetable wonders for the kale, really. There is such a lot going on here, it is a challenge to stay on top of the blogging/sharing with friends, farm members and customers. I can let myself off the hook, however. We have been down an intern all season so it is not surprising that my precious few hours at the desk have been spent making deposits and invoices.

Hearing the words of Pema Chodron in my head, "Start where you are. . .", I will not attempt to catch you up an all of the news and workings over the last weeks but rather offer just a snapshot of some highlights and some present moment projects.

Welcomed Nate to our farm crew a few weeks ago. Most of you have met him by now. We feel lucky to have another fun and talented person in our days.

Bade dear Zelie, from France, a tearful goodbye in early September. Zelie entered our home, farm and hearts in July and after eight weeks, she was such a part of things around here, it was hard to understand how we were all going to cope and survive without her. She is on to attend university in France and we plan to see her here next fall. Merci, Zelie, and Abiento!

Entered several vegetables in the the Common Ground Fair's Exhibition Hall -- a showcase of farming and gardening, seed saving and Vegetable Beauty in Maine. Scored some blue ribbons --and other colors, too.

Prentice and the boys made hand rolled pasta, fresh pesto, tomatoes and salad for lunch last week. So festive!

Cleaned hundreds of pounds of onions with a group from Unity College. Thank you so much!

Sowed many many beds to winter rye, a cover crop, whose roots hold the soil from fall and winter and spring erosion.

Begun to dig fall turnips, beets and radishes for selling to our wholesale accounts, sharing with our summer CSA and storing and distributing to our Late Fall CSA members (sold out!)

Enjoying the last of the zinnias and sunflowers. Goodbye until next year!

Excited to harvest Brussels Sprouts, gargantuan (or ginormous, to be hip) cabbages and hopefully a whole new crop of broccoli and cauliflower.

Looking forward to shorter days, slower days and the foods from the fall fields, full freezers, root cellar and pantries.

CSA members are receiving winter squashes and the many sweet roots, also leaves like kales, chards, cilantro and the last of the basils. We have a hoophouse full of peppers of red and green, so everyone will see those again. A carving pumpkin will be on your way as well as a pie pumpkin--but not in the same week.

We are hosting a work party this Saturday morning 9-11 with a soup and bread lunch to follow. Please join us if you are able!

Harvest Potluck next Tuesday, October 4th here at the Farm. 5 pm. Take a walk, share some good food and listen to Prentice recite a Holman Day poem or two. Hope you can make it!!

And finally, we will have the annual CSA survey to you soon. This helps us evaluate how we did according to YOU. These are so important to our business and our planning for next year, so be ready with your suggestions, thoughts and the like.

Thank you for your support, friends!

Polly and the VF crew

Thankful for Unity on the Farm

2011-08-16T07:42:00.002-04:00

Two weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting an orientation trip for 10 incoming Unity College students. We owe them, and their two wonderful leaders a great deal of thanks for all the help and good company they brought to Village Farm. They all arrived in the rain, set up camp down by the pond with smiles on and then pitched in on the farm each afternoon for four days. The picture above shows the packing shed pole barn abuzz with activity. Hanging garlic, I believe.

Hauling garlic from the greenhouse (where it was laid out for a preliminary dry-down) to the packing shed where it will be hung from the rafters until we get around to cleaning it. Doesn't this smile make you smile?

Packing scallions for the cooler--which means that the scallions were harvested because they were ready or we needed to incorporate the bed they were in, so we harvested and washed them for sale at a later date.

A watchful and laughing group of barn swallow nestlings watched from on high as all the garlic was put up in the rafters. They since have flown to other parts.
When my parents bought their farm in Orrington 45 years ago, a rafter in their timber framed barn was covered with dates. Somehow, my parents figured out that the spring and late summer dates marked the arrival and departures, for dozens of years (beginning in the 19th century, I believe, but will check on that fact), of the seasonal residents: barn swallows. My father has kept up the rafter-writ almanac with his own scritchety scratch of dates. These little nestlings make me realize that Village Farm is due for such a thing.
It has been a few weeks of vegetables for CSA members with no blog posting. . .such is farming around here with one too few interns for the year. All hands are on deck, I tell you.
The harvest is rolling in, literally, in the case of the melons. Everyone will receive at least a watermelon next week and possibly a musk melon/canteloupe. We have given out (organic and not wormy!) sweet corn ears and jumbo broccoli for the last two weeks and at last the tomatoes seem to be coming in bigger quanitities. New potatoes were also a new offering in the last few weeks. And everyone has received luscious baby lettuce heads, cabbage, celery, onions, peppers, and basil. Check out this beautiful, artful salad using a quartered baby lettuce head. We have yet to eat there, but our friend, Erin has been wowing diners at The Lost Kitchen in Belfast. She will be opening a larger venue soon in the old Gothic building across from the Post Office. Congrats, and Good Luck, Erin!

Flower share members received red and fuschia bouquets this week and it looks like everyone (not just flower share members!) will get a sunny sunflower bouquet in the next week or two.

Things look great for the fall. Cabbages are heading up and the potato crop is booming despite late blight all around us in Waldo County. They will get a misting of (organically allowed) Copper spray tomorrow to keep the devastating fungus from wiping them out. 2009 gave us a lesson in late blight and Copper as a fungicide. . .see this post from that summer for more details.

We are looking forward to our first evening potluck of 2011 this Tuesday evening, August 30th, with a walking tour beginning at 5 and eating around 530-6.

We will have a tomato and pesto tasting for you all to sample as well as other treats from the kitchen here. We would love to see as many of you as can make it. No RSVPs necessary! Come along and bring a hungry friend.

All the best from here, Polly

Parsley Pesto from the Village Farmhouse

2011-08-09T06:43:00.002-04:00

For those of you who have come for lunch here, chances are you have tasted our parsley pesto. It is wonderful, like most pestos on pasta but also on toast with some cooked greens, on crackers with cheese, mixed into a soup or dolloped onto any meat or tofu dish. Versitile and bright, this parsley pesto is great frozen and enjoyed mid-winter. Everyone gets a huge bunch of flat leaf parsley this week, with the hopes that you might try this recipe out.

Parsley Almond Pesto. (Warning: This is not a truly developed recipe but rather a ballpark figure that will get you something yummy. You can adjust consistency with more or less oil--I like lots--and a bit more or less lemon juice and of course, choose your salt level.)

Using a food processor or blender, chop 1/2 cup slivered or whole almonds and 1-2 cloves of garlic until lightly chopped but not pastey. (Do not over chop).

If you wash your parsley, make sure it is dry dry dry before starting (Once I used wet and it emulsified with the oil--not very yummy) Separate leaves from large stems from one large bunch of flat leaf parsley. Pack the processor with 4 cups of parsley leaves (and small stems are fine, but not big thick stems)

Add the juice and zest of one lemon (or 2 TBS lemon juice if you have that instead)

Add 1/2 cup safflower, sunflower or canola oil--not olive oil

Add 1/2 tsp salt

Mix in processor until combined and parsley is chopped. Add more oil until you get a slightly runny consistency. Less if you want a thicker experience. More salt to taste.

Enjoy!

More farm news and share news coming. . .

Polly

Weeks 6 and 7 of 2011 CSA

2011-08-03T11:43:00.006-04:00

Prentice next to the beeswarm that landed in our Linden tree.

Dear CSA Members and blog followers,

It is August! It has been so hot the bees decided to swarm. . .right into the barnyard as we were packing vegetables one afternoon! Their queen landed on a low hanging (thank you, queen bee!) Linden tree branch about 25 feet from all the action. Prentice clipped the branch and walked them straight home to their hive and they all seem to be staying put now that the temps are lower.

We have been tempted to swarm, too, in all this heat! I have found myself, more often than I care to admit, in the waters of Belfast Bay. Something about that deep cooling water sets me "back to rights." We have had sun and heat, thunder and lightning, blue skies and glorious breezes. The vegetables have appreciated the bits and pieces of rain that have fallen from above and despite a few weeks of malfunction, the irrigation pump is once again pumping out more water where needed. Everything is growing well, including the weeds.

Yes, we are seeing the effects of being down an apprentice all season. . .we are missing a third of our work force--that is serious! There are way more weeds than we are used to and they grow by the day so some of them are starting to be intimidating! We try to get to large weeding projects when time allows but between picking picking picking for the 70 CSA households and our wholesale accounts, and tending the animals, the weeding is often last to get our attention. We had an awesome crew of weeders tackle two huge beds of carrots last Saturday and a big THANK YOU! goes out to all of those who lent a hand.
Goat feta, tomato, cucumber, basil and olive oil salad.

We have bid farewell to The Three (not Billy, not Gruff) Goats. A few of us may have had tears in our eyes and lumps in our throats (but I won't say who!) We continue to offer them thanks as we enjoy the delectable cheeses that Zac and Willie and Zelie have produced. This morning's breakfast table held chive chevre, braised escarole, VF eggs and kimchi. Last week we made a salad of the first tomatoes from the hoophouse that featured goat feta, cukes and basil and olive oil and a bit of black pepper. So simple and sublime. Thank you goats. Thank you gardens.

Zac mixing up a gigantic batch of kimchi on the porch.

Yes, I did write that word: TOMATOES. They are indeed on their way. . . Long awaited, we will have tomatoes for many weeks to come. Everyone has had eggplant by now and Farm members got their first green peppers this Tuesday. We distributed the first cabbages, delivered as a half in a bag because they were so large and we didn't want to take up your whole crisper drawer with one of those beauties.

CSA members are commenting on the onions. Ailsa Craig is the mild white variety you have all received a few times now. Carrots keep all of us crunching and the summer squash and cucumbers keep a coming and so you keep receiving them. They form the base of many, many a meal around here. Today's lunch was curried coconut rice with a side of carmelized onions and strips of zucchini. Cilantro pesto (see the recipe I posted week one of 2009's CSA here) as a condiment, and also some cucumber, onion, tomato salsa.

How are the "bunch your own herbs" going for everyone? We will continue in this fashion, encouraging you to make mixed bunches of the herbs you use and enjoy, rather than us bunching too large or small bunches for your tastes.

Flower share members have received four or five bouquets so far and almost all vegetable share members have also received a bouquet. We will have bouquets this coming Monday for the 20 Belfast members who did not get them on 8-1-11. Perhaps it goes without saying, but I hope all of you are taking the rubber bands off the bunches each time. They will "relax" so much more beautifully into a vase with out that constricting thing. Also, please do change the water once or twice and if really ambitious, you could trim off 1/2 inch of stem at the bottom at that point. They will last much longer with both fresh water every 3 days and a bit of a trim. And one more thing, while I am on a roll here, the bouquets are yours to tinker with! Divide them into two or three smaller bouquets for bedside tables! Take out the stems you aren't crazy about or don't like the smell of (Bells of Ireland can kind of get to me. . .). Remove the blooms that go by, keeping the zinnias which seem to last for weeks at my house! Hope you are enjoying them!

It seems that there have been many people in our fields and around our tables this week, but it seems a blur at the moment. . . An attempt at recollecting includes. . .Amma Sal and Aunt Laurie who brought a huge and scrumptious dinner Tuesday night. There were the carrot weeders on Saturday, Beatriz on Friday, Shana on Monday and the grandparents who took the boys for several days of off-farm entertainment. . .Many thanks to each and all. And to those I forgot, thank you as well and forgive my memory, friends.

Sunday will bring a group of Unity College matriculants to the farm for an orientation trip. We will work with them each afternoon and harvest foods for their meals. It is always a good time, having service-learning groups here with us and we are looking forward to it very much.

That may be it for now!

Hope you all are enjoying the gifts of summer!

Polly, for all of us at Village Farm

Week Five of 2011 CSA

2011-07-20T15:37:00.009-04:00

Cherokee lettuce by Shannon Thompson

As we harvested this week's vegetables for you CSA members, the exclamations around the washtub were many. On Sunday, I picked, washed and packed 45# of salad mix (yeah, we usually don't work on Sundays. . .more on that in a bit) with the fantastic company of Shannon and John who came by "motorbicle" as Abel calls them. It was a gloriously blue skied day with a breeze and I wanted to be no where else on earth. . .and then Shannon rolled in, introduced me to John, chatting commenced and I got one notch happier. Love those visitors. They complimented the salad mix, too, so they get even bonus bonus points.

Shannon and John told me the storyline of a new documentary which you all might be interested in: Forks Over Knives. I will let you click on that link rather than giving a second hand report which I will botch. . .safe to say it is about health and good food. I look forward to seeing it.

We also had our first kohlrabi harvest and Zac snapped a few pics for his sister, who is, we hear, a kohlrabi fan.

We have hit 1200 row feet of carrots hard in the past weeks shipping many bunches to the Coop and giving them out at this week's and last week's distributions. You can see me sporting some high farm fashion here. I really wanted to wear the colors of the carrots.
Last week, we welcomed to the farm and family a young woman from France, named Zelie. Through a friend, Zelie has come to live with us for a few weeks, help with the children and farm work and work on her English. She is a delight to all, including her new friends, more farm visitors, The Goats. Despite my "no new species" rule, we agreed to goat-sit for a friends three white Saanans. Vegetables for week five. . .getting some crunch and color. First cucumbers and summer squashes, kohlrabi (best eaten raw, in my opinion--grated in a slaw, dipped in your favorite hummous or dip. It is like a sweet, tender broccoli stem and hails from the same family), your second take at viatmin greens, scallions, some got broccoli, some got beets, lettuce and salad mix and herbs for all. . .
This week coming up, we will have fresh (uncured) garlic heads for you, more cukes and zukes, escarole, an Italian cooking green which I will offer a recipe for, possibly peas again (can be hard to predict), possibly broccoli and more salad fixings and carrots and herbs, as usual.

Watering, watering to keep the plants growing these hot days. Everything is looking good. I walked the melons two days in a row and I think the vines grew 2 feet. There is so much more good food to come!!

Thank yous for the week include Thank you to a beautiful group of teenagers from Hidden Valley camp who worked for an afternoon planting our fall potatoes with Prentice. What a good time Prentice had. We were sorry not to be able to attend their end of the session party where they fired up an earthen oven they built. Hope it worked well, guys! Also on the farm were Levi, Lauren and Rowan for a day of picking, weeding and irrigation pipe hauling. We really enjoyed their company and help and look forward to more days in the future! My mother an brother came for a day of play with the boys and my mother and I actually got out and weeded a few beds of zinnias. Thank you Mom and Michael! Of course, Zelie and Zac and Willie--critical members of the team around here. We are having a lot of fun and getting a lot done, everyday.Truly a pleasure. My mother and father took Benny for a few solo days of fun and Josey has been in NH all week with Prentice's folks. Lucky boys to have such good times whilst the farm hums along and both parents try to keep up with it!
Let us know how it is going for you! We love emails, questions and posts to our Village Farm facebook page. Phone calls and visits are great, too!

Hope you are all staying cool and well fed.
Best wishes from all,
Polly,

We say we don't work on Sundays

2011-07-12T14:35:00.005-04:00

But then there is Monday to prepare for. . . .so we actually do work on Sundays, a bit. This picture of Prentice proves it. Dressed for a party but armed with the necessary papers to lay out Monday morning's picking and CSA distribution.

All is well here on the Village Farm. We have had a few nice showers lately and the irrigation pump and system have been employed, as well. The crops are loving this heat.

We slaughtered the first batch of 119 broilers this past Thursday over in Monmouth at a state certified and cooperative processing facility. Four of us went over for a long and hot day but we returned knowing each other a bit better and with a truck full of the most delicious and healthy birds around. We will have them available from the freezer all summer with another batch available fresh in about 7 weeks. Contact us if you are interested! Sunday night, After about 30 pizzas, we put two birds in Dutch ovens into a friend's outdoor cob oven (I want one and will build one. . .) and this is the view after the bake. Chicken salad for lunch on Monday. Last week was Week 1 of the Flower share. I tell you, I should be paying YOU for the privilege of crafting bouquets each week! This week's bouquets, like last week's, contained zinnias , larkspur, bachelor buttons, some celosias and statice. This week I also added some Bells of Ireland and a few had cosmos and some Irish Eyes rudebekia, a green-eyed black-eyed susan. Go figure.

