2015news/aug19-21 - Gorman Farm
AUGUST
CSA
N E W S L E T T E R
19 - 21
G O R M A N FA R M T H E H A RV E S T B E LL PEPP ER S NAC K P EPPE R JAL EPENO S POBLANO POTATOES O NIO NS GARLIC EG GPLANT OKRA TO M ATO E S S PAGHET T I SQ UAS H MELON
Field Notes You say tomato I say TOMAHTOES! It is game on in the tomato department at the farm.Yes there are lots of tomatoes and different varieties in the share this week.You don’t have to take all of them if you don’t want to but they are excellent and highly recommended. One of my new favorites this year is the artisan tomato collection, which I talked about a few newsletters back. We are pleasantly surprised at the yield in these as usually these more delicate types only perform well indoors where you can control the climate. With a very wet and very hot year we are giving thanks daily to the production in our fields. Tomato plants in general are very susceptible to the common diseases and field issues like late blight, which is running rampant this time of year in our region. I can recall a few seasons back when many farmers were wiped out in the tomato department due to late blight. A disease that spreads via spores blowing in the wind. It usually affects fields from contamination from wind blowing in off another farmer’s fields. The epidemic a few years back was mostly from infected plants that
came from the big box stores. The large nurseries that produce seedlings for Home Depot and the likes had devastating issues with their plants. Home and backyard gardeners planted these and the spores blow all over the state wiping out farmers fields. We survived that year but I had friends who lost all their tomatoes.
We dug the third and last bed of potatoes last week. And oh my goodness what a yield on the whites. Again another variety selection that has taken me years to identify and understand. The variety grown was King Henry. The amazing thing about this variety is that the stems of the plant have tiny spiny fibers, not big enough to be felt by the human touch but makes it very unsatisfying for the potato leaf hopper or PLF. PLF is our nemesis in organic potato production. This tiny little grasshopper like insect breeds like mad and the baby nymphs feed on the foliage. They are a suckling insect
that sucks the juice out of the leaves. Over time the leaves turn brown, looking like a virus and then eventually kills all the leaves and the potatoes are then over. This usually happens as they are just sizing up and at the most critical stage to produce the volume intended. Over the years we always lose potato plants to this issue named leafhopper burn. When the insects have done their damage the crop looks like someone took a blow torch to the tops. At this time there are always potatoes under the ground for digging so you tend to think, “ we grew some potatoes pretty well”. With thousands of row feet insect or no insect we still harvest thousands of pounds so it feels good. But as always being an organic farmer I have never had a bar to place this up against with the exception of reading books and getting info. Last week we dug bed 4A, which is just a touch above a ¼ acre of linear row feet. ½ the bed was in King Henry and ½ in Reds.
The reds yielded about 24 crates at 40lbs/crate = 960 lbs. in approx. 50% of that bed. These reds also had major issues with all the rain and developed very poorly with odd shapes and lots of blemishes so much so they are culled out and composted. We will probably cull out over 60% leaving us with approx. 384 lbs. This is a pathetic harvest for that many row feet of potatoes and a total waste of production.Yet this is normal on a yearly basis for any diversified farm. Don’t get me wrong we will eat the good ones and enjoy it. This variety was called Red Maria and I will never ever grow them again. Live and learn a lesson that big doesn’t need to be logged in the cropping book, I will log it but I will also take that memory with me for the rest of my life. In the same amount of bed space, same bed, same spacing, same time and money involved raising the crop. We yielded 96 crates at 40lbs/crate. And 99.9% of them are perfect. No blemishes, no issues, assorted sizes, no scabbing, no bug damage. Beautiful tender easy to clean, creamy and buttery flavor. We even got some big ones that will take the big russet potato’s place as your baked potato. That is 3840 lbs. in the same place vs. 384 pounds. That is 10 times the yield with the same inputs and work. This is game changing knowledge for a small family run business like ours. This type of yield is more the standard of what I expect and am looking for in a potato crop. Hands down the best potatoes I have ever grown and we should have potatoes for a few more weeks in your shares. This same type of data is applied to all crops. We crop anywhere from 40-60 different types of vegetables and over 100 different varieties each year. All with very particular specs. So for those of you who have been with us for many years, as you see repeats year to year or varieties one year and not another this is why. As a diversified vegetable farm I love variety and I always play with it, but you can see where some experimenting can really bite you where it counts. So my experimenting these
days takes place on “IT’S DIFFICULT TO THINK a much smaller ANYTHING BUT PLEASANT scale to see if it THOUGHTS WHILE EATING works before we HOMEGROWN TOMATO.” really bring it into production. In the case of those artisan heirloom cherry tomatoes sometimes you just go for it. During winter I get overly excited about my craft and think “I can grow that.” Sometimes you can sometimes you cannot. Also this week we started harvesting our winter squash. This is all the large hard squashes we tend to see in fall. On our farm organically I grow these on the earlier side as by the fall variable weather has taken place and we never get the crop. We nurse it all the way to full swing and at the last moment we loose it due to the weather. So we get it, it’s just earlier. There is nothing biblical about only eating hard squash in winter or fall. It’s just a cultural thing we have here in the USA. This week we are distributing spaghetti squash. For those of you new to this one, It is just as it’s called, when you cook it and then go to fork out the flesh it strings out like spaghetti. It is commonly eaten as veggie spaghetti. Perfect timing this week with all your tomatoes onions and garlic makes an excellent meal.
