Winter Week Six: Super Smoothie

Happy New Year everyone! We celebrated with family visits and a touch of stomach flu. Viruses seem to get passed around whenever Seda sees her cousins.

We're feeling better now, thankfully, and hoping that you all had lovely New Year's celebrations with no vomiting :)

And now I'll start talking about food.

For half share members this week's share will include: two pounds Carrots, Rutabaga, Delicata OR Sweet Dumpling Squash, Acorn Squash, Cabbage, Onions, Flax Seed, Dried Greens, and Fruit and Flax Leathers.

Full share members will receive all the half share items plus: 2 additional pounds Carrots, 2 choice squash, Kale Chips, and Kohlrabi.

I am especially excited to be distributing Fruit and Flax Leathers this week. Everyone will receive two different kinds, blueberry and butternut. Both kinds have only three ingredients, apples, blueberry or squash puree, and flax seeds. Everything is grown in the Upper Peninsula.

Blueberry Fruit and Flax Leathers

The Fruit and Flax Leathers are one of our Wintergreen Foods products. We made our first few batches of them in the fall of 2014 and introduced them to the Ontonagon School vending machine, with great success. This year we've made quite a few more of them, and have been selling them through the Northwind and Keweenaw Co-ops in addition to school vending machines. If you are interested in getting them into your child's school, please let us know.

In 2014, the flax seed we used in the Fruit and Flax Leathers was grown by another Ontonagon farmer, but this year we grew it ourselves.

A small slice of the field of flax we enjoyed this summer.

And we harvested enough to include some in the winter shares. 

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with mass media food marketing. I don't like websites that claim certain foods are magical cure-all "super foods" because I know that nothing in life is that simple, but at the same time I understand that our farm business has been successful in part due to the national trend towards local foods--a trend which is not always that far removed from the websites touting "super foods". I also grow and sell some of the items that get labeled as super, like kale and, now, flax seeds. So, maybe I should just go with it ;)

Pro-biotic Super Food Smoothie with Flax Kale and Blueberries

• 2 cups plain Yogurt
• 1 Banana
• 1 cup Blueberries (either frozen or fresh is fine) 
• 1 Tablespoon Flax Seed
• A handful of fresh or dried greens

Combine all of the ingredients in a blender, food processor, or large container if you are going to use an immersion blender. 

Blend them up!

This recipe makes enough for at least two people to share.

A New Beginning

We've never started a CSA season in November before. It's kind of...exhausting...in a good way :)

When we initially decided to offer a winter share this year, we imagined a bigger break between the end of the summer share and the beginning of the winter share. But the weather had other ideas.

So, though our bodies crave their usual fall rest, we are scrambling to get all the produce into storage before the cold gets it. We're doing okay so far, but if you notice Scott looking a little sore at pick-up you'll know why. He has to carry all the heavy boxes.

Luckily, we have our members to help us with some of the labor.

I didn't have my camera at the bean party, but one of the members did. Thanks Keren!

Saturday's bean party was a huge success. Not only was it fun, it was productive.

We didn't get through anything like ALL the beans (the photo on the top left shows
our mounds of drying bean plants) but we did get a lot shelled. The jars in this
photo are half gallon.

Many hands make light work. Thanks everyone who came out and helped us!

We have to finish shelling to be sure, but it looks like we have enough that members will be seeing beans in their shares at least once this winter.

This week members will receive: 5 pounds carrots, 5 pounds potatoes, 1 pound beets, 2 Brussels sprout stalks, a winter luxury pie pumpkin, a spaghetti squash, kale, hakurei, celeriac, and onions from Dignity Farm.

Our onions were a major failure this year, so we are trading carrots for onions with Dignity Farm, a family farm in Calumet that follows sustainable growing methods similar to ours at Wintergreen. Please feel free to ask me lots of questions if you want to know anything about their growing methods.

The kale is loose, rather than bunched as you usually get it. We have a ton of nice smaller leaves right now that would be a challenge to bunch. They may grow bigger before they suffer too many freezes to taste good, but it is more likely that we would lose the chance to harvest them if we wait until they reach a more bunchable size.

Plus, the loose kale is kind of gorgeous. 