The vegetable shares this week include:

Spinach, shell peas (Belfast), sugar snap peas(edible pods! Farm members) napa cabbage (Farm), rainbow carrot bunches, garlic scapes, hakurei turnips OR broccoli (Belfast), lettuce, and our new experiment: herb buffet or make your own herb bunches: parsley, cilantro and dill.

Hakurei turnips are the darlings of the farm crew. We eat them raw on sandwiches or grated in salads, mostly but have pickled them and steamed them, too. The greens are delicious as well, so saute or steam them and add them to eggs or a stir fry.
Napa cabbage is a big savoyed (crinkled) head of tenderness. We eat it raw, sliced thinly with a dressing or sauteed in a stir fry. They go well with toasted sesame seeds or toasted sesame oil, I think. Traditionally, it is the main ingredient in kim chi, A Korean saurcraut. We love the recipe from Sally Fallon's cookbook, Nourishing Traditions.

1 head Napa cabbage, cored and shredded

1 bunch scallions, chopped

1 cup grated carrots

1/2 cup grated daikon radish

1-2 tbs grated fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp chile flakes

2 tsp sea salt

2 tbs whey, if not available, use 2 extra tsp salt

1/2 cup water

Place veg and ginger and chile flakes in a bowl and mash down with a wooden pounder to release juices. Stuff into 2 quart sized wide-mouth mason jars and press down with pounder. The top of the vegetables should be 1 " below the top of the jar. Mix water with whey and salt and pour over cabbage mixture.Add additional water if needed to bring liquid to top of cabbage. Cover tightly. Keep in a warm place for 2-3 days before transferring to the refrigerator.

We are still enjoying many batches of garlic pesto per week and adding garlic scapes to just about everything that comes out of the kitchen, except the oatmeal. I have been told, however, that my Russian grandfather enjoyed garlic in his oatmeal, so it might be worth a try. (He also soaked his feet in a garlic tea when he was sick.)

If you are in need of recipes, we are going to order a few copies of Farmer John's Cookbook to have for sale at distributions. This is our summer "got to" cookbook as it was written by a CSA farmer and his kitchen staff and is wonderfully funny, simple and has ALL the vegetables that we grow listed seasonally and with good information about each.

Next week we will have scallions, kohlrabi and zucchini and summer squash as well as cooking greens (kale or chard), salad fixins and more. .. .

We wish we could get it together enough to post weekly recipes but it just doesn't happen. If any of you wanted to post recipes or links to recipes to this blog, I would welcome that contribution and could share appropriate coaching and passwords. Blogger does not enable "cut and paste" action, so it is a commitment to typing in the recipes, I am afraid.

Thank Yous. We cannot forget the Thank Yous!!! The Farm was saved by Kathy Weathers this Monday, or at least it felt that way, when she showed up to be with the boys so both Prentice and I could pick and pack for the day. What a busy day! She even baked cookies!! Zoli and Becky have been doing childcare a few times per week, allowing both farmers to be farmers and that is always a treat and a good time. A friend of Zac's, Beatriz, put in a few days of good farm work last week, including the infamous and aforementioned chicken slaughter marathon. We are grateful to grandparents and aunties and uncles who often love up our farm boys with trips and stories and special times. Thank you to all those and the ones I have certainly forgotten. . .

Well, it is time to set up for this afternoon's CSA distribution on the farm, so I shall sign off with many best wishes to all of you for many a happy, healthy meal with people you love.

Polly, for all at Village Farm

2011-06-27T21:57:00.005-04:00

Alicia, Willie, Zac and Prentice pause and pose over the red greens mix last week.

We have been so very fortunate to have had another willing worker around for the last 10 days. Unity College grad and rock solid human being, Alicia, joined our farm and family in the height of planting and harvesting and has been a HUGE help to the works. Abel calls her "Miss Alicia." We will all miss her sorely when she returns to Ohio tomorrow. Big, big thanks to Alicia from all of us.

Another big thanks to Tim and Clayton, Belfast friends and CSA members for their wonderful company and helping hands Monday morning. Tim's big laugh, and work in the packing shed was just what we all needed on a busy Monday morning. While 6 year old Clayton and our three boys went to the pond with Prentice, Tim worked away as part of the VF crew. With a 10 am deadline for one order and a slug of CSA shares to pick for in the heat, Tim got a crash course in skedaddle, VF style. At one point, when I realized that we needed to be picking for 10 more CSA shares than I had written on the pick sheet, I said, "I think I should sit down and take a deep breath." Tim: "A very good idea." Another favorite Tim quote: "Just keep picking, right?" (Yes.)

What a pleasure to have friends and CSA members join our days here.

This week's offerings: Lettuce heads, salad mix, spinach, kale bunches, hakurei turnips (Belfast) or beet green bunches (Farm members--whichever you didn't get this week, you will get next week!), garlic scapes and a choice of either dill or parsley.

Hakurei turnips are a favorite crop around here Fun to pick, fun to wash and bunch and so fun and sweet to eat. We often slice them up in salads or quick pickles (a dash of vinegar and herbs). No need to peel them. They can also be enjoyed steamed though I tend to slice off the turnips for fresh dipping or munching and then steam just the greens.

Tuesday's Farm members received beet greens as we let the hakuriei size a bit more.

Beet greens are an iron-rich treat that I grew up eating quite often. Our naturopath tells me beets are good liver cleansers. My parents always simply steamed them in a shallow bit of water in a big pan for 5-10 minutes and then topped with a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper. You can add them to a quiche or omelet, saute them in a bit of oil. We eat the itty bitty beet, stem and leaf all together. They are washed well here but you may want to give them a rinse to be sure there is no grit.

Garlic scapes are the buds of garlic plants' flowers. While the bulb sizes up underground, the flowers rise and then curl their delicate loveliness right out of the top of the plant. We snip them off to eat but also because snipping them supposedly allows more energy to go to the bulb. They can be used as a milder substitute for garlic, sauteed whole or chopped, pickled or used in a pesto such as this one:

1/2 cup garlic scapes chopped into 1" pieces

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast if you avoid dairy or are out. . .

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds or almonds (toasted if you like)

1/4-1/2 cup or more olive oil

Blend all in a food processor and adjust the consistency with more olive oil.

Season with salt and pepper and a splash of lemon juice if you like.

Serve on pasta or on a sandwich or crackers or eat with a spoon. So good.

Today's lunch a la Zac: Rice noodles tossed with garlic scape pesto, massaged kale salad (click on those words for a link to a recipe--thanks, Kathy!), pressed, herbed farm cheese, microgreen salad and John's Ice Cream for dessert. We are doing well, I tell you.

And one more recipe link for kale chips, if you have never made them. . .you must.

Next week we are looking to add snap peas to the offerings. Perhaps Napa cabbage? It can be challenging to predict. Beet greens for those who got hakurei salad turnips and vice versa. . .

And the flower shares will begin!! Ten weeks of blooms! I can hardly wait!

Also! We have a work party coming up on July 9 from 9-12 am with a lunch provided. RSVPs appreciated so we can plan for food. These work party (fun, like a party!) mornings are a wonderful way for us to visit and work alongside friends and CSA members. We take a walk around to see the sights, too. There are jobs for all ages and abilities, so please come on out if you are inclined. Hope you can make it!

For all of us at Village Farm, we hope you enjoy the week and whatever food makes its way to your table. We feel very fortunate and happy to be growing some of that food for you,

Polly

Week One of 2011 CSA Season!

2011-06-19T22:29:00.004-04:00

Well, let the fun begin!

Happy Summer everyone! Yesterday was our first CSA pick day and though we have been harvesting a bit over the last weeks, there is a certain giddiness to the first CSA pick days of the season. The CSA is truly the heart of our farm. Members are not merely customers. Those vegetables growing outside our farmhouse doors. . . that is YOUR food. It is ALL OF OUR food. For the months ahead we will all be nourished by the minerals and vitamins, flavors and colors and smells of nutrient dense vegetables grown from this earth. There is something powerfully cooperative about the CSA arrangement and we thrive knowing that so many of the vegetables we grow will end up on your plates. Thank you for supporting our farm.

So here we go!

The harvest: Members will be getting head lettuce, radish bunches, salad greens, vitamin greens, cilantro an micro greens. All but the vitamin greens are best enjoyed raw in salads, though the vitamin greens are lovely raw in a slaw or salad, too. I enjoy the vitamin greens sauteed briefly (so they maintain a bit of crunch and texture) in some oil in a hot pan. Add a bit of salt and enjoy. They are a bok choy relative so they also are great in a stir fry.
Next week will have hakurei turnips and more salad fixins as well as garlic scapes and hopefully beet greens.

Barnyard News: The new hoophouse is full of tomatoes and the original one is full of peppers and basil. And the new grain bin is up! Phew. Hundred of nuts and bolts and a few gray hairs (notice the power lines) later, it is full of chicken mash milled at Maine's newest farmer-owned, organic grain processor, Maine Organic Milling.

We are almost all sold out of seedlings for the year. It was a great second year of marketing at the Belfast Coop. These calendula are blooming in their pots and just looked so gorgeous on the back of the J-20, our new, old plow truck.

That is all for now. Be in touch with any questions, ideas or inspirations!

Polly for all of us at Village Farm

Working Shares Available

2011-06-11T03:53:00.002-04:00

Wanted: 2 people to join the VF crew every Monday or Tuesday morning from 8-12 a.m. for 17 weeks-- the CSA season-- in exchange for a vegetable share. Call or email us if you are interested!

Spring at Village Farm

2011-06-10T04:58:00.005-04:00

Well, last night's thunder storms left a good bit of rain (and some hail) for all at Village Farm. As we all sat on the porch during a downpour, I came to understand where the term "high-tail" might have originated. Watching cows run in from pasture: seven long, strong tails held high off their running rumps. They took cover, as we had done a few minutes earlier.
Just as bringing an umbrella assures the superstitious that it will not rain, setting up an intricate, heavy and cheeky irrigation system assures farmers that it will rain. We are not complaining. Rain from above, natural rain is far better than any water we can deliver to crops. They all needed it, so we are breathing a sigh of relief. How quickly it can go from way-too-wet to way-too-dry!
We are diligently planting, planting, planting while also running the twice weekly loads of seedlings into the Coop. The last week was amazing for sales! We just brought yellow and red watermelons and will deliver another gaggle of those today as well as some cantloupe, some new herbs, okra, and some lovely looking zinnias. And as always, the top sellers: gem marigolds, sungold tomatoes and Genovese basil.
Harvesting has begun again. We had a few week hiatus since our hoophouse vegetables sold out, and today we will be bringing more micro greens and baby head lettuce into the Coop and to our favorite caterers.
Speaking of harvesting, the 2011 Summer CSA will begin its 17 week run on June 20th for Belfast members and June 21st for Farm members. We will begin flower share distributions in early July. There is still time to sign up for either the vegetables or the flowers, so be in touch if are interested!
I just read this wonderful article by Sara Jenkins in the Altlantic and thought to pass it on to all of you. It is titled "Why Home-Style Cooking Will Always Beat Restaurant-Style" and it rung so true to these ears. We cook so simply here and eat so well. Just the other day I was paging through one of those fancy, beautiful cookbooks and felt a little inferiority rising. "I should learn to bake bread better, " and "This curry looks so much better than my 'old standby curry'" and on and on. . .the voices chatter. Jenkins' article makes the elegant case that restauranteurs do not have to think about the day in and day out health of their diners. Salt, fat, wine and tricky processes (the kind I haven't the training or time for!) can lure any eater into gastronomic ecstasy. Not that gastronomic ecstasy is bad, but simply good enough is usually delicious and a whole lot healthier and easier. In this home/farm kitchen, balancing all the palates with what is available seasonally and from the pantry and freezers, is the name of the game.
Soft, herbed farm cheese shows up on every table. Fresh greens, last fall's kim chi and saurcraut. . .all staples. Willie has become the chicken roaster, scone baker, and brewer. Zac makes salads come alive with surprising ingredients and has used parsnips in more ways than I can count. Prentice can juggle three boys and still turn out a multi-course lunch "on time" (noon). I made some beef empanadas this week that were enjoyed by all and now there are murmerings and jingles being sung of "Polly's Hair Salon and Empanaderia." (Not sure the two should be linked like that. . . )
All this, just to say that eating simply and eating well can go hand in hand. No need for fancy equipment, processes, kitchens or those cookbooks.
More from Village Farm soon!

Polly

More Comings and Goings

2011-05-18T14:48:00.007-04:00

Some beautiful Cornus Rugosa cuttings that we are rooting for the tree nursery.

It is Full Tilt Spring here on the Village Farm and in the words of our dairy farmer friend, Jeff Bragg, "There is never enough time in May." And, I add, there's a LOT going on to report to our blog followers! All this rain has slowed our planting and transplanting down to a full stop but there is never a shortage of other building, greenhouse and harvesting tasks to do.

We got all of our alliums (onions, leeks and shallots) in before this week of rain as well as first sowings of radishes, carrots, salad greens, salad turnips, beets, herbs and lettuce. That was a bit of a push and even Ben, aged four, was out after dinner one night helping get the seeds in the ground. We don't work after dinner very often but in this case, staring down a week of rain, we thought every minute of daylight should be used to get our crops in the ground. There is no driving on our fields now, or even walking, really. Much too muddy. And so we are waiting for some sun and a warm breeze to dry things out (again!).

A few photo collages to capture more comings and goings. . .First the arrivals.

Two days ago a big bull calf was born to Charlotte, our Shorthorn beef mama. His name is Chico (in keeping with the custom of naming offspring with the first letter of their mother's first name) and he is a strapping and thrifty guy. He and Charlotte are in a box stall in the barn now, despite being born into that luscious green grass. They get a chance to bond away from the other herd members this way. They will be out to pasture within the next few days.

The new bulk grain bin is coming together thanks to Tony, a.k.a. Pop, Prentice's father who has been working all the metal and hundreds of nuts and bolts into a gigantic bin. Quite the erector set.

The plum trees are in bloom, tragically, as there seem to be NO pollinators out and about. . .so no or very few plums this year for the Grassi boys.

120 chicks that will graze and laze and grow on VF's lush pastures and make the tastiest chickens for our customers. (Let us know if you would like to be on the chicken list. . .)

Leroy. He has already been introduced via our facebook feed but here is a picture of the sweet guy. He is about three weeks old now. We are awaiting one more calf in the next week.

And the "cuban" (cube+cabin), the newest intern dwelling.

And the departures. . .

We were all sad to see Laura head back to Alabama. She was here for a bit over a month and a few weeks into her stay, she realized she had made a mistake. A growing season in Maine wasn't adding up for her. She wants to farm in Alabama or Georgia and is on her way back there now to begin that adventure again. We were priveleged by her company, help, humor and sincerity and we wish her the very best.

Sold! Our old plow truck to Ginger and Daniel at Freedom Farm. . .Trucky served us well for 10 years and is off to a second or third or fourth life at another farm with its own snow removal issues.

Seedlings are a huge spring effort for us. We produce all of our own for the 4-5 acres of VF vegetables but we sell thousands at the Belfast Coop each spring. We deliver van loads twice per week and trust that they are giving many, many a midcoast garden a great start in their own food growing efforts.

Feeding hay. This was a picture from early April that I love and now that the cows are on grass, the twice daily chore of feeding out hay to the herd is a thing of the past. Until fall of course.

The CSA distributions will start sometime in June though we are waiting to see what the weather does in the coming week before announcing a start date. We still have a few shares left but are nearly full, so if you haven't signed up and would like to or would care to share the idea with a friend, we would love to be your farmers in 2011!!

It is May, and though we may be busy, we also find ourselves basking in the greens and the buds and the babies and all the glorious unknowns that the growing season ahead holds for us.

All the best from your friends,

The Village Farmers

Another farm story.

2011-04-19T14:50:00.004-04:00

For a few weeks, Prentice has been collecting and crafting. He was not making a physical piece of art but rather a story. He was asked a few months ago by a friend and CSA member to speak at the U U Church of Belfast's Earth Day gathering about being a farmer. Or he could just simply tell a favorite farm story. Prentice has been focusing his collecting and crafting around our first dairy cow, Jasmine, and her quirks, personality, and how she came to live and then die with us. That was the story he was preparing to tell.. . the one he was supposed to tell.

