Summer Solstice - a poem from 2005 by founder Oakes Plimpton

Summer Solstice

Full moon, evening star out on the night before the Solstice.
Summer is already here though, contrary to the weatherman;
Flowers blooming, warm days - OK cloudy and cool this June,
But nice and hot this very day!

Is it not too ordinary around here?!
No all night Scandinavian bacchanal where the sun never sets!
Could we build cairns of stones and have the drama of ritual dance?
We can rise at sunrise at Robbin's Farm and say a few well-chosen words.
But will it live up to primitive ritual - to the Druids of Stonehenge!?

Do you not wish you lived then??
When I was seventeen I attended a Shoshone sun ceremony,
All night long drums and dance in a great tent
Until the sun rose in the East. Then the great Chief spoke!
Who shall speak for us?? Well, we will gather still and see the sun arise.

Robbins Farm, once a farm, is a park on a hill with a view of all of Boston. 6/5/05

Notes from the Field: Summer Solstice

The sun stood still last week at the northernmost point in its travels up the sky. The weekend full moon was huge, the closest to the earth it will come this year. A double rainbow graced the sky after a brutal thunderstorm pounded the fields with yet more rain. We plowed under the spring's cover crop, driving the tractors through fields of purple and white vetch and pea flowers under a perfect blue sky to prepare the way for the fall's broccoli and cauliflower. Must be summer.

The beautiful weather at week's end was a balm to farmers to whom the spiritual exercise of waiting and acceptance does not come easily in the rain. Dan, Sutton and Zannah jumped on the tractors to cultivate everything in sight, and the weed crew followed behind to clean up what was left. We were grateful once again for our well-drained sandy loam soils as the sun and light breeze quickly dried them out and left them perfect for planting and cultivating. The field crew, who had their first few days with us last week, proved that they are up to the task, picking beautiful bunches of greens and radishes and transplanting chard, rutabaga and beets for harvest later in the season. We ferried a thousand tomato stakes to the fields at the Lyman Estate, ready to tie up the robust, stout tomato plants that escaped their brush with the pythium soil fungus during the wet weather and now stand as tall as our knees. We released our first batch of beneficial parasitic wasps, to try again to cut down on the fuzzy yellow bean beetle larvae that can decimate a bean planting. We seeded a summer buckwheat cover crop on a fallow field even as we turned in our spring cover crops. Fava beans grew. Carrots and squashes lengthened and fattened. Pigs seemed hungrier than usual once the rain stopped and they could forage outside again. The sun stands still, but farmers and vegetables don't.

Still, there is a subtle shift in the tasks of the season at the solstice, despite the fact that weeding, planting, harvest and field preparation continue. The twin hurdles of the summer -- staking and tying tomatoes and planting the big block of fall brassicas -- are still before us. As those finish, we'll turn our thoughts and bodies to the summer's heavy harvests: summer squash and cucumbers in July, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes in August. The fruiting crops remind us that the energy of summer is in ripening, maturing - the work of completion and fulfillment that tends towards the autumn seed. The quick growth of the crops (and weeds!) on sunny summer days is almost visible to the naked eye. Vegetable plants are building their framework, adding on daily, growing above and below the soil during these longest days, resting at night to prepare for more growth, more stretching, more expansion during the day. And although we farmers sometimes barely notice it in the full business of the season, the solstice is an immovable marker on the wheel of the year. It comes, and passes, whether we observe it or not. The crops tell us. The sun tells us. Our tired bodies remind us. Summer's work is upon us.

Enjoy the harvest,

Amanda, for the farm crew

Photos courtesy of Saul Blumenthal.

Notes from the Field: Abundance

All morning with dry instruments
The field repeats the sound
of rain
from memory...
It is August
The flocks are beginning to form
                       -- WS Merwin, from Provision

It's everywhere in the natural world:  spider webs and seed heads, the slant of the sun ever further to the south, the deep colors of goldenrod and purple asters, young hawks riding the air currents over the farm all day, the small flocks of migrating geese already in the air at dawn and dusk.  Summer is maturing, beginning to give up the fight, but glorious in its decline.  The harvest is rolling in.