In case you were wondering, I did not randomly insert the words winter luxury into the list of items you'll be receiving this week. A winter luxury pie pumpkin is a particular kind of pie pumpkin. They are extremely gorgeous pumpkins, and some people seem to find them tastier than other pie pumpkins. I still like the baby pam better. I'd love to hear what you think. If you want to learn more about winter luxury pie pumpkins, check out this post by the see saver's exchange.

And, please, if you want to know anything about the food in your shares, remember that you can always ask me. A lot of you do already, and lately I've been getting a lot of questions about the beets. It seems that not everyone knows what to do with them.

Here's an idea.

Beet Kale Salad with Cinnamon Citrus Dressing

You could make this with roasted Brussels sprouts rather than kale. Just roast the sprouts alongside the beets, uncovered. Check frequently because they will probably be done much sooner than the beets are.

• One pound beets, trimmed and cut into equal sized pieces
• 1/4 pound kale
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange or tangerine juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Place the beets in a single layer in a shallow baking dish (like a lasagna pan), covered with tin foil. Bake at 400 degrees until the beets are just tender, about 30 minutes.

While the beets are roasting, stem the kale (the easiest way to do this is to grasp the base of the stem firmly in one hand and use the other hand to sort of push the tender leafy parts off the tough stem--it's fast and you lose less than if you try to try the stems out with a knife) and chop it into bite sized pieces. Put the kale in a salad bowl and set it aside.

Stir together the juice, oil, salt, and cinnamon until the mixture is pretty well emulsified.

When the beets are done, pour the dressing over them and stir to ensure the beets are coated. Then add the beets and dressing to the kale and toss to coat the kale with dressing. Let the salad sit for about a half hour before eating it for the best flavor and texture.

Week 5: Peak Kale

The week five share will include: Kale, Snow Peas, a Tomato/Eggplant/Pepper choice, Herbs, Parsley, Kohlrabi, Head Lettuce or Escarole, Scallions and Mini Cabbage.

What's a mini cabbage? you may be wondering. It's exactly what it sounds like, a small cabbage. We grow a variety called gonzales, which is full size at 4 to 6 inches across. These are not sauerkraut cabbages. These are slice it up, toss it with something tasty, cook it fast (or not at all), and it eat down cabbages. They are the perfect size for a family sized batch of coleslaw or sweet and sour cabbage.

If you need additional cabbage cooking inspiration, check out the Wintergreen Farm cabbage Pinterest board.

Because this week's blog post isn't about cabbage, it's about kale.

I know the 2014 blog posts have been focused almost entirely on greens this season. I am continuing that trend.

Last week, I was specifically inspired to write about greens by Chef Arlene. This week I've been inspired by NPR. Marketplace declared Peak Kale this weekend. Check out the story. They even back up their declaration with data from Google Trends. Peak Kale happened January of this year. (As an aside, I love that Google Trends exists. Google is undeniably creepy, but it is such an awesome kind of creepy.)

While I actually have seen evidence of the truth of Peak Kale--kale love is ever so slightly diminished this market season when compared with previous seasons--I feel NPR's (lighthearted) declaration requires a (equally lighthearted) response. A response in support of kale.

In honor of Peak Kale, we have christened Kale Peak.

Planting our flag on Kale Peak.

Some winterbor about to summit.

Peak Kale peaks down from Kale Peak.

In further celebration. I'm offering a peak of our favorite quick kale dish. This is the simplest way I know of to make a meal out of kale (short of eating whole raw leaves, which we also do from time to time).

Scrambled Eggs and Kale

This is most often served as lunch at our place. Especially on busy harvest days. I'm not actually going to call it a recipe because it only has three ingredients and three steps (it also has infinite optional ingredients--onions, garlic, dried or fresh tomato, parsley, hot pepper...). The ingredients are butter, kale, and eggs. The steps are melt butter, saute kale until it is just tender, stir in beaten eggs and cook until eggs are set. I doubt anyone in the universe actually needed me to explain that :)

Peak Kale Farmer Lunch

Week 13: Watermelons and Green Soup

Brown watermelon tendril, a good indicator of ripeness.

It's watermelon time! We have been testing them (read: Seda has been DEVOURING not quite ripe watermelon) for about a week and a half now, and all signs finally indicate readiness.

