FARM NOTES: Wednesday, July 18, 2018.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Coordinator: Mike Rabinowitz Contact Us Before 5:00 pm. House Phone: 895-2884. Leave Message
Pick-UP Places and Time: 6 – 6:30 Mun Science Building Parking Lot
or Organic Farm: 5:30 – 8:00; other days by appointment.
Cell Phone on Pick-Up days: 709 749-2884. ( 6 – 6:30 only) .
Who’s Who on the Organic Farm! So far we have sent out two sets of information for the Veggie Membership which we call CSA. Mike and I are co-owners of the Organic Farm. The most satisfying thing about being part of the Organic Farm extended community is sharing recipes and stories. Of course, many of our members are foodies, some have lived in other places of the world and sampled dishes with names I can’t pronounce. Others have taken cooking lessons in France, Spain and Italy, etc. That’s why sharing ideas and conversations about recipes and food makes being a member of the Veggie Group so much fun! So, here we go again!
Farm Notes. The June 27th Farm Notes is a format I began using 25 years ago when there was no face book and blogging. The second newsletter posted for July 11 with the pictures and more exciting format was written by Rachel de Brouver. Rachel is the apprentice who is living and working on the farm this season and sees the day to day; she and Marc are also involved in taking out the remnants of various crops such as spinach, arugula and mustards and creating ways to use them in the family kitchen. At first, these greens were fashioned into salads with a home made yogurt dressing also made by these two frugal food geniuses. I have already written about the spicy peanut butter sauce; now you have the recipe from Rachel’s Farm News last week. For the Farm Notes, this week, I will be emphasizing our favorites from the recipe file on the Organic Farm Website. See Recipe Header.
Rhubarb. See Mrs. Walter’s rhubarb cake with sour milk/ buttermilk which is first on the list of rhubarb recipes. I made Mrs. Walter’s cake this week, using yogurt and a little less flour, instead of sour milk. See rhubarb sauce near the end of the list. This is Mike’s favourite way of using rhubarb; he makes rhubarb ice cream with the sauce as well as using it over store bought ice cream, short bread, Sunday pancakes or adding to his fruit and yogurt, which is his usual lunch most days. The rhubarb recipes of cakes, crisps and jams are from friends and CSA members. Most are simple and delicious !
Soup With Rosemary. There is a wonderful soup recipe in our farm recipe file. It was posted in August, 2013 and came from Genia Sussex, a local Yoga teacher who bought a potted rosemary plant from the farm Garden Centre. Word of Honour! Pretty Simple to make with food processor. We have rosemary growing on our patio in Tucson where we spend the winters and often use it for Genia’s soup. We also use it religiously on the farm in the summer when tomatoes begin to split and become house tomatoes. Free Advertisement: potted Rosemary plants, perfect for your outdoor patio or kitchen gardens from $15 to $75.00.
See Website Recipe for Rosemary Lemon Shortbread. This came from a CSA member who not only brought the recipe to Pick-Up one year but also samples to share. (Hint! Hint!) Rachel made similar shortbread cookies with snips of fresh rosemary last week. Our son, Oz, liked them and asked for samples for the Farmers Market. Because it is plentiful, I am adding tiny snippets of rosemary cut with the scissors into soup, breads and casseroles. Last week I roasted vegetables/ organic potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic with snippets of rosemary dripped lightly with olive oil and dusted with Parmesan cheese. Yesterday, I stirred in a bit into the Macaroni/cheese casserole along with a cup of fresh shelled peas just before I slipped it into the oven. What is your favourite way to use fresh rosemary?
WHAT’S IN THE BAG?
Greens and more Greens! All I can say is try to enjoy the greens as we have learned to do since moving to Newfoundland many years ago. As explained on the Website and the first Issue of Farm Notes, I am from Tennessee where turnip greens was standard fare in the spring. After turnips were harvested in July, the turnip bed was usually seeded again in September or October for another harvest of late fall greens. Turnip greens were usually dipped out of their cooking pot and served on a large platter with circles of boiled eggs and crusty cornbread cooked in Mom’s black iron skillet. She added sliced, ripe tomatoes and a bowl of fresh green beans seasoned with ham for one of the weekly meals offered to four growing children. She also kept a small crystal pitcher of cedar vinegar infused with tiny hot peppers on hand for my dad to sprinkle over his greens.
Rhubarb. See rhubarb recipes on Farm Recipes on Website and Let’s start a conversation. Try the rhubarb sauce which is Mike’s favourite way of using rhubarb or Mrs. Walters rhubarb cake made with sour cream…. or one of the other dozen rhubarb recipes for squares, crisps and cakes from Veggie Members over the years. What in your favourite way of for using rhubarb?