This is what we plan for in January, poring over seed catalogs and spreadsheets.  Our seeding and transplanting for the season are almost complete, right on schedule -- just one more round of lettuce and bok choy and a couple more seedings of arugula and mustard greens to go.  There are a few more weeks of good growing weather left, but the sunsets are creeping ever earlier and time is growing short to have any impact on the crops, except for pulling them out of the field.  Some crops are coming in much better than we had planned -- cucumbers, tomatoes, and garlic, for example.  Some are not as good -- the leeks and onions in our unirrigated Lyman Estate field, for example.  It's becoming very clear that unless we can figure out a way to irrigate that field, we won't be able to continue to use it in future seasons.  There are successes and challenges in any season, but the general -- and beautiful -- impression of this time of year is that of abundance, of enough to go around.  Abundance is satisfying at a primal level, an old fulfillment of the promise of the spring, somehow related to the fleeting sadness we have in these cool, beautiful evenings.  It is satisfying to us as farmers because enough is our goal, the destination of every season in which we set seed into the earth.  Abundance is beautiful.  It is also backbreaking.

Now there are days when all we do is harvest.  In the mornings, the crops that benefit from being picked cool:  lettuce and greens, cabbage and broccoli.  In the afternoons, the crops that like to come in dry:  onions, curing in the greenhouse still, another round of melons, tomatoes.  Tomato picking at the end of July is a technical art:  hunting for ripe tomatoes in cascades of green leaves, working from newest planting to oldest in order to minimize the spread of disease, etc.  Tomato picking in early September is an endurance sport.  Two at a time, we fill two five-gallon buckets at a time, carry them to the ends of the rows, sort, repeat.  Abundance says:  did you think enough would be easy?   

On the rare afternoon when we don't have to harvest anything, we have tractor ballet.  Three or four tractors at a time get attached to the mower, the disk harrow, and cultivators and make their way around the farm, tidying up, turning in, and killing weeds in the beds and pathways of the tiny fall greens.  This is the other satisfying work of the late season:  putting the field to rights for the winter.  Turning in crops that are finished, preparing the fields for cover crop seeds later in the week, making neat and orderly what was bountiful and chaotic.

There's a lot of harvest still to come. But this fleeting moment of abundance, where tomatoes, basil and zucchini overlap with broccoli, radishes and fall cabbage, comes only once a year.

Enjoy the harvest.

Amanda, for the farm crew

Notes from the Field: July

July. Vacation time for many people, but not so much for farmers. Long, hot days perfect for vegetable growing. Garlic harvest, tomato tying, broccoli planting, irrigating, cultivating -- there's a reason I can't remember much about July from year to year. This is nature's peak season, every square inch of ground teeming with life and the harvest beginning to pour in.

July is not a time of the year that's commonly thought of as a time to tinker or experiment for farmers. Generally we are going full speed ahead implementing a plan we created in January, just trying to keep our heads above water and get as much done as we can before tomato harvests fill the afternoons. Last week, though, both Dan and I got projects done that we had had on our lists for -- well, for years. Dan used an old 55 gallon drum to turn our homemade transplanter into a water wheel. The water wheel adds a little water to the hole it creates for each plant as it goes into the ground, very important for fall broccoli and cabbage transplanted in the heat of summer. We are lucky enough to have overhead irrigation, which we've been using often during this hot weather to water in transplants, but overhead has its drawbacks too -- it splashes soil, which can cause plant leaf diseases (especially on crops that are in the ground for a couple of months, like those fall brassicas), and helps weeds as much as crops, since it's watering the whole bed. The water wheel gives a little starter water to the plant while keeping the rest of the field clean and dry, at least until the next thunderstorm.  So why haven't we finished this project before? July. It's one of the classic "if it's not raining, my roof doesn't leak, and if it is raining, I can't fix it" conundrums. For most the rest of the year, we can time our transplanting around upcoming rain, or use existing soil moisture and cool temperatures to help establish plants; in July, when we need the water wheel, it's July.

The other project we finished last week is similar -- I spent an hour reconfiguring our boom sprayer so that it could fold properly to travel between the rows of tomatoes to spray organically approved fungicides if weather conditions warrant. Those of you who remember the late blight epidemic of 2009 will know that this has been on my mind since then. So why this year? Why this July? The answer is one you all should be aware of: weed crew, and field crew.

2012 is the third year that we've had a designated, paid weed crew who come in at eight every weekday and handweed or hoe or clip weeds until noon. We'll talk more about weeds on our farm in upcoming newsletters, but for now suffice it to say that this crew has completely changed the way we're able to spend our time on the farm. This year, Annabelle, Becca, Katy, Meghan and Maura have been diligently working since the beginning of June on each exacting planting of carrots, the daunting giant field of onions at the Lyman Estate, the quick-and-dirty work of cleaning up the cherry tomatoes as we are tying them, and every other weeding project on the farm. They've had help from some volunteer groups and from our own bookkeeper, Deb, who is keeping our flower garden meticulously clean. On our farm, the weeding is never really done. In general, though, these women are the reason that shareholders can find sugar snap peas in the pick-your-own and that we can harvest carrots without wading through waist-high weeds (we've done it -- no fun). They are independent, unendingly cheerful, incredibly dedicated, and basically, the reason that we can work on other projects in July. We can't thank them enough.