Returning members may remember last year, when we had enough melons for every member to get half a melon. This year's harvest is slightly better, and we have enough for each member to get a whole melon this week. Unfortunately we only have enough for one week though, so group two half share members won't get any. Two weeks of watermelons is what we will strive for in 2013!

In addition to melons, members should expect: Carrots, Beets, Tomatoes, Eggplant or Peppers, Fennel or Dill, Summer Squash or Cucumbers, Lettuce or Radicchio, and Baby Kale plus Brussels Sprout Tops.

There's a few things to explain in this week's share, but first lets talk watermelons.

We grew four different varieties this year. The most prolific was the variety we grew last year, Goldflower. They are the traditional oblong watermelon shape and quite small. They are yellow fleshed. The second most prolific variety was Cream of Saskatchewan, which is also relatively small. It is round and white fleshed. Most members will receive one of these two types. If you get to pick-up early, go for the Goldflower, they are tastier!

The two remaining varieties, Blacktail Mountain and Sweet Favorite, did not produce quite as well for us. Blacktail Mountain is a round, black skinned watermelon with red flesh. Sweet Favorite is a traditional large, oblong, red fleshed watermelon. As larger melons, the Sweet Favorites have a slightly longer season than the others and they actually aren't quite ripe yet. If the frost holds off as long as it seems like it will though, we should get to taste some ripe ones.

We also have another fennel dill choice this week (Remember, we had one way back in the first share?) This time they're coming from the field rather than the hoophouse and they look a bit different. The fennel is small bulbs we planted as a fall planting. The idea was that they would get a little larger than the summer planting did before they started to bolt, thanks to cooler fall weather, but it's 82 degrees today and they are getting ready to bolt, so the fennel is dainty. Use it with fish or eggs, or in the pork and fennel recipe I posted a few weeks back.

The dill is flowering. You can use it in pickles, if you've got something you want to pickle, or as an herb in pasta salad, with baked fish, or with brie cheese in an omelet. 

Finally, the Brussels sprout tops need a bit of explaining. Brussels sprouts are basically baby cabbages that form along a long stalk. There is also a main loose cabbage head that forms at the top of the stalk. If you cut off that head, the sprouts grow a little bigger than they would if you left it on (or so "they" say), so we like to cut the head off. 

Brussels tops, ready to cut.

The result is a big pile of kale-like greens that are tasty enough for sharing. Combine them with the bunch of baby kale in your share (Yay! The kale is back!) in any recipe you like. Including the one below.

Caldo Verde

This hearty soup is velvety from potatoes, flavorful from sausage, and a delicious way to eat up kale and other other greens! As a traditional Portuguese soup it actually calls for a traditional Portuguese sausage, called linguica, which is seasoned with paprika and oregano. But this is the Yoop, I could't find any linguica and you guys probably won't be able to either (tell me if you do 'cause I'll get some). I used polish sausage and it worked nicely. 

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 - 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pound potatoes, chopped
• 6 cups stock or water
• 1/2 pound sausage
• 8 - 12 ounces kale and other greens (in other words, the kale and sprout tops in your share), sliced into bite sized pieces. I use stem and all, but feel free to remove the stems if you don't like extra crunch.
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium/low heat in a 2 quart pot. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are just soft and translucent.

Stir in the chopped potatoes and pour in the stock or water. Bring the stock to a simmer and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

While the potatoes are simmering, cook the sausage. Brown it and cook it through, then slice in into bite sized pieces.

When the potato is tender, puree the soup until it is smooth. Add the cooked, sliced sausage and return the soup to a simmer. Simmer for about five minutes.

Stir in the chopped greens and simmer until they are tender to your liking. I like them after about five minutes. 

Taste for salt and pepper. If your taste buds are like mine the sausage will have added enough flavor and you won't need any more of either.

Why yes, that is a WWII era US Navy soup spoon, and there is an
interesting story behind it. Thanks Grandma!

Week 10: Late Summer Life on the Farm

The hoophouse and brassicas in the late afternoon sun.

Ah...the last few weeks of August on a vegetable farm. The much anticipated crops - cucumbers, squash, tomatoes - are rolling in and the fall crops are sizing up and ripening without much effort on the farmers' part.

