Nitty Gritty Farm News August 25th

From the Farmers….
Yellow, Orange, Pink and Red – the watermelons are here! Sunshine (yellow), New Orchid (orange), Mickey Lee (pink), Starlight (red) and Blacktail Mountain (red) – whichever color you get in your box, we think you’ll be delighted with the juicy sweetness of every variety of watermelon we are growing this year. We’ve been eating melons every day and no matter which color we bring in the house, we think they are the delicious! We hope you do too. And even though I said last week that it was the end of the cantaloupes – there are a few more this week – so enjoy.



However, I think this week will be the last of the tomatoes. As I said, last week, the tomatoes are just awful – the constant rain made for the worst tomato harvest ever. So, while we have been canning like crazy – over 100 quarts of juice, pasta sauce and barbeque sauce – the tomatoes that are good enough for fresh slicing and to put in your boxes are almost non-existent. As we pick, it is usually about 40-50 bad tomatoes for every one that is pretty good. If any of you are interested in picking some tomatoes to make into sauce, please contact us to set up a time to pick – but do it soon as they won’t last long.



We started out our week renovating animal pens. We doubled the size of the turkey pen since the turkeys they are growing fast and needed more room. We also nearly quadrupled the broiler pen in size with a big area of grass for them. We moved the last group of lambs into a new area – first deworming and guestimating weights as we loaded and moved them. And then we moved the big self feeder that holds over 500 pounds of feed at a time into the pigs pen so they have feed available all the time which they like. We separated the goats – taking the kids away from the moms now for good – and put the kids into the big pen with the ‘Rainbow’ playground and the does in a newly enlarged pen. We have also have been moving the electro-net fence around the oats pasture for the ewes moving it twice a week. We didn’t move Reba, but did add a strand of electric fence wire around an extra pen we’ll make available for her once she gives birth –which hasn’t happened yet – though she is looking closer. Wow – a lot of animal activity. But everyone seems quite happy – except for the goat kids.

Finally, with no rain for at least a couple of days, I plowed, disked and dragged up three sections of the fields in which the earlier crops have been harvested. We’ll seed fall rye into the old potato and pea areas and just today we replanted the section between the melons and carrots. Kristen and Laura seeded radishes, arugula and beets. Depending on what the weather does, hopefully these crops will be ready to harvest near the end of September.

This year, we’ve been trying to keep up with maintenance tasks throughout the harvest season rather than waiting until fall to get everything accomplished. This is working out really well. So today, the interns dug out the area in the rabbit hoop house where the earlier broilers had been living – and spread that composted manure out on the field. Then they hauled a huge load of sand from what will be the new root cellar and filled the excavation with clean sand. Thus the Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm team photo on this week’s blog cover.

Until next week……………Robin


What’s in your Share this week:
Tomato: Any or all of the following: Taxi (yellow), Pink Beauty (pink), Paragon (red), Red Sun (red), Green Zebra (green striped), Red Pear, Yellow Pear, Sungold (gold cherry)
Peppers: Hot: Numex Joe E. Parker (long green mildly hot), Serrano del Sol (small
green hot)
Sweet: Lipstick (mostly red thick walled heart shaped) or Gypsy (yellow)
Eggplant: Dancer (pink), or Galine (large purple),or Kermit (round green), or Thai green (long green), or Orient Express (long purple), or Orient Charm (long pink)
Carrots : Scarlet Nantes
Beets : Merlin
Bok Choi: Joi Choi
Celeriac: Brilliant (Use the tops for celery flavoring. Peel and shred or dice the
root and use as celery)
Basil: Ararat
Kohlrabi: Kossack
Watermelon: Sunshine (green stripe yellow),or Starlight (green stripe red),or New Orchid (green stripe orange), or Blacktail Mountain (black red),or Mickey Lee (pale green deep pink).
Cantaloupe: Pulsar or Superstar or Eclipse or Classic
Summer Squash: Any mix of the following: Zephyr or President or Lita or Horn of Plenty or Elite or Raven or Bennings Green Tint or Perfect Pick
Spaghetti Squash: Small Wonder (gold oval)

Nitty Gritty Farm News August 18th

From the farmers…….

Gigi reminds me to give kudos to all of you who are remembering to bring your own re-usable bags every week to your drop site into which to transfer your veggies from their box so that you can take them home. Leaving the boxes at the drop sites REALLY saves on wear and tear on the boxes. THANK YOU, thank you so much for helping us out with this.

This week we harvested the last of the cantaloupe and honeydews –we hope you enjoy the ones you get this week – they’ll be the last until next year. If you don’t get to your melon right away or it is a little bit overripe – we suggest you try a melon smoothie. Cut up the melon in cubes, freeze it in a cake pan. You can put it in a freezer container or bag now to save for later or use it right now. Put the cubes in a blender with a glug of honey, a drop or two of vanilla and enough yogurt or milk to make it thin enough to blend. Blend and enjoy!