A
F R EE ZI N G TOM ATOE S Got tomatoes? Want to save them for winter sauces and stews — but without the hassle of canning? If you have the freezer space, preserve tomatoes with literally no work: Just freeze 'em! Plus, there's a bonus to this method: after the tomatoes have thawed in the fridge or in the microwave, you can just pull the skins right off!
If you plan on using tomatoes in the depths of winter in sauces and stews, then freezing is a perfectly wonderful option. You can skip the pureeing and canning and just sock them straight into freezer bags. It's the lazy yet smart way of preserving tomatoes; their delicious acidity and bright flavor will still come through, months later, in a way that makes you think you stepped into the Tardis and went straight back to July.
Oven-Dried Tomatoes An awesome way to hold onto that last taste of summer, oven-dried instead of sun-dried tomatoes
Take some tomatoes, slice them up and place them on a baking pan with olive oil and salt Make sure the slices aren’t touching each other. Put them in a 275 degree oven and bake. Timing will vary from 1 -6 hours. Keep an eye on them, you don’t want them to burn, you want them to dry out. The results are sweet and tangy. Serve these tomatoes with fried eggs, over pasta, on sandwiches, or pack them in oil. You can also store in a container and freeze them
B ASIC PREPARATION
S PAG H E T T I S QUA S H Spaghetti squash makes an excellent side dish or a fun substitute in thin noodle recipes, from Asian to Italian. It is loaded with nutrients, such as beta carotene and fiber, and is tender, with just a slight crunch.
PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 375 AND HALVE SQUASH LENGTHWISE. USE A SPOON TO SCOOP OUT AND DISCARD SEEDS FROM THE MIDDLE OF EACH HALF. ARRANGE IN A DISH CUT SIDES DOWN. POUR 1/2 CUP WATER INTO THE DISH AND BAKE UNTIL TENDER 30 - 35 MINUTES. RAKE A FORK BACK AND FORTH ACROSS THE SQUASH TO REMOVE THE FLESH IN STRANDS - SEASON WITH PUTTANSECA SAUCE OR WHATEVER FLAVORS YOUR FANCY.
CSA
N E W S L E T T E R
19 - 21
G O R M A N FA R M T H E H A RV E S T B E LL PEPP ER S NAC K P EPPE R JAL EPENO S POBLANO POTATOES O NIO NS GARLIC EG GPLANT OKRA TO M ATO E S S PAGHET T I SQ UAS H MELON
Field Notes You say tomato I say TOMAHTOES! It is game on in the tomato department at the farm.Yes there are lots of tomatoes and different varieties in the share this week.You don’t have to take all of them if you don’t want to but they are excellent and highly recommended. One of my new favorites this year is the artisan tomato collection, which I talked about a few newsletters back. We are pleasantly surprised at the yield in these as usually these more delicate types only perform well indoors where you can control the climate. With a very wet and very hot year we are giving thanks daily to the production in our fields. Tomato plants in general are very susceptible to the common diseases and field issues like late blight, which is running rampant this time of year in our region. I can recall a few seasons back when many farmers were wiped out in the tomato department due to late blight. A disease that spreads via spores blowing in the wind. It usually affects fields from contamination from wind blowing in off another farmer’s fields. The epidemic a few years back was mostly from infected plants that
came from the big box stores. The large nurseries that produce seedlings for Home Depot and the likes had devastating issues with their plants. Home and backyard gardeners planted these and the spores blow all over the state wiping out farmers fields. We survived that year but I had friends who lost all their tomatoes.
We dug the third and last bed of potatoes last week. And oh my goodness what a yield on the whites. Again another variety selection that has taken me years to identify and understand. The variety grown was King Henry. The amazing thing about this variety is that the stems of the plant have tiny spiny fibers, not big enough to be felt by the human touch but makes it very unsatisfying for the potato leaf hopper or PLF. PLF is our nemesis in organic potato production. This tiny little grasshopper like insect breeds like mad and the baby nymphs feed on the foliage. They are a suckling insect
that sucks the juice out of the leaves. Over time the leaves turn brown, looking like a virus and then eventually kills all the leaves and the potatoes are then over. This usually happens as they are just sizing up and at the most critical stage to produce the volume intended. Over the years we always lose potato plants to this issue named leafhopper burn. When the insects have done their damage the crop looks like someone took a blow torch to the tops. At this time there are always potatoes under the ground for digging so you tend to think, “ we grew some potatoes pretty well”. With thousands of row feet insect or no insect we still harvest thousands of pounds so it feels good. But as always being an organic farmer I have never had a bar to place this up against with the exception of reading books and getting info. Last week we dug bed 4A, which is just a touch above a ¼ acre of linear row feet. ½ the bed was in King Henry and ½ in Reds.
