Lake Superior CSA
Bayfield Foods Cooperative September 7th , 2016
In The Boxes This Week
Lake Superior CSA
Veggie Boxes: Carrots, Broccoli, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber OR Slicer Tomatoes/Great Oak Farm Basil, Peppers, Leeks, Summer Squash // Yoman Farm Tomatoes, Pepper, Salad Mix, head Lettuce// River Road Farm Roma Tomatoes// Twisting Twig
Veggie Basics : Corn, Peppers //Yoman Farm Peppers, Potatoes// River Road Farm Roma Tomatoes// Twisting Twig Meat Boxes: Ground Beef // Hidden Vue Pork Chops/Maple Hill Farm
Whitefish // Bodin’s Whole Chicken // Heritage Farm Meat Basics : Trout// Bodin’s Ground Beef // Hidden Vue Pork // Maple Hill Farm PLUS ITEM: Honey // Heritage Farm Sheep + Goat Cheese // Happy Hollow + Sassy Nanny Creameries
I hope everyone found some time to enjoy the gorgeous weekend weather – truly a late summer treat! These beautiful days can lull a farmer into putting work off till later, but we’ve got to keep our momentum up! As the summer fades into fall, cooler weather will be arriving before we know it, and there’s still plenty of work to do. We stayed busy this past week bagging up the fall onion crop, which had been laying in windrows out in the field to dry in the sun, and hauling the bags into the greenhouse to finish drying down before storage. That’s the first winter storage crop to come out of the ground here. Next, when the nights get around 45 degrees, we’ll start hauling in the winter squash – our favorites are delicatas, butternuts, acorns, and kobachas. Winter squash is actually pretty cold-sensitive for a crop with “winter” in its name. It can get damaged if the temps drop much below 40 degrees, and won’t store as well, so we like to get them put up before it gets too cold or frosts. Next to get harvested are the cabbages and beets. They can take a light frost, but a freeze will begin to damage their outer leaves or the part of the beet that sticks above the ground. Finally, before the ground sets up for the winter and freezes tight, we dig carrots and sock them away in the root cellar. Since they are mostly below the ground, the heat from the earth keeps them from getting nipped by a light freeze. As we transition into fall, we start to say goodbye to some of our summer favorites. Sadly, this week will be the last week for cherry tomatoes from our hoop house. Those vigorous vines have been cranking out sweet little drops of sunshine for nearly 2 months now, and have run their course. We’ll be cleaning out the plants this week and getting that ground prepped for some fall and winter spinach to go in next week. The green beans are nearly finished as well – perhaps one more picking next week? – but the fall broccoli is coming on strong. This fall’s broccoli is quite possibly the most beautiful fall crop of broccoli I have ever grown here – those heads are enormous! Lastly, this week a few lucky folks will get a BONUS mini-melon from our mini-melon trials here, either a watermelon or cantaloupe. Let us know what you think of them, and good luck to you each of you!
Fruit: Apples
~ Chris Duke, Great Oak Farm
Greetings from Maple Hill Farm!
Things are picking up around Maple Hill Farm as fall approaches. Last week we started combining our barley which is used for hog food. We had an excellent yield this year. We finished bailing our barley straw, which will be used for animal bedding this winter. Next on the list to harvest is rye, oats and wheat. The rye and wheat are used in our on-farm flour mill. Most years we mill over 5,000 pounds of flour which we sell locally and through the Lake Superior CSA. New this year is a trial acre of hulless oats. We modified a storage bin in our granary to hold the oats prior to milling it into oat flour. We grow more grain than we need for milling and the extra is used as hog feed. Our field corn looks the best we have seen in years. I am looking forward to filling our corn crib with it this fall. The field corn will make up the bulk of our hogs’ diet this winter. We have 25 foot by 95 foot greenhouse that is planted with 140 tomato plants and 520 pepper plants. The fruits of the peppers and tomatoes look very good this year. We are having a struggle with powdery mildew on the leaves of the tomato plants. The hot, windless, muggy days are ideal for the growth of powdery mildew. To try to get ahead of the problem we have been doing some extensive leaf removal to improve air circulation in conjunction with other management strategies. Our fingers are crossed that the humidity will drop too. The first half of our summer pig farrowing resulted in about 50 baby pigs. There are five more sows to farrow so that could mean 40-50 more baby pigs on the ground. Since we raise our hogs outside on pasture a good part of the year, it takes about 10 months for a pig to get up to a 250 pound market hog size. In order to have some control of the quality of our hogs we started farrowing hogs about 7 years ago and concentrate on several heritage breeds. Heritage hog breeds are known for their hardiness and high quality, flavorful meat. You will notice that pork cuts coming from our farm have a little more fat and much more flavor than factory farm pork that is available in supermarkets. The fat allows our hogs to thrive in our climate and not be adversely affected by our occasional harsh winters. We hope you are enjoying our products and spending some quality time around the table with friends and family partaking in the bounty of Lake Superior CSA.
