Thought this article from the Times might be of interest:
Link to Original Article
October 17, 2007
Local Carrots With a Side of Red Tape
By KIM SEVERSON
THE dirt on Richard Ball’s farm in Schoharie County is 15 feet deep, rich with minerals and perfect for growing sweet carrots.
About 150 miles south, the New York City schools serve 850,000 meals a day. Some of them contain carrots. But the carrots come from other states.
So Mr. Ball and a group of people dedicated to getting local food into cafeterias had an idea: Why not feed New York City schoolchildren New York State carrots?
“I thought, here we are two and half or three hours away from the largest appetite in the country,” Mr. Ball said. “Let’s connect the dots.”
It seemed so simple. But after nearly two years of meetings, tests and negotiations, local carrots have yet to hit the lunch table. “The logistics are very complicated,” said David Berkowitz, who runs the city’s school food program. “While we have every intention of moving forward to purchase these carrots, there are no guarantees.”
The premise was an easy sell. The carrot project would help farmers who now mostly grow varieties best suited for the frozen food industry to diversify. Local carrots would be fresher, tastier and take less fuel to ship. And children might even eat more of them.
But as the carrot project supporters learned, it’s hard to change entrenched systems, whether agricultural or bureaucratic.
Around the country dozens of farm-to-school programs are trying to get local food back into the schools. In New York City, some of that work falls to the SchoolFood Plus organization.
Under its umbrella, there have been some successes. For the past two summers, most of the stone fruit in New York city schools has been local, and some of the frozen food served in cafeterias is, too.
But the advocates’ pride and joy is the small plastic bag of sliced New York apples. Since they were introduced in 2005, the school district has gone through several million bags, and public school children are eating four times as many apples as they used to, said Mr. Berkowitz.
So why not do the same thing with carrots?
Although food purists might argue that simply slicing local carrots is the best way to feed children, handling fresh carrots is too labor-intensive for a district trying to feed hundreds of thousands of children a day on a tight budget.
Individual packages make it easier for the school district to meet Department of Agriculture nutritional guidelines, assuring that the main source of funding for public school lunch continues, Mr. Berkowitz said. Also, he said, students are more likely to consume carrots if they are easy and fun to eat.
Since the district already serves more than 285,000 pounds of bagged baby carrots from other states, substituting New York carrots seemed an easy solution, said Karen Karp, a food industry consultant who was working with the school district and state agriculture officials to get more local food into schools.
She knew Jerry Dygert, an Essex County food processor, because he packages the apple slices. Together, they set out to find some local carrots that could be used in schools.
This was a surprisingly difficult step. Baby carrots are actually fully grown vegetables that are whittled down to size. Most growers in California, where the baby carrot was born almost 20 years ago, use a variety called Sugar Snax.
In New York, most of the roughly 2,000 acres devoted to carrots are planted with a different variety better suited for processing. And since an actual contract with the school district seemed a long way off, it was a rare farmer who was willing to take a chance on planting something new.
“The hardest thing for a farmer is to grow something and then discover there’s no customer for it,” said Mr. Ball.
But Mr. Ball believes it’s time to get local food back in the mouths of school children. So he took a chance and grew a small test patch of Sugar Snax.
By last fall, they were ready. Ms. Karp and Mr. Ball went to Mr. Dygert’s processing plant to see if the test carrots could be turned into babies. It was a bust. It turns out that New York soil doesn’t grow the best Sugar Snax. And grinding grown-up carrots into babies makes a lot of waste. That day, they lost about 70 percent of each carrot.
“Probably the most depressing day of my life last year was that test day,” Ms. Karp said. “The farmer had tears in his eyes.”
The solution, they decided, was to forget about baby carrots and make something shaped like a coin, which would create less waste and better suit the Nantes variety or a Nantes-Imperator cross, which grow well in New York. They added a crinkle cut, so the coins would better hold some kind of dip. Mr. Dygert’s crew came up with a bag decorated with carrots doing sit-ups.
Thus, Carrot Crunchers were born.
Back at the School Food office, Mr. Berkowitz agreed to test the Carrot Crunchers at a half-dozen schools in June. But they had to use carrots from other states because New York carrots weren’t available. Still, they were a hit.
Before the farmers could start planting the right carrots and Mr. Dygert could invest in new equipment to cut the carrots into coins, Mr. Berkowitz had to figure out how to battle a bureaucracy that seems tilted away from local food.
“It’s not a question of just saying I believe in local products and I’ll buy them next week,” he said.
The district buys food from four approved distributors, who are required by federal and local laws to seek out the least expensive product that will meet its specifications. School districts that spend federal money on food cannot give preferential treatment to local products, although a provision in the 2007 Farm Bill being debated in Congress might change that.
With the apple slices, a deft hand with the specification-writing solved the problem. The district ordered Empire apples sliced in a way that matched Mr. Dygert’s product. Since few other processors are making the bagged apples and Mr. Dygert’s price is the best, the distributors who supply the district are able to fill the order with his product.
Carrots are trickier in part because there is still no agreement on which kind of New York carrot is the best one to use. And although New York produces enough apples to keep the district supplied all year, carrots are a different matter. They can be stored for several months, but the district needs a year-round supply.
The specifications would have to be written in such a way that carrots from other states could be substituted when the local supply ran low. And they would have to cost no more than the district is already paying for carrots.
So everyone waited. And waited. The school year started, and still no carrots.
But the moment is close. Earlier this month, the price was set and the distributors were cleared to buy the carrots. A new batch of Mr. Ball’s carrots are in storage and the rest are ready to be harvested. He has about 20 tons in all.
Mr. Dygert said yesterday that as soon as he gets an order from the district, he will have to ship the carrots to Michigan or Vermont to be cut and shipped back to him for bagging. Until he is sure he will have enough business from the schools, he didn’t want to invest in special coin-cutting equipment.
So maybe, just maybe, New York school children will be eating local carrots by the end of the month.
“It’s like herding cats, but if we don’t start talking about it’s never going to happen,” said Mr. Ball, who hopes to persuade other carrot growers to take a risk and plant some carrots for the schools next spring.