Onions currently curing in the hoophouse. Our work is nearly done here.

Um, right? Because that is what I planned for when I signed up for this farming gig....

Almost. 

We do have a lot of wonderful vegetables to harvest right now, so the week 10 share will include many lovely late summer items: Summer Squash/Zucchini, Potatoes, Cucumbers, Carrots, Tomatoes plus Eggplant/Pepper/Tomatillo OR Ground Cherries, Head Lettuce, Basil, and Kohlrabi.

But we still have a few challenges to contend with.

The cucumbers and squash are definitely rolling in, but the cool nights are slowing down the field tomatoes a lot. We still have hoophouse tomatoes for the shares, and I remain optimistic that we will see a lot of ripe tomatoes from the field this year, but only time will tell. The eggplants are certainly happy! 

And the fall crops are looking great too. We have, among other things, onions curing (see photo above), rutabaga getting bigger and more delicious every day, and lots of lovely winter squash and gourds sizing up on the vines.

Our biggest challenge this year remains pests. The amazing caterpillar pressure we started the season with fueled rodent pressure the likes of which we have never seen. I think mice have gotten as many ripe tomatoes out of the field as we have. 

Then there are the insects. Teeny, tiny, aphids and flea beetles, again at population levels we have never seen before. As I mentioned last week they are going after the greens in the field and, we just discovered yesterday, in our fall starts too.

Redbor kale fall starts look good, only a couple aphids to be seen.

But the Beedy's Camden kale starts are under massive attack.

We're going with the tried and true methods of squishing and dish soap as our first lines of defense (you can see a few bubbles if you look closely in this photo, I'd just sprayed), probably with some diatomaceous earth as a follow up if need be. Kale lovers cross your fingers.

In the meantime of course, you have all the vegetables in your share to enjoy. You are getting kohlrabi again this week, and I know that many of you take them home without much of an idea of what to do with them, so, though last week's recipe was a kohlrabi dish, I am featuring kohlrabi again in this week's recipe.

Kohlrabi are really simple to prepare in many different ways. They taste like mild broccoli stem and are wonderful cooked (as in the stew below) or raw (as in last week's slaw recipe).

Summer's end Kohlrabi Stew

This recipe uses several of the items in your share, but it makes a lot of food. This is easily two large meals worth of stew for us, and we are big eaters. Be sure to serve it with crusty bread or biscuits for sopping up the liquid.

• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
• 2 - 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 jalapeno (or none or more to taste), chopped. If you have any chipotle around you could use one or two of those instead.
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 1 pound stew beef, cubed (I actually used venison)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 large kohlrabi, peeled and chopped into one inch cubes
• 1 pound tomatoes (about what is in the share), roughly chopped into 1 inch pieces
• 2 or 3 medium summer squash or zucchini, chopped into one inch cubes

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, jalapeno, and onion. Stir until they are coated in oil.

Add the beef. Sprinkle in the salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Continue to stir frequently until the meat is brown on all sides, 5 to 10 minutes.

Stir in the kohlrabi. Add water to nearly cover the meat and vegetables. The squash and tomatoes will add a lot of liquid when you add them later, so be stingy with the water now.

Increase the heat to bring the water to a boil, then decrease the heat to simmer. Simmer uncovered for approximately 30 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes and squash and simmer, uncovered, for an additional 15 minutes.

Colorful stew is the best kind of stew.

A Who's Who of CSA Greens

The following photo list of greens is a work in progress. I will start with the spring/early summer greens (makes sense, seeing as it is early summer) and add later season greens as they come ready for harvest.

I hope the pictures are attractive, but I've tried to resist the urge to select only the most perfect samples of each green to photograph. That's because the greens we harvest are never entirely perfect. They grew in a field outside, exposed to sun, rain, wind, and insects. They lived good lives and it shows.

I'm going to keep the list alphabetical, rather than seasonal because some greens span the entire growing season.

Hopefully this will help members answer questions such as: "Which one's mizuna again?" and "What was that weird spicy lettuce in my share last week?"

