Nitty Gritty Farm News September 29th

From the Farmers

Our END OF THE HARVEST FESTIVAL is this Sunday, October 3 from 2:30 to 5:00 pm. This final festival celebrates the end of our CSA season.
We had our first hard frost – 29.7 degrees on Saturday night, and that marks the end of most of the veggies. So this week will be your last share box. You are getting two weeks worth in one box in this final share(and one trip to pick it up). We think these veggies will keep well enough for you to get them all at once instead of spreading them over the next two weeks. Thank you all for being a part of Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm this season. We have loved being your farmers this year in spite of it being a trying season of soooooooooooooo much rain.

At the farm this week, we’ve been working at tearing out the melon and basil plants and then tearing out the plastic mulch through which they’ve been growing all season. The plants go into the pickup to be hauled to a big compost pile on the back of the farm, the plastic gets wrapped in bundles to go to the solid waste and recycling center, and the last few watermelons go to the appreciative pigs. We’ve been trying to do a few rows every week rather than waiting and cleaning it all up at once. It is a hard, dirty job with none of the excitement of hard, dirty jobs in the spring. So far the bok choi, cabbage, tomato and melon rows are all done and those parts of the fields are disked over. We still have all the squash, peppers, eggplant and flower rows to clean up.

We’ve moved the sheep ewes in their electronet fence again, getting them one step closer to their final move in with the rams for breeding. Next week we will be dividing them into two groups – one to be bred to Lazarus and one group to be bred to Jedediah. We’ve begun feeding them shelled corn – called flushing – to get them gaining weight – the eventual goal of this is that gaining weight at breeding time results in a higher percentage of twins and triplets, rather than single lambs being born.

Gigi delivered three goat wether (castrated males) kids to the livestock auction. We’ve kept one that we’ll turn into sausage soon. We also have a new animal visitor at the farm. His name is Diablo and he is a purebred Toggenburg goat buck. He is here for a month long stay with our group of three adult does and three doe kids for what last year's interns called sex camp. Diablo may have an impressive pedigree, but he also has an impressive stink! I remember now why we don’t keep our own buck.

Now that most of the crops are done, we‘ve been letting our Black Star chickens roam. They love it – scratching through the goat and lamb pens and the perennial gardens around the house. All summer they must stay penned up and have their weeds and veggies delivered to them, so they don’t peck up the field crops. It is delightful to see them having such a great time free ranging.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday at the Festival. We’ll be playing our annual FARM GAMES, serving you a variety of soups featuring farm products along with fresh baked breads, home brew beer and wine. Depending on the weather there will be hayrides and outdoor music.

This is also the time to sign up for next year. We are taking reservations (and $$$) for CSA share memberships. If you sign up and pay now, you can get your 2011 share at 2010 prices. (See the sidebar for more information.)

See you at the festival on Sunday…………Or until next season…………..

What’s In Your Share This Week

Squash – assortment of squash and pumpkins
Carrots – Cosmic purple and Scarlet Nantes
Onions – Mars (red) and Sierra Blanca (white)
Kale
Swiss Chard
Radishes – Crunchy Royale
Arugula
Herbs - Thyme and Sage
Hot Peppers - Newmex Joe E Parker, jalapenos and serranos

Nitty Gritty Farm News September 22nd

From the Farmers…..

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm 2010 Fall Festival is coming up soon - Sunday October 3rd from 2:30 to 5:00. This is the last farm festival for this year. If you haven’t been to the farm yet, or if you have, we encourage you to join us for farm games, music, good food, a variety of home brews and home crafted wine and possibly home brewed root beer. You can meet Reba and her new calf Macintyre as well as meet the goats, sheep, pigs and chickens. We’ll celebrate the season together, come rain or shine. If it rains – surprise, surprise – dress warmly in rain wear. Let us know how many folks are coming so we can plan for the food. And, if you decide to come at the last minute, that’s fine too.

The birch trees outside the front door have started to turn from green to gold. The finches, nuthatches and chickadees are singing outside the windows waiting for us to start filling the feeders again. The barn is full of hay. Those 95 degree days seem like a distant memory (even though the last one was just a few weeks ago). Each morning, the interns begin the day dressed in winter garb, wool hats, warm socks, and long pants, and slowly shed their layers as the work day and temperatures progress. If one of them starts the day in shorts, it usually means that they haven’t done their laundry.




