Creative culinary combinations

Dear KCSA community,
 
The next couple of weeks we are playing greens potluck at the farm! Bolting arugula (you can eat the flowers), slow growing kale, insects in the collards, and some timing issues has made the greens harvest a little unpredictable. Members will find some sort of combination of kale, collards, chard, arugula, bok choy, mizuna and mustard in their boxes this week.
 
Not to feel left out, the herbs are also in for a round robin. Thyme, parsley, savory, rosemary, and sorrel are all ready to get picked. Think of all the creative culinary combinations!
 
Summer officially makes way for winter this week. Move aside zepher, crookneck and patty pans: all hail the butternut! Our experiment with Spaghetti squash never quite made it past the planning stages…maybe next year?

We are expecting some mid-40F lows by the weekend, so tomatoes, peppers and eggplants will continue to chug along before that first frost. Unfortunately, the ripening process does not seem to be able to keep up with the picking despite Sara and Mandi spraying the plants with liquid sunshine, AKA B.D. prep 501.
 
And, Marilyn and Gretchen have tabulated the 2020 fledges from our Purple Martin Colony. A total of 53 baby birds from KCSA’s gourds and new T-14 housing system are currently on their migratory path back to the Amazon Basin. This is over twice as many as the colony produced last year! A big thank you to both of them for their hard work and diligence. We hope they have safe passage and their winter roost (technically summer in South America) has not been destroyed by the devastating forest fires.
 
Cheers,
Andrew

Fall farm flowers

Dear KCSA community,
 
Our latest succession of lettuce is not quite ready yet. In lieu, we will have a combination of arugula, mizuna and mustard greens on the share that can double up as salad greens if you dig that slight, horseradishy heat. We have tried a new variety of arugula this fall, which, supposedly, is more closely related to wild arugula than our regular cultivated type. Arugula is native to the Mediterranean where it is more commonly known as Rocket: Blast off!
 
As you may have noticed, the farm becomes a hotbed of pollinator activity in the fall. There is lots of action in the herb beds as the mints and alliums flower! Of course, we have more than a few enticers in there as well, with our Anise Hissop being the top bee attraction.

Our Gardens Underground flower garden (you know the one beside the pick-up shed) is also a big hit with the pollinators. Ex-KSCA intern (2012) Jonathan Kraus has meticulously designed and produced a festival of foliage for us all season long. I’m sure some cold hardy mums and some additional fall bulbs will be planted over the next couple of months or so to add some flourish and nectar in the late fall and early spring, respectively. You can email Jon to inquire about his services: gardensunderground@gmail.com.

There are plenty of potential bouquets still out in the u-pick flowers. Becky suggested adding Mexican sunflowers to the rotation this year and I have been amazed at the butterfly activity they have encouraged! There are also statice, cosmos, zinnias and strawflowers out there.
 
Even our basil buds are a-buzz with bees! The food it has provided for our members as well as our insect populations since mid-June is a win-win. It has been an awesome basil season.
 
And finally, where the most flowers are currently located on the farm: our buckwheat cover crop! Not only is buckwheat a great pollinator forage crop, but it helps protect the soil against bad nematodes as well as being a fast germinator that helps to smother any potential weeds. In addition to providing us with the ability to mow in "green manure" (probably happening this week), buckwheat has the unique ability to scavenge for phosphorous in the soil, which makes it an even more potent cover crop. The sections where the buckwheat is located will be primed for our fall garlic planting. Incidentally, garlic loves phosphorous…
 
Cheers,
Andrew

A plethora of crop successes.

Dear KCSA community,
 
It’s the first of September tomorrow! Where has the summer gone? As we move into fall, the farm will start to get ready for winter hibernation.
 
As the weather cools and the days get shorter and shorter, more fall greens will be on the share. Mustard, mizuna, bok choy, kale and arugula will be making an appearance over the next couple of weeks. Our lettuce, napa cabbage, regular cabbage, and spinach are a little further off. And, if the timing works out, we should also have some minutina and claytonia (AKA miners’ lettuce) available in November. More on them later.

