2015 CSA Week 8

Greetings,

In shares this week...

Item	How to store it	How long will it last?
Peppers	washed or unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks
Tomatoes	room temperature	several days
Cucumbers	washed or unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks
Summer Squash and Zucchini	unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks
Swiss Chard	washed & thoroughly dried or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container or plastic bag	1-2 weeks
Broccoli or Cabbage	washed or unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks

As stated on the site: http://gluten-dairy-sugarfree.com:
Were you totally aware that tomatoes are one of the top 12 foods you should always buy organic, because of their thin skins and tendency to retain pesticide residue.  Non-organic produce not only contains traces of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, but also contains fewer nutrients because it is often a mass-produced monoculture grown in poor soil that has been stripped of nutrients from too many years of growing the same crop.

With the 4th of July holiday approaching, and if you are watching your gluten, sugar and dairy intake, this is a beautifully simple yet tasty salad using tomatoes and cucumbers. Add chopped green peppers, too!

Tomato Cucumber Cilantro Salad

Just chop each ingredient, add a fresh squeeze of lime, and season with sea salt and cracked pepper.

1 cucumber
2 ripe organic tomatoes
1 bunch scallions
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 lime
1/4 tsp sea salt
fresh cracked pepper

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From Amanda...

Here's a cool hummus recipe that incorporates Swiss Chard from site food52.com:

Tara Duggan's Chard Stalk Hummus
By Genius Recipes • June 23, 2015
Makes 1 cup

Chard stalks from 1 pound whole chard, trimmed and chopped
1 whole clove garlic, peeled
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the stalks until very tender, 18 to 20 minutes. Drain.

Place the garlic in a food processor and pulse until chopped. Add the chard stalks and purée, then add the remaining ingredients and process until very smooth.

Transfer to a shallow bowl, drizzle with olive oil, and serve at room temperature. The hummus also can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Return to room temperature before serving.

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On another note:

Update from the farm

Summer is in full swing. Favorite summer veggies like squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes are plentiful, these beautiful sweet potato vines are really taking off, and we’re scrambling to keep our farm’s finest produce out of the hands of our sneaky, four-legged neighbors.

The most recent acts of wildlife thievery have been from groundhogs. They’re really cute - like big, floppy, cuddly animals your children would like. One in particular likes to lay on the warm pavement in front of our house and I always think he’s injured until I get close and he scurries away. Those furry creatures seem cute and pleasant but I’ve learned that the groundhogs on Pistol Creek Road are NOT nice neighbors, particularly for farmers.

This year groundhogs have eaten no less than 200 young, tender fennel plants, 100 tomato plants, countless green beans, and more. …and once the young plants are snatched from the field, there’s not much you can do. We started the seeds weeks before in the greenhouse, so when the plants in the field are gone, if we don’t have extras going in the greenhouse, that crop is essentially gone for the entire season.

There’s no 24-hour super center for USDA-certified organic vegetable plants and, due to timing issues, sometimes it’s not even practical to try to start new plants from seeds. …so, farmers must plan carefully to have enough crops for all customers with enough excess to account for unexpected damage or loss but not so much excess that we are wasteful or compromise our profit margin. This is tricky because every year is different and the crop that the produces abundantly one year may be the one that is compromised the next. That’s why I’m so thankful that Ford is so smart, resourceful, and hard working. You won’t believe some of the cool tricks he uses to protect your food from our four-legged and winged neighbors.

So what did we do about the groundhogs? Ford went on a wild groundhog chase in the field last week that culminated in his throwing a box (open-side down) on top of a young groundhog. He thought he’d captured the little guy but, ironically, the box landed right on top of one of their burrows so it escaped into the earth. …almost too cartoon-like to believe.

Since running like a wild-man out in the field to chase surprisingly fast groundhogs is neither practical or successful (and potentially dangerous – they’re not as friendly as they look), my crafty husband uses tricks like this electrified netting to create a fence between the groundhogs and the veggies. It doesn’t even go all the way around the crops but it’s enough to create an effective barrier that fools the groundhogs and redirects their attention to other sources of food.

As you probably know, crows also prize young corn plants and ears of corn. One way we combat those feathered “friends” is with the tape from old VHS cassettes. That’s right. We take old VHS videos (I know, our kids don’t even know what those are), rip out the tape and hang them up in the corn field. It deters the crows. If you have old VHS cassettes you plan to discard, please consider donating them to us. We can always use extra tape in the corn.
The story doesn’t end there, however. In just a few weeks Ford will be using the same electrified netting to keep raccoons out of our sweet corn. Their nimble hands find the golden ears at their peak so if we aren’t careful, we’ll find evidence of a raccoon party in the corn field with only empty shucks on the ground.

We use single strands of electrified wire with metal squares covered in peanut butter to keep deer away from fruit and young plants. The deer are enticed by the smell of peanut butter but, upon tasting, they receive a mild shock that lets them know the area inside the fence is off-limits. Can you imagine getting shocked the next time you sneak into the peanut butter jar? We also use solar-powered, flashing, red lights to discourage the deer in areas where the electric fences aren’t practical.

The moral of the story? Farmers have to work extremely hard to grow food in ideal conditions, and they are always facing interesting new challenges presented by wildlife, weather, and all the things that everyone else faces when it comes to work / personal life balance. We hope it encourages you to know that we protect your crops in safe, humane ways that do not involve dangerous chemicals or unnecessary cruelty. We love living and farming out here even if it means finding creative ways to coexist with our four-legged and feathered neighbors. Thank you for supporting us and making it possible for us to do what we love in a way that we believe it should be done.