Fall field work is usually muddy and cold. On Monday, Robin and Laura pulled up the black/white plastic mulch we use between all the small row crops like carrots, chard, kale, and radishes. Within an hour both of them were covered with mud and their gloves had holes in the fingers from pulling up the rusted metal staples that hold down the plastic. In the afternoon, Laura began pulling tomato plants away from the black plastic mulch that is used for weed control and to warm the soil. And today the interns finished pulling up all the plastic mulch and drip irrigation lines we never even used. It is dirty work, but it is easier to do it now that when it gets colder. With such a good crew, we have been able to begin some of the fall clean-up work done ahead of schedule.

On Tuesday, we moved the sheep ewes to a new section of pasture, inside their electro-net fencing. It’s a little nerve-racking as we unplug the fencer and move it a section at a time with all of us pulling and replacing the step-in posts, until we have moved the whole fence and the sheep onto fresh pasture. We’ve been moving them around the seeded oats and turnip field for several weeks now. We’ll move them again in a week, and then it is time to split them into two groups for breeding. We’ll put one group in with Jedediah, our 4-year-old ram, and the other group with Lazarus, our 2-year-old ram. All of the lambs from last spring have been shipped except for five lambs to keep that Robin chose based on their lineage, their fleeces and their growth. Those five will join the older ewes soon as well to be bred to lamb next March.


We have decided to keep three goats this year, (at least for now). Stormy and her daughter Nimbus, and Mezzo. We will be breeding all of them in October as well. We like to have the goats giving birth the same time as the sheep so if we have triplet lambs or a ewe has problems the high producing goats are likely to have extra milk to feed to the lambs.

The five (now big) pigs will be with us until mid- November and the turkeys will be here until mid October or when we schedule a butchering date. They are getting pretty big and looking a lot like Thanksgiving. Our livestock chores keep getting easier and easier.


After moving livestock, we began gathering all the rest of the winter squash. This task soon became more of a farm sport than merely farm work. As Gigi slowly pulled the wagon through the field, everyone else took turns either throwing squash from the piles we’d already made in the field or catching them on the wagon. We quickly discovered the best position for each player. Dale is a good thrower and has good follow through. Robin did a good job fielding his throws and her long arms made it easier to retrieve any wild pitches. Laura has a nice lob to her throws and Stephanie played a great hockey goalie using her whole body to stop the flying squashes. Kristin used her t-shirt to pile full of the squashes closest to the wagon and then ducked as she emptied them on to the wagon to avoid the ball game going on overhead. Gigi played it safe and stayed on the tractor.

Rain was predicted for today. (What a surprise) But it never came. The clouds rolled through and the sun shown between the clouds but the rain didn’t fall. So sorting squash, harvesting carrots and cabbage and peppers was much more pleasant in the dry weather.

We are anticipating that our last share of veggies will be on October 7th. If anything changes, we will post it on the blog. We listen regularly to the Nation Weather Service to find out if frost is expected. The temperatures have dipped down to 38 overnight but not lower than that so far. When we do get a heavy frost warning, we spend all night if necessary, harvesting everything that can’t handle such low temperatures. Some years, we cover parts of the field with tarps and quilts to protect the plants. It works but with the scale of our rows it isn’t very practical. This year, I think we will have mostly everything out of the fields before that final hard freeze.

The radishes and greens we seeded a few weeks ago are looking great. We hope you enjoy the spring-like crispy radishes this week.

Until next week……………………..Gigi and Robin


What's In Your Share
Onions - Mars (red) Sierra Blanca (white)
Cabbage - Tendersweet
Winter Squash
- Cream of the crop (white acorn)
- Small Wonder (round gold spaghetti)
- Delicata (long green/beige striped)
Gourds - Small assorted (decorative, non-edible)
Peppers - Sweet: Carmen and/or Lipstick and/or Gypsy
Hot: Conchos (jalapeno)
Carrots - Dragon (purple Kuroda short/wide)
Radish - Rover (red)
Herbs - Sage, Lemon Balm

From the Farmer (Gigi this week)

I can’t remember a summer with so much rain in my 52 summers. I went outside to get some pictures of the harvest and found Robin and Kristin cleaning the carrots. It was hard to tell who was more soaked, the carrots or the people. The remainder of the crew was still out at the end of the row harvesting the rest carrots in the thunder and the mud. It is disheartening. It’s hard on the produce, it’s hard on the crew and it’s hard on Robin, the farm manager, who understands the most about the effect the rain has on the farm.