On Monday, we set up the electro-net fence for the ewes (female sheep) and moved them – minus the rams – into a new pasture. This is the oats, field peas and turnips we seeded early this spring. The rams are away from the ewes now since sheep are seasonal breeders (estrus cycle determined by photoperiod) and we don’t want to have baby lambs born until March – which means we’ll put the rams back with the ewes the first of October. The ewes are busy grazing on new exciting pasture and the rams are still in the old fold area and not very happy about it. We will move them to fresh pasture soon and we’ll be moving the ewes every week until the whole oats pasture is grazed. We also fenced in a new pen in the area next to the goats where the garlic and barley were growing earlier. We’ll get the last of the lambs moved into that area by the end of the week.

We butchered another batch of broilers on Tuesday morning. It is amazing that though they were only eight weeks old they are already very big. We only had 16 of them in this group so the butchering went very quickly with a rented plucker and a fast crew. Late afternoon, while the butchered chickens cooled prior to pick up by chicken share folks – we loaded the Alumacraft and Old Town Camper onto the little Toyota pickup and we all headed for the St. Croix River for a NGDF Crew Canoe Adventure. We left a car at the Sunrise landing and drove upriver (circumventing all the road construction that is ALL around us) a few miles by road to give ourselves a three to four hour paddle down river. It was a perfect day – very little wind, the river was very high from all the rain, and it was sunny with lots of clouds and not too hot, not too cold. We saw several deer, a couple of eagles, and almost no other people as we paddled and floated to Sunrise in just a little over two hours. We got back to the farm in time for evening chores and finishing up the chickens.

Today, Wednesday, with a smaller crew because Dale is gone to a wedding in Maine, we harvested tomatoes (way more damaged ones for us to process than good ones for all of you) and this afternoon in the rain, we washed and cooked and ran through the food mill over 6 bushels of damaged tomatoes.

Right now at 9:30 pm, we’re watching – mostly listening to the Music Man – and we have six big canning kettles of sauce that just needs to cook down until thick – and we are off to bed since we’ll begin harvest and packing tomorrow at 7 tomorrow morning. We’re hoping that the rain will hold off until we are finished harvesting and packing your boxes. It’s not much fun harvesting and packing in the rain!

It has been a wonderful week with the lower temperatures. Getting up and needing to put on long pants, socks and a sweatshirt is wonderful. It sure feels like fall.

Until next week……………..Robin

What’s in your share this week.

Cantaloupe, Honeydew, Asian Melon (same varieties as last week)
Summer Squash (same varieties as last week)
Tomatoes (Taxi, Orange Blossom, Paragon, Pink Beauty, Green Zebra, Red Sun, Red Pear, Yellow Pear, Sungold cherry
Eggplant (same varieties as last week)
Peppers: Hot – Conchos Jalapeno
Sweet – Carmen, Gypsy, Islander, Wizard, Sweet Chocolate
Onion – Sierra Blanca
Bok Choi – Joi Choi
Fennel – Orion
Basil – Lime
Carrots – Cosmic Purple

Nitty Gritty Farm News August 12th

From the Farmers…………
As I write, three big kettles of Italian tomato sauce are simmering on the stove – in spite of the almost unbearable heat and humidity of the day. To get all our work accomplished, we’ve been starting early, working until a late mid-day meal, then taking several hours away from the fields in the afternoon. Today, following the tomato harvest this morning, we ended up with five, five gallon pails of imperfect tomatoes and a couple of pails of sunscalded peppers – all of which needed to be processed immediately. While the interns went to the Sunrise River this afternoon to cool down, Gigi and I cut up all the veggies, added some marjoram, thyme, basil and celeriac and put it on the stove to cook until soft. This evening we’ll run it through the Squeezo strainer and continue to cook it down to a thick sauce. Next winter when it’s twenty below zero, we’ll surely enjoy this capturing of summer’s heat and bounty in a jar over a plate of pasta.

It is hard to believe that fall is coming – but our fields certainly tell us so – and two of our interns saying goodbye also remind us of the calendar. Kathryn who finished last Thursday is taking a week of family vacation before she returns to college at Grinnell and Gretchen’s last day is tomorrow. It is always hard to say goodbye to our intern/apprentices who become like family to us – as well as help create the community that makes this farm work and play as well as we do.