Our field crew, who started on the farm on June 19, have already taken our work to the next level. Their first week it was 95 degrees for three days in a row. It poured rain all day on their first Monday, and thunder and lightning chased them out of the field for an hour. They picked all day long, learning the ins and outs of harvesting crops as delicate as carrots and spinach and as tricky as beets. They pounded tomato stakes, tied tomatoes, transplanted chard, beets, lettuce, squash, and okra, direct seeded watermelons to replace a diseased crop at our Gateways field, and moved irrigation. All in their first two weeks on the farm.

When we thought about this year last winter, we knew that these first two weeks of July would be a critical point in our season. Making sure that all of our tomatoes were staked and tied at the same time as we were transplanting more than a full acre of fall brassicas, with the garlic harvest, earlier every year, likely right in the middle of all of it, has always been a time when we get behind on other tasks -- it's a juggling act that often ends with one or more balls dropped and rolling off into the weeds, never to be found again until the fall. Oops, never got a second string on the cherry tomatoes. Oops, a little late getting those beds made for the second round of broccoli. Oops, missed a planting of lettuce. It's July.

By last Friday, though, Alison, Anna, Cat and Dave had put us in a position where not only are the balls still in the air, but we seem to be developing some sense of rhythm in our juggling. Thanks to them, Sutton and Zannah were able to prepare all seventy-plus beds for the fall brassicas, disking, chiseling, adding alfalfa meal and basketing them down, so that when the plants are ready to go into the ground later this week, there is a beautifully prepared field waiting for them. We'll start our garlic harvest later today, with any luck, pulling the bulbs and bringing them in to dry down in our big greenhouse until they are properly cured and ready to use. And the weather -- well, we can't complain. Really. It's a long season -- it's not even the All-Star break yet -- and there's a lot of work still to come, but right now we are joyfully rolling along in a July that feels better than it has in a while. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Alison, Annabelle, Anna, Becca, Cat, Dave, Katie, Meghan and Maura. We could not do it without you.



Enjoy the harvest,



Amanda (for the farm crew)

Notes from the Field: Spring Strawberries

April is the cruelest month, wrote the poet TS Eliot, and it was too true for our strawberry plants this year.  Organic strawberries are notoriously hard to grow.  Weeds, pests and diseases all have their way with them; cold weather at flowering can lead to an impoverished crop; wet weather during harvest season leads to grey mold and berry collapse.  This 'berry roulette' is compounded by the fact that growing traditional perennial June-bearing strawberries means berries need to pay their way for the entire year during a brief harvest period of about two weeks to a month.  For the other eleven months, they are just a maintenance headache for vegetable farmers who are trying to keep up with other tasks.   Essentially, strawberries on an organic vegetable farm are a delicious, labor intensive gamble. 

Intellectualizing about strawberries, of course, is totally obliterated by the first bite of a sun-warmed strawberry in June.  Financial considerations (are these berries really paying for their real estate?) are replaced by the considerations of a more complex economy of taste, smell, and satisfaction.  On a primitive level, the first taste of strawberries is a reassuring signal that summer really has arrived.  All of this made it even harder to decide to plow under our strawberry crop this spring.  

Planted in the fall of 2009, our berries were intended to be in the ground for one season only.  We had decided to grow fall-planted, June-bearing strawberries as annuals, turning them under in July to get another crop in following the berries.  In this way, we were trying to ensure that that little piece of ground paid for itself while still growing the berries that everyone (including us) loves so much.  The strawberry plants looked so good after that 2010 production season, however, that we decided to keep them around for another year to see if we could get another year out of them. We weeded them in the fall and mulched them with straw, a fateful decision which would be the beginning of the end of this particular strawberry planting. 

In the spring of 2011, the strawberry plants emerged from their mulch of straw along with a lovely crop of quackgrass, a perennial weed that thrives alongside strawberries.  The seed must have come in with the straw, but once established the grass, like the berries, reproduces by means of rhizomes that spread through undisturbed soil.  Unlike the berries, however, quackgrass rhizomes can grow more than an inch a day -- the strawberry crop is no match for the ferocious energy of the weed.  Because we were committed to this berry patch, we weeded the quackgrass.  And weeded.  And weeded.  Farm staff and dedicated volunteers dug through the ground for hours to pull out the sharp, spiky rhizomes and try to inhibit the growth of the quackgrass.  The berry crop in 2011 was bountiful and delicious, but was abruptly cut short by heavy June rains that turned ripe berries to fermenting mush. 