“We spent the last 40 years getting out of the local food business so I figure it’s going to take a few years to turn that around.”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Collected Notes from Windflower Farm 10/2/2007
Notes from Windflower Farm - #13
It has been very dry here. I’ve said that dry years are better than wet ones, but this one has started to wear on me: the corn is “strappy,” lettuces have bolted, celeriac and leeks have stagnated, and hillsides are turning brown. Vegetable fields require an inch and a half of rainfall every week. Except for a brief shower that took place during our open house on the farm, accompanied by a spectacular electrical storm that was perhaps the weekend highlight for our friends from the city, it had not rained here in ages. The last appreciable rainfall took place so long ago that I cannot remember exactly when. Rainfall in summer is typically a localized phenomenon, and our frustration has only mounted as we have watched several storms travel across the southern horizon. Farmers not more than ten miles from here have told us that it’s rained regularly where they are. Finally, to our tremendous relief, it rained here last night and most of today. I cheer because there are crops on our farm—including the late squash and fall spinach and salad greens out back—that the irrigation guns can’t reach, and an all-day rain was needed for them to make a good crop. I cheer because we can take time off from hauling pipes, and because, softened by the rain, we can now prepare land for our fall garlic planting and for establishing cover crops.
Notes from Windflower Farm - #14
It didn’t freeze last night, but we were prepared—the threat of frost was all the talk among weather forecasters and farmers here. Temperatures during September have been nine degrees below normal, and it seemed as though an early frost might take place. South of here, at a friend’s farm near Great Barrington, MA, there was a light frost, but he said it did little damage. Although 75 miles to our south, it turns out they typically experience their first frost of the season a full week before we do because of their mountains. On average, September 29th is when we experience our first frost. We are located on a fairly high plateau, and because the coldest air slinks along valley bottoms, we often escape the area’s first light frosts. But we spent a part of the weekend covering crops anyway. By placing 30 X 400’ sheets of Typar directly over the tops of crops like peppers and basil and lettuces that cannot handle freezing temperatures, we can provide them with four or five degrees of protection. The covers will also help some late-planted greens and squashes mature more quickly. Still, a killing frost that even Typar cannot protect against will likely come in the next few weeks.
Notes from Windflower Farm - #15
The transition from summer to fall crops is underway here. As tomatoes, summer squashes and peppers complete their decline, fall greens, winter squashes, parsnips, and late broccoli will begin to arrive in your shares. We started harvesting potatoes last week. Last year, we dug all our potatoes by hand—two acres of them—with a middle-buster plow, two pitch forks, and a small but determined harvest crew. I vowed that I’d find the parts necessary for restoring our John Deere Model #25 potato digger during the winter. It possesses two side-by-side digging chains, each made of 132 pieces of 27-inch chain, and two now-obsolete drive mechanisms. The year before, a chain link had busted, shooting all 132 links from one side into the air, sidelining the machine for the season. Thanks to the internet, I found the parts I needed on an old digger sitting in a hedgerow in Michigan. Freshly reassembled and lubricated, I pulled my digger out of the barn last week. The first pass across the field was uneventful. Little red potatoes rose up out of the soil, traveled along the digging chains, hopping and bouncing along with large rocks and weeds, while soil particles and small stones fell through the chains back to the ground. The potatoes then slipped off the back end of the digger in a wide, neat row on top of the bed, waiting for the harvest crew to pick them up and place them into totes. The Model #25 was an engineering marvel back in 1958, and is a significant step above our middle buster and pitchforks.
On the second pass, a rock lodged between the frame and chains, bending several links before grinding the machine to a halt and stalling the tractor. I managed to free the rock with help from a long, steel pry bar, and was soon rolling again. At some point during the third pass, one of two large drive chains fell off the digger, but, because it didn’t affect the functioning of the machine, I tucked it into my tool box and kept going. By now, the harvest crew had begun picking the potatoes off the ground, and yields appeared good. The next three passes were trouble-free, and we had managed to squirrel away a four-week supply of potatoes. Midway through the last trip across the field, I noticed smoke coming from a universal joint and then, with a crack and a snap, the joint burst, the shaft went flying, and the digging chains stopped moving. With four weeks before I need to dig potatoes again, I should be able to find replacement parts. With any luck, this year’s harvest crew will never have to learn what it’s like to dig a 300’ bed of potatoes with a pitchfork.
Notes from Windflower Farm - #16
Our boys are vegetarians, or, more accurately, lacto-vegetarians. Although Jan and I occasionally eat meat, they adhere to a diet based on vegetables, fruits, grains, yogurt and cheeses. We are sometimes concerned that they don’t get all the vitamins and minerals they need, but, because they are so fond of dairy products and eat great quantities of beans, they probably do fine. And they are beginning to like greens, with kale appearing to become a favorite. That’s good news for us, because kale is a healthy food of the highest kind. Even cooked it’s high in protein and fiber, vitamins A and C, iron and calcium, and a host of other vitamins and minerals. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a healthier vegetable. You'll find kale in your shares this week, along with arugula and lettuce.
It has been very dry here. I’ve said that dry years are better than wet ones, but this one has started to wear on me: the corn is “strappy,” lettuces have bolted, celeriac and leeks have stagnated, and hillsides are turning brown. Vegetable fields require an inch and a half of rainfall every week. Except for a brief shower that took place during our open house on the farm, accompanied by a spectacular electrical storm that was perhaps the weekend highlight for our friends from the city, it had not rained here in ages. The last appreciable rainfall took place so long ago that I cannot remember exactly when. Rainfall in summer is typically a localized phenomenon, and our frustration has only mounted as we have watched several storms travel across the southern horizon. Farmers not more than ten miles from here have told us that it’s rained regularly where they are. Finally, to our tremendous relief, it rained here last night and most of today. I cheer because there are crops on our farm—including the late squash and fall spinach and salad greens out back—that the irrigation guns can’t reach, and an all-day rain was needed for them to make a good crop. I cheer because we can take time off from hauling pipes, and because, softened by the rain, we can now prepare land for our fall garlic planting and for establishing cover crops.
Notes from Windflower Farm - #14
It didn’t freeze last night, but we were prepared—the threat of frost was all the talk among weather forecasters and farmers here. Temperatures during September have been nine degrees below normal, and it seemed as though an early frost might take place. South of here, at a friend’s farm near Great Barrington, MA, there was a light frost, but he said it did little damage. Although 75 miles to our south, it turns out they typically experience their first frost of the season a full week before we do because of their mountains. On average, September 29th is when we experience our first frost. We are located on a fairly high plateau, and because the coldest air slinks along valley bottoms, we often escape the area’s first light frosts. But we spent a part of the weekend covering crops anyway. By placing 30 X 400’ sheets of Typar directly over the tops of crops like peppers and basil and lettuces that cannot handle freezing temperatures, we can provide them with four or five degrees of protection. The covers will also help some late-planted greens and squashes mature more quickly. Still, a killing frost that even Typar cannot protect against will likely come in the next few weeks.