Well, our farm had a story of its own in mind for us Sunday morning and as you will come to understand, Prentice never made it to Belfast. (He was not hurt, so don't worry, but do read on . . .)

Saturday night was stormy. Wind gusts of 55mph were predicted and we feel quite certain we experienced those here "on the prairie" as our friend Paul, calls our farm. I lay awake that night for many minutes fretting over the two hoop structures, the greenhouse and hoophouse, the former is heated for our thousands of seedlings, the latter is unheated and full of salad greens. I did not go out in the night to check on anything. I just fretted.

Sunday morning, I did go out to do chores: feed the cows , chicks and layers. Usually, checking on the greenhouse is part of chores but as it was so windyrainy. . . and I had just wrestled four windowpanes back into their rightful places in the chicken coop, I headed inside for breakfast.

(Always check.)

Prentice was all dressed and ready to head to Belfast and he did check in the greenhouse before leaving for town. Joseph was also outside as he was going to go to town with Prentice. . .when Josey heard yelling "JoJo! JOJO!" from the greenhouse. Josey peeked his head in, was told to "Go get Mommy" and he sprinted for the house.

Needless to say I dashed, leaving Josey with the phone and the two littles. (Being a resourceful lad, he pulled two chairs up to the windows and all three boys watched the greenhouse for any sign of their parents -- or the danger that Josey must have felt in the air.)

The greenhouse was coming unglued. Breaking apart. Snapping. Etc.

The heavy winds had thrashed the plastic so that the metal straps that hold/held the hipboard (a shoulder height 2x8 that runs the whole length of the greenhouse) to the frame, had all snapped.

When I found Prentice he was inside the greenhouse, leaning over a whole colony of baby eggplants and holding onto the wooden hipboard with every muscle in his body. The plastic was blowing and heaving and were it not for Prentice's vice grip, it would have blown right off.

Like that group game in grade school where you all hang onto edges of a big blue parachute . . .but there was just Prentice and a mighty howl tugging at the huge plastic sheet over his head.

Luckily, there were ratchet straps underfoot (did Prentice get those?). After discussing the options, we decided to cut through the plastic, feed a strap through the plastic and around the hipboards and fasten the other end to the baseboards (also big boards, but these rest on the ground). I messed around with the straps for a few moments before realizing that we needed to switch places.

Prentice got two straps situated while I held onto the hipboard, rising and falling with the wind's gusts. We ran for more rope and tied the hipboard to the baseboard in four other places.

It was secure.

I ran in to check on the children, rather to make sure they weren't too worried and to give them an update. I knew they were safe in the house. They were in fine spirits and were all talking about the "silly chickens" which were (also) out in the gale.

As I replayed this morning adventure in my mind, I was struck by a new awareness of having a home based business. Our farm allows our children not only to work along side us on a daily basis, observe and participate in decision making and compromise (we often disagree!) but also, on this day they watched mother and father deal with a small emergency. I do hope the experience lives in them not as a fearsome one, but rather one where they felt safe inside, helpful to the cause, and pleasantly relieved when the crisis was over.

Being about as adrenaline-averse a person as could be, I was wiped out for the rest of the day. I also felt that I had to tell the story to everyone I encountered or spoke with by phone. And the telling continues on this thing called a blog. (Thanks for reading/listening!)

Farm drama. I might even say I would rather chase loose cows than do that again. Phew.

. . .another farm story that is now ours to tell.
Prentice may have his own version.
With warm, safe and calm wishes for all of you,
Polly

What I know about right now.

2011-04-15T15:17:00.002-04:00

Here is what I know. It is spring. The grass is greening and the cows are restless. The greenhouse is almost full. Prentice and Laura and William have been working on sheathing the new cabin. They put a snazzy green roof on the cabin this week, too. It is cold today so I made parsnip, chicken, and garden pea soup for lunch. The soup had some warming spices and was accompanied by biscuits. Molasses ginger cookies were also consumed. We are enjoying eating and selling micro greens and we should have spring salad mix galore from the hoophouse in a few weeks. The baby chicks are getting all their adult feathers. We need to clean out a winter's worth of manure from the hen house, aka eggmobile. I am volunteering for that job. We are hosting a farm tour tomorrow that the Belfast Coop has organized. We cleaned up the yard and greenhouse today to ready for that. I also know that Willie, aka William, took the picture you see above. It is of Cosmos seedlings. All is well, basically. The farm pulses on. . .animals, plants and people. It is a good and optimistic time of year, that I know. With warm wishes to all of our supporters and friends, Polly for all of us.

Comings and Goings of April 2011

2011-04-02T14:01:00.019-04:00

Note: Sorry, the formatting on this seems particularly cheeky today! It looks good when I write it and then when it is published it is all wonky. Welcome to the moist days of early spring when Mother Nature seems to be humming a soft, waking up kind of song, wiping the sleep from her eyes and looking around at all the possibilities. There is much to come and a few things on their way out for the year. . .

Comings:

16" of fresh snow

April Fool's pranks

more hay for our cows

Killdeer in the gardens

Robins in the fields

Canada geese overhead and in the fields

Woodcock calls at dusk "Bszzt. Bszzt."

Wee plants from within wee seeds (still so amazing to me!)

Mud (I know it is there, beneath all the snow)

Germinating spinach, beetgreens and turnips in the unheated hoophouse

Chicks

William and Laura, 2011 interns (already) extraordinaires

"Red," dog intern extraordinaire (she goes with Laura)

Pussy willows

Goings:

16" of not so fresh snow

Still enjoying the last of root cellared apple cider, kim chi, saurcraut, carrots, potatoes, etc.

Maple sap gathering adventures

Maple syrup boiling chess games

Snowdrops

To these we say, "Goodbye for now!" and "See you next year!"

Have a lovely day, all. . . ~Polly

A hole in the ice

2011-03-12T20:18:00.008-05:00

Since 1998, when Prentice was given his first cow, we have had anywhere from one to ten cows through the winters. Most of those winters have been weathered here at the Village Farm in Freedom and most have involved long, stiff lengths of frozen or freezing hoses that we have used to water the herd. Last year, Prentice had an idea that was "just the thing," everyday brilliance, let's say. . . of foregoing the hassle of the hoses in favor of an old fashioned solution: a hole in the ice.

Our "unplugged" barn (read: no electricity or running water) is 600 feet or so south of the house and what it lacks in conveniences, it makes up for in its charm. Sheathed in re-used metal siding (read: rumpled and peppered with holes), it isn't pretty. This fact has never occurred to me, but it doesn't have even one window. But it does the job, as they say, and it is in a wonderful site; the barn is situated on the south side of a little knoll and is smack dab next to a small pond.

We call this little kettle, "the barn pond" or "the frog pond" if it is spring.

I have a mighty fascination with pre-historic times and often find myself wondering at all the things we have forgotten over the millenia. Anyways, keeping a hole in the ice open, and dipping a bucket into it each and every day of the winter is the closest thing to going back in time that I have ever experienced. People have been doing this for thousands of years. There is something about that hole in the ice that is as primal to northern latitudes people as the fiery hearth. In some ways, it is the hearth's opposite: dark, cold and spooky. But, like the hearth, it is life-giving and elemental.

(Sometimes when I gaze into the hole, I pretend I am a polar bear, waiting for a seal to surface.)

Our four adult cows and two teenagers drink about 30-40 gallons of water per day in the winter. For me (Polly), that is 4 trips to and from the pond with an almost full five gallon bucket in each hand.

One January day, as I was pouring a bucketful into the cows' trough, I saw a black something in the water. It was a tadpole. I thought that tadpoles buried their little selves in the mud for the cold months! This one was quite perky and not at all muddy, and so I decided it would make a good surprise for the boys. The poor thing sloshed all the way up to the house with me and when I showed it to Josey and Ben, they politely told me to "please put it back, Mama." I was expecting them to want to keep it in a fishbowl --as a pet! But no. I suppose it was an odd visitor from another season and they just assumed catch their own tadpoles by themselves in the spring.

The hole in the ice is a winter treat and will go the way of the snowmen and snow forts in the weeks ahead. Needless to say, I will miss it and already look forward to tending its edges next winter.

Spring is on the way,

Polly

Pre Buy Season for Vegetables (and Flowers!)

2011-02-15T12:32:00.006-05:00

Every time I drive down Rte 137 to Belfast, I pass Thompson's Oil and their lit up roadside sign onto which the folks in the office (with the plastic letters) can post messages. These signs are ubiquitous in rural Maine. The maple syrup shacks have them, the granges, the gas stations and farmstands. Starting in September or maybe even earlier, the one at Thompson's announces "Pre-Buy Season is Here." Buying propane or heating oil is cheaper if you lock in at September prices. At least that is the hope.

Well, we have no marquee sign but this blog will have to do. I am taking a lead from this terminology and announcing that "Pre-Buy Season is Here" --for Village Farm vegetables.

We are happy and excited to be heading into our 4th year of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) here and hope that we will have the privilege of growing for YOU in the months ahead.

CSA is a way to support a local farm with your financial commitment in advance of the growing season. Yes, our CSA helps us pay for expenses that we incur in the spring but more than that, it creates a community of eaters and a community of farm supporters. We know where our vegetables are going before they are even picked. We do our marketing in the slower winter months and then get busy growing for the households that have signed on as members.

Purchasing a CSA share is also a commitment to your health! Many members have told us how many MORE vegetables they eat during the Village Farm CSA season. That is something to consider.

Any of you who have been CSA members know what fresh and flavorful, nutrient dense, and downright beautiful vegetables we grow around here. We wash them, cool them and let you select your week's sustenance each Monday(in Belfast) or Tuesday (at the farm) evening from June-October. If you have never been a member of a CSA, give us a call with your questions. We can provide as much detail on what we have grown and distributed in the past as you could possibly want and will let you know what to expect in 2011.

We might also add to our marquee sign "Find us on Facebook" as we have indeed, taken the plunge with the hopes of connecting to our customers, friends and potential CSA members in the way/place where most people seem to be. . . on Facebook. We hope this is not folly but we are going to give it a try.

That said, word of mouth is simply and truly the best form of advertising for small businesses like ours, so please, if you would, spread the word about Village Farm. We are hoping to grow our CSA from 63 to 75 households in 2011.

What else is new? We will be offering a flower share this year, downsizing/simplifying to offer just one share size, and growing roots and greens for a fall CSA share (more on that in a few months!) Remember flowers? That is a bee in there having morning glory nectar for breakfast.

That is the news from here.

Best wishes to one and all.

From all of us at Village Farm,

Polly

Shovelling Acres

2011-02-07T08:21:00.004-05:00

Usually we refer to the +/- 4 acres of crops that we plant and cultivate and harvest but this winter we are into acres of snow removal. Prentice and the Ford plowtruck have kept the driveway passable with dozens and dozens of trips to and fro. I am not counting that in the snow removal calculations, however.

The only building on the place when we bought it in 2001 was a delapidated pole barn south of where our house sits now. At that time, we were happy to have a place to shelter and milk our small herd of cattle and to stash all of Prentice's wood collection (he was a cabinet maker before farming full-time, remember. . .) Well that 40x 60 pole barn is still delapidated. You might say more delapidated now than ever, despite some minor improvements for the cows' quarters. . . and with all this snow, and hearing of collapsed barns around, Prentice set to shovelling it off. It took him several hours over a couple of days. The roof was "spongy" underfoot (Uh-oh).

Then there are the hoophouses. We have both been somewhat maniacally shovelling up and down all sides of the tomato house and heated greenhouse lest the snow builds up above the hipboards = about shoulder height boards that anchor the plastic and form the top of the roll up sides. Yikes. So far (knock on wood) all is well but he have seen and heard of collapsed (hoop) houses and it makes a farmer want to cry.

We long ago stopped shovelling to the chicken tractor, outdoor water hydrant, even the cellar door has been turned over to King Winter's drifts. We do have the all-important snowforts however, and a path from the driveway to the front door. Shovel-shovel.

A few weeks ago Josey realized that he could climb up three graduated lumber piles then the old green house roof to arrive at the top of a fairly steep slope and the peak of the garage/shop building. Sledding has never been such a thrill. This week he has been jumping off the roof as well. Weeee!

Thankfully, there is always the hearth to retreat to after a wintry adventure.

Wishing you warmth and good company during these brighter and longer days of winter.

All the best from here,

Polly, and all at Village Farm

Tracks in the Snow

2011-01-16T20:33:00.003-05:00

Hauling grain to the chickens before dusk.

With that 1" of fresh powder last night, the whole barnyard and door yard were refreshed just like someone shook the etch-a-sketch and made the canvas blank. I paused before I stepped out the door early this morning. I was about to "spoil" something quite beautiful with my boot tracks. But onward! Chores must be done! Animals fed and watered!

Between critters and boots of various sizes, the footsteps around the place are many; our favorite paths and places to sit or stand in the sun apparent. Then there are all the gliding things, sleds, snowboards, skis and the like. Some tire tracks, of course, are on the driveway. Enter the woods and the tracks become a puzzling mystery of who, why, when? Joseph and I saw this snowshoe hare track in our woods with what we think is a blood laced urine spot. Prentice saw the tracks of a mouse disappear "into thin air" in the middle of the field until he noticed the tell-tale flight feather marks of a winged raptor that had swooped down and snatched it up. An owl?

All of that is to say, we are enjoying winter here on the Village Farm. We hope you are too, in whatever ways feel right.

We are getting our 2011 CSA brochures ready and will be updating the printable sign up form on our website this week. We have interviewed some potential apprentices and have enjoyed those meetings very much. We are still delivering winter squash and eggs to the Belfast Coop.

The stack of seed catalogs is calling. . .

That is all for now!

Best wishes to one and all.

Polly, for all of us at Village Farm

Roots, roots, and more roots!

2010-11-24T21:34:00.009-05:00

Hi there blog followers! I write this many weeks ago and just realized that I never posted it! Oops! here's a little late fall news:

Greetings from Village Farm!

It was so very windy here on the prairie today. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are looking forward to being with friends and family for a good feed and some moments of raucous thanks and some moments of silent gratitude for all the wonders of food, family, health and happiness.

We have some new-ish pictures that illustrate what is going on around here. Among the last jobs the HB and Les worked on before they left for other adventures in early November, was the Annual Digging of the Rosemaries. I have had some of these rosemaries for ten years and each fall, we carefully dig up each rootball and gently place them in pots. The rosemaries stay out in the fall air for a few weeks before moving into the sunny but cool basement where they will spend the winter months. We can't quite send these Mediterranean natives abroad or to Florida, so the basement has to do. They will get replanted (again) in the spring and we will snip their amazing flavored sprigs all summer. This year we dug some thyme, sage and lavender as well to see how they overwinter chez basement.

Yet another fine group of Unity College students joined the Village Farm forces for a day in early November. What a stellar day it was! We chose a task that fit the weather and the many willing hands: moving all the irrigation pipe from the fields to its winter pile by the greenhouse. We chatted and walked, all the while carrying 20-30 foot long pipes together. Thank you Unity College students! Come back and visit anytime!

The simple beauty of some purple cauliflower on a wooden cutboard. Still roasting all the crucifers: kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli. . . I noticed the Barefoot Contessa had roasted brussel sprouts on her Thanksgiving menu. (We will too!)

The last BIG job each fall is to harvest the trees and shrubs we grow for FEDCO. It takes us a few days but is good, wholesome work and so satisfying to see such healthy roots and beautiful plants up close. Prentice did a lot of 'timing' of the digging operation. In an effort to watch our efficiencies and also our profitability, we are converting a lot of anecdotal "oh, that takes forever" or "that just takes five minutes" into actual timed efforts. We are not racing the clock, mind you. Just keeping the normal pace but writing down how long different tasks ACTUALLY take.

This is the borrowed horse trailer full of trees and shrubs. They are buried in wet sawdust and bound for FEDCO's basement warehouse where they will sit dormant for the winter until they are shipped and sold in April and May. Witch Hazel, Red Maple, Snowberry, Coralberry, Roundleafed Dogwood, Brown Ash. . . and others.