Then the strawberry patch left our attention for a few months while we focused on the rest of the farm.  While the vegetative part of quackgrass grows more slowly during the heat of the summer, the rhizomes continue to grow, spreading through the strawberry beds under the soil in preparation for sprouting when the weather cools in the fall.  And sprout they did.  And we weeded again, all through the fall, digging out the pointed rhizomes again until it seemed as if we might have a shot at a clean patch in the spring.  Having learned our lesson about the straw, we mulched the berries with clean leaves chopped by our manure spreader, renovated the beds with the cultivator, and hoped that we might get a third year of production out of our one-year berry patch.  But it was not to be.

The warm, dry weather of March and April brought both strawberries and quackgrass out of dormancy.   While the strawberries grew slowly, the quackgrass sprouted immediately.  It was clear at once that our weeding efforts in the fall had only disturbed the rhizomes of the quackgrass, which then sent up even more vegetative growth to compensate.  Large patches of the strawberry beds were covered with lush stands of grass.  The strawberry plants that remained were patchy and stressed by the competition with the quackgrass for scarce water and nutrients.  Each day, the circles of grass grew taller, thicker, and wider. 

We realized that we were once again staring down the barrel of hundreds of person-hours of hard, painful handweeding in order to have a shot at a June berry crop.  Even then, the competition with the quackgrass was so intense that we were not sure we would have enough berries to go around.  The idea of a scant crop of berries to begin with, possibly made even worse by harvest-time rains or bloom-time freezes, (especially because the early spring made an early bloom, threatened by frost, seem inevitable) and the possibility that all of our hard work would be made useless by a resurgence of the new spotted-winged drosophilia fly (about which more later) was what finally made our decision easier.

We knew that we had to act quickly to turn up the rhizomes with the moldboard plow so that they could be exposed to air and sun and dry them out to kill them, hopefully without chopping them up and encouraging them to reproduce.  The weed problem was getting worse by the day.  Late last week, the first strawberry plants flowered.   A day or two later, Dan put the two-bottom plow on the back of the tractor to open up a new piece of land.  On his way, he stopped by where I was re-fixing a reemay cover that had blown off our spring cabbages.  "Strawberries?" he asked.  "Do it,"  I said. 

So, in the end, we made this call for efficiency and to use our labor wisely, rather than for the quixotic quest for a June berry crop this year.  I believe that we chose well, but it does not make it easier to walk past the former berry patch, now turned up to expose those roots to the sun.  It will make our June poorer, but, we hope, the rest of the season richer.  The hundreds of person-hours of labor that would have gone to weed the patch will now be available for other tasks, other crops.  We will try to experiment with some annual everbearing strawberries this summer, if we can get our hands on some plants at this late date.  And we will not neglect those other economies of sensation and satisfaction that drive so many of our decisions on the farm. 

See you in June,

Amanda, on behalf of the farm staff

Images by Rebekah Carter (2011).

Mushroom Chickpea Burgers

I'm always on the lookout for savory, meatless dishes that feature whole foods instead of processed meat substitutes. When I found this recipe a few weeks back, I knew I had to give it a go. Mushrooms are not only adored for their distinct texture and umami taste, but perhaps more importantly for their incredible healthfulness. The variety featured here- cremini, portobello, and shiitake - are loaded with B vitamins like riboflavin, niacin, and pantothenic acid that help maintain a healthy metabolism, in addition to minerals such as potassium, copper, manganese, phosphorus, and selenium. The chickpeas and their flour tout high levels of folate, which plays a critical role in DNA synthesis, repair, and methylation, as well as a slew of essential minerals. Serve these burgers on buns or salad greens, garnishing with your favorite condiments (I recommend a little 'kraut or pickled onions and cucumbers), cheese, or thinly-sliced veggies.

Mushroom Chickpea Burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 lb portobello mushrooms
• 1 lb cremini mushrooms
• 1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms
• 1 cup cooked chickpeas
• 1 1/2 cups chickpea flour (or 1 cup chickpea flour & 1/2 cup nutritional yeast)
• 1 cup mirepoix (equal portions diced carrots, celery, & onion)
• 3 tbsp tamari
• 1 tbsp Sriracha
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup packed soft herbs, finely chopped (tarragon and basil work well)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• olive oil for sauteing and frying

Directions:

Remove stems from shiitakes and trim the bottom half-inch from portobellos. Dice all three mushroom varieties to a small, uniform size.

Heat a wide, heavy-bottomed sauce pan over medium heat; add 2 tbsp olive oil, followed by the mirepoix, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring often. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 4 minutes, again stirring frequently. Add the tamari and stir, then remove from heat; transfer the mixture to a large bowl and set aside.