The only vegetables left to transplant outside are the last few successions of lettuce, dill and cilantro. We managed to get almost all of the last direct sowing completed. Unfortunately, the timing for our fall green beans did not work out. I’m sure you all remember the spring corn maggots? Well, the delayed replanting of our 1st succession of zucchini messed up the timing with the beans. They are frost sensitive and we basically ran out of time before we ran out of zucchinis!
 
And that's the only sowing we have missed all season. We have had a plethora of crop successes! It really has been a fantastic year so far. This should hopefully continue into fall, and in addition to all those greens mentioned above, we’ll have daikon and watermelon radish, turnips, beets, kohlrabi, broccoli, butternut squash and sweet potatoes. Can't wait!

Cheers,
Andrew

Broccoli

  • The word “broccoli” comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means “the flowering crest of a cabbage.” That’s right, broccoli is a large edible flower!

  • Just one cup of broccoli provides over 100 percent of your daily vitamin C (twice the amount of an orange) and vitamin K. It is also a good source of vitamin A, folate, and potassium. 

  • To maximize these nutritional benefits broccoli should be eaten raw. However, it is just as delicious steamed, sauteed, roasted, and blanched.

  • Fun fact, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest Broccoli ever grown weighed in at 35lbs!

RECIPES 

Blistered Broccoli with Garlic and Chiles

  • 1 head broccoli, cut into 16 pieces

  • ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

  • 2 cloves garlic cloves, thinly sliced

  • 1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes

  • Juice and zest of 1 lemon

  • Sea salt to taste 

Preheat a large cast-iron skillet or griddle over high heat. Place the broccoli in the skillet and char until blistered on one side. Turn and char the other side. Transfer to a large heatproof bowl. Clean out the pan and put over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add garlic and pepper flakes and cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic is golden brown, about 2 minutes. Pour the oil over the broccoli and turn to coat. Let marinate for 10 minutes. Drizzle with lemon juice and lemon zest, and serve hot or at room temperature. (https://www.cleanplates.com/know/nutrition/boost-brain-broccoli/)

Creamy Broccoli Chickpea Soup

Roasted Broccoli and Kohlrabi Salad

30 Minute Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken with Sesame Ginger Broccoli

Favorite Broccoli Salad 

For more information see:

The Encyclopedia of Food

Specialty Produce

Butternut Squash

  • Butternut squash is shaped like a bell with smooth but tough beige colored skin.

  • The inner flesh is orange and pumpkin-like in both color and texture. The white flat seeds inside are also similar to pumpkin seeds.

  • Butternut squash is known for its pleasant, sweet mild flavor. In cooking, the flesh becomes smooth and soft and is excellent roasted as a side dish, or made into soup. It can also be used as an alternative to pumpkin or sweet potato.

  • To prepare, slice off the stem and bottom ends of the squash so both ends are flat. Slice the squash in half, just where the thinner end begins to widen around the middle. Turn each half so that a flat end rests against the cutting board. Use a sharp serrated peeler or paring knife to peel off the skin in downward strokes, but be careful to not break your peeler! Peel until the orange flesh remains. Use a spoon to scoop out seeds. Dice to desired thickness.

  • Store in a cool dry place, like your kitchen counter.

RECIPES

Roasted Butternut Squash

  • 1 large butternut squash (about 3 pounds) peeled, seeded and cut in 1” chunks

  • 3 tbsp olive oil

  • 2 tsp salt

  • 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degree F. Place the squash on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper and toss well. Arrange squash in one layer and roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until squash is tender, turning once with a metal spatula. Remove from the oven, cool and enjoy. (https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roasted-butternut-squash-recipe-1921606)

Butternut Squash Harissa Hummus & Fried Egg Tartine

Spiced Winter Squash Seeds

Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut Squash Pie 

Slow Cooker Saucy Thai Butternut Squash Curry with Noodles

For more information see:

The Encyclopedia of Food

Specialty Produce

Lettuce prey.

