CSA Week 18

Hello! Welcome to Week 18!

I mentioned last week that we were putting on the plastic on our hoophouses. Hoophouse 1 is complete! The carrots have germinated and the spinach has it's first true leaves. Hoophouse 2 should be completed by the end of the week. Just in time to plant in our bok choy, scallions, kohlrabi, more spinach and carrots.

Below is a picture of all the farm hands available to hold the plastic in place as we secure it on.

Here goes the second layer of plastic. As it's being rolled off on this end people on the other side are pulling onto the rope that is attached to the plastic. Within an hour the plastic is secured and the house is ready!

Meanwhile in the greenhouse I have already started to hang flowers and start saving their seeds. As I was taking these pictures I noticed a few too many birds coming in and out of the sides of the greenhouse and going right to the sunflower seeds. Tomorrow I'll be rolling down these sides so that we could have more seeds to put in our mix for our acres of wildflowers for next year.

Here I am drying out flamingo feather flower. You can see the small dark seeds among the dried petals.

After the petals have dried I then sift to separate the seeds. The seeds are then stored in a brown bag in a secure cabinet where they will be waiting until next Spring.

Hanging in the greenhouse are a variety of sunflowers, celosia, ornamental grasses, sorghum, verbena and butterfly weed.

Harvested just for you........

Lettuce Heads

Arugula

Hakurei Sweet Salad Turnips

French Breakfast or Easter Egg Radishes

Baby Spinach

Celeriac

Bulk Golden Beets

Yellow Storage Onions

Asian Pears*

Extended Fruit Share: (last week for on farm members!)

Grimmes Golden Apple

Mutsu Apple

Ida Red Apple

Honeycrisp or Red Cortand or Empire

*Asian Pears are grown by Gail Cox who has a small orchard in Pleasant Prairie. They do not spray their fruit. The fruit is round in shape and has a crisp texture and sweet juicy flavor. Enjoy!

Romaine Lettuce Head!

Romaine and Red Leaf Head Lettuce growing under fabric.

Hakurei Sweet Salad Turnips, no need to peel just slice and enjoy them raw.

A healthy bounty of Arugula!

The rounder radishes on the left are the Easter Egg Radish and the longer red with white tips are French Breakfast Radish.

Ideas for the cook in the kitchen............


Celeriac! A great root vegetable and is a member of the celery family. It can be used in any recipe that calls for celery and is especially good in soups and stews and partners great with potato.

Celeriac Mash

Creamed Spinach

Golden Beet Carpaccio

French Onion Soup

Apple Crisp

Enjoy the bounty of the farm!

Your farmers,

Tania and Chris Cubberly

CSA Week

Hello! Welcome to week 17!

Farming in the Midwest gives us 6 to 7 months of food production. One way to extend the season is to grow in a controlled atmosphere. Introducing our two new hoophouses! Each house is 30' by 96'. These will allow us to grow even earlier in the Spring and much later in the Fall. They will make possible very early tomatoes and sweet peppers as well as sweet hearty spinach and carrots grown through out the winter.

Here is a delivery of compost since ours is not ready yet. In the background you could see furthest away our greenhouse and then closer up one of our two hoophouses that doesn't have the plastic on yet.

The piles of compost are then spread in the two hoophouses and tilled in with the soil.

We then measured out the widths for our beds and our walk ways between the beds. A 12" walkway was hand shoveled out to make 8- 30" raised beds in each house.

Last week we seeded spinach and carrots, here Chris is checking out the germination. Now that the winds have calmed down over here we'll be able to put on two layers of plastic on these houses on Wednesday morning. A small inflation fan will then keep an insulating layer of air between the two layers of plastic. With this type of structure we'll rarely need to use our heaters, even when the temperatures are hovering around 0*. We're ready for Winter!



Harvested just for you..........


Broccoli

Yellowstone and Bollero Orange Carrots

Scarlet Turnips

Lettuce Mix

Red Onion

Parsnips*

Italian Green Peppers

Fresh Sage

*Parsnips are grown by Harmony Valley Farm.

Extended Fruit Share for On Farm Members............

Honeycrisp (This ever popular apple is a descendant of the Keepsake Apple and another unknown variety, from Minnesota 1991. This apple stores well and is best eaten fresh.)

Senshu (A variety from Japan, a crisp and sweet apple, best eaten fresh)

Northern Spy (this apple originated about 1800 in East Bloomfield, NY. This makes a great cooking apple and stores well.)

Golden Russet (this apple originated in the 1700's in Burlington County, New Jersey. Excellent for eating and drying and is best known for making hard cider.)