Notes from Windflower Farm - #15
The transition from summer to fall crops is underway here. As tomatoes, summer squashes and peppers complete their decline, fall greens, winter squashes, parsnips, and late broccoli will begin to arrive in your shares. We started harvesting potatoes last week. Last year, we dug all our potatoes by hand—two acres of them—with a middle-buster plow, two pitch forks, and a small but determined harvest crew. I vowed that I’d find the parts necessary for restoring our John Deere Model #25 potato digger during the winter. It possesses two side-by-side digging chains, each made of 132 pieces of 27-inch chain, and two now-obsolete drive mechanisms. The year before, a chain link had busted, shooting all 132 links from one side into the air, sidelining the machine for the season. Thanks to the internet, I found the parts I needed on an old digger sitting in a hedgerow in Michigan. Freshly reassembled and lubricated, I pulled my digger out of the barn last week. The first pass across the field was uneventful. Little red potatoes rose up out of the soil, traveled along the digging chains, hopping and bouncing along with large rocks and weeds, while soil particles and small stones fell through the chains back to the ground. The potatoes then slipped off the back end of the digger in a wide, neat row on top of the bed, waiting for the harvest crew to pick them up and place them into totes. The Model #25 was an engineering marvel back in 1958, and is a significant step above our middle buster and pitchforks.
On the second pass, a rock lodged between the frame and chains, bending several links before grinding the machine to a halt and stalling the tractor. I managed to free the rock with help from a long, steel pry bar, and was soon rolling again. At some point during the third pass, one of two large drive chains fell off the digger, but, because it didn’t affect the functioning of the machine, I tucked it into my tool box and kept going. By now, the harvest crew had begun picking the potatoes off the ground, and yields appeared good. The next three passes were trouble-free, and we had managed to squirrel away a four-week supply of potatoes. Midway through the last trip across the field, I noticed smoke coming from a universal joint and then, with a crack and a snap, the joint burst, the shaft went flying, and the digging chains stopped moving. With four weeks before I need to dig potatoes again, I should be able to find replacement parts. With any luck, this year’s harvest crew will never have to learn what it’s like to dig a 300’ bed of potatoes with a pitchfork.
Notes from Windflower Farm - #16
Our boys are vegetarians, or, more accurately, lacto-vegetarians. Although Jan and I occasionally eat meat, they adhere to a diet based on vegetables, fruits, grains, yogurt and cheeses. We are sometimes concerned that they don’t get all the vitamins and minerals they need, but, because they are so fond of dairy products and eat great quantities of beans, they probably do fine. And they are beginning to like greens, with kale appearing to become a favorite. That’s good news for us, because kale is a healthy food of the highest kind. Even cooked it’s high in protein and fiber, vitamins A and C, iron and calcium, and a host of other vitamins and minerals. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a healthier vegetable. You'll find kale in your shares this week, along with arugula and lettuce.
From the NYT: Organic, and Tastier: The Rat’s Nose Knows
October 3, 2007
The Curious Cook
By Harold McGee
IN any controversy it can be helpful to consider the views of disinterested parties. So, on the subject of agricultural policy and practice, it’s worth noting that an unimpeachably neutral group has joined the ranks of those who prefer organic foods over foods produced with the help of synthetic chemicals. That group is 40 Swiss rats.
A team of Swiss and Austrian scientists recently concluded a 21-year study of organic wheat production. As an “integrative method” for assessing quality, they gave lab animals a choice of biscuits made from organic or conventional wheat. The rats ate significantly more of the former. The authors call this result remarkable, because they found the two wheats to be very similar in chemical composition and baking performance.
In fact, the rats were better at telling the difference between organic and conventional foods than many humans have been. In the handful of carefully designed taste-offs reported in the last few years, people were often unable to identify the organic foods, and often didn’t prefer them.
This is puzzling, since organic produce generally does pack more antioxidants and other potentially healthful — and potentially flavorful — phytochemicals than conventional produce. Just last July, Professor Alyson Mitchell and colleagues at the University of California, Davis summarized 10 years of data from tomatoes grown in carefully controlled organic and conventional systems. The antioxidant contents varied from year to year, but were consistently higher in the organic tomatoes.
What do phytochemicals have to do with flavor? Phytochemicals are chemicals created by plants, and especially those that have effects on other creatures. Plants make many of them to defend themselves against microbes and insects: to make themselves unpalatable, counterattack the invaders and limit the damage they cause. Most of the aromas of vegetables, herbs and spices come from defensive chemicals. They may smell pleasant to us, but the plants make them to repel their mortal enemies.
Why should organic produce have higher phytochemical levels? The current theory is that because plants in organic production are unprotected by pesticides and fungicides, they are more stressed by insects and disease microbes than conventional crops, and have to work harder to protect themselves. So it makes sense that organic produce would have more intense flavors. For some reason, taste tests haven’t consistently found this to be the case.
This puzzle remains unsolved. But a few pieces have come together to reveal a simple way of getting more flavor into some kinds of produce no matter how or where it’s grown. And that includes backyards and windowsills.
Plants sense and respond to any kind of attack by means of chemical signals. Cells in the attacked area first detect telltale molecules from the invader. Then they respond by releasing warning molecules that trigger the rest of the plant — and even neighboring plants — to start producing chemical defenses. Biologists discovered many years ago that they could induce the plant’s defensive response without any live insect or fungus. All they had to do was supply the initial chemical signals — the invader molecules or the plant’s warning chemicals.
At Clemson University, Dr. Hyun-Jin Kim and Professor Feng Chen recently exploited this fact to intensify the flavor of basil plants. They induced a defensive response in the plants by exposing them to a material derived from chitin, a long chainlike molecule that funguses use to reinforce their cell walls. Insects and crustaceans also build their hard exoskeletons out of chitin. The chitin from crab and shrimp waste is processed industrially to make a shortened form called chitosan, and this is what the Clemson food scientists used.
They soaked basil seeds for 30 minutes in a chitosan solution, then soaked the roots again when they transferred the seedlings to larger pots. After 45 days, they compared the chemical composition of leaves from treated and untreated plants. They found that at the optimum chitosan concentration, the antioxidant activity in treated plants was greater by more than three times. The overall production of aroma compounds was up by nearly 50 percent, and the levels of clove-like and flowery components doubled.