~ Tom Cogger, Maple Hill Farm
Great Oak Farm Crew + Watermelon and Cantaloupes!
PLEASE FLATTEN & RETURN CSA BOXES!
Broccoli Pesto with Whole-Wheat Pasta and Turkey Sausage
Honey BalsamicTips Glazed Carrots
INGREDIENTS Coarse salt 1 bunch broccoli, tough stems removed 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus more for serving 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 pound spicy turkey sausage, sliced 3/4 inch thick (sub ground beef or ground pork) 1 pound whole-wheat linguine (sub gluten free if needed!) DIRECTIONS Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Blanch broccoli until just tender, about 1 minute. Reserving cooking water, transfer broccoli to an ice-water bath until cool, then drain. Pulse broccoli, pine nuts, and Parmesan in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Drizzle in 1/3 cup oil and process until smooth. Season with salt and red-pepper flakes. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Brown sausage, turning, until cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Meanwhile, cook pasta in reserved water according to package instructions. Drain, reserving 1 1/2 cups cooking water. Toss pasta, pesto, and sausage, gradually adding cooking water until you get a creamy consistency. Serve with Parmesan and a drizzle of oil.
Here is a Sneak Peek at Next Week 9.14* * Please note these are subject to change
VEGGIE BOXES: Carrots, Cucumber OR Tomato, Sweet Corn // Great Oak Farm Broccoli // Yoman Farm Tomatoes, Pepper, Salad Mix // River Road Farm Roma Tomatoes, Parsley// Twisting Twig Garden
VEGGIE Basics : Corn, Peppers, Tomatoes, Potatoes MEAT BOXES:
Ground Beef + Steak //HiddenVue Farms + Griggs Cattle Co. Trout// Bodin’s Whole Chicken // Heritage Farm
Meat Basics Ground Beef + Trout + Beef Steak PLUS ITEMS: Honey // Great Oak Farm Sheep + Goat Cheese // Happy Hollow + Sassy Nanny Creamery
Fruit: Apples
Bayfield Foods Cooperative Hello from Heritage Farm! Things never slow down when you own a farm. This is always evident in the summer season. A few weeks ago we completed bailing our first crop of hay. Most of our hay gets made into 6ft tall round bales, but since we have an expanding sheep population, this year we filled our hay mow (top of the barn) with 3 wagons of square bales. These bales are much more manageable to feed our sheep and pigs in the winter time, and the animals tend to eat more of the bale and leave less waste than the large round bales. The only outstanding large chore that we have left to do this summer to harvest oats and then bale straw; it seems like we can never have enough straw through the winter season. We use it primarily as bedding for the animals, and that gets changed constantly when they are in the barn. Just last week we welcomed a new liter of piglets into the world. A total of 8 piglets were born and both mom and babies are doing well. Farrowing is much more successful in the summer when the temperature is warmer and the condensation is lower. Also recently we constructed and erected a 20 ton grain bin, to hold the hog feed. Our pigs enjoy the pasture during the warmer months, and hay during the winter but they also need their grain to grown. This bin will allow us to hold more hog feed and overall improve the efficiency of chores every day.
This summer we have been raising over a dozen bee hives. These hives have been placed on our property in southern Ashland county, as well as Price county, and Bayfield county. Many of our fellow Co-Op members have generously offered their cropland as home for our hives. These hives have been busy all summer, collecting pollen and making honey for us to harvest in a few short weeks. Harvesting honey is always a sticky job, literally, but the results are so sweet. To extract the honey from the cones, we first use a hot electric knife that cuts/melts the caps off of the combs. Then each comb is placed into the extractor. We used to hand crank the extractor, but that was exhausting so we have added a motor to the extractor. The extractor then spins very rapidly to pull the honey out of the combs and into the bottom of the extractor. From here the honey can be strained to remove any small pieces of wax comb that might have fallen into the honey. Next the honey is heated and jarred. Unfortunately, we have never thought about taking pictures while we are harvesting honey, so these are taken from the Internet. This year we will snap a few pictures of the messy process.