And saving the best for last, this is the most fun we have been having lately. We grew about 500 row feet of mangel beets in the house garden and harvested them along with all the other fall roots. They got washed but rather than getting bagged and sold or stored in the walk-in cooler, they went down to the barn. These beets are for the cows. We covered a huge mountain of beets on the dirt floor in the barn with a tarp and hay for insulation from the frosts. We have been chopping two buckets a day for the six cows of Village Farm and as you can see should you click on the video below, it is a pretty fun job! Uploading the video is taking a good bit of time, so only one for today. (And I have no idea why it is so small.. . . ) Will post one of the cows eating the beets soon.

Warm wishes to one an all for a cozy and delicious weekend.

From all of us at the Village Farm, Polly

Hard work, yes. But it's OUR work.

2010-10-28T14:52:00.006-04:00

Hello out there, friends of Village Farm!
Below is a portrait of our tractor by Lily Piel. Lily, a Portland based photographer, visited us a few weeks ago to photograph our operation for The Carrot Project, an awesome funder of grants and loans to farmers. Lily's pictures and portraits make my snapshots look like just that--snapshots. Amazing how the skilled photographer can pull out a whole lot of beauty from the very ordinary.

Have a look at her collection here. This one is also by Lily.

At the end of another growing season, we shift into a slower gear, reflect on the months past and start to make lists of what we would like to learn/change for next year.

So many people, friends, family, customers and even strangers (who see me carrying boxes into the Belfast Coop, for example) say, "What hard work!" To which I say something like:

Yes, but I love it, so it doesn't feel like hard work all the time.

-OR-

Heavy, hot, wet, and undervalued--yes. But I get to be outside, with my family, with the plants and birdsongs and . . .

-OR-

I would find lots of jobs much harder work than this!

Freely chosen, being a farmer is a good gig. We are a tiny operation, in the scheme of things, so our days are incredibly varied. I think often when I am harvesting a whole 200 foot bed of broccoli or 30# of salad greens:

I am doing this one job for 30 minutes or so. Some people, farm laborers employed by the BIG agribusinesses out there, do this for 8 hours straight. And then again tomorrow. . . Or maybe a machine does this job. . .

Some jobs ARE hard. It's pouring and cold and your fingers don't want to work. It's steamy and the blackflies are biting. There are cucumbers to harvest and cucumber plants make you itch. And on and on. We all have our strengths around here, and we all have the jobs we'd rather leave to others. But, for the most part, there aren't many jobs that we detest or are too hard on us. The work here is not too hard. We would say it is just about right.

We had a great bunch of friends and CSA members here on October 6th for the Work Party. We call it a party because it is meant to be FUN. We choose a good job for a crowd, get out there, chat it up and do a task. Then we eat. This fine autumn day found us harvesting dry beans as the picture below illustrates, cleaning onions that were finished curing in the greenhouse and harvesting something else which I have forgotten. . . carrots?

I am still giddy with joy that one CSA member took it upon himself to not only wash all of the farmhouse windows (inside and out!!! --AMAZING) but also to sharpen all of our kitchen knives. I am not kidding. Big thanks to all the helping hands of the day and growing season.

Many of you apologized for or lamented not being able to get to a work party. It really isn't primarily about the work accomplished. Most important is to have members with us for a morning. It is our intention that our member/supporters feel that they are welcome, their skills are welcome and we are grateful for their participation in our life and farming business. So we invite you to come and work and eat with us a few times each growing season. . .

More soon about fall vegetables available for the holidays ahead.

Take care,

Polly for all of us at Village Farm

2010-09-30T21:26:00.004-04:00

The week's CSA vegetables:

Choice of winter squash, onions, white and orange carrots, fennel bulb, cilantro or parsley,

broccoli or cauliflower, kale or chard, Kennebec potatoes, green peppers.

This may be my favorite picture of the season. The "blossom end" of a butternut squash, of course, this beautiful mandala is on each squash but a bit different--like a fingerprint. The greenhouse, once full of seedlings is now full of onions and winter squash. The former being cleaned and bagged after a few weeks of curing and the latter, in the first days of curing. The heat and sun thicken the squashes' skin and thus make the fruits more storable during the long months ahead.

The picture below is of the glorious afternoon bringing in all the squash and pumpkins from the field. Note the yellow watermelon on the end of the trailer. A fleeting moment in the farm year when both melons and winter squash are harvested and eaten!

Below, you are looking south across the fall potato field. The ground between the potatoes was planted with oats, assuring that once the potatoes were dug, there would be something on the ground to hold the soil for the winter. We are doing more and more intercropping like this; experimenting all the time with what and when to plant the undersown crop, often clover or oats. There's something to be said for cleanly cultivated beds where there is a crop and then bare soil around it. But where there is enough fertility and water to support two crops, one a vegetable and one a soil building or soil holding crop, it makes much more sense. Nature doesn't like bare soil.

The potatoes are being dug, row by row, as needed. Other crops have "gone by" as we say, and those fields are in the rpocess of being cleaned up and planted to winter rye, a cover crop that will germinate in cool soils, grow a bit this fall and survive the winter to grow next spring. We enjoyed meeting another group of Unity College students last week and they graciously helped clean up the black plastic mulch from this filed of summer squash. There was one scary monster among them who put on a show for the children. I am told he is even a CSA member!!
Hauling in trailer loads of winter squash is one form of farm entertainment and excitement but cows on the loose and three wheeled tractors are another. We had not one but two after dark cow wrangling adventures. Er. . .actually, I should say some people had such adventures. In all honesty, I decline the cow chasing adventures whenever possible. . . especially after dark and when I am in charge of the children. Anyways, they were all collected, thanks to many hands and remain safe and sound inside their appointed quarters.

But the three wheeled tractor story and picture goes like this. HB was driving the tractor and POP! the front right wheel falls off. Down goes the front end and "WHOA!" says HB. "Just wore out," says Prentice. "What a pain," says Benny. Nice living 1 mile from a tractor repair business. It is back on the job.

Well, we heard from many of you that the escarole recipes helped tackle those escarole heads. We enjoyed pumpkin pie yesterday and are diving headfirst into roasted root vegetables these days. Have you tried roasting broccoli and caulifower? Just cut into chunks, drizzle with olive oil, s&P and put in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 min. They will get all crispy and yummy. It is our favorite way to eat those beauties these days. See this recipe for kale chips, too. There are lots of recipes on the web for kale chips. I just tear kale into 3" pieces, rub them with oil (they should be dry before you add the oil) and sprinkle with salt and pepper. 350 degrees until they are crisp. stirring and baking in a single layer seem to aid crispiness.

Can't quite mention this past week without mentioning "the lottery ticket" I "won." I spent last Friday at the Common Ground Fair tasting food all day. My name was drawn as a "food judge" and so I got free samples from almost every food booth at the Fair. It was fun but also a lot of work (standing in lines!). Alex, HB, Les and Joseph all came with and weighed in on taste, texture, price, etc. and at the end of the day, we met up with the other four judges and agreed on the Best of Show, Best Vegetarian, etc etc. There was some really amazing food and some not so amazing. I have never made so many decisions in one day. A once in a lifetime day, glad to have the opportunity but glad that it is not everyday!!

DATES:

End of season potluck will happen this Tuesday evening, October 5th, from 430-7. We will be mostly outside, so please dress for the weather. We are looking forward to a bit of "Farm Talk" so come ready to share your thoughts about our Village Farm season and the future. Pick out a Jack o Lantern, too! Come one and all.

Work Party October 9th from 9-1130 with a hearty lunch provided at noon. Always fun and productive times for all. Come on out for the day!!! (RSVP helpful in knowing how much lunch to prepare. thank you.)

As always, be in touch with any thoughts or questions. Best wishes from all of us,

Polly

Late Summer pickings at Village Farm

2010-09-16T16:43:00.004-04:00

This is HB carrying four FULL boxes (of something light, I hope!!) to the walk-in cooler!!

This week's harvest:
Bok choi, watermelon, musk melon, onions, a rainbow of cherry tomatoes, red and golden beets, salad turnips, spinach, thyme and sage bundles, and Abundant shares got parsley, too and maybe chard as well.

A Belfast member told me this morning that she made a leek and white salad turnip soup that was scrumptious. I looked online searching for "salad turnip recipes" and found this recipe on cooks.com and this one on epicurious.com, my favorite recipe extravaganza. And, I know what we are having for lunch tomorrow!

This is week 13 with at least 5 more to go. . .and still coming: shallots, more leeks, winter squash galore, pumpkins, celeriac (celery root), celery, and other things you have already seen many times like carrots, beets, onions, garlic and the season's last flower bouquets.

2010 will go down in our book as the Year of the Melon. Wow. Seeds started in our greenhouse back in May grew to lovely seedlings, which were planted out into black plastic mulch, watered in, covered with remay row cover (protects them from bugs and adds a bit of warmth) and then left to grow and grow. They received rain water at just the perfect times, were uncovered at flower, saw many a honey bee and they set fruit. The fruit grew and swelled and were checked and prodded many a time before deemed "ripe." I couldn't tell you at this point how many thousands of pounds of melons we picked and gave out to our CSA members and sold to our wholesale accounts but it seemed like many thousands of pounds. But I am known to exaggerate, so if I ever figure it out, I will let you know.
If you missed the email where I sent out the Melon Salsa Recipe, here it is again.

Melon Salsa by Alex Fischer, 2010 Village Farm Intern
Chop and combine the following ingredients in a bowl and let chill in the fridge for 20 minutes. Enjoy!
1 musk melon (cantaloupe)
3 medium sized tomatoes
3 red onions
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1-2 TBS salt

I haven't made it with a watermelon but I am betting it would also be delicious with watermelon replacing the musk melon.

Over Labor Day weekend, we had the pleasure of having 12 Colby College students here for a few nights and days. An amazing number ( I count 7 in this picture) of them rose at the crack of dawn to bring in and milk Lucy, the dairy cow with Prentice and they didn't even go back to bed after that! That weekend was Hurricane Earl and all, so they pitched their tents in the greenhouse (of course) and everyone stayed dry. We had a grand time, working, cooking, eating and gaming with these 12 fine individuals and we are so grateful for their wonderful help harvesting all the onions, which are now curing in the greenhouse, cleaning garlic, weeding fall brassicas, erecting the walls of the new intern cabin, nicknamed, "the cube," and harvesting and freezing corn. Thank you Colby incoming students and their leaders!!! Come visit soon!

Unity College students have also been out to the farm in the past few weeks. We always enjoy this time with the next generation and we hope they get a good taste of what a small organic farm can look and feel like. Some work is usually accomplished, too. Great deal.

A few years ago, a neighbor gave us this truck. It is a Community Supported truck. If you ever need a truck to move things or borrow for some project, think of Brownie.
We use Brownie a lot, even though Brownie is getting up there in years and in rust accumulation. In this picture, Brownie is freighted down with all of the produce, boxes and flowers that need to get to Belfast members every Monday night.

We do drive Brownie a lot and though I often wish our deliveries could be made by horse and buggy like our Amish neighbors in Unity and Thorndike, I realize that we walk a lot, too. We use plenty of human powered vehicles to get a round and haul things. . . bikes, our bodies carry buckets to and fro, we pull gardenway carts (like this one with 50+ pounds of broccoli), we push wheelbarrows, and even the baby stroller is used as a harvest vehicle at times.
Prentice just told me last night that walking is one of his favorite things about being a farmer. For a guy whose Appalachian Trail nickname was "Strider" and whose legs are longer than some giraffes', this is maybe not a surprise. I found it a good anecdote to tuck away and tell the whole wide web world --and here I am, doing just that. Prentice likes to walk.

In the years ahead, we hope to walk more and more. Expanding the Farm pick-up CSA membership is the best way to accomplish this. About half of our CSA members pick up at the Farm this year, so that is not too shabby. Opening a farm stand or farm store is another possibility that seems probable. Dreams, dreams dreams. . .

I think that is it for now!

All the best from Village Farm

Polly

Our blog: The Ghost Town

2010-08-25T20:10:00.004-04:00

Hello out there!
We have been neglecting the blog these weeks and months, it is true. CSA Members can attest that though we may not be spending time with the keyboard and digital camera, we are most definitely spending time with the vegetables. NO neglect going on in the garden realms. We trust, with the web's nearly infinite recipes, you are finding good ways to cook all that the farm has produced thus far. We always love to hear from you and welcome your questions and comments. In fact, we save most of them for future consideration.

It has been and continues to be such a bountiful growing season. As compared to last year when we felt like cheerleaders--"Come on, cucumbers, you can do it!"--This year we are more like riders.. . it's more like trying to keep up with, or better yet, stay on without getting bucked off a wild horse. The Plants, as individuals, are all doing their things: germinating, growing, fattening, sweetening, ripening and finally senescing (shutting down) with only minimal input from their farmer-caretakers. As a collective, The Plants make up the vegetable part of The Farm. The Farm, with its vegetables, pastures, trees, bees, farmers, interns, children, dog, chicks, chickens, geese, cows, calves, is a hopping and happening place. Wow.

We have been eating. (An incomplete list. . .and in no particular order)

peaches
pickles
snickerdoodles
roasted garlic, roasted cherry tomatoes and fresh basil over pasta
corn on the cob
thai glazed chicken
ratatouille
tomato sandwiches
sushi salad
farm vegetable pizzas
yogurt-cucumber sauce
roasted zucchini with marjoram
pestos: cilantro, basil, parsley almond
more corn on the cob
watermelon warmed by the sun, right there in the watermelon patch
muskmelon cooled by the walk-in cooler
three bean salad
and scrambled eggs

Enjoying every bite, or at least striving to .. .

We have been building. A small sleeping cabin for the interns. Here are the walls being assembled in the driveway. Carpentry is a great change of pace for everyone these days. However, hammering is harder than it looks when using big nails and rough sawn hemlock, says HB.

And we have had machine visitors. Many of them. Our irrigation pond got a facelift this month, thanks to a USDA Water Development Grant for farms. There have been diggers galore: bulldozers, dumptrucks, the works. We also had a frost free hydrant installed as part of the same water grant, so we had a backhoe digging a trench right through our front yard! Then a combine drove through to harvest some barley in one of Andy's grain test plots! Then the Gold Top Farm crew drove in with their grass harvesters and clipped, wind rowed and collected the grass from the 25 or so acres of forage. The three boys have been entertained, educated and even given rides by these machines and their many operators.

And we have had the most amazing people visitors. HB and Alex, visitors for the season (aka Interns and Apprentices, interchangeably), arrived in early July and have not only fit right into the works here but brought their fabulous abilities to laugh and have a good time with them. It is a delight to have them here.

At this farm in summertime, visitors = helpers. Our dear cousin, Kathy, harvested dozens and dozens of herb bunches one 90 degree day and then played with the boys and cleaned the kitchen after that. (Pictured below.) Our friend, Meg, retrieved a Playmobile pirate ship (from her basement and from her youth!) one day and entertained the boys for hours with sprinkler games, sandbox creations and her unbelievably good nature. Our friends Michelle and Laura, played with Abel one morning so that I could harvest and work with the crew while Prentice was away. Other visitors have shucked corn, chopped tomatoes, weeded, watered and washed. We had only a few members for the work day last weekend but much was accomplished and we always say about these events, "It doesn't matter how many people come. As long as everyone knows they are welcome here, that is most important thing." Our farm potluck was well attended (message here? Eating is more popular than working?) however and there was an amazing spread of food and wonderful conversation going on. Thank you to all who came out for that!!

And weekly, our parents and siblings arrive to "visit" and get swallowed by the Village Farm vortex of vegetables, children, phonecalls, meals, clean up, laundry etc.etc etc. By default, they join the crew for the day. It is just how it has to be around here. I think by now everyone "gets it" but I do find myself daydreaming about stormy winter days by the fireside when a cup of tea might actually be enjoyed with a friend or relative.

CSA members have received a few emails of late. Blueberries from Stoneset Farm are in and are being distributed to those who ordered. Chickens are also still available. We have lots of basil that is good for processing but not too pretty to the eye. If you would like one or twenty plants to make into pesto, let us know and we will clip you some and have them for you at the next distribution.