Arugula

Arugula harvest starts in the spring, takes a break in the hot summer (assuming the summer actually gets hot) and resumes in the fall. The flavor of arugula is the most complex of all the greens we grow. It tastes, sweet, spicy, nutty, bitter, and musky (for lack of a better term) all at once. Arugula tastes slightly different with each cutting. We never know which flavor will shine the brightest, but it always tastes distinctively arugula-y. It is a wonderful salad green, though some people find its raw flavor an acquired taste. If you aren't into it raw, try it cooked (arugula quiche is very good) or tuck a few leaves into a sandwich and sort
of ease into it.

Beet Thinnings

These greens are the tops of immature beets. Beet seeds are unusual because each seed is actually a cluster of fruits that produces more than one plant. This means that no matter how thinly you plant your beets you are going to have to thin out some seedlings if you want the roots to be able to mature. The results of thinning all of those beets is a brimming bucket of tender beet greens. They are yummy as both a salad or cooked green, with the same earthy, slightly salty, flavor as chard (which is the same species as the beet). We like to include them in our braising mix.

Braising Mix

This blend of cooking greens varies depending on what is available at harvest time, and its flavor will vary accordingly. Recognize it as braising mix, rather than a salad blend, by the large, relatively tough, strong flavored leaves it contains. It might include any or all of the following greens: kale, chard, beet greens, mizuna, mustard, arugula, dandelion, purple orach, senposai, turnip greens, and probably some others I haven't thought of. It can be used in any recipe calling for cooked greens. If you are not sure what to do with it, try this: Heat 1 Tbs olive oil in a large frying pan with a generous pinch of salt and some fresh ground pepper, chop your greens roughly, stir the greens into the olive oil until they wilt, add half a cup water and 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, cover and simmer for about twenty minutes. Do that, and your greens are braised. You can eat it as is, cook it in a quiche, serve it over rice, or mound it on top of a grilled t-bone.

Chard

We grow rainbow chard. When full sized the leaves are large like kale. The baby leaf in the picture is from a batch of braising mix. Recognize chard by the shiny leaf, brightly colored stems, and earthy beet like flavor. Chard is actually the same plant as the beet, just bred for leaf rather than root growth. It is best cooked. It can be braised, sauteed, seared, or cooked however you see fit. In the fall we love to add strips of chard to creamy squash soup right at the end of cooking. Also, please don't discard your stems! Many recipes call for discarding the stems of chard but we find that chopping them up small and cooking them for a few minutes before adding the leaves adds color, crunch, and all around goodness to the finished dish.

Dandelion

This intensely bitter green looks exactly like the dandelion leaves that are growing in your yard, except that it has a dark red mid-rib. That being said, cultivated dandelion greens are not actually dandelion at all. This dandelion is a chicory. The one we grow is called Italiko Rosso Chicory, which I have to admit does sound much more gourmet than dandelion. This year we grew only a small patch of dandelion, for adding to our braising mix. We like its bitter bite and tender texture. For now, cook it up with the rest of the braising mix. Next year we might grow enough to include it as a salad green as well.

Kale

Sorry, I couldn't resist a bit of fanciness with the kale photo. One of the most striking things about kale is the silver cast it takes on under water. That's what you see in this picture. Kale harvest starts early and continues through the entire CSA season, though we don't necessarily harvest it every week. We grow a few different varieties of kale, some with purple stems, some with ruffled leaf margins. Though it might look different from week to week, kale is always recognizable as a large dark grey green relatively tough leaf. The flavor is of a slightly sweet and spicy (clove spice, not jalapeno spice) cabbage. It is best cooked, we like to chop it up and toss it into all sorts of dishes (spaghetti sauce, scrambled eggs, soup...) towards the end of cooking.

Head Lettuce

Lettuce prefers cool weather so it is generally an early and late season green. We are experimenting with several different varieties of head lettuce this year, along with our favorite leaf lettuces, to try to provide members with as many weeks of lettuce as possible. The one in this photo is called Tom Thumb, because of its small size. I imagine most of you will have no trouble recognizing the lettuce in your share, just keep in mind that it might look a little different from week to week.

Leaf Lettuce

This combination of two varieties of leaf lettuce (tango - the green, and merlot - the red) is our go to lettuce. It grows well for us, isn't unpredictable like head lettuce can be, stands up to all but the driest heat, and the deer don't covet it the way they do the head lettuce. You will see it more than once throughout the CSA season. Happy salad!