Dear KCSA community,
 
Bolting (prematurely flowering) lettuce is common in the hot and humid summer months here in SE PA. Lettuce simply can’t stand the heat! It either shuts down entirely (goes dormant) or panics and goes into emergency reproduction mode (bolting). Growing lettuce when it is cooler—in spring and fall—is a lot more predictable and produces the biggest, crispest, and sweetest heads.
 
This season, we were so close to having 13 straight weeks of lettuce on the share. That’s definitely our record of consecutive weeks! Even at this point, exactly halfway through the season, and despite the fact that we have literally just run out of lettuce (don’t panic, we just planted more), I feel confident enough to say that this is our best lettuce year so far…
 
This is no accident. Each successive year we tweak the lettuce sowing schedule. After year one, we realized we needed to increase the number of sowings per season and focus on growing more heat tolerant lettuce varieties. After year two, we further increased the sowings per season and trialed many different heat tolerant varieties of lettuce to find the most adaptable to our farm. And, after year three, we narrowed our head lettuce varieties down to the six best performers. With, yet again, a slightly higher sowing frequency rate, we reduced the number of heads grown in each succession, forcing our hand to harvest the heads when they were little more compact. This has meant less wastage and more harvested heads for members—a win, win! 

Now, we can’t claim that every member got two heads of lettuce each week because there were a couple of harvests where some members got bagged salad mix. This salad mix was also part of our latest experimentation in trying to curb KCSA’s mid-summer bolting lettuce dilemma! It didn’t quite work out to plan; however, we did get some harvesting from it. Not only was the timing slightly off, but the lettuce still prematurely bolted despite successfully lowering the temperature in the tunnels with the shade cloth. Not only was it still hot in there (it has been a consistently very hot summer), we believe the shaded structure stressed the plants, especially over the last few overcast weeks, and made them “leggy”.
 
This happened with the tomatoes in 2018. Now, for those who don’t remember, 2018 was a really wet year. In July we also had a two week stretch of storms and overcast weather where it felt like we didn’t see the sun! That season, we were experimenting with shade cloths over the tomato tunnel to reduce the temperature in the tunnel to decrease the damage caused to the flowers by excessive heat (>90F can = dead flowers). We didn’t have enough shade cloths to cover the whole structure, so the plants at the front of the house (unshaded) looked fine and the plants at the rear of the structure (shaded) were 6ft taller and spindly. It was quite bizarre.
 
So, as clear, bright skies in the summer months become less consistent and predictable, shade cloths over tunnels do not seem to be the solution to reduce bolting! In fact, it could be exacerbating the issue during the new normal of unpredictable weather. We have been tweaking our tomato plantings to try and accommodate this as well. The importance of having lettuce all season is up for debate. Perhaps, the solution is to figure out what other greens we could prioritize to have as a substitute for lettuce in late August/early September?
 
Dandelions have been introduced for this reason, but we know they are not everyone’s cup o’ tea! We tried to get collards in earlier this year, but they have been mercilessly attacked by flea beetles and harlequin beetles, and are not a good substitute for salad. Neither is chard, despite its versatility and our seamless spring to fall transition! Maybe, the lull in salad greens is inevitable? We just have to accept that and move on…
 
Cheers,
Andrew

Peak Peppers!

Dear KCSA community,
 
Not too much to report since last week's newsletter. We have survived the rain and overcast weather and are looking forward to some sun and cooler temperatures this week. Hopefully the ground will dry out soon! We should still have time to direct sow our fall turnips, radishes, carrots, beans, beets and spinach if conditions remain favorable this week!

We are also getting ready to transplant our fall bok choy, mustard greens, arugula, napa cabbage and kohlrabi. We are on to our last landscape-orientated, letter-sized page in our sowing schedule. There are "officially" only three sowings left! From our perspective, the last sowing of the season is always bitter sweet.