We are at week 10 of our CSA season and members received:

Satina potatoes, onions, carrots, zucchini and summer squash, cherry tomatoes, slicing red and heirloom tomatoes, green beans, and a choice of either chard, kale or braising mix and a choice of herbs: lemon balm and stevia for tea (just cover leaves and stems with some hot water and cool on the counter, add ice and some lemon slices and serve!), lavender or marjoram for bathwater or potpourri, sage and thyme bundle or winter savory for cooking.

You can expect more of the staples next week but also: corn again, watermelons and muskmelons for the first time and more lettuce and perhaps spinach! Flowers will also be included again soon! So nice that people seem to love them as much as I do!!

We are looking forward to having a group of incoming Colby students here for a few days of farm work and learning over Labor Day weekend. Unity College students have come several times already this year and it looks like there will be another few groups this fall. We are grateful for these connections at both colleges. It is always amazing to have fun and interested young people here on the farm. We benefit from their willing, helping hands and we hope they benefit by seeing and experiencing the ups and downs of a small, organic farm.

As always, with so much gratitude for your support in the many ways you give it,

Polly and the rest of the Village Farmers.

Week One! 2010 CSA Season Begins!

2010-06-25T10:43:00.001-04:00

Beet green bunches~ spinach bunches~ salad mix~ garlic scapes~radish bunches

Welcome to your vegetables, Village Farm CSA Members!

I grew up eating beet greens, steamed for 10 minutes with a pad of butter, squeeze of fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper. That is still my favorite way to eat not only beet greens but most vegetables, actually. Beet greens can be enjoyed, roots to leaves. Give them a scrub to remove any bits of earth that we missed, steam them , saute them or add them to a risotto, soup or even a stir fry. They are overflowing with Vitamins A and K and other good for us nutrients in their most natural and absorbable form--fresh food!!

Spinach bunches and salad mix are self-explanatory but the radishes we will recommend with a touch of vinegar and salt. Somehow that cuts the hot and spicy radish flavor that is exciting but a little much for some people (like myself).

Garlic scapes are the flower buds of garlic plants. The bulbs grow under ground and the leaves fan out above in a symmetrical array. At this time of year, the plants produce a flower bud that goes straight up from the leaves and then starts doing a lovely loop-de-loop. We snip these flower buds and they are mildly garlic-y in flavor and so artistic in their form. They can be chopped by hand or in a food processor and used as your would garlic. They can also be sauteed whole until tender and served as a side vegetable. I have not tried it but have heard that they are great on the grill: baste with a bit of oil and roast them up! A friend brought a garlic scape pesto that we all devoured. I do not have a recipe but I am guessing that it was pine nuts or walnuts, garlic scapes, olive oil, salt and parmesan cheese blended until smooth in a food processor.

Our "Resources" page of our website has links to several websites we like for identifying and enjoying many vegetables that we produce. I often use them myself for inspiration for farm lunches.

Next week: (Always a bit of a guessing game...) Peas? Cilantro, salad turnips, head lettuce, salad greens again. . .and more I am sure. Things are looking so good out there.

Please come and visit anytime!

And mark your calendars with the following dates:

Farm Project Parties--a great way to see the farm, visit and lend a hand on whatever is going on around here.

July 10 -- 9-11 am with a lunch provided

August 21-- 9-11 am with a lunch provided

October 9 --9-11 am with a lunch provided

Evening Potlucks--Walking Farm Tour with a potluck dinner on the porch.

August 17th 5pm

October 5th 5 pm

All the best from one and all,

The Village Farmers

First CSA Distributions Next Week!

2010-06-17T21:29:00.002-04:00

Planting continues here on the Village Farm. We installed some horizontal trellising for the zinnias this week which is looking pretty snazzy. (First picture below). The last of the nursery stock was planted. (Second picture below) These beauties are Cornus Rugosa, a native dogwood that I am so excited to watch grow. We grow about 3000 or so trees and shrubs each year and dig about half of that number in the fall to sell to FEDCO Trees of Waterville. The nursery is one of the many enterprises here that all add up to a biologically diverse farm, varied work through out the seasons and cashflow through out the seasons. Importantly, we find it fun to have different crops and are constantly noodling over how they and we fit together here.

The last of the peppers and eggplants were planted into black plastic mulch. We try to use as little of this "stuff" as possible but for the heat loving crops, it really makes a huge difference in vigor, yield and earliness. The field tomatoes (there are hundreds more in a hoophouse/hothouse) behind Andy are mulched with oat straw and will be trellised up the fencing. Most of these tomatoes are cherries and pastes.

Last fall, our wettest field was chisel plowed and then planted to rye and vetch. The rye is now flowering and will soon form viable seed--and lots of it. Andy is bushhogging it with the deck of the bushhog set high so that the rye will be mowed down but the vetch will be clipped and continue growing. Vetch is a legume and so gifts the farm soils with atmospheric nitrogen caught or "fixed" and then deposited into the soil.

Below is a snapshot of what can be harvested in about two minutes--a harvest for my parents. They came to visit and play with the children and so received their reward. Cilantro, beet greens and spinach. CSA members will also receive mesclun mix, radishes and salad turnips next week. And of course, whatever else is ready!

( I have no idea how the following got underlined, nor do I know how to Un-underline it!! The mysteries of this blog program!!)

We are looking forward to first CSA distributions next week;

Monday, June 21, 4-6p.m. Belfast at the UU Church

Tuesday June 22, 4-6 p.m. at the Farm in Freedom

Friday June 25, 4 -6 p.m. Rockport at Farmers Fare

As always, please be in touch with any questions.

Best wishes to all from your

Village Farmers

VF seedling sale days

2010-06-03T20:13:00.006-04:00

If you still need a few seedlings or a whole garden's worth of seedlings, come over to Freedom for herbs, vegetables, and lots of flowers.

We have got winter squash, summer squash, melons, cukes, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, basil, parsley, and dozens of flower varieties, just to name a few.

We will be open for seedling sales

Friday, June 4, 7 am to 5 pm

Saturday June 5, 7 am to 12 noon

Friday, June 11, 7 am to 5 pm

Saturday, June 12, 7 am to 12 noon.

Email us if you would like an availability list or need directions or have questions.

Hope to see you!

May became June!!

2010-04-24T18:13:00.010-04:00

Greetings from Village Farm.

( I began this post nearly a month ago and true to May-form, I am posting it, finally-- on June 4th!!)

Boy, is it ever May! This is the month when it ALL lines up in front of us: all the rows to be plowed and amended, all the seedlings to be planted, all the seedlings to be sold, all the animals to be fenced. And on and on.

We are getting the proverbial "job done" . . .as all jobs are ever done: day by day, row by row, and seedling by seedling.

These are our Chinese Weeder Geese. Actually, they are Andy Smith's. Andy was a 2009 apprentice who will be returning for another year with us in 2010. And Andy is into projects and experiments. So--There are a lot of high hopes for these big-little goslings. We plan to fence them in our tree nursery and never have to weed a single sprout. Technically, they are totally herbivorous and supposedly stick to green things growing from the ground, not from trees (good for our trees and shrubs in the nursery). Un-technically, they are cute, hilarious and easy keepers. We will report back.

Work in the greenhouse continues. This picture is from Early April. We have been very fortunate to have Alicia Billman working with us for the last week or so. She just graduated from Unity College. We are so enjoying her company and fine work. We are sad that she is only available to work with us for a few weeks!! She will be here for another week before heading off to new adventures, like getting married. Thank you and best wishes to Alicia!

Hannah and Andy both returned to the farm this week and have made quick work of the backlog of transplanting, seeding and greenhouse work. I hesitate to say "caught up" , but there, I said it. . .we are feeling caught up.

Now I am writing on June 4th:

Ha Ha Ha Ha!! "Caught up?!?!?" It really was early May when I wrote all that. We are up to our eyeballs in transplants that need planting and are trying to keep up with all the direct seeded crops like carrots, greens, sunflowers and cilantro that need planting every 10-14 days.

The rain, gentle and fine, has been wonderful for all the gardens and resident plants. The crew got the irrigation pump and pipe working last week so we are equipped to irrigate if need be in the future.

Last year, we posted a few videos that became cult favorites amongst some relatives and CSA members. Prentice has been up to some more video-ing tricks and he is quite fond of this one.

Prentice and Joseph have a project this year: Bees. I have witnessed Prentice reading from "Beekeeping for Dummies", aloud, to Joseph, in some unlikely spots over the last few months. They have been studying up: in the hammock , the tub, at the breakfast table. Ten years ago, some generous and thoughtful family members gave Prentice and me a whole bee set up, "soup to nuts." Everything except the bees, right? Well, we FINALLY ordered some bees! They arrived a couple of weeks ago and are doing great at the Village Farm!! Neighbor and great bee guy, Brian Jones has been of enormous assistance and encouragement, so thank you, Brian!!

The CSA will be starting up in a couple of weeks. Exact dates still need to be nailed down. Hard to know when that spinach and beet greens, cilantro and broccoli will be ready! We will contact all CSA members very soon with a first distributuion date. I know you all must be getting very hungry.

All the best from here,

Polly for all at Village Farm

Spring spring spring!

2010-04-01T09:24:00.003-04:00

Spring greetings to one and all!

The Village Farm people have been busy these
days of early spring. Joseph, Ben and Prentice collected some sap from the maples across the street in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery and boiled it down outside. It is dark and delicious. As you can see, Joseph was amply prepared for anything that might happen while tending the sap.

Sorry about the funky formatting in this blog. It seems to be beyond me to get the pictures and text exactly where I want them.

In March, Prentice and I took an excellent workshop on farm business management with Richard Wiswall of Cate Farm in Vermont. We got a lot of gems from Richard and from his new book including a renewed appreciation for
1. A clean office and desk (not perfected--yet!)
2. Dropping low-profit ventures (pork) and picking up high(er) profit ventures (seedlings)
3. THE FAMILY FARM. We are the real deal. Here is a picture of Prentice filling out our MOFGA organic certification paperwork. (It seemed like 200 pages of it.) Oh, and Ben is by his feet but not in the picture.

Our (new) greenhouse is up and going and I will have some luscious green seedling pictures to share soon. The morning we put the plastic on got a tad windy as we were buttoning up the sides. Some great neighbors helped lay the two layers of plastic on and Andy Smith even came out from Colby. Did we tell you that he will be joining our farm crew for a second season? We could not be happier about that!

We are still enjoying many fruits and roots of

last year's harvest. I put parsnips and peas in the red lentil curry this evening. The freezer is still green with spinach, broccoli, beans and peas frozen last summer and there are still carrots, beets, potatoes, cabbage and bottled kim chi coming out of our root cellar = the cemetery's crypt/tomb.

Word is getting out that we are using the crypt as a

root cellar. A fellow called this week to come photograph our vegetables in there! Sure!!

I am reading Michael Pollan's newest book,

Food Rules, in preparation for a talk I am giving on being an organic farmer and the environmental attributes of local food. What a great hero for the good food/real food/local food movement he is!
Three cheers for Michael!!

Many CSA members have signed up or let us know that they will be signing up for 2010. As always, your recommendations to your friends, family and coworkers are the best publicity for our farm. We are aiming for 50 households this year, so point folks to our website or call for a brochure. We are looking forward to growing food for our community for another season.

All the best from Village Farm,
Polly

2010-03-01T21:28:00.003-05:00

Sunday's Winter Sleigh Ride Event and other Freedom activities CANCELLED.
We will hope that 2011 brings us more **SNOW**!

March 1st, 2010.

We had a great day Sunday, meeting people at two CSA +CSF Fairs: Rockland and Belfast. There was music by Dog Wants Out in Belfast--100% fun, that band! And they have a mission to support agriculture and food security. Thank you DWO!!
I am guessing 100 or more fair goers attended the Belfast fair. It was hoppin'.

News from the Farm: It can be pretty windy out here in the winter. Without much snow, we haven't had to contend with the drifts this year. We break out the kites often in the springtime and this sunny day last week seemed like a good first kite day for 2010.

We have onions, celery, parsley and celeriac and various flowers seeded. Work on the heated greenhouse will be happening this weekend. We settled on a two phase heating system: this year we will install a propane fired heater and build benches. Next year we will outfit those benches with tubing that will circulate wood-heated water beneath the seedling trays. Sounds cozy, doesn't it?

Most days Jip is "just" a pet (and a nuisance when he takes off!) but we have been putting him to work lately. He has been guarding the laying hens. We took down the flexible net fencing for the winter (to lengthen its life) and when we started seeing fox prints in the snow, we decided that our hens needed to have a body guard while they roamed and scratched about. So Jip has been spending some time with the layers. He seems to be enjoying the new responsibility and we are grateful for his contribution.

CSA sign ups are coming in. Let us know if you think of a place where a poster would be good.

All the best from here,
Polly

2010-02-17T09:03:00.003-05:00

Winter Fun in Freedom POSTPONED.

Please join the fun in bustling downtown Freedom on March 7th.

Here is what will be happening:

The Dirigo Grange will host a pancake breakfast with coffee, juice and sausage from 8:30-10:30.

Village Farm will host local teamsters for FREE sleigh rides from 10-2.

The Freedom Volunteer Fire Department will sell hotdogs, cocoa, coffee and sweets at the Village Farm during the sleigh rides. Proceeds will benefit the Department.

Let's all hope the farm fields look like this by March 7th!
Let it snow!!

2010-02-10T10:14:00.002-05:00

Hello out there!!
It is winter on the farm.
King Winter keeps it interesting around here.

Current winter activities:
Keeping a hole in the ice open for hauling water for the cows and calves.
Listening to the cows munch their hay in a quiet barn.
Collecting frozen eggs from in the coop but only on the coldest days.
Ordering seeds, amendments, soil mix, tractor parts, and more seeds.
Selling organic eggs to the Belfast Coop
Getting our CSA brochures printed and distributed.
Planning for the CSA + CSF Fair on Feb 28 (1-4 at the UU Church.)
Planning for the Sleigh Rides!! (See below)
Enjoying our new logo (artwork by Siri Beckman of Stonington)
Updating our website.
Eating root vegetables from the cemetary's crypt (our root cellar!).

FEB 21st --Winter Fun in Downtown Freedom!!!

Dirigo Grange will host Pancake Breakfast 830-1030

Village Farm from 10-2. Free Sleigh Rides with local teamsters.

Freedom Fire Department will be selling hotdogs, cocoa, cookies and coffee at the farm during the sleigh rides.

Spread the word!

Hope to see you all soon!!
Polly and Prentice

2009-12-12T06:20:00.009-05:00

Happy New Year!

January 1st, 2010. . . The snow is coming down every-which-a way out there. The cows are in the barn, the chickens in the coop and the farmers in the house. At the moment, I should say.

We have been busily tying up the loose ends of 2009 in this last week. Figuring, tallying, and analyzing all the many sets of numbers of the past year. Not only dollars and cents but pounds, bunches and yields, row feet and amounts of seeds. We are turning the corner into 2010 informed by the 2009 records. As seed ordering deadlines (for discounts) loom, we need to know now how many seeds we will drop into the soil nearly a half a year from now.

News from November and December: Before Prentice returned to his off-farm/winter work as a cabinetmaker, he and his father, Tony, spent several days erecting a used hoophouse frame that will hopefully house our seedlings come spring. We really would like to burn farm-raised fuel to grow our seedlings. That sounds simple but it is not. He has been trying to figure out the thermodynamics of heating such a structure with firewood and the various boilers and storage tanks needed to do so. Stoneset Farm of Brooklin loaned us one of their farmers, Nathan, for a day of greenhouse construction this November. I guess he loaned himself to us. . . Thank you, Stoneset!

This trench that Nathan hand-dug (just kidding!) will bring power to the new structure for fans and thermostats, and of course, the radio.

Hannah Converse worked with us for six weeks this fall and it looks like she will be returning for the 2010 season. We are really happy to have one piece of the apprentice puzzle figured out for the coming season and even happier that that piece is Hannah!! Digging trees from the nursery in mid-November can be an arduous task but the digging proceeded at a great clip and nearly 1000 trees and shrubs were delivered to FEDCO Trees of Waterville. The dormant "whips" will hang out in bundles with their roots in moist sawdust until spring when FEDCO will send them to mailorder customers and sell them from their sub-terranean warehouse. We are proud to be members of the FEDCO Trees Growers Cooperative. Their spring sale in Clinton, Maine each spring is a bookend to the summer for me. See their website for ordering info and sale dates.