The animals are all huddled together in their shelters and seeming quite calm. I suppose they have gotten used to these stormy days. Agate, our youngest cat, usually stays out all day and half the night wandering the farm, but today even she is staying inside. Reba and her calf are laying out in the rain, probably enjoying the absence of flies on their backs.

Each season has its idiosyncrasies. This year the rain seems to be constant. One year we went without rain from the beginning of July until mid August, over six weeks. One year we had a million melons and we had no onions at all. One year when the tomato horn worms had to be picked off of the tomato plants every day, the squash plants were flourishing. The following year the horn worms did not return but the squash bugs destroyed nearly all of the squash plants. It is an ever changing adventure.

Our crew has spent quite a bit of time on the tomatoes this year. We did everything right, starting the plants from seedlings, transplanting into black plastic mulch in the field, carefully staking and running twine between the stakes as the plants grew. It looked like a seed catalog cover photo. But there will always be conditions we cannot control, and much of our good work on the tomato plants this year was lost to blight and sun scald caused by rain. You have gotten some tomatoes in your shares, just not as many as we would have liked. We canned many of the seconds and invited anyone who wanted to, (via the blog), to come up and pick the seconds for their processing. Some folks took us up on it and went home with buckets full. The bad parts of the tomatoes had to be cut away, but after that, there was still enough for some good sauces and salsas.

So, when an invitation like that comes up on the blog and if you’re interested, you should try to take us up on it as soon as possible. We do not charge you anything for the extra produce. It’s just a part of your share of the farm and sometimes we’ll even help you pick. This is one of the ways that we redeem a bad crop, by taking the “bad” produce and putting it up for the winter. That is why we have canned so much tomato sauce, tomato juice and cans and cans of carrots, etc.

Well, the crew is now inside the house, dripping dry and drinking hot tea. We’re hoping for a dryer day tomorrow to finish the harvest and pack up your shares.

Until next week…. Gigi


What’s In Your Share

Pie Pumpkin - Baby Pam or New England Sugar Pie [Winter squash will normally hold for quite a while but
with all of the rain, it will probably develop soft spots. Plan to use your squash soon.]
Carrots – Scarlet Nantes
Winter Squash – Sweet Dumpling (beige with green stripes)
Egg Plant - [The egg plants are mostly small to baby in size this week in anticipation of possible frost this
weekend] Any of the following - Dancer, Galine, Kermit, Orient Express, Orient Charm, or
Thai Green
Onions – Mars (red)
Peppers Sweet– Any of the following – Lipstick (red/green) or Islander (purple bell) or Snapper (green bell)
or Gypsy (yellow).
Peppers Hot – Newmex Joe E. Parker (mild, long green) Serrano del Sol (hot, short thin green), Conchos
(short blunt green jalapeno)
Beans – Eureka yellow [an unexpected resurrection crop. They came back after being mowed down]
Herbs – Basil (green Genovese), Marjoram – Zaatar,
Flowers – Our plan has been to give a big bouquet of flowers this week. With the rain, we’re not sure they’ll
hold up. Hopefully…

intern blog writers

From the interns:

Oooh, how exciting! We’ve never had hold of these blog-writing reins.

Joyous cool weather is upon us. Our sandals have stayed in our Quonsets and yurts these past few weeks as rubber boots have happily replaced them. Our rabbits are lonely today as they have lost their feathered hoop-mates; however, our frozen corn, broccoli, and peas have found new freezer-mates. We butchered our last 51 broiler chickens today. We always appreciate the circle of life, caring and feeding animals that will eventually nourish us, especially during lunch today! Our mid-day meal was exceptional, which isn’t anything new. Twas the day of Robin’s birth today and ‘twas Gigi’s day of birth on Sunday. Thus, we feasted. We had Nitty Gritty Chardonnay in wine glasses, squash, mashed potatoes, fresh chicken with Dale’s Creole rub, and carrot birthday cake; it feels like Thanksgiving every day on the farm.