When the mixture has cooled enough to handle, add the chickpeas, flour, cumin, and nutritional yeast, if using. Using your hands, mash the mixture until about half of the chickpeas are crushed. Fold in the Sriracha, herbs, and lemon juice; season to taste with salt and pepper.

Shape the mixture into six-oz patties. Coat the bottom of a large pan with olive oil; when the oil begins to shimmer, add a burger; cook for 3 minutes or until golden and crisp, flip, and repeat.

Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to five days.

Pairs nicely with some freshly-baked or toasted honey whole wheat rolls!

My two cents: I really enjoyed these burgers. BUT I do want to tell you that the next time I make them, I will chop up the mushrooms more (not for texture, for stickability) and be more careful to use the author's recommended amount of flour (I didn't measure and definitely did less than what was written).

Rebekah

Images by Rebekah Carter (2012). Recipe by Brian Van Etten of Veggie Galaxy via STUFF Magazine (Boston).

Notes from the Learning Garden: From One Season to the Next

Summer programs have come to an end here at the farm, which gives me a little time to reflect before we launch into our fall season of programs, events and happenings at Waltham Fields Community Farm.

For many years now, WFCF has been working with the Waltham Recreation Department to offer after-school and summer programs for area youth. In August we held two of these programs which were 4 mornings each for children who will be entering 1st-3rd grade in the fall. From exclamations of "This is more fun than fencing!" (yes, the one with swords) while harvesting basil, to the image of children sitting on a blanket in the shade singing "The Garden Song" this was a truly memorable experience for all (adults and kids alike).

This year for the first time we also offered a full day program for children ages 9 to 12 which we called our "Farmer For A Week" program. Participants got to delve a little bit deeper into farming and food preparation than those in our other programs with activities such as jam-making, chicken chores, working with the farm weed crew, pickling, and planning out their dream garden using a multitude of seed catalogs from our farm bookshelves. They ended the week by putting together boxes of vegetables, herbs, pickles, and jam to take home and share with their families.

Farmer For A Week Plum-Raspberry Jam

Ingredients:
1 lb Plum, washed, pitted, and chopped finely
3 lbs Raspberries, mashed
1/4 C Water
3 lbs Sugar
2 T Lemon Juice

Directions:
-Place chopped fruit and water in a preserving pan, soup pot, or other large saucepan and bring to a boil over medium to medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.
-Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
-Return to boil and continue boiling until temperature reaches 210F, stirring occasionally to make sure jam is not sticking or burning.
-Add lemon juice and continue boiling to bring temperature back to between 210F and 220F
-Do a test to see if you jam has gelled. The best thing to try is put a little bit of your jam on a plate and stick it in the freezer or fridge for a minute or two to cool it down. When cook, it should have a slightly thicker gel-like consistency. When that happens, it is a good indication that the pectin is activated and it is time to put your jam into jars and process them in your water bath canner!

Farmer For A Week Harvest Box

As the education staff was setting up for the last day of our final summer program a few weeks ago we couldn't help but comment on the speed at which summer rushed past yet again. Lately, I feel as though this has become a mantra for me: "I can't believe the month is over already", "I can't believe the next season is almost here". I suppose as we get older each section of time becomes a smaller percentage of our lives and thus seems to pass by much more quickly. I remember when an hour seemed like a lifetime and as I watch the kids playing in the garden, chopping veggies, or looking at worms I try to put myself back in that mindset and hope that the few hours that they spend with us feels long enough and meaningful enough to stay in their hearts and minds at least until their next visit, next program, or perhaps just their next meal.

Happy gardening,

- Jericho

Fall after-school programs for children in grades K-5 start September 20th! Sign your child up today for six weeks of gardening, cooking, composting, and just generally enjoying the wonders of fall on the farm!

Images by Rebekah Carter (2011).

Pan-fried Eggplant with Basil

I can't say I'm new to the joys of eggplant. Eggplant parm, baba ghanoush, dressed and grilled, I love it all. I can say it was only recently that I discovered how wonderfully the purple-skinned vegetable pairs with basil in an Asian-style sauce. Simple and fragrant, the following recipe is not only easy to prepare, but is also a great way to use up a bunch of those fresh veggies from your local farmers market, CSA, or home garden.

Pan-fried
Eggplant with Basil

makes about 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 3 medium-sized Chinese eggplants, halved and chopped into 1"-1.5" pieces or 12-16 small eggplant ("Fairy Tale"), halved
• 2 large bell peppers, sliced into thin strips
• 1 medium onion, cut into large pieces
• 3 Thai or serrano chiles, sliced thin
• 3 tbsp garlic, minced or sliced thin
• 1/2 c Thai basil leaves, roughly chopped
• 4 tbsp medium to high-heat oil (I used walnut)

Sauce:

• 2-3 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1-2 tbsp sugar
• 3/4 cup warm water

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine all sauce ingredients, stirring until sugar dissolves; set aside.