We are past peak tomato season now, but we are right in the midst of peak pepper season. The Sullivan Pepper plants are loaded (although we just harvest over a thousand of them today!)

There remains plenty of cherry tomatoes and hot peppers out their for u-pick. The basil is still hanging in there as well!

There are labels for the hot peppers out in the field as we don't want members to spoil their dinner with the accidental addition of a ghost pepper! Our hot pepper identification guide is also on our website.

It has been a great harvest season thus far and, weather permitting, this should continue into the fall. Over the next couple of weeks, members will notice a lull in the greens that are available. We believe, though, that the last 12 weeks of harvest and all the current summer goodies make up the difference!

See you at the pick up shed.

Andrew

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Dear KCSA community,
 
What a crazy week! Tropical storms, electrical storms, burst creek banks, power outages and closed roads. Most members made it out to pick-up though! Got to get those veggies!
 
By the way, the Kennedy Bridge is reopened again. I am personally very glad about that as the downed trees and bridge closure increased my commute 20-fold last week! Although, looking on the bright-side, this did give me some phone charging time with the power out.
 
We are in another transitional period at the farm. Spring plantings have either ended or are coming to an end. Fall plantings are not quite ready yet. This usually means a little lull in the available greens. Not only is there a gap between plantings for spring and fall but any greens planned for summer usually struggle. Dill and cilantro are done for a while. Lettuce is touch and go as well. We’ll continue to try our best over the next few weeks but we are largely reliant on our summer crops. This means peppers, eggplants and tomatoes…oh my!
 
A new addition to u-pick this week are our red hot chili peppers! They’ll be on at a quart, so there is no need to give them a weigh, give them a weigh, give them a weigh, now…when harvesting. Please see our hot pepper identification guide for the hottest. Shishitos are now also on u-pick.


 

This week we have also started harvesting our famed Sullivan’s Favorite Italian Frying Pepper. For those not in the know, the Sullivan's are the original farmers of Kimberton CSA. They started the farm in 1987 along with the Kimberton Waldorf School and interested members in the community. That means Barbara and Kerry Sullivan were the first farmers in Pennsylvania, and the third in the U.S., to manage and run a CSA.

Now, from my understanding the Sullivan Favorite is derived from a hybrid Italian frying pepper. Clearly, the Sullivan's loved a challenge, as saving seed from a hybrid is a lot more complicated than saving pepper seed from an open pollinated (O.P.) variety.


For an O.P. variety, the seed has already been stabilized, so all you need to do is pick the traits you want to enhance in that variety, i.e., taste, size, color, and then save seed and resow that seed every year. However, with a hybrid, you also need to stabilize the peppers to ensure consistency when saving the seed from year to year.
 
To put this in perspective, after saving seed from a hybrid pepper and resowing that seed the second year, your plants will produce (on average) a third of the mama pepper, a third of the papa pepper and a third of the offspring pepper—the offspring pepper is the original hybrid you want to save. So, even before saving the offspring peppers, you need to identify and then dispose of the mama and papa pepper plants and then select peppers from the offspring plants with the traits you want to enhance.

Once you resow those offspring pepper seeds the third year, (on average) you will produce a sixth of the mama peppers, a sixth of the papa pepper and two thirds of the offspring pepper. After identifying and disposing of the mama and papa peppers again, you can select peppers from the offspring to resow the following year. This needs to continue for a couple more years to stabilize the seed as an O.P. variety (and still a mama and papa pepper plant might randomly appear)!

So, after many years of stabilizing the hybrid pepper, the Sullivan's started saving the seed for Turtle Tree Seed, a biodynamic seed saving workshop out of Camphill Village in Copake, NY. We continue to save the Sullivan Favorite seeds, following in the footsteps of the Sullivan's and our direct predecessors: Birgit and Erik Landowne. They really are a great tasting pepper!
 
Cheers,
Andrew