Fruit Share for City Members (last week! extended fruit share begins Oct. 10)......

Honeycrisp

Golden Delicious

Empire

A reminder of the heirloom apples: clockwise, Northern Spy (2), Grimmes Golden, Jonathan (2), Golden Russet (3) and Mutsu in the center.

Your wonderful Fall Broccoli.


A few recipes for the cook..........

Braised Turnip Greens with Turnips and Apples

Southern Comfort Caramel Apple Pie

Broccoli Slaw

Roasted Chicken with Carrots - add parsnips alongside the carrots!

Pureed Roasted Parsnips

Gnocchi with Sage Brown Butter Sauce

Enjoy the bounty!

Your farmers,

Tania and Chris Cubberly

CSA Week 16

Hello! Welcome to week 16!

I would like to start off by clarifying that we are on week 16 for our On Farm Members, week 15 for our City Members and week 14 for our Fruit Members. Somewhere along the way the heat got to me and I named my newsletters the same week number twice! That would have made for even a longer harvest for us this season.......

The last vegetable box for our On Farm Members will be on Wednesday October 20, for our City members it will be on Sunday October 31.

The last fruit box for our On Farm Members will be today, September 22. For our City Members it will be on October 3.

Happy first day of Fall!

Apples are still growing strong with our farmer friends in Michigan and so we'd like to extend the Seasonal Fruit Share for 2 more weeks. If anyone is interested all you have to do is either send me an email or let me know at your pick up. For the additional two weeks the cost will be $36.00 tax included. We hope everyone could join us in tasting these special apples.

The next two weeks we would like to focus on Heirloom variety apples and a bounty of Honey Crisp Apples, pictured below.

These are some of the Heirloom Apples we'll include in the share.

Starting clockwise: Northern Spy (green with Red striped), Grimmes Golden (pure green), Jonathan (deep red), Golden Russet (Green with Brown, very Potato russet like skin) and the one large one in the center is Mutsu.

Harvested just for you......

Lettuce Mix

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Orange Carrots with Greens

Russet Potatoes

Chives

Sorrel

Parsley Root*

Harvested for our fruit shares............

Bartlet Pears

Honey Crisp Apples

Red Cortland Apples

Pictured below, the bed closest to you is lettuce mix, followed by scallions, head lettuce, sorrel, sage and our strawberry plants. The distant tomato plants have come to the end of their season.

Sorrel is a long tender leaf with a slightly lemony flavor that add a wonderful zest to any salad. However, it is most know by Europeans to make great soup with it. My mother makes the best "Schavell" (pronounced in her thick Ukrainian accent). I don't have her recipe written down but promise to make it with her in the next week so I can hold onto the recipe. Here is the next best, a recipe I found from a strong advocate for organic food, Terra Brockman, Sorrel Soup.

Welcoming Fall with Parsley Root. This root vegetable comes to us from Harmony Valley in Viroqua Wisconsin. Richard de Wilde has been growing vegetables organically since 1973! His growing practices have been duplicated by many organic farmers (including us) and is known as one of the leaders in the organic movement. Parsley Root is a wonderful addition to your chicken soup, or roasted with carrots, or mashed with potatoes. Enjoy!

Cortland Apples are a great cooking apple. How about apple fritters!

Please excuse the appearance of our Russet Potatoes. We did have a small insect problem with this variety this year, however, minus the holes and blemishes this is a great baking, mashing and oh those french fries!

Other recipes for the cook in the kitchen.....

Swiss Chard with Italian Sausage and Potatoes

How to Roast a Whole Chicken

The best Brined Fried Chicken recipe EVER!

Although this calls for a BAG of carrots, we all know how to peel and cut our own carrots without a machine doing it for us - say NO to packaged vegetables and fruit! Carrot Soup with Orange and Tarragon.

What's in store for next week? Let's talk about Hoophouses!


Enjoy the bounty and please join us for 2 more weeks of apples! Sign up today!

Your farmers,

Tania and Chris Cubberly

CSA Week 14

Hello! Welcome to week 14!

Chris and I are leaving once again for our final run to Arthur, Illinois. Just this week we sold out of our broiler chickens so it's great timing that our second batch is ready. We'll be back on Wednesday just in time for our on farm pick with some fresh/frozen chicken for you!

I'm sure most of you have already put on a jacket or sweatshirt this past week, fall is here! The crops are really loving the cool weather. Here is a picture of our Brussels Sprouts that are tired of growing in the heat. This crop stays in the ground the longest here on the farm. They were seeded in the greenhouse around April and transplanted in the ground by early June. It takes a long time for these to mature and now that the cool air is here for them they should be ready by the end of Sept/early October!