Chives. We add chives to many dishes – eggs, frittas, soups and salads, especially early in the season before we have garlic scapes. We enjoy chive blooms for soups and salads but do not use the chive stems from the blooms because of their straw like texture. To prepare blooms, hold blooms between your fingers, snipping with scissors or crushing with your fingers; scatter over a salad or soup or sprinkle over the top of the sour cream, dobbed on your baked potato.
Chive Dip. Look for a recipe or make your own. Start with a package of cream cheese and food processor, adding a bunch of chives that have the hard, firm stems removed. Toss in blooms and a clove of fresh garlic if available. Add a few drops of milk, soy sauce and/or fresh lemon. Add ingredients slowly, checking consistency as you add liquids. Adjust taste and consistency.
Damaged Radishes. Radishes only take about 4 to 6 weeks to be harvested after seeding. You will find them in your veggie bags over the season whether you have them this week or not. I am also disappointed when I cut into a nice, beautiful, healthy looking radish like I did this week and find that a tiny insect has been there before me, leaving a likewise tiny spot of damage inside the radish. My advice is to trim out the damaged section, no matter how large or tiny and use the rest. Please, please, do not put the whole radish in the compost because of the part with insect damage. Use the salvaged radish pieces into your salads or nibble them while you work in the kitchen and be thankful you are able to save some. We try to manage the radishes according to the book – weed and space them and cover the early plants with vegetable row cover to prevent the root maggot flies and other flying insects that incubate their eggs on our defenceless little radishes seedlings but the cold and dampness also figure into this at different times over the season. Radishes are relatively easy to grow at other times, so we will continue to plant and pray over the season!
What’s Happening On the Farm?
The Scary Dog! The name of the beautiful, brown, sleek dog is Del Monte Catahoula. Louis, our son lives on the farm and met the owner who was looking for a new home for the Louisiana Leopard dog. He agreed to take care of the dog for the owner, but as it turned out, the owner was really looking for a good home for the dog. He offered to hire a trainer who knew Del Monte to come to the farm for several weeks to advise Louis on helping the dog adjust to farm life. To make a long story short, the owner was leaving the province and gave the dog to Louis and Louis is his handler. Louis takes him for long walks on the paths to the high wooded property on the back of the farm; he has a training collar and a leash and recently, we finished building a large pen behind the processing shed with farm fencing and posts cut from our own trees. Del Monte does help with pest control, especially with mice and rats on the farm, but we understand that he can also be a scary dog. If you come to visit the farm for any reason, to pick up plants or vegetables or just have a visit are worried about the dog, please call my house number, 895-2884 or our cell: 749-2884 and someone will come out asap. Although it may be less convenient, for the most part, it is better if people pick up or come by appointment. We understand some people are afraid of dogs, period and respect that. A friend who hasn’t been to the farm yet this year has been afraid of dogs all her life. She came for a visit on Sunday morning and called me before she got out of the car just to see if there might be a dog around anywhere.
We are struggling with Del Monte’s training and management. He is still a puppy in dog years, but he is large and strong and seems anxious with new people. All three dogs may bark loudly when vehicles drive onto the farm. All of Louis’ earlier dogs came from shelters. His way of choosing the other dogs besides Del Monte was to visit the shelters and get a sense of dogs available. If he went back three weeks in a row and the dog was still there, he put in his name for an adoption visit. For example, he adopted Wumpy, the smaller, black shaggy dog around 12 or 13 years old. He is partially blind now and has poor hearing which is why he stands in the road and barks at everyone including family members. Buck, the middle size black over friendly dog is also a shelter dog adopted by Louis several years ago. I remember the night I came home from the airport from a trip; I had never seen him before; he met me at the backdoor, followed me into the house and jumped into my lap when I sat by the fireplace. He is not particularly attached to anyone but Fumiko, Louis’ partner and insists on going with her in the van every time she leaves the farm.
Pest Control is a significant aspect of organic farming. Mice and rats live in the forest at the back of the property and apparently go for picnics in the four compost bins around the farm. For the most part, this activity didn’t impose a threat to the farm, until a few years ago, the green pepper crop in the greenhouses was destroyed and some of the squash growing in the greenhouses also had rat teeth marks. Everything was growing well and beautiful until one night, 80% of the peppers were nibbled over night. It seemed as though a rat would taste one pepper, like a four year old child tasting broccoli, didn’t like it but went on to sample another identical pepper. It was amazing and we were overwhelmed; one nibble ruined a pepper for the CSA or a restaurant sale.
