CSA Newsletter for October 4, 2014

Farm Update

The pigs are eating like crazy these days, and they are really
loving all the farm scraps!

Hello everyone!  As we get farther into fall, our warm season crops like tomatoes and snap beans are becoming less abundant, and they are slowly being replaced by cool weather veggies like spinach and Brussels sprouts.  The pigs are really tearing up their pasture with all their rooting; this is the time of year when they eat like crazy, so they are always looking for food wherever they can get it, including under several inches of mud in their pasture.  We have been having a lot easier time with insect pests than we usually do this time of year.  The aphids in particular usually make a real mess of the Brussels sprouts, but this year the rain and a combination of organic sprays (diatomaceous earth and chrysanthemum extract) have really helped keep them under control.  The weather has also been cooperating quite nicely; so far we've only had a really slight frost, which has meant that our summer crops have held on longer than they often would.  We're hoping that the frost continues to hold off, but this time of year, you never know.  At this point, the availability of certain items becomes less predictable, as a frost could damage a crop that we had predicted would be in the shares, and we would have to replace it with something else.  The farming season naturally starts winding down now for a reason, as conditions gradually get less and less hospitable for plants and people alike.  But this is also the time to keep going and finish strong, because there will be plenty of time for rest when everything is covered with snow.

What to Expect in This Week's Share

Spinach is back!  Woohoo!

• Choice of spinach and Brussels sprouts
• Choice of large leaf salad mix, regular salad mix, and broccoli leaves
• Choice of sweet potatoes and cherry tomatoes
• Choice of snap beans and broccoli
• Choice of carrots and beets
• Choice of kale, fennel, and cabbage
• Choice of slicing tomato or baby head lettuce

It's All About the Soil

Fred harvests tiny purple carrots
for a tricolor baby carrot mix.

At the farm, our soil is central to all that we do with our crops and our animals. Although the soil doesn't look like much and it's not very romantic, it is necessary for the existence of life on Earth and possibly the most important factor in how we manage the farm. Our farm’s theory is that it is important to build the soil up using practices that encourage strong, vibrant biological life and a chemically balanced soil that can adequately feed and sustain our crops. The more conventional agricultural theory over the last half century has been to focus on just the chemical needs of the crops. However, this one-track thinking ends up turning into a cycle where biological life in the soil is not in balance because of chemical inputs. Then more chemical inputs are needed to control the weeds, diseases, and insects that are attracted to a soil and crop that are not balanced biologically. In the end you end up with a lot of chemicals in the environment and in your food, and a soil that can't produce anything without ever more chemical inputs.  What we do is focus on the basics of good biological farming, which looks at soil inputs not just for their chemical properties, but from a more holistic approach. We look at how every task and input in the field works together to encourage or discourage building a healthy soil.

Doesn't this red head lettuce look gorgeous?

So what do we do in the field to encourage this biological life? For starters we use only naturally occurring fertilizers like chicken manure, compost, fish emulsion, and a variety of mined minerals that are still in their natural non-synthetic form. We use these natural products because all of the bugs, bacteria, and other critters in the soil are used to dealing with these substances in the natural world.

These broccoli leaves will be in the
shares this week, and they can be
used in the same way as any other
cooking green.

At the start of the season we do a soil test and take it to Morgan’s Composting, which specializes in organic soil fertility. There, we put together a mix that addresses the specific needs of our soil. We spread it on at the beginning of the season and then supplement with chicken manure pellets and fish emulsion as needed. Some heavy feeders like sweet corn and potatoes get more chicken pellets applied to them because they naturally take more nutrients from the soil, and crops like leaf lettuce may not get any supplementary feeding at all. Also important is how we physically treat the soil. We minimize the amount of heavy machinery going over the soil by using small equipment, and even things like cultivators are pushed by hand. Heavy machinery often drives out the air from the soil, causing the biological life to be starved for oxygen. We do not work the soil when it is too wet, as it will clump together causing areas that are oxygen starved, and then also large areas with too much oxygen. We also use cover crops that help hold the soil in place, capturing nutrients during non-production times of the season such as the winter, very early spring, and very late fall. Cover crops help keep the soil from washing away during the snow melt and heavy rains that are common in the colder months of the year.

In the end, we believe that a chemically balanced and biologically healthy soil yields the most nutritious and delicious crops. Though some of these practices we use are more labor intensive and more costly, we feel that it has paid off over the last few years as people have been able to taste and see the high quality produce that these efforts have yielded.

Recipes

Spinach and sweet potatoes are back!  In honor of some of my favorite fall foods, here are some simple and delicious recipes for each of them!

Garlic Sauteed Spinach:  Check out this mega easy side dish recipe from Ina Garten that really lets spinach be the star!  This is perfect for chilly evenings, which will probably be in plentiful supply in the near future.

Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes: Check out this entire gallery of 25 Healthy Sweet Potato Recipes, but the Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes looked particularly awesome!