The reds yielded about 24 crates at 40lbs/crate = 960 lbs. in approx. 50% of that bed. These reds also had major issues with all the rain and developed very poorly with odd shapes and lots of blemishes so much so they are culled out and composted. We will probably cull out over 60% leaving us with approx. 384 lbs. This is a pathetic harvest for that many row feet of potatoes and a total waste of production.Yet this is normal on a yearly basis for any diversified farm. Don’t get me wrong we will eat the good ones and enjoy it. This variety was called Red Maria and I will never ever grow them again. Live and learn a lesson that big doesn’t need to be logged in the cropping book, I will log it but I will also take that memory with me for the rest of my life. In the same amount of bed space, same bed, same spacing, same time and money involved raising the crop. We yielded 96 crates at 40lbs/crate. And 99.9% of them are perfect. No blemishes, no issues, assorted sizes, no scabbing, no bug damage. Beautiful tender easy to clean, creamy and buttery flavor. We even got some big ones that will take the big russet potato’s place as your baked potato. That is 3840 lbs. in the same place vs. 384 pounds. That is 10 times the yield with the same inputs and work. This is game changing knowledge for a small family run business like ours. This type of yield is more the standard of what I expect and am looking for in a potato crop. Hands down the best potatoes I have ever grown and we should have potatoes for a few more weeks in your shares. This same type of data is applied to all crops. We crop anywhere from 40-60 different types of vegetables and over 100 different varieties each year. All with very particular specs. So for those of you who have been with us for many years, as you see repeats year to year or varieties one year and not another this is why. As a diversified vegetable farm I love variety and I always play with it, but you can see where some experimenting can really bite you where it counts. So my experimenting these
days takes place on “IT’S DIFFICULT TO THINK a much smaller ANYTHING BUT PLEASANT scale to see if it THOUGHTS WHILE EATING works before we HOMEGROWN TOMATO.” really bring it into production. In the case of those artisan heirloom cherry tomatoes sometimes you just go for it. During winter I get overly excited about my craft and think “I can grow that.” Sometimes you can sometimes you cannot. Also this week we started harvesting our winter squash. This is all the large hard squashes we tend to see in fall. On our farm organically I grow these on the earlier side as by the fall variable weather has taken place and we never get the crop. We nurse it all the way to full swing and at the last moment we loose it due to the weather. So we get it, it’s just earlier. There is nothing biblical about only eating hard squash in winter or fall. It’s just a cultural thing we have here in the USA. This week we are distributing spaghetti squash. For those of you new to this one, It is just as it’s called, when you cook it and then go to fork out the flesh it strings out like spaghetti. It is commonly eaten as veggie spaghetti. Perfect timing this week with all your tomatoes onions and garlic makes an excellent meal.
A
F R EE ZI N G TOM ATOE S Got tomatoes? Want to save them for winter sauces and stews — but without the hassle of canning? If you have the freezer space, preserve tomatoes with literally no work: Just freeze 'em! Plus, there's a bonus to this method: after the tomatoes have thawed in the fridge or in the microwave, you can just pull the skins right off!
If you plan on using tomatoes in the depths of winter in sauces and stews, then freezing is a perfectly wonderful option. You can skip the pureeing and canning and just sock them straight into freezer bags. It's the lazy yet smart way of preserving tomatoes; their delicious acidity and bright flavor will still come through, months later, in a way that makes you think you stepped into the Tardis and went straight back to July.
Oven-Dried Tomatoes An awesome way to hold onto that last taste of summer, oven-dried instead of sun-dried tomatoes
Take some tomatoes, slice them up and place them on a baking pan with olive oil and salt Make sure the slices aren’t touching each other. Put them in a 275 degree oven and bake. Timing will vary from 1 -6 hours. Keep an eye on them, you don’t want them to burn, you want them to dry out. The results are sweet and tangy. Serve these tomatoes with fried eggs, over pasta, on sandwiches, or pack them in oil. You can also store in a container and freeze them
B ASIC PREPARATION
S PAG H E T T I S QUA S H Spaghetti squash makes an excellent side dish or a fun substitute in thin noodle recipes, from Asian to Italian. It is loaded with nutrients, such as beta carotene and fiber, and is tender, with just a slight crunch.
PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 375 AND HALVE SQUASH LENGTHWISE. USE A SPOON TO SCOOP OUT AND DISCARD SEEDS FROM THE MIDDLE OF EACH HALF. ARRANGE IN A DISH CUT SIDES DOWN. POUR 1/2 CUP WATER INTO THE DISH AND BAKE UNTIL TENDER 30 - 35 MINUTES. RAKE A FORK BACK AND FORTH ACROSS THE SQUASH TO REMOVE THE FLESH IN STRANDS - SEASON WITH PUTTANSECA SAUCE OR WHATEVER FLAVORS YOUR FANCY.