Over the next couple of years, I asked other farmers at national forums and conferences as well as local gatherings about how they managed farm pests. Most farms, including the organic farmers I talked to were using external pest control services but that didn’t make it any more acceptable. After trying everything we could think of including pans of water around the doors and buckets of water where the inside walls connect with the ground and going into the greenhouses at night with one of the dogs, we finally resorted to arranging for a monthly contract with a pest control company, that used both bait and traps. This is how we met Samantha, the animal technician from the company we hired. We informed the organic inspector of the serious problem we had around animals in the greenhouses and provided the necessary background information. Samantha advised keeping the weeds trimmed as low as possible all over the property, especially around the greenhouses and showed us how to use steel wool in corners of the greenhouses to barricade where the rats might be slipping in. We worked with Samantha to identity places around the compost bins to put the bait traps and reviewed the animal activity with her written report for the monthly visit. This approach was effective; the damage to the greenhouse crops was greatly reduced. However, as farm owners and managers of an organic farm deeply committed to avoid using herbicides and pesticides and other chemicals, we knew it was totally inconsistent to use worse chemicals to manage the animals who are damaging the crops. The conversation comes up regularly among Mike, Alice, Assistant Manager and Louis who has helped build the farm from scratch 30 years ago, we still avoided stopping the practice for fear of loosing some of the major crops. Then one day something happened that flipped the switch.
I drove onto the farm after running an errand. Before me, was a white van, with a bold red sign on the side which read: RENT TO KILL! I was shocked and at first didn’t know what it meant. Then I realized it was a man I had never met before, walking around the farm looking for animal bait traps, which are black six inch boxes with locks that are designed for rats to nibble bait through a hole that is designed to be too small for other animals. I asked him to leave and said, I would contact the company I had been using. When I contacted Samantha’s company, I learned the company had been sold to a company from England by that name. I also learned that Samantha had resigned and was working for another pest control company. The man who showed up at the farm in the Rent To Kill van was from New Brunswick; he was temporary and had no background or terms of reference for the Organic Farm. Apparently, all he had was an address and was sent in to find the bait traps, unlock the traps and replenish the bait. I called the local manager and cancelled the same day without looking up a copy of the contract I had signed. We were already ambivalent about the decision to have an external contract to rescue the greenhouses from rodents and were glad to go back to trying other ideas like moving the compost piles further away from the greenhouses and rethinking how to use the dogs and cats into an overall plan.
For the record, pest control on all organic farms is a huge, ongoing challenge! We expect to share what we grow with the ground animals including mice, rats, shrew and squirrels as well as birds, creepy crawly and various insects in the fields, but hopefully not in the greenhouses and hopefully not with carrot flies and cabbage moths which is why we cover the fields with vegetable row cover this time of year.
WHAT’S HAPPENING OFF THE FARM? Two big events in the “City.”
Exciting Move for Newfoundland and Labrador Craft Council. The gift shop and gallery have moved to an exciting new space at 275 Duckworth across from the Anna Templeton Centre. Main entrance is off Solomon Lane across from The Ship! Toby has two hand built clay pieces in the juried show for members at The Grand Opening on July 7th . The show is an amazing variety of unusual and high quality pieces. New Gallery hours are: Tuesday and Wednesday. 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Saturday: 10-6 p.m. Sunday: 1 – 5 p.m.
The new “Community Market” at Empire and Freshwater is scheduled to open the week-end of July 21st from 9a.m. to 4 p.m. It is finally moving from Lion’s Club Chalet to the new space created at the old Bus Depot. We were invited to see the space last week. There are spacious indoor and outdoor eating spaces, wide aisles to accommodate shoppers with baby strollers or family members with wheel chairs and several mini-kitchens for hot food vendors. On Wednesdays, the market will have space for Food Vendors to serve lunches as well as open from 2 to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays. After ten years of active planning and work, we are there!!!
How you can help! The SJFM Market has been renamed as a Community Market. It is a cooperative, managed by a volunteer Board of Directors. They have done the fund raising and planning and development through board committees which is an amazing achievement!!! Fortunately, the go forward proposed budget provides for a new Executive Director as well as a Market Manager. It is not to late to participate in being a part of this exciting, living community development entity. See SJFM Website for how you can become a volunteer and a member of the SJFM Cooperative.
Please send in your feedback and recipes for sharing.
The Little Red Hen of the Organic Farm
July 17, 2018