Mizuna

Mizuna grows quickly and holds well in the field all season long. When we cut it, it grows back for us. It is a mild green that is equally good cooked or raw. All of these things mean it is a CSA staple. Growers love it, but members have trouble remembering what it is called and figuring out what to do the it. If you are at a loss here is my suggestion: Chop the mizuna up small (half inch or so), boil some pasta in well salted water, heat a generous portion of good olive oil in a frying pan, add some minced garlic to the olive oil and stir till it's golden, coat the pasta with the garlic/oil then stir in the mizuna. Now that you have enjoyed your first mizuna meal, experiment from there. Remember, it's the spiky green.

Mustard

Many of the greens we grow are mustards of one sort or another, but this one is the standard. Mustard grows quickly in the early season, then keeps on growing quickly until it flowers and its leaves become inedibly tough. We include it in our shares as long as it is tasty. Sweet, spicy (this time I mean like jalapenos) and delicate, mustard is good in salad and delicious cooked but it does cook down a lot. It is heavenly atop a grilled burger.

Purple Orach

It feels a little silly to call this intensely purple leaf a green, but I guess it would be even worse to call it a purple. Its flavor is slightly astringent, like strong spinach. It is, in fact, a relative of spinach that's often grown as a late season spinach "replacement" by gardeners who wish it was spinach season all year long (don't we all...). We're experimenting with orach this year, and only have a small trial patch so expect to see it in mixes such as the braising mix. It's tender enough to use as a salad green but, so far, we like its flavor best cooked. Please let us know how you like it. 

Baby Pac Choi

Pac choi (or bok choy) is probably the most familiar of the Asian greens we grow. We favor a baby variety called shuko, which is quite a bit smaller than most varieties of pac choi. It makes a delicious stir fry and is tender enough to enjoy raw. If you're not sure which one is the pac choi, look for paddle shaped leaves that are mostly fleshy stems. If its new to you, remember, this green is really all about the stems so don't discard any part of it.

Radicchio

Radicchio is impressively bitter. Its bitterness by far out bites the other bitter greens we grow. You may, then, wonder I would suggest that you add it to a salad. It's a matter of balance. A big bowl of plain radicchio is not all that appetizing, even to those of us who appreciate bitter. A simple salad of radicchio with a pinch of sea salt, a drizzling of good balsamic vinegar, and maybe some freshly grated pepper and Parmesan cheese is, on the other hand, appetizing to pretty much everyone who eats salad. It goes well in any salad that includes powerful flavors, such as blue cheese, berries, or sorrel. Radicchio is also often braised (see the braising mix above for the technique). Braised radicchio combined with garlic and Parmesan cheese is wonderful served over pasta.

Senposai

Senposai is also an Asian mustard green. The varieties are truly endless. This one is mild and sturdy, but still tender. To me it is a cross between kale and pac choi. The leaves are large and look somewhat like kale, but they are tender like pac choi and don't have kale's strong cabbage flavor. This is the first year we have grown this particular green and so far we have included it in the braising mix - it is fantastic cooked - but it will likely show up as a bunched green as well later in the season. Use it in a stir fry or a salad. It will serve you well cooked or raw.

Sorrel

This is probably the most uncommon green we grow, which is surprising because it is by far the easiest. We planted a patch years ago and have been harvesting it ever since. It starts growing in the spring, almost as soon as the snow melts, and, as long as we keep picking it, produces all summer long. Sorrel is bright green, sometimes with a touch of hot pink, and brightly flavored. It is tart. Kids tend to gobble it up raw but I prefer to temper its flavor by cooking it. Sauteed in a bit of olive oil, it sort of melts into a thick sauce which is the world's most perfect omelet filling, especially when paired with goat cheese.

Spinach

Spinach, like lettuce, probably needs no explanation. It is an early green that simply does not grow well once summer has gotten underway. We celebrate its brief appearance in the beginning of the season with a much appreciated salad, then await its return the following year.

Attack of the Flea Beetles

Flea Beetle on Rainbow Kale

Tiny hopping beetles in shades of metallic green or decorated with orange flame stripes, they would be cute. Would be, were it not for their evil streak.