It seems like every Monday when we come back to the farm, everything has changed. The broom corn has been bent down, the turkeys are dinosaurs, and the ewes are always in a new Electronet fenced pasture so we can’t ever find them (until we listen). There are also things that happen that we don’t witness. There is new watermelon wine, 86,000 new jars of tomato sauce, and pig tales. Adrienne and her almost 1 year old darling daughter Magnolia Rose farm-sat this weekend so Gigi and Robin could come and go as they pleased. They had a “vacation at the farm”. Adrienne, therefore, had a bit of an adrenaline rush in the morning to find pigs in the barn instead of in their pen just outside the barn.
Who, Us?

We interns were aware of how adventuresome our little pigs were two weeks ago when they got out of their pen and had a night out on the farm, but when we arrived this week we noticed a strange smell in the barn. We found out that they had somehow broken the latch on the Dutch-door and gotten into the barn. Thankfully, we had just organized the barn to fill it with new hay, so they didn’t have much room to play.

Anyway, vegetables, that’s what we’re supposed to tell you about. The squash are intermingling with the Brussels sprouts and the kale and evidently can travel long distances into other vegetables’ rows. The watermelons are now done, as are our backs from carrying your hefty boxes. We hope you thoroughly enjoyed them over Labor Day weekend.


We have also bid farewell to our tomato plants. They are rapidly becoming part of the beautiful healthy soil of Nitty Gritty Farm. Speaking of those 86,000 jars of new tomato sauce, yesterday, we shuffled, shelved, and shifted them all in the crawl-space. Note to future home-builders… MAKE YOUR BASEMENT EIGHT FEET, NOT FOUR FEET TALL. The food preserved in the basement helps us to feel confident that Gigi and Robin will not starve throughout the winter, nor will their interns starve next spring. We’re not sure how long this blog-thing is supposed to be, so enjoy your beautiful, organic, home-loved vegetables (and chicken!). Until next week…

Laura and Stephanie


What’s in your Share?
Winter Squash – Small Wonder Spaghetti Squash (orange round)
Peppers – Sweet: Gypsy (yellow), Sweet Chocolate (brown), Lipstick or Carmen (long red or green)
Hot: Aji Cristal (HOT yellow transparent), Conchos (green jalapeno), Bulgarian Carrot (orange small)
Onion – Sierra Blanca (white)
Kale – Red Russian
Carrots – Cosmic Purple
Eggplant – Dancer (pink) or Galine (purple), or Thai Green (long green) or Orient Express (long purple) or Orient Charm (long pink) or Kermit (round green striped)
Tomato – Pink Beauty or Green Zebra
Celeriac – Brilliant
Basil – Lime
Thyme - Orange

Nitty Gritty Farm News September 1st

From the Farmers…………..

Cream of the crop
It certainly is fall – all of the squash vines are dying back and if I didn’t look at the calendar, I would think it was the end of September. But the drying vines sure make it easier to find all the squash. This week you’ll find Cream of the Crop early acorn squash in your box. This squash is ready to eat right away but will be even better if you let it sit at room temperature and cure for about a week before you eat it.

Hot days cool nights
On Tuesday, almost the hottest day of the week, Gigi and the interns did a volunteer job of moving a big pile of dirt at Pilgrims UCC church. Our crew made short work of a seemingly overwhelming task. Then back to the farm where our neighbor John delivered a load of third crop hay to be unloaded into the barn. I don’t know exactly why hay always arrives on the hottest days – and it is even hotter up in the eaves of the barn where the warm hay is being stacked. And then, this morning at 7:00 when we began our work day, everyone had sweatshirts and hats on in the cool weather. What a relief it was to work today with lower temperatures and humidity. It certainly raised everyone’s spirits.

Mac's Birth Story


In case you didn’t read the email update, Reba our Dexter cow, finally gave birth to a beautiful black bull calf on Sunday afternoon. She waited until everyone was gone. Gigi and I pulled into the driveway at 6:00 PM. Reba was laying down and already pushing. We changed clothes quickly and got back out there in time to see two hoofs and a nose protruding. A few pushes later, he was out, just to his hips. I reached over to help clean him up, and Reba decided to stand. His hips were still stuck so he was dangling a bit. I reached forward and gently grabbed a leg, Reba gave one more push and he was out. Even though he is small as cows go, he is big for a Dexter calf. We have named him Macintyre or Mac for short. He weighs about 70 pounds and Reba is a really good mother. We have not begun milking her yet as we are letting Mac have all of her colostrum (first milk). This weekend, we’ll be making a stanchion to restrain Reba so that we can milk her. We are guessing that she is not going to be overly calm about being milked by humans. She has a huge udder and we are hoping that means that she will give us a lot of milk (and cream!).