In a large pan over medium-high heat, add 2 tbsp of oil. When hot, carefully add eggplant pieces; fry for about 2 minutes, or until they just begin to brown or soften. Remove from pan. Add 1 tbsp oil and onions; cook for about 2 minutes or until soft and glossy. Remove from pan. Add the remaining 2 tbsp oil, garlic, and hot peppers; cook until garlic begins to turn golden, stirring frequently to avoid burning. Add bell pepper and onions; cook for about 30 seconds, stirring frequently. Add eggplant and toss or gently stir to combine all ingredients. Pour in the sauce and stir to ensure even coating; cook for another minute or so, until the sauce thickens a bit. Throw in your basil and cook another 30 seconds; turn off heat and serve immediately.

My Two Cents:

Make this side dish a meal by adding rice and green vegetables; kale or Asian greens sauteed with garlic and oil, or spicy garlic green beans are recommended. Go the extra mile and make it a three-course dinner by serving some overnight pickled cabbage with peanuts as an appetizer and some fresh fruit (melon season has arrived, wink wink) for dessert.

This dish is SO close to being vegan. If you are looking to make it completely free of animal products, try out this recipe for faux fish sauce featuring ingredients such as seaweed and shiitake mushrooms, which create an umami (pronounced "oo-mah-mee;" meaning a pleasant savory taste) quality similiar to that imparted by actual fish sauce.


Rebekah

Images by Rebekah Carter (2011). Eggplant recipe adapted from Epicurious.

Hot and Spicy Garlic Green Beans

You really know summer's end is near when it's 7pm and you're scrambling to get your recipe du jour cooked up and photographed in what remains of the natural light coming through your kitchen window. Not so long ago, 7 pm offered more than the cool, blue tones I was able to capture in this picture of delicious sauteed green beans. Limited light aside, this side dish (or meal if you're anything like me after a long day of work) is so easy to throw together and extremely open to personal touches. Throw in a handful of nuts or seeds: peanuts, cashews, walnuts, sesame... yum! Got mushrooms? Slice 'em up and add them, too. Use soy sauce or salt. Apple cider, white, or rice vinegar... they all work! Absolutely love cilantro? Give some a rough chop and sprinkle it on right before serving. Just be sure to add the four base ingredients: fresh garlic, green beans, oil, and red pepper flake.

Make the most of those tender summer crops while they're still coming in!

Hot and Spicy
Garlic Green Beans
makes 2 sides or 1 meal portion

Ingredients:

• 1 pint green beans, stems removed
• 1 tbsp cooking oil (I used walnut oil)
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced or sliced thin
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• soy sauce or salt to taste
  
• red pepper flake to taste
• mushrooms, fresh herbs, nuts, or seeds (optional)

Directions:

In a pan over medium-low heat, cook garlic in oil until golden brown. Turn up the heat to medium-high and add the remaining ingredients; toss often to evenly coat the beans with sauce and to avoid burning the garlic. Cook 2-3 minutes or just until the beans are slightly tender. Serve immediately. Goes well with rice!


Rebekah

Image by Rebekah Carter (2011).

Notes from the Learning Garden: Farm Visits Galore!

July has been a busy month in the Learning Garden. We decided to try something new this year by leaving the whole month open for Farm Visits (our 2-hour program for groups of children preschool through 8th grade) and we have been thrilled with the response from a variety of schools, camps, and other youth groups!

Farm Visits at Waltham Fields Community Farm vary a bit depending on the learning objectives of the group and the number of children attending, but will always include the following three things:

GARDEN WORK

We want to make sure that all of the children coming for a Farm Visit have a chance to get their hands dirty!

This morning, with the help of a group of campers from Education Francaise Greater Boston, Learning Garden educators Aleta and Kristin hilled potatoes. Yesterday, eight and nine year olds from Cambridge Adventure Day Camp finished preparing and planting a melon patch! Check out the CADC blog for some fabulous pictures of their time at the farm!

Freshly-hilled potatoes (left)



LEARNING ACTIVITY

Our new melon patch (below)

Another portion of our program time is spent doing an activity that involves interactive discussion about a topic pertinent to the learning objectives of the group visiting the farm. For a group that is learning about soil, we often take a walk out to the compost pile and do an activity called Earth Apple to illustrate the percentage of Earth's surface made up of soil on which we can grow food; or Compost Cake to illustrate how food scraps, lawn clippings, and leaves are turned into fabulous soil for the garden! For a group interested in learning more about farming in general, we will often do our very favorite activity: From A Farm/Not From A Farm Relay! Participants are always amazed to discover that most of the objects and products they use every day come from farms!