~ Heritage Farm
In The Boxes This Week
Lake Superior CSA
Veggie Boxes: Carrots, Broccoli, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber OR Slicer Tomatoes/Great Oak Farm Basil, Peppers, Leeks, Summer Squash // Yoman Farm Tomatoes, Pepper, Salad Mix, head Lettuce// River Road Farm Roma Tomatoes// Twisting Twig
Veggie Basics : Corn, Peppers //Yoman Farm Peppers, Potatoes// River Road Farm Roma Tomatoes// Twisting Twig Meat Boxes: Ground Beef // Hidden Vue Pork Chops/Maple Hill Farm
Whitefish // Bodin’s Whole Chicken // Heritage Farm Meat Basics : Trout// Bodin’s Ground Beef // Hidden Vue Pork // Maple Hill Farm PLUS ITEM: Honey // Heritage Farm Sheep + Goat Cheese // Happy Hollow + Sassy Nanny Creameries
I hope everyone found some time to enjoy the gorgeous weekend weather – truly a late summer treat! These beautiful days can lull a farmer into putting work off till later, but we’ve got to keep our momentum up! As the summer fades into fall, cooler weather will be arriving before we know it, and there’s still plenty of work to do. We stayed busy this past week bagging up the fall onion crop, which had been laying in windrows out in the field to dry in the sun, and hauling the bags into the greenhouse to finish drying down before storage. That’s the first winter storage crop to come out of the ground here. Next, when the nights get around 45 degrees, we’ll start hauling in the winter squash – our favorites are delicatas, butternuts, acorns, and kobachas. Winter squash is actually pretty cold-sensitive for a crop with “winter” in its name. It can get damaged if the temps drop much below 40 degrees, and won’t store as well, so we like to get them put up before it gets too cold or frosts. Next to get harvested are the cabbages and beets. They can take a light frost, but a freeze will begin to damage their outer leaves or the part of the beet that sticks above the ground. Finally, before the ground sets up for the winter and freezes tight, we dig carrots and sock them away in the root cellar. Since they are mostly below the ground, the heat from the earth keeps them from getting nipped by a light freeze. As we transition into fall, we start to say goodbye to some of our summer favorites. Sadly, this week will be the last week for cherry tomatoes from our hoop house. Those vigorous vines have been cranking out sweet little drops of sunshine for nearly 2 months now, and have run their course. We’ll be cleaning out the plants this week and getting that ground prepped for some fall and winter spinach to go in next week. The green beans are nearly finished as well – perhaps one more picking next week? – but the fall broccoli is coming on strong. This fall’s broccoli is quite possibly the most beautiful fall crop of broccoli I have ever grown here – those heads are enormous! Lastly, this week a few lucky folks will get a BONUS mini-melon from our mini-melon trials here, either a watermelon or cantaloupe. Let us know what you think of them, and good luck to you each of you!
Fruit: Apples
~ Chris Duke, Great Oak Farm
Greetings from Maple Hill Farm!
Things are picking up around Maple Hill Farm as fall approaches. Last week we started combining our barley which is used for hog food. We had an excellent yield this year. We finished bailing our barley straw, which will be used for animal bedding this winter. Next on the list to harvest is rye, oats and wheat. The rye and wheat are used in our on-farm flour mill. Most years we mill over 5,000 pounds of flour which we sell locally and through the Lake Superior CSA. New this year is a trial acre of hulless oats. We modified a storage bin in our granary to hold the oats prior to milling it into oat flour. We grow more grain than we need for milling and the extra is used as hog feed. Our field corn looks the best we have seen in years. I am looking forward to filling our corn crib with it this fall. The field corn will make up the bulk of our hogs’ diet this winter. We have 25 foot by 95 foot greenhouse that is planted with 140 tomato plants and 520 pepper plants. The fruits of the peppers and tomatoes look very good this year. We are having a struggle with powdery mildew on the leaves of the tomato plants. The hot, windless, muggy days are ideal for the growth of powdery mildew. To try to get ahead of the problem we have been doing some extensive leaf removal to improve air circulation in conjunction with other management strategies. Our fingers are crossed that the humidity will drop too. The first half of our summer pig farrowing resulted in about 50 baby pigs. There are five more sows to farrow so that could mean 40-50 more baby pigs on the ground. Since we raise our hogs outside on pasture a good part of the year, it takes about 10 months for a pig to get up to a 250 pound market hog size. In order to have some control of the quality of our hogs we started farrowing hogs about 7 years ago and concentrate on several heritage breeds. Heritage hog breeds are known for their hardiness and high quality, flavorful meat. You will notice that pork cuts coming from our farm have a little more fat and much more flavor than factory farm pork that is available in supermarkets. The fat allows our hogs to thrive in our climate and not be adversely affected by our occasional harsh winters. We hope you are enjoying our products and spending some quality time around the table with friends and family partaking in the bounty of Lake Superior CSA.