Chitosan is readily available as a dietary supplement that supposedly encourages weight loss. When I asked Professor Chen by e-mail if chitosan capsules from the health food store dissolved in water would work as well as his lab-grade chemical, he replied, “I would guess they will have the same or similar effect.” He added, “I would like to encourage master gardeners to try them for fresh aromas.”
A few years ago I gave up my big garden for a few pots of dwarf citrus and herbs. I’m currently pseudostressing a pot of basil and cilantro seedlings, hoping for freshly intensified flavors that won’t require a rodent’s nose to appreciate.
The Curious Cook
By Harold McGee
IN any controversy it can be helpful to consider the views of disinterested parties. So, on the subject of agricultural policy and practice, it’s worth noting that an unimpeachably neutral group has joined the ranks of those who prefer organic foods over foods produced with the help of synthetic chemicals. That group is 40 Swiss rats.
A team of Swiss and Austrian scientists recently concluded a 21-year study of organic wheat production. As an “integrative method” for assessing quality, they gave lab animals a choice of biscuits made from organic or conventional wheat. The rats ate significantly more of the former. The authors call this result remarkable, because they found the two wheats to be very similar in chemical composition and baking performance.
In fact, the rats were better at telling the difference between organic and conventional foods than many humans have been. In the handful of carefully designed taste-offs reported in the last few years, people were often unable to identify the organic foods, and often didn’t prefer them.
This is puzzling, since organic produce generally does pack more antioxidants and other potentially healthful — and potentially flavorful — phytochemicals than conventional produce. Just last July, Professor Alyson Mitchell and colleagues at the University of California, Davis summarized 10 years of data from tomatoes grown in carefully controlled organic and conventional systems. The antioxidant contents varied from year to year, but were consistently higher in the organic tomatoes.
What do phytochemicals have to do with flavor? Phytochemicals are chemicals created by plants, and especially those that have effects on other creatures. Plants make many of them to defend themselves against microbes and insects: to make themselves unpalatable, counterattack the invaders and limit the damage they cause. Most of the aromas of vegetables, herbs and spices come from defensive chemicals. They may smell pleasant to us, but the plants make them to repel their mortal enemies.
Why should organic produce have higher phytochemical levels? The current theory is that because plants in organic production are unprotected by pesticides and fungicides, they are more stressed by insects and disease microbes than conventional crops, and have to work harder to protect themselves. So it makes sense that organic produce would have more intense flavors. For some reason, taste tests haven’t consistently found this to be the case.
This puzzle remains unsolved. But a few pieces have come together to reveal a simple way of getting more flavor into some kinds of produce no matter how or where it’s grown. And that includes backyards and windowsills.
Plants sense and respond to any kind of attack by means of chemical signals. Cells in the attacked area first detect telltale molecules from the invader. Then they respond by releasing warning molecules that trigger the rest of the plant — and even neighboring plants — to start producing chemical defenses. Biologists discovered many years ago that they could induce the plant’s defensive response without any live insect or fungus. All they had to do was supply the initial chemical signals — the invader molecules or the plant’s warning chemicals.
At Clemson University, Dr. Hyun-Jin Kim and Professor Feng Chen recently exploited this fact to intensify the flavor of basil plants. They induced a defensive response in the plants by exposing them to a material derived from chitin, a long chainlike molecule that funguses use to reinforce their cell walls. Insects and crustaceans also build their hard exoskeletons out of chitin. The chitin from crab and shrimp waste is processed industrially to make a shortened form called chitosan, and this is what the Clemson food scientists used.
They soaked basil seeds for 30 minutes in a chitosan solution, then soaked the roots again when they transferred the seedlings to larger pots. After 45 days, they compared the chemical composition of leaves from treated and untreated plants. They found that at the optimum chitosan concentration, the antioxidant activity in treated plants was greater by more than three times. The overall production of aroma compounds was up by nearly 50 percent, and the levels of clove-like and flowery components doubled.
Chitosan is readily available as a dietary supplement that supposedly encourages weight loss. When I asked Professor Chen by e-mail if chitosan capsules from the health food store dissolved in water would work as well as his lab-grade chemical, he replied, “I would guess they will have the same or similar effect.” He added, “I would like to encourage master gardeners to try them for fresh aromas.”
A few years ago I gave up my big garden for a few pots of dwarf citrus and herbs. I’m currently pseudostressing a pot of basil and cilantro seedlings, hoping for freshly intensified flavors that won’t require a rodent’s nose to appreciate.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
A few photos from Windflower Openhouse
What a great time. I wish I could include photos of the UNBELIEVABLE lightning storm we were treated to Saturday night. But here is what I did manage to snap off.
Thanks again are due to Ted, Jan and the whole gang up there for growing all our yummy veggies & gorgeous flowers. Hosts with the mosts!
Callie Janoff
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Carpool to the farm?
My girlfriend and I are looking to carpool to the farm for the weekend of August 25. Here's the catch: we don't have a car. So by carpooling, we mean that we need a ride. In exchange we'd be more than happy to cover gas expenses, etc. associated with the trip. Or perhaps we can come to another arrangement.
If anyone is planning on going up there and will have room for two in their car (we're both small people), we'd greatly appreciate it.
Please let me know. Thanks,
Dan Berger
amirrorcrackd@gmail.com
If anyone is planning on going up there and will have room for two in their car (we're both small people), we'd greatly appreciate it.
Please let me know. Thanks,
Dan Berger
amirrorcrackd@gmail.com
Sunday, August 12, 2007
News from Windflower Farm, August 11, 2007
The Farmall we use for cultivating was manufactured in about the year that I was born, so, of course, I hesitate to call it old, but in tractor years it certainly isn’t young. Although it’s difficult to find parts for it among local equipment dealers, they are readily available from on-line vintage tractor enthusiasts. I found the tractor at a nearby farm auction and bought it for $2,300. It was the first tractor I’d ever purchased. It turns out it was owned by a man who has a barn filled with dozens of small, vintage Farmalls that he restores. This one didn’t make the cut, and was returned to the field.
The tractor had been acting up recently, and it was foolish of me to ask one of the field crew to use it to hill potatoes. I’m still learning about management, but I know that we won’t get all the work done if I’m the only person operating our equipment. Always a temperamental tractor—the clutch requires an especially gentle touch—I could hear the stalling and restarting from the next field over, but I was sticking to my guns. I need my field crew to become more highly functioning.