Mystic Learning Center group discussing whether or not band-aids come from a farm

SNACK PREPARATION

A trip to the farm just wouldn't be complete without a snack made from fresh fruits and veggies! Our favorite healthy snacks to make with Farm Visit groups are Hummus and Plant Parts Salad. Here are the basic recipes, but feel free to embellish depending on your own taste buds!

Harvesting zucchini for dipping in hummus (below)

Hummus

Ingredients:

16-oz can of chickpeas
1/4 cup liquid from can of chickpeas
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp tahini
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
Other herbs/spices you like



Directions:

Drain chickpeas and set aside liquid from can. Combine all ingredients in blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Enjoy with cucumber and zucchini slices or your other favorite veggies!

Plant Parts Salad

Ingredients:

Leaves: lettuce, spinach, or other greens
Stem: fennel, scallions, or kohlrabi
Root: beet, carrot, or radish
Seed: peas or beans
Fruit: zucchini, cucumber, or tomato
Flower: broccoli or nasturtiums

Salad Dressing

2 tbsp fresh herbs (such as basil, cilantro, oregano, parley, etc.)
or 1/2 tsp dried herbs
1 tbsp vinegar (red wine, white wine, or balsamic)
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper

Chopping broccoli for plant parts salad (above)

Directions:

Mix well and serve on salad!

As I read over this post I can't help but think that I am not doing it justice, but there is really no way to describe how amazing it is when a child is gobbling up zucchini slices and hummus as if they were an ice cream sundae and exclaiming that he "could eat it all day long;" or after planting and weeding in the garden when another participant says, "I am going to be a farmer when I grow up!" Those are the moments when we really know that we are doing something right.

Happy gardening!

- Jericho, for Kristin, Rebekah, Aleta, and Paula

Notes from the Field: Our 2011 Assistant Growers

I... am... not... going... to... talk... about... the... weather. OK, yes I am, a little. We did need the rain. I admit it, I did say that. And when the forecast called for a quarter to a half an inch, I thought that would be pretty good. But we got almost 2 inches last Wednesday, then another inch and a quarter over the next three days. Well, you know that -- you were there. But really, it was a lot of water. So much water, combined with those cool temperatures, puts us uncomfortably in mind of 2009, when a wet, cool early summer led to some devastating disease pressure later in the season. We're hoping that history will not repeat itself so soon, and that this water and cool temperatures will only lead to slightly delayed squash and cucumbers and beautiful greens for another week.

But enough about that -- more about our farm crew.

Larisa and Lauren

Each year, we are fortunate to work with a few people who are passionate about becoming farmers and are at a point in their careers where our operation can be useful to them. Our assistant growers, who work the entire growing season with Waltham Fields, are a critical part of our farm team. They drive tractors, pound stakes, pull weeds, transplant and seed crops, harvest and harvest and harvest, and manage CSA distributions. Many of our past assistant growers are now farmers in their own right (check out our "where are they now?" page for some stories). This year's AGs, Lauren Weinberg and Larisa Jacobson, are as fine a pair as we have had on our farm.

Lauren comes to us from her recent work at Adamah, a farm and fellowship program at the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center in Connecticut. She had many roles at Adamah, including the Sap Queen, Pickle Apprentice, and Field Apprentice, all of which have contributed to her wide knowledge about food production and preservation. While she had never driven a manual transmission vehicle, let alone a tractor, before she came to WFCF, she had made more kim chee and sauerkraut than many of us have ever seen -- in a kosher kitchen where goat yogurt and chevre shared space (but never utensils) with 50 gallon barrels of pickling crops. We appreciate Lauren's thoughtfulness and thoroughness on the farm, along with her appreciation of the beauty and the spiritual side of the work that we do.

Larisa was most recently at UC Davis, where she completed a master's degree in International Agricultural Development and spent time working on biodigester projects in Guatemala, along with teaching and working on the student farm at Davis. She has tons of "secret" skills and knowledge, including welding, fiddle playing, assembling cultivators from miscellaneous parts, and community organizing, among others. She won us over in her application with her vivid description of hitting an irrigation upright with the loader bucket of her tractor -- and fixing it, possibly the only time when a farm equipment accident has led directly to someone getting an interview on our farm. Despite this story, Larisa is a skilled equipment operator who is getting the hang of all the big and little pieces that help our farm go. Her sense of humor and intense work ethic also come in handy.