I know that they are just doing what comes naturally to them (See the holes in that kale leaf. That is the nature of the flea beetle.) but I still choose to think ill of them.

As pesticide free farmers we are faced with an annual dilemma when it comes to the flea beetles. Flea beetles eat small holes in brassica plants, also known as crucifers or members of the cabbage family.

Because brassicas tend to do well in cool, short season climates like the Upper Peninsula, we grow about 15 different crops that flea beetles like to dine on.  As long as the plant being fed on is established the flea beetles don't really hurt it, they just cause cosmetic damage.

Like this:

Or this:

Seedlings are a different story. Hungry flea beetles can munch a radish seedling into oblivion if given the opportunity. 

So here is our dilemma. What do we do about this insatiable insect? 

We have a few tricks up our sleeves. Garlic oil sort of kind of helps a little. Row cover (see the photo below) helps even more by literally hiding the tasty brassicas from the beetles.  

Kale, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower in the foreground.
Two rows of mustard and radish seedlings hiding under row cover in the center.
Peas and Favas in the back.

So, we use row covers when we direct seed brassicas, to protect the seedlings. Sometimes we apply garlic oil to the row covers if the beetles find their way under. I'm not convinced that the garlic oil does anything but make us feel better though.

Our seedlings almost always survive with this treatment, but not unscathed. Our mustard and radish greens are always a bit holey.

And what about the kale, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels? They are just left in the open to fend for themselves against the flea beetles.

We start those crops in the greenhouse, then transplant them into the field. By the time we plant them they are too big to hide under row cover, and they would have to come out sooner or later even if we could cover them at first.

There is a chemical option for treating the flea beetles. It's even allowed under many organic certification programs. Pyrethrin. It comes from flowers (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium) that look like oxeye daisies. It has been used for 100 years and is generally considered the safest insecticide to use on vegetables. Organic growers use it. It's probably okay, right?


Well...it is a neurotoxin to all insects, not just flea beetles. It is also toxic to fish. It can cause symptoms such as drooling, seizures, and death in humans (granted, only if consumed in large quantities - in small quantities it is completely non-toxic to mammals). 


Every year when the flea beetles attack we say to ourselves "We could use pyrethrin. It would work." And we decide not to.


We don't want to spray poisons on our food. We just don't. So the co-ops don't pay us as much for our arugula, our farmers market customers baulk at the holes in our kale, and we worry that the CSA members won't understand. That's the price we pay for our decision. We think it is the right one.

Lamb, Eggplant, and Becoming a Real Farmer

A lot of farmers, the kind with 100's of acres of a single crop each year or thousands of beef cattle, don't consider us CSA farmers to be "real farmers". While I don't agree with them, I can totally understand where they are coming from.

CSA farmers are different from other types of farmers. We fill a different role for our customers, we have a totally different business model, and even the daily work we do can be dissimilar from that of other farmers. I usually describe CSA farming as tending a giant garden. 600 acres of soybeans can hardly be described as a garden. Many of us are new to farming, and we often start out with unrealistic ideas of what we can accomplish. Also, unfortunately, many CSA farmers seem to place a higher value on the the CSA model of farming and forget how much we can learn from other farmers.

All that being said however, we are real farmers. We grow nourishing food for our communities, tend our land lovingly, and plan our lives around the needs of our animals and crops.

But even real farmers face challenges. Though those with thousands of beef cattle probably faced and overcame the particular challenge I am going to mention here long before I had to.

I find it difficult to raise animals for food. It isn't a huge surprise. I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. I was very removed from the sources of my food. As a teenager I was a vegetarian and even went vegan for a year or so because it was the thing to do among the crowd I hung out with. I had some issues eating meat.

When I was twenty I went to culinary school and the first class I took was butchery. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle it but instead found that it helped connect me to the idea that it is natural for humans to rely on animals for food.

But raising them myself does add a whole new dimension to things. Sheep, and even roosters, have personalities. They don't want to die any more than anything else does. And, for most of their lives, I don't want them to die either. What is especially embarrassing about it is that it's harder for me to eat cute animals.
I was sad back in September on sheep slaughtering day. Really sad. I was thinking that maybe deep down I am not a real farmer.