As a farmer I am a manager of resources—soil, water, plants, all kinds of equipment, and, most importantly, people. It follows that if we surround ourselves with equipment that lightens our labors, we must empower our employees to be able to operate it. This is Management 101, I suppose, and yet I am reluctant to let folks use my machinery. The twenty year old boys who work here like nothing more than to drive tractors, but they usually do so with less care than I’d like. Although one result is that the Farmall now needs it’s starter rebuilt, another result is that someone else on the farm now knows how to hill potatoes and will, I think, be more gentle on my tractor if given another chance to use it. Now, if I can get the old John Deere potato digger working properly, we’ll dig some new, red potatoes...
Loads of cucumbers this week. You might try “refrigerator pickles,” or cucumber soup. Below is a recipe for Gazpacho. Also in your share is a lettuce mix. We call ours a teenage salad mix—it’s not the fancy baby stuff, but it’s still youthful and tender. Later in the season we’ll attempt to add some zip to our salad greens with adolescent mizuna, tatsoi, baby kale and arugula, but these are currently under siege by flea beetles. Also in your shares are sweet corn or beans, tomatoes, red beets, and more.
Have a great week,
Ted
The tractor had been acting up recently, and it was foolish of me to ask one of the field crew to use it to hill potatoes. I’m still learning about management, but I know that we won’t get all the work done if I’m the only person operating our equipment. Always a temperamental tractor—the clutch requires an especially gentle touch—I could hear the stalling and restarting from the next field over, but I was sticking to my guns. I need my field crew to become more highly functioning.
As a farmer I am a manager of resources—soil, water, plants, all kinds of equipment, and, most importantly, people. It follows that if we surround ourselves with equipment that lightens our labors, we must empower our employees to be able to operate it. This is Management 101, I suppose, and yet I am reluctant to let folks use my machinery. The twenty year old boys who work here like nothing more than to drive tractors, but they usually do so with less care than I’d like. Although one result is that the Farmall now needs it’s starter rebuilt, another result is that someone else on the farm now knows how to hill potatoes and will, I think, be more gentle on my tractor if given another chance to use it. Now, if I can get the old John Deere potato digger working properly, we’ll dig some new, red potatoes...
Loads of cucumbers this week. You might try “refrigerator pickles,” or cucumber soup. Below is a recipe for Gazpacho. Also in your share is a lettuce mix. We call ours a teenage salad mix—it’s not the fancy baby stuff, but it’s still youthful and tender. Later in the season we’ll attempt to add some zip to our salad greens with adolescent mizuna, tatsoi, baby kale and arugula, but these are currently under siege by flea beetles. Also in your shares are sweet corn or beans, tomatoes, red beets, and more.
Have a great week,
Ted
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Tomato Watermelon Salad
This was a big fad last summer. There were lots of recipes floating around that combined tomato and watermelon. I was hooked - it's one of my favorite salads now.
6 cups of cubed seedless watermelon
6 cups of chopped tomato (use whatever variety you like)
1-2 red onions, chopped
Toss ingredients together, then dress with olive oil and red wine vinegar.
Delicious!
6 cups of cubed seedless watermelon
6 cups of chopped tomato (use whatever variety you like)
1-2 red onions, chopped
Toss ingredients together, then dress with olive oil and red wine vinegar.
Delicious!
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Recipe: Fresh Tomato and Corn Salad
Fresh Tomato and Corn Salad
5 large ears corn, husked
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 small orange or red bell pepper, diced (optional)
5 small radishes, thinly sliced (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
Remove the kernels from the cobs using a sharp knife. Combine the corn, tomatoes and bell pepper/radishes in a medium bowl; stir in basil, vinegar, the remaining 2 teaspoons oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
5 large ears corn, husked
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 small orange or red bell pepper, diced (optional)
5 small radishes, thinly sliced (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
Remove the kernels from the cobs using a sharp knife. Combine the corn, tomatoes and bell pepper/radishes in a medium bowl; stir in basil, vinegar, the remaining 2 teaspoons oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
News from Windflower Farm - July 10, 2007
Until recently we had had just three light showers since the hailstorm of June 5th—each one giving us under a quarter inch of rain. Our dry spell began in April, and we’d been irrigating ever since. ry season’s have their upsides. uring last year’s wet season, the Swiss chard and kale suffered from foliar diseases; in this dry year they are doing wonderfully. Last year’s weather also allowed diseases to move into our tomato and pepper plantings. So far, they too appear healthy. But weeds, which seem to do well under all conditions, have evolved to do especially well in droughty weather. Many weeds are C-4 plants, having the ability to close their stomata during the day, conserving water without compromising photosynthesis. This adaptation enables them to outperform our less competitive vegetables during dry conditions. While a field of vegetables needs an inch of rainfall every week to grow well, weeds seem to thrive even during extended droughts.
Last summer we had a well drilled by a family of Vermonters who used a dowsing stick to find the best spot to drill, and they gave us a well with an astounding 100 gallons of water per minute to work with. Because the season was so rainy, however, we rarely used the water. We vegetable growers, being a superstitious bunch, are convinced that the rain won’t fall until the irrigation system is set up. Not so, it turns out. Over the winter, we purchased an irrigation reel from a ginseng grower in Wisconsin. These units sell for over $10,000 new, but I found mine for $1,500. Although I’m still trying to get it to work properly—bellows mechanisms, ratchets, valves, and booster pumps have each given me challenges—we nevertheless have a good working system. And still no rain. Until now.
At last, yesterday, we had a long, soaking rain, and were given a break from the pleasure of dragging irrigation pipes around the farm. The boys watched a movie, Jan went to the barn to bunch larkspur, and I took a nap. The rain was a gift. It came with thunder and lighting, however, and one nearby crash sent the crew scrambling. They found Jan in one of the greenhouses with her hair frizzed out. They said they could smell the electricity. Hail season isn’t over yet. The storm that delivered a gentle rain here, brought hail to a neighboring CSA, ruining many of their crops. Rich Moses, the farmer who grows our sweet corn, said he’d never seen a growing season with more local reports of hail.
This week’s share includes Asian cucumbers, scarlet red turnips, a choice of Swiss chard and various Asian greens, scallions, lemony herbs, and spinach or broccoli. Fruit shareholders will get what are probably the last of this season’s cherries. Squashes and broccoli should be part of next week’s shares.