On Friday evening rain fell about 1/3" which lead to a muddy Saturday harvest. I caught Joe just after he rinsed off most of mud from him after harvesting beets with his crew.





Chris brings in the arugula for Sunday's market.

Arugula (also known as Rocket) is an aromatic, spicy green leaf that can be eaten raw or cooked.

Below is a recipe for Arugula Pesto that is great tossed with some cavatappi pasta.

Beets......roast, juice, raw, shaved, circles or sticks, steamed, boiled, grilled, pickled!

Harvested just for you........

Poblano Peppers

Red Beets with Greens

Arugula

Walla Walla Onions

Acorn and Butternut Squash

Yellow Carrots

Lacinato Kale for our on farm members

Green Curly Kale for our city members

Leeks

Fruit harvested just for you......

Honey Crisp Apples

Empire Apples

White Seedless Grapes, Neptune

A few recipes for the cook in the kitchen!

Here is a great recipe to toss with your pasta, Arugula Pesto.

Stacked enchiladas with salsa verde and cheese.

Here is a great recipe that works with both Kales, Baked Kale Chips.

Using everything below the dark leafy greens of the leek, Curried squash soup with Frizzled Leeks.

Enjoy the bounty!

Your farmers,

Tania and Chris Cubberly

CSA Week 13

Hello! Welcome to week 13!

As our daylight shortens and our temperature drops I see our brassicas once again begin to grow. Soon enough we'll enjoy the bounty of cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, turnips, radishes, kale and more!

As I embrace these cool weather crops I see that it's time to say farewell to the flowers for this season. This will be the last week to purchase my "food for the soul" bouquets.

I have come across many butterflies this season. Here is one enjoying a double petal cosmo.

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate flower grew nearly 8 feet tall for me this season!

A few bouquets at the On Farm Pick Up.

Zinnias, they may not have a floral scent but sure do add a beautiful color in the bouquet and out in the field.

Harvested just for you...........

Arugula

Shallots

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Carrots with Green tops

French Fingerling Potatoes

Fresh Thyme

Sweet Peppers

Nadia or Beatrice Eggplant

Lettuce Mix

These stems may trick you into thinking that this is rhubarb! Enjoy the Rainbow Swiss Chard!

The arugula grew well protected under the white fabric. This is our way of pest control around here.



Sweet orange, yellow and red peppers! and French fingerling potatoes!




Seasonal Fruit harvested just for you............

We are getting into apple season so in the remaining two weeks we'll be seeing a variety of apples and pears!

Gala Apples

Bartlet Pears

Charlie really enjoyed using his new teeth on this Gala Apple! These make a great juice so get out your machines and enjoy the flavors to come!

Recipes for the Cook to explore!

Spring Greens Saute with bacon and walnuts

(with this recipe you must try Jake's Country Meats bacon. Their bacon is available for purchase at the Logan Square Farmer's Market right next to our stand, pretty convenient!)

Another reason to buy Jake's bacon..... Bacon and Swiss Chard Pasta

Although your arugula isn't "wild" this is a wonderful way to enjoy the arugula, Wild arugula salad with garlic croutons, shaved Parmesan and lemon.

Pizza with Red and Yellow Peppers

I do enjoy pears and goat cheese but this recipe sounds amazing and my 1 plan for the weekend. Pear crisp with Vanilla brown butter.

Enjoy this weeks bounty!

Your farmers,

Tania and Chris Cubberly

CSA Week 12

Hello! Welcome to Week 12!

Let's talk compost.........a necessary soil conditioner for every organic farmer at the end of their season. It is "composed of organic materials derived from plant and animal matter that has been decomposed largely through aerobic decomposition."-Wikipedia.

In the Spring of 2010 we started piling horse manure and bedding (straw) in long 500 feet windrows. Then we added piled green material (grass clippings, vegetable scraps and landscape waste) along side the first pile. Every month we try to combine these two piles together, "turn" and aerate the piles to encourage the decomposition and to keep the microbes and other critters happy.

The pile on the left has been turned. The pile on the far right has yet not been combined with green material or turned.

Here are the combined "greens" and "browns" being tossed by the spreader, making a new single pile.

Along with cover crops, the compost we make is the main component of our on farm fertility. Pictured below are Geoff and Bill who helped us with this big project.

Harvest just for you.............

San Marzano Tomatoes

Yellow Wax Beans

Mustard Cooking Greens

Fingerling Potatoes

Hakurei Sweet Salad Turnips

Walla Walla Onions

Fall (?!) Butternut Squash

Fresh Mint

Seasonal Fruit harvested just for you...........