Our fields are telling us clearly that it is fall – in fact looking at the produce, it feels more like mid-September than mid-August. Our melons are in full production – and it is an amazing melon year! It is true that with all the rain there is a good bit of cracking but the production is so high that you’d never know how many melons we are feeding to the pigs and chickens and making into a variety of foods for us. [For our noon meal today, Kristen made a delicious Melon Sorbet from cantaloupe and honeydew melon. I’d highly recommend this wonderful thing to do with excess melons. She said she just Googled ‘Melon Sorbet’ and found this recipe on Alton Brown’s site. She served it with some sugared ginger and homemade meringues.] We hope that you will be creative and find uses for the over abundance of melons in your box this week. This is also some of the risk of being part of the farm – sharing in the overwhelming abundance and figuring out what to do with so much food all at once! Let us know what you discover about using so much melon. By the way – the watermelons look great and will be ripening very soon. So look for watermelon recipes too.

The melons keep us very busy – they must be harvested every day – and kept cool. We have created a make-shift walk in cooler by adding an air conditioner to our sauna. We all joke about wanting to sit in the reverse sauna with the melons on these awfully hot days.

The tomatoes that I had such high hopes for – they looked so beautiful earlier – are just awful – the worst tomato crop we’ve had since beginning this CSA six years ago. The plants are blighted, the tomatoes sunscalded or split from the rain and heat and sun, and if not all of those, they are covered with little black spots from the blight brought on by the rain. It is so disappointing – especially when we did such a good job with the planting, mulching, staking and caring for them this year. Hopefully, though, because of the sheer numbers of tomatoes plants we have, you will get enough tomatoes to satisfy you.

We had two more huge rain storms since your last share – one on Saturday night and one on Tuesday during the day. So much rain and wind! We are so tired of rain and heat and sun and humidity – a real Minnesota winter is sounding better and better.

It is true – Gigi and I did manage to get away to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for four whole days! The interns delivered all the shares and we did a scramble pack and were on the road by 5:30 on Thursday evening – though we still had to pick up a few supplies and wanted to have a meal at Fitgers in Duluth. We’re getting pretty good at putting up a tent by the headlights of our car. We found a campsite just after midnight and slept for a few hours at Finland, picked up our permit and maps in Tofte, and were on the water of Seagull Lake (the only permit available at short notice) by noon. And it was absolutely wonderful. Perfect weather – not too hot – not too cold. Sunshine all day. Light breeze – no big winds or big waves. Perfect campsite for swimming and everything else. And our dogs, Birch and Bracken were in heaven – they are wonderful campers. We came back late Monday night rejuvenated and ready to head back up as soon as possible.

During the rain storm on Tuesday, we decided to put up sweet corn for everyone here at the farm. We picked two big wheelbarrow loads of corn – some smaller second ears – and shucked (in the living room while the rain beat against the porch) and blanched and cut off the cob – 90 meal bags of delicious corn to be divided among us and four interns. More good eating this winter.

No calf yet. Reba is biding her time. I think that she is holding out for cooler weather. I think she is a wise cow. She seems contented here at NGDF but not overly friendly. She seems to like anyone with a bucket or an armload of hay but when those are gone, she loses interest.

All the other livestock seems to be handling the weather pretty well. The biggest broilers seem to suffer the most – panting from their beaks in the heat of the days. The pigs dig down into the mud so that it’s hard to tell that they really are pink pigs. The sheep and lambs lay low – moving about only during the morning and evening hours if at all possible. And the goats sleep under their playground and shade roof most of the day. They too are hoping for cooler weather soon.

Until next week………………….Robin

What’s in your Box?

Cantaloupe – Superstar, Pulsar, Classic, Eclipse
Honeydew – Passport, Diplomat
Asian melon – Sun Jewel
Bok Choi – Joi Choi
Carrots – Scarlet Nantes
Summer Squash – Zephyr, Lita, Raven, Elite, Bennings Green Tint, Horn of Plenty, Slick Pick
Onion – Mars
Peppers – Hot: Serrano Del Sol
Sweet: Carmen, Lipstick, Gypsy, Jimmy Nardello
Eggplant – Dancer (pink), Galine (big purple), Classic (smaller purple), Kermit (small green)
Herbs – Orange Thyme
Potatoes – Yukon Gold
Tomatoes – Taxi (yellow), Orange Blossom (orange), Red Sun (red), Paragon (red), Beam’s Yellow Pear,
Austin’s Red Pear, Sungold Cherry

Nitty Gritty Farm News August 5th

From the farmers………
It has been a HOT week here at Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm. And in spite of rain on Sunday, we had a wonderful Mid-Summer Abundance Festival. Thank you to everyone who braved the weather to eat, drink, converse with us, wander around the farm and take hayrides in the rain. Your presence reminds us all over again why we do this and why we love doing it – even with the HOT weather.