Have a good week,
Ted Blomgren
Thursday, July 5, 2007
News from Windflower Farm - July 2, 2007
Our farm crew appears to enjoy weeding. Given the choice of any farm task, they’ll choose weeding. And that’s a good thing, because, like most small organic farms, dealing with weeds is our most time-consuming chore. Two of our field crew are teachers, who spend their summers with us, and another is a retired teacher—for them, weeding appears to be highly therapeutic. And for all of us there is a simple satisfaction that comes from leaving behind orderly, weed-free rows. But weeding can be very dull business. And our rows—most of which are 300 to 400’ long—can seem nearly endless. Fortunately, it’s early in the season, we tend to weed in a large group of people, moving quickly, and conversation and jokes flow easily. Nevertheless, distractions are welcome.
Last week one distraction came in the form of a 30 X 300’ sheet of row cover. These are large, white, translucent sheets that we place over our crops to protect them from insects and foul weather. We had removed the cover in order to harvest turnips, and left it in a heap at the end of the bed. A gust came along late in the day on Friday lifting the white fabric skyward. Soon, it was 50’ above where we were weeding, rising and falling in the wind. We watched as it sailed slowly over the hedgerow, a sea cucumber in an ocean of blue sky, settling, at last, on the potatoes in the next field.
This week’s share of the vegetable harvest includes assorted herb plants, which you might eat now or place in a pot for use later, more spring radishes and garlic scapes, a choice of salad mix or spinach, Red Russian kale, Vitamin Green, which is a green-stemmed choy-like vegetable, and the first cucumbers of the season. This year we are growing nearly half of our cucumbers under the cover of simple, unheated greenhouses. One of the reasons we decided to do so is that we wanted to protect the crop from storms, and, of course, we are very happy with the decision! You might try a kale soup, or simply sauté the greens with garlic, salt and oil. Next week you’ll receive Romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, red or white turnips, cucumbers, scallions, herb plants, Tatsoi (another relative of bok choy) and peas or summer squash.
Best wishes,
Ted
Last week one distraction came in the form of a 30 X 300’ sheet of row cover. These are large, white, translucent sheets that we place over our crops to protect them from insects and foul weather. We had removed the cover in order to harvest turnips, and left it in a heap at the end of the bed. A gust came along late in the day on Friday lifting the white fabric skyward. Soon, it was 50’ above where we were weeding, rising and falling in the wind. We watched as it sailed slowly over the hedgerow, a sea cucumber in an ocean of blue sky, settling, at last, on the potatoes in the next field.
This week’s share of the vegetable harvest includes assorted herb plants, which you might eat now or place in a pot for use later, more spring radishes and garlic scapes, a choice of salad mix or spinach, Red Russian kale, Vitamin Green, which is a green-stemmed choy-like vegetable, and the first cucumbers of the season. This year we are growing nearly half of our cucumbers under the cover of simple, unheated greenhouses. One of the reasons we decided to do so is that we wanted to protect the crop from storms, and, of course, we are very happy with the decision! You might try a kale soup, or simply sauté the greens with garlic, salt and oil. Next week you’ll receive Romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, red or white turnips, cucumbers, scallions, herb plants, Tatsoi (another relative of bok choy) and peas or summer squash.
Best wishes,
Ted
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Recipe: Zucchini Carpaccio with Avocado
I clipped this recipe out of the New York Times -- it's delicious!
Zucchini Carpaccio with Avocado
Adapted from ''Vegetable Harvest'' (Morrow, 2007)
Time: 10 minutes, plus 30 to 60 minutes' marinating
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus additional as needed
1/4 cup best-quality pistachio oil, almond oil or extra virgin olive oil
4 small zucchini (about 4 ounces each), trimmed
1 ripe avocado, peeled and very thinly sliced
1/4 cup salted pistachio nuts
4 sprigs fresh lemon thyme, preferably with flowers.
1. Stir together lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon salt in small jar. Add oil, cover and shake to blend.
2. Slice zucchini lengthwise as thinly as possible, using mandoline or very sharp knife. Spread slices on platter and drizzle with lemon mixture. Tilt platter to evenly coat slices. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour.
3. Alternate zucchini and avocado slices on individual salad plates, slightly overlapping each slice. Sprinkle with pistachio nuts. Season with salt to taste, garnish with lemon thyme, and serve.
Yield: 4 servings.
Zucchini Carpaccio with Avocado
Adapted from ''Vegetable Harvest'' (Morrow, 2007)
Time: 10 minutes, plus 30 to 60 minutes' marinating
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus additional as needed
1/4 cup best-quality pistachio oil, almond oil or extra virgin olive oil
4 small zucchini (about 4 ounces each), trimmed
1 ripe avocado, peeled and very thinly sliced
1/4 cup salted pistachio nuts
4 sprigs fresh lemon thyme, preferably with flowers.
1. Stir together lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon salt in small jar. Add oil, cover and shake to blend.
2. Slice zucchini lengthwise as thinly as possible, using mandoline or very sharp knife. Spread slices on platter and drizzle with lemon mixture. Tilt platter to evenly coat slices. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour.
3. Alternate zucchini and avocado slices on individual salad plates, slightly overlapping each slice. Sprinkle with pistachio nuts. Season with salt to taste, garnish with lemon thyme, and serve.
Yield: 4 servings.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
News from Windflower Farm - June 28, 2007
We planted our garlic field eight months ago, in late October, not long before the last shares of the 2006 season were delivered, and it has just begun to yield its first dividend—garlic scapes. A snake-like stalk that shoots upward from the base of the plant, the scape, which looks like it might be the bud of a large flower, makes a complete loop-the-loop before shooting skyward again.
Scapes are in your shares this week. If one is allowed to remain on the plant, a bundle of clove-like bulbs is formed at its tip. We cut the scapes off before the plants expends much energy on making bulbils because we want them to focus on making bulbs, the first of which should arrive in late August. Your scapes may be used in most ways that you use garlic cloves, although they’re a bit more fibrous. They can be tossed in a blender and stored frozen until needed. Jan and the kids have found that the scapes also make excellent bracelets, necklaces, and earrings.
We haven’t grown garlic here before, and so had to buy planting stock. We purchased some of our garlic seed stock from a Canadian grower at the Garlic Festival in Saugerties, and purchased more from a friend who farms in Pennsylvania, totaling several hundred pounds. At the festival, Jan sampled garlic-covered chocolate, garlic-honey-mustard, garlic ice-cream, garlic coffee, and a garlic margarita. Once home, we broke the bulbs apart, wanting to plant just the cloves, and, over two long days, planted into six three-row beds marked by the old Farmall, each 300’ long. We mulched the garlic using about 50 bales of rye straw immediately after planting, and then left it alone for the winter. The rye grower, who spends $600 a month on allergy medicine so that he can continue growing his grain crops, told Jan the rye mulch was weed free.