~ Tom Cogger, Maple Hill Farm
Great Oak Farm Crew + Watermelon and Cantaloupes!
PLEASE FLATTEN & RETURN CSA BOXES!
Broccoli Pesto with Whole-Wheat Pasta and Turkey Sausage
Honey BalsamicTips Glazed Carrots
INGREDIENTS Coarse salt 1 bunch broccoli, tough stems removed 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus more for serving 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 pound spicy turkey sausage, sliced 3/4 inch thick (sub ground beef or ground pork) 1 pound whole-wheat linguine (sub gluten free if needed!) DIRECTIONS Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Blanch broccoli until just tender, about 1 minute. Reserving cooking water, transfer broccoli to an ice-water bath until cool, then drain. Pulse broccoli, pine nuts, and Parmesan in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Drizzle in 1/3 cup oil and process until smooth. Season with salt and red-pepper flakes. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Brown sausage, turning, until cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Meanwhile, cook pasta in reserved water according to package instructions. Drain, reserving 1 1/2 cups cooking water. Toss pasta, pesto, and sausage, gradually adding cooking water until you get a creamy consistency. Serve with Parmesan and a drizzle of oil.
Here is a Sneak Peek at Next Week 9.14* * Please note these are subject to change
VEGGIE BOXES: Carrots, Cucumber OR Tomato, Sweet Corn // Great Oak Farm Broccoli // Yoman Farm Tomatoes, Pepper, Salad Mix // River Road Farm Roma Tomatoes, Parsley// Twisting Twig Garden
VEGGIE Basics : Corn, Peppers, Tomatoes, Potatoes MEAT BOXES:
Ground Beef + Steak //HiddenVue Farms + Griggs Cattle Co. Trout// Bodin’s Whole Chicken // Heritage Farm
Meat Basics Ground Beef + Trout + Beef Steak PLUS ITEMS: Honey // Great Oak Farm Sheep + Goat Cheese // Happy Hollow + Sassy Nanny Creamery
Fruit: Apples
Bayfield Foods Cooperative Hello from Heritage Farm! Things never slow down when you own a farm. This is always evident in the summer season. A few weeks ago we completed bailing our first crop of hay. Most of our hay gets made into 6ft tall round bales, but since we have an expanding sheep population, this year we filled our hay mow (top of the barn) with 3 wagons of square bales. These bales are much more manageable to feed our sheep and pigs in the winter time, and the animals tend to eat more of the bale and leave less waste than the large round bales. The only outstanding large chore that we have left to do this summer to harvest oats and then bale straw; it seems like we can never have enough straw through the winter season. We use it primarily as bedding for the animals, and that gets changed constantly when they are in the barn. Just last week we welcomed a new liter of piglets into the world. A total of 8 piglets were born and both mom and babies are doing well. Farrowing is much more successful in the summer when the temperature is warmer and the condensation is lower. Also recently we constructed and erected a 20 ton grain bin, to hold the hog feed. Our pigs enjoy the pasture during the warmer months, and hay during the winter but they also need their grain to grown. This bin will allow us to hold more hog feed and overall improve the efficiency of chores every day.
This summer we have been raising over a dozen bee hives. These hives have been placed on our property in southern Ashland county, as well as Price county, and Bayfield county. Many of our fellow Co-Op members have generously offered their cropland as home for our hives. These hives have been busy all summer, collecting pollen and making honey for us to harvest in a few short weeks. Harvesting honey is always a sticky job, literally, but the results are so sweet. To extract the honey from the cones, we first use a hot electric knife that cuts/melts the caps off of the combs. Then each comb is placed into the extractor. We used to hand crank the extractor, but that was exhausting so we have added a motor to the extractor. The extractor then spins very rapidly to pull the honey out of the combs and into the bottom of the extractor. From here the honey can be strained to remove any small pieces of wax comb that might have fallen into the honey. Next the honey is heated and jarred. Unfortunately, we have never thought about taking pictures while we are harvesting honey, so these are taken from the Internet. This year we will snap a few pictures of the messy process.
~ Heritage Farm