Golden Supreme Apples

Stanley Plums

Niagara Seedless Grapes

A few recipes to enjoy this week!

Wilted Mustard Greens

Yellow Bean and Fingerling Potato Salad (I substituted green beans).

If you had plans to make tomato sauce, here is the finest tomato to make the best sauce ever! San Marzano Tomatoes are a rare find around here, fresh that is. You can always find them in a can but after you make your own sauce from a fresh tomato it will be very hard for you to reach for the can. You'll have to wait all winter to wrap your hands around this fresh tomato. They are also great roasted, perfect for you Labor Day BBQ.

Here Smitten Kitchen is using "unloved tomatoes", although you're using the best they do offer a great recipe that can be turned even more basic without the carrot or celery which is the way I prefer. Fresh Tomato Sauce!

Our tomato varieties: starting clockwise, San Marzano, Juliet, Flame (orange), Rose, Brownberry, Garden Peach (Yellow, slight fuzzy skin), Green Zebra. Not pictured are Sungold (small gold, sweet) and Striped German. It has been a great tomato season and we hope you have enjoyed tasting the varieties we grew for you!

Enjoy this weeks bounty!

Your farmers,

Tania and Chris Cubberly

CSA Week 12

Hello! Welcome to week 12!

Now that we are a few weeks past our mid growing season the farm has this sense of calm. By now all of us who work here know our places and duties for each day of the week, trained by the frantic pace of the searing hot early and mid summer.

Early on in the season we spent 12 hour days working in the soil and now it seems we spend 12 hour days in our tomato plants! While there is still some transplanting and seeding to be done for our fall harvest we managed to take two of our crew to spend a day at Mick Klug Farm.

Mick has been supplying us with most of the fruit for our Fruit CSA members. So far it's been a wonderful journey to taste "in season" fruit such as the many varieties of peaches, nectarines, grapes, raspberries, apples and blueberries.

Last week Mick was able to spend a half day with us exploring his orchards. What marveled me most was not only the beautiful fruit growing on the plant but the plant itself. The leaves and vines of his 10 year old grapes looked as healthy as his 3 year old plum trees. As I walked by these plants they commanded my attention even before I saw it's fruit it produced. Healthy plants, healthy fruit, happy and healthy you.

Blackberries.
Mick, Chris, Armando, Joe and myself holding the camera as we journey among his 20 year old peach trees.

Mick tasting his blueberries ( once again....) before they are sent off to a processor.



Jupiter grapes! This picture is not staged, really!




A journey through his apple orchard.

Mick Klug Farm

Grapes grown beautifully in Michigan, it doesn't have to come from California!

Fall bearing raspberries, these are in your share this week!

Apples, it was hard for Chris to walk away from these beauties!

These are where your blueberries came from!

I did help myself to just a few.............

Harvested just for you.........

Green and Yellow Beans

Arugula

Yukon Gold Potatoes

Eggplant

Tomatoes

Lacinato or Green Curly Kale

Fresh Italian Parsley

Portobello mushrooms*

Fruit Share harvested just for you........

Canadice Grapes

Fall Bearing Raspberries

White Peaches

Portobellos this week are from River Valley Farm! These wonders or great grilled with olive oil and garlic (take the stems off and wipe clean with a wet kitchen towel), then slice thinly and toss together with your sauteed kale ( remember to cook your kale long enough so it's not too chewy), put the two together in between crusty bread drizzled with olive oil. Here is a great recipe found on Bon Appetit. Mozzarella-Stuffed Grilled Portobellos!

Yukon Gold Potatoes are ready! These delicious delights are rich and buttery. They are best used in soups or mashed, steamed or how about some potato pancakes. This an easy potato pancake recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Latkes for everyone!

For those moms and dads out there that I've been talking baby food with try pureeing the steamed potatoes with steamed beans for your little one.(Keep an eye on the beans so that they are soft enough to mash and they won't get too stringy on you, otherwise a food mill will work great to remove that). You won't need much of the potato in the mix so go ahead and save some for yourself. Remember, I'm not not big on buying all those special containers out there when ice cube trays does the trick. Once the food is frozen I remove them form the trays and put them in freezer bags. Your baby may not be able to enjoy it today but in a few months you'll wish you saved a bit here and there through out the season! This counts for the fruit too!

News for next week.................Compost! Hoophouses! Wait until you see what we've been working on over here!

We hope you enjoy the bounty of the farm!

Your farmers,

Tania and Chris Cubberly