In addition to our assistant growers, our farm team is rounded out by our field crew, who start next week (more about them later) and a group of work sharers who staff our CSA pickups, make sure our CSA newsletter is legible and functional, take care of our perennial herb and flower garden, and help us in the fields. They each have fascinating stories as well, and histories with the farm -- some long, some short, but all wonderful. We could not do this without them.


-- Amanda, for Andy, Erinn, Dan, Larisa and Lauren

Freezing Berries

Don't let family vacations stop you from loading up on the delicate and delicious berries of summer. With a bit of freezer rearrangement, you can enjoy summer's bounty of raw strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and more all the way into the cool days of autumn (if they last that long).

Freezing Berries

1. After purchasing or picking berries, thoroughly sort through them to remove any damaged, overripe/rotten, or immature fruits.
2. If working with strawberries, hull them (remove the calyx, that green, star-shaped "hat" that sits atop the berry); gently transfer the berries to a colander and rinse under cold running water.
3. If working with strawberries, you may wish to slice them at this point; otherwise, gently spread the berries onto a clean baking sheet in a single layer and place in the freezer.
4. Remove the berries from the freezer as soon as they are frozen in order to avoid freezer burn; quickly transfer to plastic freezer bags or containers and return to the freezer for long-term storage.

Berries can be safely stored for 8-12 months in a freezer kept at 0 degrees F.

My Two Cents:

Some argue that berries should be treated with simple syrup or sugar when being frozen. Although this does help maintain the texture, color, and flavor of berries frozen for several months, it is not necessary as freezing is the method of preservation. Many also pat their berries dry and line their baking sheet with parchment paper, but I do not find either of these steps necessary (however, I do make sure to not put sopping-wet berries straight in the freezer).

While the focus of this post was berries, freezing is an excellent way to preserve many local fruits and vegetables with little to no processing. Check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation's website for specific instructions according to crops of interest.

Rebekah

Images by Rebekah Carter (2011). Instructions for freezing berries referenced from the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Notes from the Field: Spring in New England

Even by the standards of spring in New England, this has been a wild one. Instead of writing this week's Notes, I seriously considered just including a link to the first Brookfield Farm CSA newsletter, where their longtime farmer, Dan Kaplan, brilliantly recounts the ups and downs of the weather and their effect on crops, with the simple caption "what he said." But when it comes to producing forty different crops, every organic farm has its own story, ever so slightly different from any other. So here is ours.

This spring began for us in the greenhouse, where Erinn nurtured thousands of tiny seedlings to maturity while we watched the thick blanket of snow on the fields slowly melt away. We seeded cover crops in March on fields that were deceptively dry - until the cold, wet weather of April settled in to stay. With the help of many volunteer hands, we dodged rainstorms to plant onions, leeks, lettuce and spinach on schedule. These crops promptly hunkered down in the cold, damp soil and did absolutely no growing at all.

Then, in early May, the hot weather hit. It seemed to go from March to July in a matter of days. Sunscreen and ice cream replaced sweaters and hot coffee in the farm office. Early season transplanted crops, already stressed out by the cold, wet weeks, now experienced a drastic swing to the opposite conditions. Crops that we seeded directly in the ground did not germinate in the abruptly powdery, superheated soil. Spinach and lettuce threatened to bolt if we didn't get irrigation on them immediately - not usually a priority at this time of the year. Even heat-loving transplanted crops like the cucumbers, sweet potatoes and summer squash that we transplanted were traumatized by the ferocious wind and dry soil. But we kept up on the weeding and managed to get our strawberry planting almost clean just in time for the plants to bloom.

Then, another spell of rain and cold (sweaters, transplanting, weeds growing, inside doing tractor maintenance), followed by temperatures that soared into the 90s and tumultuous thunderstorms that brought brief hail and spectacular lightning (more ice cream, this time accompanied by the first of the strawberries). The morning after these storms is always a little nerve-wracking - walking the fields to see what survived the night is not anyone's idea of a great way to start the day. So far we have been fortunate where hail is concerned. The fluctuations in temperature and moisture, though, have definitely made our spring crops confused and a little bit cranky - most are a little smaller than we would like (lettuce), some are a little later (napa cabbage), and some have been attacked by flea beetles or cabbage root maggot while they suffered from drought stress (bok choy).

All of us are happy to have the spring behind us and the bounty of the summer just ahead. We look forward to connecting and reconnecting with volunteers, shareholders, program participants, and other visitors throughout the season. Thank you for supporting us and the work that we are fortunate to do - even when the weather tries to thwart us!

Amanda, for Andy, Erinn, Dan, Larisa and Lauren