Then I ate some. And it was seriously good. We raised two sheep last summer and, not only did they help us clear out some unwanted plants and fertilize our fields while they were alive, they helped us fill our freezer with flavourful, tender, healthy meat.

So, while I'm torn by some aspects of it, I love being a real farmer. But I will still be sad on sheep slaughtering day 2011 - though maybe not really sad.

And of course, the meat our sheep provided us is the perfect thing to cook during the dark days challenge. So, here it is, a dark days dinner featuring lamb we raised, eggplant we grew and pickled, and kale given to us by a neighbor that we dried for the winter.



From sheep, to lamb, to cast iron pan.



Eggplant, pickled according to the method in
The Joy of Pickling.



Kale, dried in our electric dehydrator.


There is no recipe to share because unless you have pickled eggplant on hand you really can't duplicate the dish. I sauteed about a pound of cubed lamb in some of the oil from the pickled eggplant, then allowed it to simmer until it was tender, adding a bit of eggplant and a cup of crumbled kale to the meat towards the end of the cooking time. We ate it with some entirely non-local rice because my lack of planning left me without a local starch option and this dinner needed a starch.

Eat Your Greens

A while back my friend Meghann posted this as her facebook status:

"Someday, I'm sure my children will be shocked to find out not every Mom put Kale in everything."

It made me giggle because, as a CSA farmer, the question I most frequently receive from members is "What do I do with all of this kale?" or chard, mizuna, arugula, escarole, sorrel, or whichever green things are being tucked into the shares that particular week. I have a hard time not responding with this simple statement: Eat it.

Chard growing in the morning light.
CSA fields tend to be a bit messier than home gardens,
but we still manage to grow the good stuff!

That isn't meant to be flippant. It's just that, well, that's what I do with it. In my house we munch on raw greens just because they're there, make them into salads, and add them to at least half of the dinners we cook. In fact, my family and I like greens so much that I get kind of sad when winter comes and the greens stop growing. So, not only do I eat my greens, I dry kale and chard so that I can eat even more of them later.

I know that the kale chip, oiled and seasoned kale dried for snacking, is pretty hot right now, and those are good, but I am talking about simply drying greens so that they can be added to dishes during the off season.

It is an easy process, and now is the time of year to do it. 


 I use an electric dehydrator, though you could just as easily use your stove or a solar dehydrator. We use what we have - even if it isn't the most efficient option. A solar dehydrator is certainly on our wish list...

Cut or tear the greens into small pieces and lay them out on the dehydrator tray. Space them evenly, so that they are not touching.

Dry them overnight on the lowest setting. When they are done they will look pretty much they same as they did when you started, just a little duller and more velvety, and they will be crisp.



Well dried Kale.



Crisp Rainbow Chard.




Pack the dried greens into jars, close the jars tightly, and the greens will keep all winter long.

Dried kale, ready for a season of storage.

Now that you have dried your greens, you may be left with that lingering question. "What do I do with all of this (dried) kale?" Once again, my answer is simple: Eat it.

The recipe below is almost as easy as the drying itself. It makes a hearty breakfast, a satisfying lunch, or a comforting low key dinner. It really just depends on how you look at things. You can also throw a handful of the dried greens into many of your standard dishes. I suggest starting with spaghetti sauce. Once you see how tasty that is, go from there. Be extremely creative.

This can also be made with one or two leaves of fresh kale or chard cut into bite sized pieces.

Oatmeal with Dried Greens, Chicken Stock, and Root Vegetables

• One cup steel cut oats 
• One cup thinly cut root vegetables - I used carrots for this version because our neighbor had dropped a bunch off for us (look how huge!). Celeriac and parsnips are also divine here.
• 1/2 cup crumbled dried kale or chard, plus more for serving
• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock -  Vegetable stock or water works too if you want to go vegetarian.
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Bring the stock or water to a boil in a small saucepan.
2. Stir in all of the other ingredients.
3. Turn the heat down to simmer, cover the pot, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the oatmeal is fully cooked. Cooking time will vary depending on the oats and your personal texture preferences. 
4. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Spoon the oatmeal into serving bowls and top with additional crumbled dried greens.

It may not be that photogenic, but it is highly tasty and oh so comforting.