These are red maples dug, bundled and "heeled-in" to the garden until delivery day.

Another November event, popular with the little boys around here was when Joe Fortin, a dairy farmer from Albion, used a deep tillage plow on our new vegetable ground. After plunging a penetrometer into the new plots on the west side of the driveway, it seemed clear that there was significant sub-surface compaction (leftover from pre-2001, when 25 of our 40 tillable acres were cropped to corn) and that using this "paraplow" could fracture the hardpan. Though farmers everywhere saw their fields fill with puddles this past spring, we speculated that our drainage problems in 2009 may have been due in part to this layer of hardpan that acts as an obstacle and catchment for rainwater between the soil surface and the subsoil. The results of this tillage action, of course, will be hard to measure but we will be watching how these fields dry out in the early spring and we will again test with the penetrometer. We will wait and see.

2009 CSA Members will receive a letter from us in the next few weeks with some specific year-end details from 2009 and an invitation to purchase a farm share again in 2010. We are in the process of doing some website and brochure updates but please direct any interested friends to our website's CSA page for prices and details. The price of the shares will remain the same in 2010.

We will be attending a CSA-CSF Fair in Belfast on February 28th from 1-4 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 37 Miller Street (right behind the Library). Farmers and fisherpeople will be promoting their offerings and answering questions. It's a great event that we will be publicizing widely in the weeks ahead.

Best wishes to one and all in the new year ahead.

For all of us,

Polly

Garlic planting tomorrow and an ode to brussel sprouts

2009-10-22T07:15:00.004-04:00

Greetings,

Did you think we'd forgotten you for the shifting of the season? No! We miss you! Things here are good. The season is certainly shifting. We're cleaning up the gardens and organizing the outbuildings. Harvesting some for various wholesale accounts and wrapping our heads around the possibility of putting up a seedling greenhouse to go online this Spring. We also need to plant roughly 2400 garlic seeds (cloves) for 2010, and we plan to start

THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, AROUND 10 AM.

Please come and join us if you are able and so inclined. We would be happy to have you.

Also, we have brussel sprouts. We planted nearly 400 plants this Spring and intended to have them for everyone in the CSA with some additional for wholesale. They, however, were among the crops (also, notably, sweet corn, peppers, eggplant, and winter squash) which really suffered for the cold, wet early summer. However. . . .we did save a few plants and they have matured respectably. If anyone is a brussel sprout fan (I am!) and would like to come by the farm for some, please do. (Belfast and Camden sproutheads, we could make arrangements).

Here's the ode, as promised:

Oh fine, tender sprout

for our pleasure you unfold

in dappled light

resist temptation to overwhelm

You are no tomato! No!

we worship your humility and

prepare you with heavy cream (and nutmeg)

Take care, Prentice (and co.)

***************************************

And some new pictures. . .

Hannah driving Allis Chalmers G in from prepping garlic beds. Late October. Picture by Joseph.

Joseph took this picture of Hannah peeking out from behind the bolted parsley.

This is Hannah incorporating compost and amendments in next year's garlic beds.

The chickens have been helping with the garden cleanup. Their eggs will be showing up at the Belfast Coop and at Farmers Fare (Rockport) soon. They are always available from the green dairy fridge in the shop, too!

2009-10-05T19:28:00.004-04:00

Our last distributions of 2009!
Friday, October 9th in Belfast and Tuesday, October 13th at the Farm.

Thank you for being a part of our farm!!!

SPINACH ~ CHOICE OF HERBS ~ BEETS ~ CELERIAC~ CABBAGE ~ WINTER SQUASH ~ POTATOES ~ CARROTS ~ CHOICE OF KALE, ESCAROLE, BOK CHOI ~ ONIONS ~ GARLIC ~ BUNCHED CELERY ~

This link can help you store all these vegetables for the weeks ahead. Some like it cool, moist, dry, etc, so if you are not sure, take a look!

A note about winter squash. We are big squash fans, so it is enough to make us cry to see the dozen or so bushel boxes of winter squash that our farm produced this year. It should have been, could have been, dozens and dozens of bushel boxes. Last year we loaded a trailer towed behind the tractor with pumpkins and winter squash . This year we planted 6X that amount! You have heard enough about the cool temps, cold, wet soils and held back seedlings. . .let's just say, the winter squash crop took the biggest hit. You will all get a few varieties.

Also, conspicuously absent or rare were a few other vegetables: Peppers, sweet corn, eggplant. We grew LOTS of all of these but they, too, seriously underperformed this season. Each fall we tally what we distributed to "basic" and "abundant" shares and calculate a relative share value. We believe, despite the few "failed" crops, that the CSA distributions were bountiful and diverse and still afforded all of you a good value.

To put a brighter spin on things, may crops did well! We trialed many zinnias this year and had hundreds of blooms each week to sell to our wholesale accounts.

Prentice and I are already looking forward to next year.

Did you ever watch that pig video? Well, Prentice has been at it again.

What do we do when we aren't tending, picking, cleaning, packing or delivering vegetables?

Hang out together in the woods. The woods ask nothing of us. They provide playthings, beauty, space, quiet and so much more. Here is our "Special Spot" in the woods of Village Farm. Developing the trails through the 80 acre woodlot is a goal of ours in the years ahead. Quite a few neighbors enjoy daily walks on the existing trails but we envision a few miles of loops that could be used by many more people. If you like to walk, snowshoe or X-Country ski, you are invited to use the trails anytime!!

Prentice and I will be facilitating a discussion at the Belfast Library on Nov 3rd (election night) after the film, Fresh, The Movie. See the trailer here. We would love to see any CSA members there and we would hope that you might participate in the discussion about the CSA concept and how it worked (or didn't) for you.

Other than that, we have more harvesting of root crops still to do. Planting garlic, cleaning up the barnyard and we will be constructing a heated greenhouse this fall. The four pigs and a steer or two will go to slaughter, we will dig our trees that we sell through FEDCO Trees, and we will do some more preserving (applesauce, jam from frozen berries, greens and pesto to the freezer. . . ) Prentice will fill his winter days with some woodworking projects and I will settle into winter bookkeeping, farm planning and boy tending.

We look forward to collating your comments and suggestions that come through the evaluation/survey form and will be in touch with a 2009 wrap up letter when we can "do the numbers." We will also be in touch in early 2010 with CSA information and offerings for next year. We are thinking about a 2010 Flower Share and will most likely have seedlings for pre-order and sale at the farm.

Eggs are rolling in and though the Rhode Island Reds' eggs are not full sized yet, we are pricing the dozens lower to reflect that. Stop by anytime and grab some from the fridge in the shop (money box on top of the fridge) or be in touch and we can rendezvous in Belfast on Thursdays.

As always, be in touch with thoughts or questions. We love hearing from you.

We are grateful for your support and patronage this season. We are also grateful for the wonderful efforts put in by our farm crew: Andy, Amanda, Laura and Hannah. Some of you pitched in at our work parties and we hosted 50 or so college students from Colby and Unity for brief work sessions. Many hands!! Friends and family delivered meals around Abe's birth and as always, our parents helped in all ways imaginable.

Best wishes for a lovely fall and winter,

Polly, Prentice and all at Village Farm

Work Party postponed!

2009-10-02T08:12:00.003-04:00

Due to the rainy forecast for tomorrow, we are postponing the Work Party from tomorrow to Wednesday afternoon, October 14th from 3-6 p.m..

Hope to see many of you Tuesday (October 6) for the Autumn Potluck at the Farm starting at 5 p.m. Always a good time . . .

Take care, Polly

I "HEART" CSA Members

2009-09-23T04:33:00.006-04:00

Want another clue? Or this title could read-- "I *HEART* (imagine a big red heart) Bumper Stickers"

Getting closer?

Yes, it is true. Not only are those Village Farmers blogging (Gasp!) but now they are having a bumper sticker printed! (And we are SOOooo excited about the latter.)

It was just a little email from one of our Belfast members-- and I hope it is okay to thank (and link) her here--Arielle Greenberg. Though I could offer a long list of words describing some of Arielle's talents and titles, "Poet" and "Ideawoman" are the two that come to the top of the list for me. And now I can add: Bumper Sticker Creator. Thank you , Arielle! What started as just a little sweet idea and offer on her part has turned into a real live Village Farm bumper sticker.

My only questions are:

1. how many can I put on our car?

2. should we sell them or give them away?

Well, I tried to post the pdf image right on here but that didn't work, so just click here to see the bumper sticker.

Hopefully, they should arrive before our last distributions which will be:

Friday, October 9th for Belfast members and

Tuesday, October 13th for Farm members.

This week's vegetables:

BOK CHOI ~ TOMATOES ~ CHOICE OF HERBS ~LETTUCE ~ ONIONS ~ GARLIC ~ POTATOES ~ CARROTS ~ EXTRAS: EGGPLANT, FENNEL

The bok choi is the only vegetable you haven't seen yet this year. They are large and luscious and are the stars of many asian stir fries. (http://www.epicurious.com/ has dozens of recipes. Click here!)Chop stalks and greens into smallish chunks and add them a couple of minutes before the rest of the vegetables are done so those crunchy stalks retain their crispiness. The stalks can be served as celery "ants on a log" with herbed cream cheese. . .enjoy!

Belfast members will see (along with other staples like carrots, lettuce, etc.) green tomatoes and leeks on 10-2-09 and the first of two installments of winter squash. Our winter squash harvest made us want to weep. Maybe 1/10 or less of what we should have gotten from all those hundreds of plants. . .they really suffered in the wet conditions.

We are thrilled to have Hannah Converse, a recent Colby grad and friend of Andy's, here with us for the next month or so. It has been lively in the barnyard today with the laying hens relocated to the orchard by the house and a class from Unity College spent a few hours here this morning. They saw the farm, spoke with Prentice and helped in the gardens and in prepping garlic (for Saturday's planting party--see below!). We enjoy the opportunity to interact with students very much and appreciate the extra hands. Thanks to member, Gary Zane for including Village Farm in his syllabus!

Lastly, I am sending an email about these to everyone but it bears repeating. . .

Farm Work Party this Saturday, 10-3-09 from 9 a.m.-12 noon Lunch provided. Come for some or all of the time. We would love to see you!

Farm Potluck next Tuesday, 10-06-09 at 5 p.m. Come out and enjoy the lovely evening light which streams across the fields. Fill your belly with fine food and enjoy some lively company. I am going to ask Prentice to recite a Holman Day poem and welcome other forms of entertainment. We are looking forward to it.

That seems like a wrap.

All the best from here and thank you for your support!

Polly

September 19th: Clear and Breezy

2009-09-16T14:45:00.006-04:00

SPINACH ~ CARROTS ~ CANTALOUPE OR WATERMELON ~ TOMATOES ~ GREEN/YELLOW BEANS ~ ONIONS ~ CHOICE OF HERBS ~ LETTUCE ~

D'Avignon RADISH

Oh my, it has been a few weeks since posting a message from the farm on this here blog. Certainly, the fact that I have not dealt with my malfunctioning camera cord has contributed to the delay. . .new pictures are fun to share! But, I have dug into some old-ish ones to color today's news and hope to figure out the glitch soon. (But I have been told that I have to bring the whole computer brain into the shop, and as most highly wired people nowadays, I have a hard time imagining being "unplugged" for more than a few hours. Yikes. . . . It would probably be good for me.)

On to the vegetables!!

Melons. The plants did not kick the bucket during all that rain but it certainly stunted their growth. Now, as the fruits reach size and ripeness, there is not the day and nighttime warmth to really make them sweet. Heat leads to sugar production, so though they look and feel like melons, they (probably) won't be the sweetest things you have ever tasted. We had a great one for breakfast this morning so I hope CSA members received ones at least as good as that one.. .

It is dry out there now, but we are still registering losses from the early summer monsoon. We tilled in all the corn. Sad. So sad. Joseph had some multi-colored dry corn he was jazzed about, and we had many dollars and hours into sweet corn transplants that we had hoped would provide the CSA households with dozens and dozens of ears. Due to the weather stress, it just didn't grow taller than Benjamin and that is too short (for a corn plant) to produce anything worth eating. So we fed the plants back to the soil and cover cropped the large corn blocks with oats and vetch.

We fared extremely well in the tomato department this year and have been harvesting many pounds of multi-colored and shaped fruits for nearly two months. Many farmers and home gardeners had total crop losses due to the late blight wafting around in all that rain, but our applications of organically allowed copper fungicide and some luck seemed to have spared us. . . and you. The CSA model puts farmers and member-consumers in the "same boat," and after this year's weeks of rain, we have new found respect for a farmer-member "contract" which makes the shared risk aspect of supporting a farm through a CSA program very clear. In the past, we have felt that protecting our CSA members investments (i.e. providing you all with food equalling or exceeding your membership costs) could be accomplished by:

overplanting for the CSA

maintaining wholesale accounts (again, having extra vegetables planted acts as a buffer for the CSA.)
investing in irrigation equipment so that crops can get watered if necessary
keeping "up to date" on best practices so that we continue to be good stewards/growers
constantly putting the soil first. . .investing in the future crops by feeding and tending the soil well.

But after this year's deluge and season-long ramifications, we are thinking that it would be best to make sure all members and potential members understand the shared risk part of the CSA model at sign up time. We all fared well, considering all the stresses from weather and disease this year.

Prentice just took a few hours with his clipboard to walk through each garden, noting variety issues, row spacing, planting dates, tillage, amendments, etc. In many ways, autumn finds us planning for next spring and summer.

A neat and tidy row of fennel in the evening light. In the lower left hand corner you can see the neat and tidy rows left by the Brillion seeder, our new-used piece of equipment that drops, rolls and tamps-in cover crop seeds like winter rye, oats, barley, vetch, peas and buckwheat. All season long, as soon as a bed is harvested for the last time, we lightly disk or till it and then plant it with the Brillion so that there is never bare ground for long. Holding the soil in place for the winter months and spring freeze-thaw cycles is best done with plant roots. So we are busy planting those soil-holding plant roots now so they have a bit of time to grow and establish this fall.

Pasturing poultry is one of the many "chores" around our place June-late September. Prentice moves the "chicken tractors" three times a day, keeping the birds in/on fresh grass. We choose to organically feed our chickens (and all the other farm animals except the dog and barncat) because we believe in supporting organic grain farmers but also to cast our vote against genetically modification of crops. Most non-organic corn, soy and wheat are a genetically modified these days. If you are interested in buying some birds for the freezer, let us know soon. They are almost all sold for the year.

Basil. I sent out an email about FREE Pick Your Own basil for as long as it lasts (it is black goo when we get even a light frost). It is in the garden on the driveway closest to the hoophouse, so come on out and fill you freezer with PESTO for the long winter ahead.

Coming soon
I know our sporadic postings haven't helped any one's shopping and meal plannings this summer, but should you want to stock up on Eggplant Parmesan ingredients, you will be receiving eggplants for the next few weeks. Also coming in the weeks ahead will be leeks, winter squashes of various stripes and shapes, celeriac, cabbage, potatoes, kohlrabi, chinese cabbage, spinach, kale and other greens and onions.

Dates for the calendar

We need to change our fall work party from the 10th, as advertised in the member handbook to Saturday October 3rd from 9 am-12 noon. We serve lunch to all workers at 12!! Please join us for garlic planting, a great job for many hands. We would love to see you.

End of season Village Farm Potluck will still take place Tuesday, October 6th at 5 p.m.. We look forward to hosting as many of you who can make it.

We will let you know soon when the last distributions will be. For now, count on going until at least the 6th of October. A lot depends on Jack Frost these days.

People news

We heard from Amanda, safely at home in Indianapolis, that her mother is still struggling with some health problems. We send our best from Village Farm. Andy and his girlfriend, Emily, came for a night last weekend. Andy milked Lucy in the morning and wrestled with the two little Grassi boys, just like old times. Emily read book after book to the boys, and oohed and aahed over their Lego creations. They are both at Colby for the fall semester, so we hope to be seeing them often in the weeks ahead. Laura Pyles will continue to work with us four days per week through October. Her company, music choice and help are all most excellent. She made a late afternoon delivery to Rockport and Lincolnville last week which put her home much later than her normal quittin' time. Thanks, Laura.