Winery
We are now taking orders for wines from Stark Wines. Stark Wines plans to specialize in fruit wines. We have sampled quite a few of their wines and have been pleased. Currently they have Raspberry, Blueberry, Strawberry, Rhubarb and Apple available. There will be a few more varieties coming later. The price is $12 per bottle. Check the sidebar of the blog for more information – send your check written out to Stark Wines– and we will deliver your wine to your drop site. We’re excited to be coordinating with Stark Wines to offer these wines to you.


Watermelons
In your share this week, you’ll be receiving at least two watermelons. All the watermelons are ripe and ready and so we picked them all. I was worried that if we didn’t harvest them, they would not hold in the field. If you can’t eat all your melon right away, and you don’t have room in your fridge, you can hold the melon for several days to a couple of weeks at cool room temperature. We have been being creative with watermelons at the farm. Last night Kristen made watermelon jelly and tonight she’s juicing a bunch of melons for me to mix up a batch of watermelon wine.

Shareholder recipes
We love hearing from you as you share how you prepared your veggies from our farm. We are including Bruce and Karen’s eggplant recipe. They found it at http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/08/spicy-grilled-eggplant-recipe-with-red.html
They said it was delicious, easy to prepare and used up all their eggplant. What more could you ask for?

Abby sent this recipe that is a hit with her infant daughter.
Baby food
1 summer squash (today's was green, but any will do).
Peel, cut into large cubes, and cook on high 3 minutes in microwave with a little water. Add 1/4 or 1/2 cube tofu and blend in food processor.
Serve or freeze.
10 month old Teraysa ate it like it was ice cream. I had to give her 2 servings immediately cuz she was clamoring for more.

Rebuilding the Earth Bread Oven


At the end of the hottest day of the week (Tuesday), we started rebuilding our earthen outdoor bread oven. We built a mud oven from Kiko Denzler’s plan five years ago. It never quite worked up to our expectations and we had planned to rebuild it long before now – but just never found time to do so. Dale has been wanting to get started all summer – so we decided now is the time. A toe in the hole

The pictures show part of the process. We tore down the old bread oven, moved the cement blocks, rocks, and dirt to the new site, and are beginning the rebuilding process. We’ll work at it a bit at a time and hopefully within a couple of weeks, we’ll be baking breads and pizza’s outdoors.
laying out the bricks



BEWARE of HOT!!! Peppers
One final note. In your box this week are two VERY HOT pepper varieties. The yellow transparent ones about 3 to 4 inches long are Aji Cristal and are extremely hot. The small ones that look like tiny carrots are Bulgarian Carrot and while the skin is not terribly hot, the seeds and membranes are mouth and tongue searing. Dale brought one in for me to sample and I took a cautious bite – nothing – another bigger bite – nothing – a bite with seeds – and my whole mouth was numb. So be careful. Keep them away from your young children. Wear gloves when you cut them if you are worried about burning on your hands. And enjoy some really hot, hot sauce.

Until next week……………………Robin


What’s in Your Box this week

Carrots – Cosmic Purple
Watermelon – could be any of the following: Mickey Lee (Pale green/red), Picnic (large green oval/red), Blacktail Mountain (dark green round/red), Sunshine (striped/yellow), New Orchid (striped/ orange), Starlight (striped/red)
Cantaloupe – Eclipse – some shares will include a cantaloupe
Eggplant – an assortment of the following: Dancer (pink), Galine (purple), Thai green (long pale green), Kermit (round green), Orient Express (long purple), Orient Charm (long pink)
Peppers – an assortment of the following sweet peppers: Carmen (long red or green), Lipstick (stubby red or green), Gypsy (yellow), Wizard (green bell), Islander (purple bell).
HOT: Aji Cristal (yellow), Bulgarian Carrot (orange), Conchos (jalapeno)
Summer Squash – an assortment of the following: Bennings Green Tint pattypan, Lita, President, Zephyr, Horn of Plenty
Potatoes - Fingerlings: La Ratte (tan), Rose Finn (red)
Tomatoes - Red Sun and Paragon (red slicing)
Bok Choi - Joi Choi
Winter Squash – Cream of the Crop (white acorn)
Onion – Sierra Blanca white
Swiss Chard – Northern Lights
Basil – Holy Red and Green