In spring, the young garlic spikes poked through the mulch well before any other crop had been established, giving us our first small success of the season. When we looked for the first signs of growth in April, we found the mulch wasn’t weed free at all, and in fact encountered our first weeding chore of the year. The Canadian stock, having come from a climate that is probably more like ours, gave us the more vigorous plants in the spring. When weeding the garlic we discovered a nest of five newborn bunnies—beautiful, soft, feather-light. And now, as I write this, Jan is outside chasing rabbits from the cucumber greenhouse in which we’ve been keeping some young broccoli plants, their favorite food, and I wonder if we made a mistake in tucking the little bunnies safely back into their fur-lined nest. Garlic filled the air following the hailstorm, the hailstones having smashed the leaves, sending the perfume into the air, lending an unreal quality to the storm’s aftermath. Time will tell what impact the storm had on the size of our bulbs, but, for now, we are happy with our scapes.
In addition to garlic scapes, this week’s share includes a head of red crisphead or Romaine lettuce, a bunch each of French Breakfast or Easter Egg radishes and white Japanese turnips, a head of the bok choy that weathered the hailstorm, a bunch of green Swiss chard, and a bunch of dill. Those of you who have a fruit share will receive red sweet cherries. If you are new to turnips, try slicing them, and then sautéing them in butter or oil and grated garlic scapes. The greens are good braised. For those planning ahead, next week’s share will include a salad mix, vitamin greens, Red Russian kale, more radishes or turnips, more garlic scapes, perennial herbs, and cucumbers or peas.
Have a wonderful week,
- Ted Blomgren
Article on CSAs in US News and World Report
Growing Crops and Community Ties: Both Help Bind a Business
By Renuka Rayasam
Posted 6/17/07
Last autumn, when Liz Adler was eight months pregnant, she was still picking squash at the Easthampton, Mass., farm she runs with her husband. Adler, a former social worker, never thought about being a farmer until she met her future husband, Ben Perrault. He was a farmer, and as Adler got to know his work firsthand, she grew to like it. "It's scary and risky, but I feel really lucky," Adler says now of her new career. "I'm excited to raise our baby on a farm."
Ben Perrault, Liz Adler, and daughter Olivia at their Mountain View Farm in western Massachusetts
JEFFREY MACMILLAN FOR USN&WR
For decades, the idyllic family farm has been threatened by rising property prices and government subsidies to large-scale agribusiness. Now, though, thanks to a new business model called community-supported agriculture, more people like Adler and Perrault are selling crops for profit.
Small farms are harnessing the rising interest in locally grown food and using savvier marketing and management to stay afloat. Food-safety scares temporarily spur shoppers to explore supermarket alternatives, and they discover that buying produce from a nearby farmer feeds the soul as well as the belly, says Mark Lattanzi of Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, a nonprofit in South Deerfield, Mass. CISA has helped small farms with a "buy local" branding campaign, which alerts consumers to who sells local produce.
Perrault, 28, who worked at organic farms after high school, and Adler, 29, acquired a farm business two years ago after deciding that consumer interest in buying locally could help them succeed. The couple renamed it Mountain View Farm, because they believed the previous name, Ol' Turtle Farm, "didn't suit us as young, up-and-coming farmers," Adler says.
Community-supported agriculture cuts out the middleman, with shareholders paying in advance to receive produce directly from the farm as it becomes available over the course of a growing season. Born in Europe in the 1920s, community-supported agriculture took root in America in the 1980s in areas where farmland borders urban communities. In 2004, there were 1,700 community-supported farms, up from 60 in 1990. Small farms in western Massachusetts, like Mountain View, now bring in crops worth more than $100 million a year, according to CISA.
Basil and bugs. Mountain View's 430 members pay between $435 and $535 a season on a sliding income scale. Shareholders pay the full amount in the spring, so farmers don't have to take out loans upfront to invest in equipment and seeds. It's a win-win relationship: Customers pay less for fresh food, and farmers get some financial security. "Last year, our basil got eaten by bugs," Perrault says. "But customers got a lot of other herbs instead." Mountain View grows over 200 varieties of crops on 25 rented acres.
Members stop by the farm to fill up a shopping bag with freshly picked vegetables from June through October. They can picnic at the farm, explore nearby trails, and pick flowers and herbs. "We are selling something very intangible: a direct relationship to the farmer," Adler says.
Adler issues a weekly newsletter with recipes and information about the harvest. Members may "expect tomatoes to be perfectly round," Perrault says, "and we have to teach them about heirloom tomatoes, which are big and funny looking." Every September, members throw a potluck harvest festival to benefit Mountain View.
Perrault and Adler started selling shares to employees at a hospital in Springfield, Mass., last year. The farm delivers weekly food baskets to the shareholders at work. "There are a lot of families," Adler says, "who want their children to know that broccoli doesn't grow on a supermarket shelf."
This story appears in the June 25, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/070617/25smallbiz.htm
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Thank you!
Dear Ted and Jan,
My husband and I are first-time members of the Prospect Heights CSA, and I'm writing for two reasons. First, a belated note to say I'm so sorry for the losses you faced due to storms over the past few weeks. I'm sure it was a stressful and exhausting time and I hope you made it through this time as well as you had hoped.
Second, I wanted to say thank you so much for the shares you delivered today. My husband picked up our share and I came home to such beautiful produce, with the extra-special treat of breakfast radishes and the most delicious strawberries. And I had tears in my eyes when I saw how carefully you wrapped the herbs.
I hope to meet you one day this summer. In the meantime, thank you for your hard work and for enhancing the culinary and aesthetic quality of our daily lives in NYC.
All the best,
Anna Pomykala
Ethan Hein
My husband and I are first-time members of the Prospect Heights CSA, and I'm writing for two reasons. First, a belated note to say I'm so sorry for the losses you faced due to storms over the past few weeks. I'm sure it was a stressful and exhausting time and I hope you made it through this time as well as you had hoped.
Second, I wanted to say thank you so much for the shares you delivered today. My husband picked up our share and I came home to such beautiful produce, with the extra-special treat of breakfast radishes and the most delicious strawberries. And I had tears in my eyes when I saw how carefully you wrapped the herbs.
I hope to meet you one day this summer. In the meantime, thank you for your hard work and for enhancing the culinary and aesthetic quality of our daily lives in NYC.