That is it for now.

With all best wishes to one and all,

Polly

Thank You, Amanda!! and other news

2009-09-02T21:50:00.007-04:00

WEEK OF AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 4:

COLLARDS ~ CARROTS ~ ONIONS ~ BEETS ~ LETTUCE ~ CHOICE OF HERBS: DILL, BASIL, CILANTRO, OR SAGE/THYME/OREGANO ~ TOMATOES ~ CUCUMBERS ~CELERY ~

Belfast members will receive eggplant and perhaps a few peppers this Friday, the 4th of September. More to come for farm members!

Beets, at long last. We tilled in a planting of beets that got swamped in June's monsoon, so these are our first sizable beets of the year! We shred beets on salads, in sushi/nori rolls, in quesadillas and enjoy them quartered and roasted in the oven with olive oil and garlic. Pickled, did I mention picKled beets? Celery for the first time this year. It is so sweet though not as watery and tender as "super market" celery, its flavor makes up for its texture. Celery is wicked easy to freeze for winter soups---just chop it (greens and all!) and put it in a bag--no blanching required!

Having just bade Andy farewell last week, we were all caught off guard by news that Amanda was leaving, too. Unfortunately, she needed to return to Indiana to be with her family through a health emergency. We wish her and her family well and will miss her easy smile and chuckles around here. She worked really hard this summer and we thank her for choosing to learn and live here for the season. Best wishes, Amanda!

We spend many hours these days in the polebarn-- washing vegetables. Joseph , Ben and Abel all join the crew there, from time to time, and the two elder boys enjoy a bit of play around the edges. Here, they are playing "KERSPLOOSH!" with the vegetable wash water and a few cull summer squash. Both of them ended up soaked from head to toe, of course, but cooled off on a hot day, too.

Finally got some oldish pictures off my camera and so here are a few of the garlic harvest. Prentice looks like a proud Garlic Papa to me.

All the hundreds and hundreds of heads that we pulled at July's work party are strung up in the polebarn overhead. Some you will see in your fall harvest shares, but most are for seed. We will plant them in October and they will over-winter in the ground to spring forth, verdant and true, next April.

This is Abe at 10 weeks old, sporting a canning jar label on his delicate skin. . .. Benny was labelling all his people with "tickers," as I told you in the last posting. Here is the proof.

Warm wishes for a lovely week to one and all.

As always, we welcome and value your questions, comments and thoughts, and thank you for your support.

Fondly,

Polly and Prentice and Laura, the Big Farmers and Joseph, Ben and Abe, the Little Farmers.

Thank you Andy!! and other news.

2009-08-21T08:56:00.009-04:00

BABY LETTUCE MIX ~ GREEN, YELLOW, PURPLE OR "DRAGON TONGUE" BEANS ~ SUMMER SQUASH/ZUCCHINI ~ CUCUMBERS ~ CABBAGE ~ BASIL ~ SCALLIONS ~ CARROT BUNCHES ~ GARLIC ~TOMATOES ~ and (big bunches of) CILANTRO

This is what Belfast members on Friday, the 21st of August will receive in their weekly share. A bit different than this past Tuesday's Farm members, but such is the nature of weather and crop readiness. Big bunches of cilantro for all. . .Click here to see my cilantro pesto "recipe," or should we call it cilantro pesto "guidance". . . from an earlier blog posting. It shows up on our lunch table at least once a week. Great on bread or with rice and beans, Indian curries, chicken, fish, or as a fresh topper for almost any grilled thing. YUM!

This is Amanda digging garlic at with farm member, Judy. Thanks to Gail Chase for sending along some pictures from last week's work party and potluck. We had such a nice timeat the farm potluck!!! Thank you to those of you who came out and brought delicious foods to share. We will host another farm gathering on October 6th at 5p.m., so mark you calendars now.

This week of hot weather has felt like July to all of us and so it is causing some confusion that late August is actually where we are at, calendar-wise. This not only means that we will not taste fresh peas until next year but also that it is back to school time for our farm intern, Andy Smith. He returns to his Biology major and other studies at Colby College in a few weeks after heading south to his homeland of Pennsylvania for a vivit with family. To say we have enjoyed having Andy here is way too much of an understatement but we don't want to embarrass him by gushing about what a great guy he is. Intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working and driven. . .funny and kind. . .are a few words that come to mind. A HUMONGOUS Thank You to Andy for spending his summer with our farm and family, for teaching and inspiring us, and for allowing us to teach him what we know about this art-science-gamble called "farming."

Here is Andy, back in July. . . wiped out after planting corn???

Our farm kitchen was a busy beehive of activity last week with lots of preserving the harvest going on. Frozen green beans and peaches, dill pickles, blueberry jam, strawberry-blueberry jam and strawberry-raspberry jam were all put up in one way or another. Benny decided all things needed labels, so at one point, Abel, Mama, Ben, Daddy and Joseph all sported canning jar stickers with our names printed on them. Ben stuck Abe's right on his bare chest! (I got a picture of this, but due to techinical difficulties, I can't upload them right now.)

Here is a sunflower picture from Gail. More flowers at distributions in the weeks to come. . .

And one more beauty of a beauty of a pig. I love this photo.

For now, that is the news from here.

All the best,

Polly and all at Village Farm

You Say Tomato. . . .

2009-08-10T14:38:00.005-04:00

Week of August 10th

Tomatoes ~ Yellow Beans and Green Beans ~ Vitamin Greens or Hon Tsai Tai ~ Cabbage ~ Cucumbers ~ Fresh Garlic ~ Lettuce ~ Summer Squash and/or Zucchini ~ Cilantro or Dill or Sage ~ Basil

(Sorry, no new pictures at the moment. I am not able to download the camera for some reason.)

Vegetable notes: Tomatoes are beginning to ripen in the hoophouse and everyone receives them this week. We should continue to have them weekly for you into September. This variety is Early girl and I will try to let you know of other varieties coming ripe as we distribute them. In the spirit of full disclosure, we have been spraying our tomatoes and potatoes weekly for the last three weeks with an organically allowed Copper hydroxide fungicide (Champ WG is its name). But don't be fooled, just because it is allowed under organic certification, doesn't mean it is benign or harmless. We "hummed and hawed" over this decision and put it off for a few weeks but eventually realized that the late blight spore, rampant in the Northeast this summer, was going to reach Village Farm. Our intern, Andy, was among the first to report it in the state. He found it in the Community Garden of Waterville and soon after that at the Colby vegetable garden he oversees (in his spare time). We have found one bit of it in the hoophouse tomatoes and because of its ability to rapidly spread (its spores love the moist conditions this summer), we feel that the copper applications have protected our crops well. Copper can build up in soil with longterm use, though most Maine soils are Copper deficient. It should not be ingested, of course. The "Pros and Cons" have been the topic of many a lunchtime discussion here. . . we all seem to have come to the realization that if you eat a potato or tomato at all this summer, fall or winter that has been grown in the Northeast, it WILL have been sprayed with some form of copper (either organically allowed or a conventional copper fungicide). Yes, we could have not sprayed and kissed our potatoes and tomatoes goodbye but we were not willing to do that this year. If the late blight becomes an annual issue, we will have to reevaluate.

You should know that we have washed all the fruits in a vinegar and water solution but an extra wash in your kitchen is advised.

I highly recommend reading this article in Saturday's New York Times called cleverly, of course, "You Say Tomato, I Say Agricultural Disaster." The author's main point that when it comes to airborne diseases like late blight, gardeners and farmers and big box retailers and anyone handling plant hosts all comprise "one big farm" is a welcome example of the interconnectness of all life. Have a look, it is a great article.

Well, that was a lot about tomatoes! This week's harvest also includes beans of four colors (though until we pick them it is hard to say which colors you will actually get): green, yellow, purple (which fade to green when cooked) and Dragon's Tongue, a beautiful flat bean with magenta streaking (also fades when cooked).

The Vitamin Greens or Hon Tsai Tai are a members of the vitamin-rich broccoli and cabbage family and can be stir-fried alone or added to your favorite other vegetables. We tend to cook them with garlic and oil and then sprinkle them with tamari/soy sauce. They are great stri-fried and tossed in with pasta, also. These freeze extremely well and can be either blanched (instructions below) or simply chopped and bagged up. They add greenery and vitamins to a winter soup so nicely.

I admit that I often cook without recipes and also in answer to a craving. I guess this "sushi salad" is doing something for me becasue I have made it three(?) times in the last week. "Sushi Deconstructed," as a friend called it. Here is the idea: Sticky rice, cooked and cooled. Add raw chopped carrots, scallions (or chives), chopped, raw snow peas, and chopped raw cucumber. Dress with tamari and a bit of vegetable or toasted sesame oil and sprinkle on toasted sesame seeds and chopped fresh cilantro. I whisk up three eggs and pour this into a buttered pan, flip it and cut this omelette-without-the-cheese into strips and serve it on top of the salad. You can also serve with a drizzle of watery wasabi paste and torn up nori seaweed, if you want, but it is good without these.

A note about freezing vegetables: We freeze a lot of vegetables without much of a fuss, so if you find yourself overrun with vegetables, consider putting some by for later use. I use the book "Putting Food By" for all my canning and freezing guidelines but briefly, here's how to freeze a few vegetables. (As always, we welcome your questions. . .) And if you would ever like to purchase a great quantity of some herb or vegetable for processing, we give all CSA families wholesale prices. Just contact us at villagefarm@fairpoint.net or call us.

First, always freeze FRESH, clean, unblemished vegetables, not icky ones that have been around for too long.
Beans: Remove stems and leave whole or snip into 1" pieces. Boil in a pot of water for 2 minutes ONLY and then remove from the pot with a strainer and dunk into very cold water to cool them quickly. Drain and bag in pint or quart ziplocks, squeeze out the air, label and freeze.
Greens (Spinach, chard, kale, collards, escarole, vitamin greens, etc) Wash greens and remove big tough stems, tender ones are fine to just chop up with the greens. Boil a big pot of water and boil greens for 1 1/2-3 minutes. 1 1/2 for tender oens like spinach, vitamin greens and chard, and 3 for thicker ones like collards. Drain and cool immediately in very cold water. Drain and squeeze out some water then bag in ziplocks, squeeze out the air, label and freeze.
Zucchini and summer squash, peppers and tomatoes do not require blanching in boiling water. Just shred (zucchini and ss), or chop (peps and tomatoes) and bag, label and freeze.
All of these should last one year in the freezer.

The farm crew is off at Stoneset Farm of Brooklin for the day. Raking and winnowing wild, lowbush, organically certified blueberries! We will have berries for those of you who ordered some and some extras for sale this week at the Tuesday farm distribution/potluck. If you want to get some for the freezer directly from Clara and Nathan Rutenbeck, email them at stonesetfarm@gmail.com

We had a great turn out for the workday on Saturday and I am glad to report that all the year's garlic was dug and tied in bundles--ready to hang. It is now hanging in the pole barn where it will cure for three weeks. The crop looks outstanding, you can look forward to some lovely garlic in the weeks ahead. Thanks very much to everyone who helped out on Saturday!!!

This is Chris laying out garlic that is ready to be tied up. Picture by Bliss Weathers. (thanks!)

And lastly, please come on out to the farm Tuesday at 5p.m. , August 11th for our first potluck of the season. Taste the first tomatoes, see the gardens, animals, curing garlic, new eggmobile, etc. Visit with the farm crew and other CSA members . . .it will be a very good time--GUARANTEED!

Whoa--thanks for reading all that!!

And enjoy the week and the food !

Polly

Fresh vegetables and new tricks

2009-07-28T07:34:00.014-04:00

CABBAGE ~BROCCOLI~ FRESH GARLIC ~ "RED RUSSIAN", "LACINATO" OR "WINTERBOR" KALE ~ LETTUCE ~ SNOW PEAS ~ SCALLIONS ~ ZUCCHINI/SUMMER SQUASH ~ DILL ~ PARSLEY

Hello to one and all. This week's harvest includes things you have seen before. Folks at Tuesday's farm pick up liked seeing all three varieties of kale offered. The blistery, dark green variety is the Lacinato, an Italian favorite. Delicious and fresh, but no surprises, this week.

We were hoping to have cucumbers and beans but alas, they are taking their sweet time. Next week you will definitely receive cukes and fennel (we will see about beans. . .). Fennel is a pungent but mild vegetable that has the delicious flavor of licorice. I love a fresh tomato and fennel sauce over pasta but since the tomatoes are still ripening, the fennel will have to find another way to our plates. The Belfast Coop has been serving a "shaved fennel and citrus salad " in their deli case which is yummy. Here is a link to a recipe that seems close. I also linked to a really great piece from the NYT on our "Resources" page called 101 salads, basically recipe-less combinations of vegetables for this season. Some very good inspiration!

I never did make that Mediterranean Stuffed Escarole--we have enjoyed escarole (in case you have one lurking in your fridge) sauteed for 10 minutes with some garlic added at the end. Gail Chase enjoys putting it in soups and Diana Avella was so excited, she took two! I will ask her how she made it. I am afraid some CSA members may have mistaken it for lettuce. Uh oh. It is soooo bitter if you tasted it raw, but cooked well, the bitterness subsides and the flavor is delicious. You may see that large green head again in a few weeks.

Pad Thai for lunch today: chock full of scallions, snow peas and cilantro. Laura made chinese cabbage and sesame seed slaw along with a potato salad for lunch yesterday. Looking forward to our first tomato sandwich of the season.

The tomatoes in the hoophouse are ripening and the first red one was plucked from the 8 foot tall vines today! Once again, we may have to take Benny out of the state for a few days for anyone else to ever get a ripe Sungold cherry tomato. That boy finds every one. Last year he called them "num nums" and this year they are "little 'matos." There looks to be a bountiful crop of tomatoes of all shades coming on.

A first for us last week: Impromtu picnic on a horse wagon. Neighbors and friends, Neil and Gwyneth and their two boys and two mares showed up in our barnyard and one thing led to another and we found ourselves enjoying an evening picnic on the wagon.

The other new trick: Abel smiles. They are making everyone giggly. Both boys ask "Got any smiles in there?" many, many times each day.

And the last new trick: Prentice taking pig videos. There are more where that came from if you like the "pig cam." By the way, pork is all sold out for the year but we do have pasture raised chickens for sale from the freezer and fresh again in a few weeks.

One last thing: Special Vegetable Action Team a.k.a. Work Party on Saturday, August 8th from 8-11 with a lunch provided. Join us for a fun morning of work in the gardens. It really is a good time and we get a LOT done!

Also, the first Farm Potluck and garden walk: Tuesday, August 11th 5 p.m. with an all-important Tomato Tasting!!!! We will lay out a veritable rainbow of tomato slices and provide slips of paper for comments. You bring the poetry.

That is all for now.

Hope you all are enjoying the vegetables and as always, be in touch with questions any time.

Polly, for all of us at Village Farm

P.S. Flower bouquets coming soon!

Weeks 5 and 6

2009-07-19T21:43:00.007-04:00

Greetings from Village Farm.

Thanks to those of you who made it out to the farm on July 11th for the work party. The second batch of corn transplants got planted and so let's hope for a nice long fall to make up for the lack of early summer. The two images above were both taken by "Amma" Sally, Prentice's mother and give you a look at some of the scenes from that day. Next work party is August 8th, from 8-11 a.m. Join us if you can!!

Also, the first of two Farm Potluck dinners will happen on August 11th. 5p.m. garden walk then we eat. We are fond of taste tests around here, so we are planning a tomato tasting, complete with comment cards and crowning of Best Tasting Tomato.

Last week everyone received a very odd and beautiful vegetable called a KOHLRABI which was purple with green leaves attached to it. It is a member of the brassica family, a cousin to broccoli, and if it is still floating around in you fridge, dig it out--it is delicious!! The leaves are edible and resemble kale and the "orb" can be peeled and eated raw with hummus or dip, peeled and shredded into any slaw or salad or sauteed in a vegetable stir fry. I have heard its flavor described as a cross between an apple and a turnip.

Most people got broccoli last week and every one got edible podded snap peas.