Usually by August the constant need for weeding is over - but not this year with all the rain. And I think that the weeds are even worse than usual – certainly some weed seeds that have lain dormant for several drought years seem to have sprouted and grown – some amazing grasses towering over the (mulched) dry beans. So even though it is now August, we’ve been pulling and pruning weeds where none should be by now and in this HOT weather it is certainly a sticky job.



The Auracana chicks have finally been moved to their new living quarters. The same age as the 16 big, fat broilers they have been living with, they are small, agile and have gotten exrtremely good at flying out of their pen and wandering farther and farther from where they should be. On Sunday morning as Kristen was doing last minute preparation for the festival, she had Birch, our husky cross dog out with her and the temptation was too great - Birch nabbed an escaped Auracana chick. Luckily he has a very soft mouth and didn’t hurt it, but it did increase my desire to have those little pullets moved to a more secure pen. Their new quarters created by our interns are spacious with tall outdoor fence walls and a renovated door thanks to Dale, and so far the ten future laying hens seem content and disinterested in trying to escape.

Reba has not had her calf yet though she is getting closer. I’m guessing a couple more weeks. We’ll keep you posted.

The veggie fields are amazingly abundant this year – and early. We began picking melons this week – the Honeydews are first – but the cantaloupes and watermelons will be very soon. I don’t think we have ever had melons ripe the first of August here in Harris, it is usually closer to the end of the month. The melon crop is tremendous – but with all the rain – there are a lot of cracked and damaged melons. We’ve begun feeding wheelbarrow loads of them to the pigs and chickens. And just today, we mixed up a 5 gallon batch of Honeydew Melon wine.


I am disappointed by the tomatoes which started out with such promise. Though they are loaded with green tomatoes – there is a lot of blight from the rain and hot weather. But I do think we will still have a lot of good tomatoes – so not to worry yet. We’ve just begun picking the first few yellow Taxi’s, the cherry Sungold’s, and Orange Blossoms. You’ll probably begin seeing them in your boxes in the next couple of weeks.

While the interns and I were harvesting melons today, we were talking about how to keep some of the various vegetables for a few days since it is so much to use immediately. They suggested that I also share my advice about how to keep (for a short time) some of the veggies you get in your share – if you can’t use them right away. You should also know that as much as possible, we do not wash most of the mid-summer veggies. Tomatoes, peppers, squash and melons have a natural protection on them that helps them keep longer. And of course there are no poisons that you need to wash off.

Zucchini and other Summer Squash – use the small ones right away. Bigger ones can just sit on the counter at room temperature and will keep for a week or so. Never refrigerate them.
Peppers – keep at room temperature. Will keep for several days.
Potatoes – keep at room temperature in the dark. Use small potatoes quickly. Larger ones will keep longer and once cured will keep for months.
Tomatoes – sit upside down on the stem end (stem removed) Never refrigerate tomatoes. They will usually keep for several days. Taxi’s don’t hold well so use up first.
Cabbage – store in crisper of fridge. Uncut cabbage can sit at room temp several days. Just peel outer leaves when using.
Bok Choi – store in crisper in fridge- will wilt but is still good to use.
Brocolli – use soon. Can hold for a short time in a small amount of COLD water. Change the water often.
Herbs – can hold by placing bottoms in cold water for a short time. Dry or chop and freeze in ice cube trays with water if you can’t use them up.
Onions – store at room temp – will keep up to a week or more.
Carrots – rinse and store in plastic bag with holes for breathing. Store in crisper or bottom of fridge.
Beets – tops won’t keep well. Cut off tops and store tops for short time in water. Longer in fridge but they will get very limp. Store roots like carrots.
Melons – store in fridge – but beware that with cantaloupes or honeydews your whole fridge will smell like melon. We cut up the melon and store in covered bowl.

We store most of the veggies we pick to use at the farm at room temperature for short periods of time – one to two days. We monitor the veggies we are holding and use up first the ones that seem not to be keeping as well.

This is the abundant season. We hope that you are enjoying creating memorable meals with your farm-fresh veggies.
Until next week …………Robin

What’s In Your Share this Week

Carrots Scarlet Nantes
Summer Squash Zephyr, Slick Pic, Raven, Elite, Bennings Green Tint, Lita,
Horn of Plenty
Sweet Corn Sugar Buns
Eggplant Dancer (pink), Galine and Dusky (purple),
Orient Express (skinny purple)
Beets Merlin
Peppers Hot: Jalapeno/ Serranno / Numex Joe Parker
Sweet: Gypsy (yellow), Islander (purple), Wizard (bell)
Onion Sierra Blanca
Honeydew Melon Diplomat and Passport
Asian Melon Sun Jewel
Bok Choi Joi Choi
Cucumbers Sweet Slice, Raider, Homemade Pickles
Herbs Ararat purple Basil, Genovese green Basil