All the best,
Anna Pomykala
Ethan Hein
Thursday, June 14, 2007
First Share Favor ...Pick-Up Plea
I am going to miss my first farm share next week as I will be away on vacation and I was wondering if a fellow shareholder would be kind enough to pick up my share. I will return on June 23, so I'll have most of the week to use my veggies. Please let me know if you can help. Thanks!
Monday, June 4, 2007
Chuck Bennett. "Crop Shop Craze, Farm Shares Sizzle." NYPost, 4 June 2007.
Thought you might find this article from today's New York Post interesting.
CROP SHOP CRAZE
FARM SHARES SIZZLE
By CHUCK BENNETT
June 4, 2007 -- The hottest summer shares aren't just in the Hamptons.
New Yorkers are snapping up shares in organic-farming harvests faster than Sag Harbor rentals as the community-supported agriculture trend blooms.
There are 50 community-supported agriculture clubs, or CSAs, in the city that ensure members a weekly supply of the freshest produce in town. Twenty of them have already sold out their seasonal harvest shares, according to the nonprofit group Just Food.
"This year, we sold out by the beginning of April," said Steven Waxman, coordinator of the Carnegie Hill/Yorkville CSA in Manhattan, which has 190 shares of the Stoneledge Farm in upstate South Cairo. "You definitely have a food element, but there is also a general wariness of commercial produce."
For a fee ranging from $225 to $600, New Yorkers can purchase a share in a harvest from a regional organic farmer through their local CSA.
Each week, shareholders collect a big bag of fresh, organic produce containing seven to 10 different vegetables - all delivered personally by the farmer to a makeshift distribution center.
"It starts with just supporting a local farmer and eating fresh, organic vegetables. That's the main reason people do it," said Chris Caveglia, coordinator of the Cobble Hill CSA in Brooklyn. "It's cheaper than going to the grocery store, deli or even farmers market."
With 200 shares, Cobble Hill CSA is the city's largest. There were still about 20 shares available, Caveglia said, but those were expected to go by the time the first shipment from the Green Thumb Organic Farm in Water Mill, L.I., arrives later this month.
Part of the attraction of CSAs is getting veggies not found in even the fanciest grocery stores.
"Most people primarily know butternut and acorn squash. We get delicata squash, the sweetest, most amazing squash. Just cut it and bake it. It's fantastic," raved Bernie DeLeo, coordinator of the sold-out Chubby Bunny CSA on the Upper West Side.
Most CSAs will receive their first batch later this month with weekly shipments until late November. In addition to vegetables, CSAs offer fruit, eggs from free-range chickens, meat from organically raised animals, honey, maple syrup and dairy products, such as raw milk or artisan cheeses.
"It's very social," Waxman said. "We have potluck dinners. We have trips to the farm. People get to know their neighbors."
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06042007/news/regionalnews/crop_shop_craze_regionalnews_chuck_bennett.htm
Friday, June 1, 2007
Cows Unite!
From Sustainable Table (http://www.sustainabletable.org):
Because we know that you care about where your food comes from, as well as the animals and farmers that produce it, we thought you might like to check out this new website and action campaign. Also, check out our road trip info below--Sustainable Table might be coming to a family farm near you!
Sustainable Table supports the bossy bovine sisters of Cows Unite in their mission to get dairy-loving humans to choose the best organic milk. According to their Bovine Bill of Rights, this means choosing milk that comes from cows that are given the rights to pasture, sunshine, exercise, clean air, and freedom from antibiotics and toxic chemicals. Rise up! Learn more and join their movement at http://www.cowsunite.org.
The bovine sisters thank you!
And coming this summer to a family farm near you...The Eat Well Guided Tour of America!
Join us in person or online to celebrate sustainable food! Visit http://www.sustainabletable.org/roadtrip for details.
Kicking off in Hollywood on August 2, Sustainable Table's "Eat Well Guided Tour of America" will travel across the United States, stopping in towns in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, all in hopes of getting to the Farm Aid concert in time. They'll visit family farms, farmers markets, and restaurants that serve local, in-season, sustainably-produced food. Some stops will be hosted by local groups that will help bring together area residents for barbecues and events that will include local food, great conversation, and local music.
Because we know that you care about where your food comes from, as well as the animals and farmers that produce it, we thought you might like to check out this new website and action campaign. Also, check out our road trip info below--Sustainable Table might be coming to a family farm near you!
Sustainable Table supports the bossy bovine sisters of Cows Unite in their mission to get dairy-loving humans to choose the best organic milk. According to their Bovine Bill of Rights, this means choosing milk that comes from cows that are given the rights to pasture, sunshine, exercise, clean air, and freedom from antibiotics and toxic chemicals. Rise up! Learn more and join their movement at http://www.cowsunite.org.
The bovine sisters thank you!
And coming this summer to a family farm near you...The Eat Well Guided Tour of America!
Join us in person or online to celebrate sustainable food! Visit http://www.sustainabletable.org/roadtrip for details.
Kicking off in Hollywood on August 2, Sustainable Table's "Eat Well Guided Tour of America" will travel across the United States, stopping in towns in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, all in hopes of getting to the Farm Aid concert in time. They'll visit family farms, farmers markets, and restaurants that serve local, in-season, sustainably-produced food. Some stops will be hosted by local groups that will help bring together area residents for barbecues and events that will include local food, great conversation, and local music.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
help with pickups Sept- Nov? barter?
Hey fellow CSA members,
I just found out that I will be commuting out of state for the 07/08 academic year for a teaching job. I'll be out of town from Monday night until Thursday night each week when school is in session. That means I'll miss the Thursday CSA pick-up times starting in September.
Is there anyone who would be willing to pick up my share for me in exchange for something? We could barter for dog or catsitting on weekends, for artwork, a small fee, website design or updating, or some other service or trade. I could pick up the share on Friday morning or any time after that.
Another possibility is that someone could take over my share starting in September, although I would like to avoid forfeiting my share if at all possible.
Please feel free to contact me with any suggestions or ideas you might have...
I just found out that I will be commuting out of state for the 07/08 academic year for a teaching job. I'll be out of town from Monday night until Thursday night each week when school is in session. That means I'll miss the Thursday CSA pick-up times starting in September.
Is there anyone who would be willing to pick up my share for me in exchange for something? We could barter for dog or catsitting on weekends, for artwork, a small fee, website design or updating, or some other service or trade. I could pick up the share on Friday morning or any time after that.
Another possibility is that someone could take over my share starting in September, although I would like to avoid forfeiting my share if at all possible.
Please feel free to contact me with any suggestions or ideas you might have...
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
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