Likely to be in your share this week: (it is hard to know exactly until harvest day, but we try to guess, anyways!)

ESCAROLE ~ LETTUCE ~ NEW POTATOES ~ CHIVES ~ DILL ~ HAKUREI TURNIPS ~ SHELLING PEAS ~FIRST SUMMER SQUASH AND ZUCCHINI ~ RAINBOW CHARD

I looked up escarole on http://www.epicurious.com/ and my mouth was watering. There are many delicious sounding recipes on there, many Quite simple. I am going to make the Mediterranean Rice Stuffed Escarole for farm lunch today and will let you know how it is. Last year, our first with this crop, we just would sautee it until tender(10-15 minutes) in oil and with garlic or an onion and serve it as a cooked green. It appears from the recipes on epicurious.com that it pairs well with Parmesan cheese and sausage and can be used in soups and raw in salads.

The new potatoes are a farm favorite. We pan roasted a big mess of them the other day in a thick pan, with Albion grown and processed sunflower oil (more on that later!) on high heat, swirling them around so they got browned, then covering the pan and turning it down for 5 -10 minutes. Salt and pepper. So moist and sweet. They make a great potato salad, as well.

Shelling peas. This is the last of the shell peas, so grab a chair, take those shells off and steam them up for the quintessential New England treat. My mother always served new potatoes and peas bathed in a butter and cream sauce. Wow.

COMING SOON: Cauliflower, cukes and zukes, snow peas.

Farm news:

We have been extra busy around here with all the sunshine making many more things possible.

The farm crew spends most mornings picking and washing for our wholesale customers and for the CSA families and then they switch gears to vegetalbe maintenance mode and work on such tasks as thinning carrots, cultivating crops with tractor or hoes, mulching or transplanting. Peas are in, so most days they are filling buckets with snows, snaps or shell peas. We have seeded our last lettuce, scallions and brassicas (broccoli family) in the greenhouse where they will grow in plug trays until they are big enough to transplant in to the garden soils. I think I heard someone say "that's sad" when Prentice pointed out our last transplants for the year.

This is the "egg mobile" FINISHED! It has been homesweethome to the flock of 60+ hens and one rooster for a few weeks. Before the move in day, Prentice and I seriously thought of parking it down by Freedom Pond and using it as a lakeside cabin. It is that nice. But now it has been broken in, and is truly a chicken coop. The Rhode Island Red pullets (young females) have just started to lay so watch for more Village Farm organic eggs at pick ups soon! Thanks to Tony Grassi, Prentice's father, for all his help from stripping the rotted trailer bed off to putting on final touches like the doors and chicken ladders.

We also used up lots of leftover paint colors from neighbors Geoff and Abby--thank you so much!

Also, CSA member and top-notch neighbor, Paul Foisy who is a metalworker extraordinaire, put in time at the welding torch installing the "deck" that holds the grain bin and watering contraptions.

That is all for now. Best wishes for a great week.

Polly

Sunshine!

2009-07-10T07:22:00.005-04:00

July 10th, 2009

We hope to see many of you on the farm tomorrow from 8-11 for a Work Party. Bring your hand tools and hoes, we hope to form a formation of weeders! Farm tour and lunch from 11-1230. Come for any or all of it!!

Here is what is ready this week:

NAPA CHINESE CABBAGE~ HAKEREI TURNIPS~CARROTS~BROCCOLI~SHELLING PEAS~SNOW PEAS~ROMAINE LETTUCE~BEET GREENS~PARSLEY~ DILL~ CILANTRO~GARLIC SCAPES

Another gigantic chinese cabbage for your stir frying pleasure. The turnips are best enjoyed raw, grated or diced into salad or served with hummus or dip. They are crispy and yummy! We have expanded our color palette in carrots this year to include pale yellow and purple roots. We think the flavor is just as good as the traditional orange. We grow three types of peas: shell, snap and snow. Shell peas need to be taken from their shells. Snap and snow are edible podded peas and can be enjoyed raw or cooked. We will most likely not have salad greens or lettuce next week. Our next planting has suffered from the wet fields and may be late in coming. Choice of herbs this week: cilantro, dill , parsley. Garlic scapes are the flower buds of garlic plants. We snip them to encourage the garlic plants to put more energy into the underground garlic bulbs. Prentice's parents chopped and sauteed theirs last week in a bit of butter and olive oil, cooking them for 5 minutes or so. Then they added a little basalmic vinegar and reduced that over the heat for a couple of minutes. Sounds like a Village Farm lunch dish today!!

Sunshine this morning on the farm. Sweet relief.
The series of pictures in this entry were taken by Prentice's mother, Sally. I know Prentice wanted to acknowledge all the family support we enjoy and are grateful for, so you may hear more from him at some point (if he ever sits down!) but for now, I will just say that this farm could not, would not, happen in its present form without the help of both of our families. Our three boys are so lucky to have four loving and involved grandparents, all within 45 minutes of Freedom. Whether it is fixing up old Tonka trucks for their sandbox, mowing our neglected lawn, hanging our laundry, documenting our farm and family with a camera, fixing us meals or playing with the children here or off the farm, our parents are what we call The Village Farm Varsity Support Team.

This is Amanda who has joined us from Indiana for the season. She is "pricking out" winter squash seedlings, removing the root balls from the trays in which they germinated. These young plants have been in the "waiting room" with thousands of others while the rains have been here.

This is our farm crew: Andy, Laura, Prentice and Amanda. Looking pretty jazzed to be wearing cotton as an outerlayer rather than a vinyl product.

Prentice is poking holes in the black plastic mulch into which the squash seedlings will be planted. We used black plastic for the first time last year. We avoided it as yet another petroleum product until our Extension Agent, Rick Kersbergen said "you use as much oil driving from here to Belfast as is in one roll of black plastic." The landfill issue isn't addressed by that fact, but we feel because strive to generate as little waste as possible, we would take the benefits of black plastic in exchange for having to throw it away.
~additional soil warmth
~weed suppression
~moisture retention

Compromises we hate to make. . .

Remember all that talk about staying out of wet gardens? Well, the winter squash garden got a little sloppy in the center. I don't know if Andy was playing in the mud or if this mess is genuine work mud. Not ideal to be in wet soils, but the seedlings had to go in. More compromises.

Now, this would have been the year to be in the frog and bog business, if there is such a thing. Joseph has a lot of frog and toad friends. Snakes and salamanders, too.

For now, that is all the news from here.

Best wishes to one and all.

Polly and all at Village Farm

WEEK 3 Another 1.5 inches of rain last night. . .

2009-07-02T20:01:00.005-04:00

It is never good to hear the word "disaster" associated with your line of work. Reading the Bangor Daily News cover story, "Crops in Crisis" today, we were reminded that it is not just our soils that are so soggy. Indeed, open soils everywhere in the state are saturated with water and cold. And many farmers, many cropping, or trying to crop, hundreds of acres of corn, potatoes and grains, are experiencing a disaster. We have not used the "d" word here on Village Farm yet. It is not pretty out there, don't get me wrong, but we have not registered any mortalities yet.

Not only did we invest in irrigation pipe this spring, but we also purchased a vintage and very slick cultivating tractor, an Allis Chalmers G. The G was in constant use forming beds and marking rows earlier in the season but for the last few weeks has been gathering dust in the pole barn. (We do not ever drive on wet soils and try to stay out of the gardens altogether when things are so wet to avoid soil compaction. ) The hope for this tractor was to be able to cultivate (weed) whole beds and rows of crops with sweeps and baskets mounted under the tractor. Because of the wet conditions, the weeds grow but the tractor is parked. If you recall in the MEmber Handbook, we set a work party date for Saturday, July 11th. 8-11 am with a simple lunch provided. We would love as many helping hands as possible that morning to get some weeding done. We will have other projects as well that do not involve getting down in the dirt, if that is not your thing. Please join us!!

THIS WEEK'S HARVEST
Chinese Cabbage (chop it fine for a fresh slaw or lightly cook it in a stir fry)

Young carrots

Radishes

Lettuce

Snap (edible podded) peas (delicious raw or lightly steamed or stir fried)

Broccoli

Beet greens

Garlic scapes

Salad greens

Cheers!

~Polly

WEEK 2: Weathering the weather.

2009-06-29T08:11:00.002-04:00

Rain is certainly the name of the game around here. The cows and pigs do not seem to be phased at all. The chickens are growing and grazing just fine. But the farmers. . . soggy and dripping with one eye always to the sky. . . . would welcome some high and dry weather. A silver lining to this weather business. . . little did we know when we agreed to work with Andy for the summer that he would be our own personal meteorologist. As a youngster, Andy had his own website where he compiled radar images and his knowledge and pumped out his own forecasts. We have learned that this last slug of rain and wet is called a "cut-off low" and that there is no real end in sight.
We are trying to not stress about the waterlogged soils and our succession plantings getting pushed back. We schedule all of our seedings in the winter months and follow a strict calendar to make sure we always have greens, baby lettuce, cilantro and young carrots coming along. When we can't prepare soil to seed these crops, our schedule gets messed up. This means, for us and for you, that there will be some gaps in the supply of salad mix and beans and perhaps other direct seeded crops.
"You can't change the weather" is what I keep reminding myself. Prentice related an anecdote from a Canadian grain farmer this morning and it is something like this: "10% of stress is from the event/situation itself and 90% is from our reaction to it." This rings true to us, so we are trying to think creatively, work on other projects, hope for a brilliant high pressure system to blast through, and/or divine intervention. (And we are trying to not stress out.)

This little farmer doesn't mind the rain a bit. He has been sighted recently in the baby carrier visiting the pigs, chickens, and even helping with some barnyard projects. He is catching some ZZZZs in the laundry basket; his second favorite spot -- the best place being in someone's arms.

THE WEEK'S HARVEST

Belfast members picked up beet greens bunches, lettuce heads, spinach, cilantro and scallions this week. Farm members will enjoy the same array Tuesday. We devoured a huge "mess" of beet greens for lunch the other day. Amanda scored the biggest beet roots with a knife (helping them cook faster) then steamed the greens and roots whole for 10 minutes. We like lemon juice on top or butter and salt and pepper. Laura recommends honey mustard, which will be our next taste test.

NEXT WEEK

Snap peas are ready to harvest.
as are a rainbow of radishes.
Baby carrots are already being picked by the two big Grassi boys
Chinese Cabbage for fresh slaw or for stir frying
More herbs and scallions
Salad greens/lettuce/spinach

As always, be in touch with questions or comments.

~Polly

First Greens: Week 1

2009-06-17T14:41:00.005-04:00

Week One of the 2009 Season. First of all, a sincere thank you to one and all for allowing us to be your farmers for the growing season ahead. It is truly our pleasure and we look forward to sharing the bounty with you in the weeks ahead.

A bit of news to begin with. Abel Grassi joined the farm team here on June 8th. He is a strapping lad weighing over 10# at birth and gaining by the day. His big brothers are nothing but love and kisses (so far) and his days seem to pass quite blissfully. Joseph and Ben are out and about much these days, catching toads and frogs, picking flowers and helping on carpentry and garden projects.

Prentice, Andy, Amanda and Laura have been transplanting like crazy. Getting corn transplants in, cukes, winter squash, the fourth batch of brassicas (broccoli and relatives) which we succession plant to provide you with broccoli, kale and cabbage all summer long. 1000 lettuce get transplanted every other week and new ones get sown in trays every other week. Truly a revolving door of baby plants these days.

The new "egg mobile" is almost finished and will be quite an abode for the new flock of pullets getting ready to produce eggs come August. It is getting a paint job and a "porch" and will be ready for animals in a week or so. Just in time!! A fox got 5 broiler chickens a few nights ago. More secure housing for the layers will be good for everyone. (Except Foxy).

At last, some green goodness from the Village Farm!

This week you received:
Spinach

Kale (a sub for the chinese cabbage which really needed another week to size up)

Cilantro

and Salad greens

The spinach is so tender and flavorful, we sometimes don't even dress it. To try the Shyka family classic spinach salad: red onion chopped fine, shredded cheddar, bacon (if you are inclined) and vinaigrette.
Kale, a cousin of cabbage and broccoli, is most often enjoyed sauteed in a stir fry or sauteed solo with some garlic and oil. You may steam or blanch it first then sautee or toss with oil after that. It can also be chopped and added to soups.
Cilantro is a traditional, beloved herb in many cultures. We use it liberally around here, but most often it finds its way atop beans and rice, into fresh salsa or black bean and corn salad. Here is a recipe for Cilantro Pesto, delicious alongside a curry or as a sandwich spread. I learned this from an Indian woman I apprenticed with, so thanks to Sheila. . .

Cilantro Pesto

In blender or Cuisinart: 1-2 garlic cloves, 1" of fresh ginger root, peeled if you care to, and as much fresh jalepeno pepper as you dare (or none at all) . Blend well. Add 1 bunch of cilantro, chopped coarsely on a cut board first, 1/4 cup sunflower or other vegetable oil (olive oil is too strong tasting), juice and zest of one lemon or a lime, and salt to taste. Adjust texture with more oil. Enjoy!

Also, from the Resources tab on our website:

Vegetable Identification and Storage Guide is a very entertaining link to Angelic Organics' CSA site.

Recipes galore, developed by a CSA farm, for using all of your vegetables.

COMING: Radishes, more greens, kale and herbs then we will add peas, broccoli, scallions, carrots and tender white spring turnips.

As always, be in touch with questions or comments and check this blog weekly for news and recipes from your farm.

Fondly, Polly

Work Day and Farm visit POSTPONED

2009-05-07T08:31:00.003-04:00

This picture is from a few weeks ago, but also captures what we are up to these drippy days of early May.

Hello again!

We are POSTPONING the onion planting detail planned for this Saturday due to the amount of moisture in the ground. We just cannot get the ground prepped for planting. We would like to invite all of you NEXT SATURDAY, May 16th, 9-12 for the same gig and this time, we will do it rain or shime. If it is too wet for planting we will have another task to work on as a group and some time to see the animals, woods and share a bit of food.

Have a good weekend. Happy Mothers' Day to all the mothers out there.
Best,
Polly
and all at Village Farm

Early May work party at Village Farm

2009-05-05T11:07:00.008-04:00

Dear friends,

With the month of April waning, the farming season is gaining the familiar springtime pace. In other words, it's starting to feel a bit crazy. This time of year is filled with Spring cleanup, machinery tune-ups, and construction projects amidst steady seed-starting, caring for the seedlings and planning for the planting season. While we have sowed our first peas, beet greens, carrots and cilantro in the field, we spend more time in the gardens kicking clods of dirt, hemming and hawing and testing for dryness before we bring the tractor onto a particular piece of ground. This is the warm-up, so to speak, before the gardening starts in earnest. We also have new life on the farm in the shape of two new calves born in the barn and 50 tender laying chicks under heatlamps in the greenhouse. With any luck, it will be 16 weeks to our first 50 eggs! 4 piglets arrive this week to round out the "barnyard".

We expect two interns, Andy and Amanda, to arrive later in May, and a third worker, Laura, to start in June. We also have our own farmhand (new baby!) arriving in June to join older brothers Joseph and Ben. Lots going on, but we have lots of support and are perpetually grateful for what we have here.

And we are excited for another season of work, inevitable surprises and food from this land. Thanks, too, for your support of our efforts. It is meaningful for us to have people involved and invested in the farm. Going into our third season of full-time farming on this land, I have been particularly aware this Spring of the farm as a perpetual work in progress- with constant decision-making, tuning, planning and working to try and make it more successful in the broadest sense, for the land, our family and the community. I have really begun to see it lately as some kind of odyssey. I guess you call that Life.

So, we'd like to invite you out to the farm this Saturday, May 9 from 9-12 for a morning on the farm. Planting onions is a great job for many hands. We thought we could work on the onions for a couple hours, and then have some time to look around the farm a bit, visit the baby animals if you'd like and share a light lunch. We'll plan to have some soup. If you were able to bring a snack to share that would be great. We hope to see you then! If it's really raining, let's put it off. Please call with any questions or to check in about the weather. 382-6300

Please join us even if you don't want to get on your hands and knees in the dirt for some planting. There are jobs for many hands and all abilities, and we always need supervisors ( a.k.a. talkers!).

Kind regards,
Prentice