Oh Baby, it’s Week 10

This week’s CSA menu!

Shallots

Melons

Tomatoes

Mixed Cooking Greens

Okra

Sweet Bell Peppers

 

Farm Update~~ Coming Soon!

Special CSA Member Offers!

1. Free Stevia plant leaves for anyone who wants to try a naturally low glycemic index sweetener.
2. Juicy, sauce tomatoes available in 5lb, 10lb or 15lbs bags.They are priced at $2/lb. These tomatoes are great for making homemade sauce (which is ideal because you get to control what goes into your recipe–aka, you know how much salt you use!) For reference, 5lbs of tomatoes makes about 2.5 cups of sauce.

Text Kohei your orders! We will offer the tomato option a few more times this season, so don’t miss out!

Recipe Inspiration!

Melon and Berry Salad with feta

 

 

Minted Summer Couscous with Melon and Feta

 

 

Pan-Seared Chicken Brest with Shallots

 

 

Shrimp and Okra Gumbo in 45 minutes

 

 

 

Fried Okra

 

 

Stuffed Peppers

 

 

Grilled BBQ Chicken and Veggies in Foil

 

Enjoy!

 

In dirt, feathers, and hope,

~Movement Ground Farm Team

Week 9: Nope, still no rain

August 16, 2016

This Week’s CSA Menu

Cilantro

Cherry Tomatoes

Asian eggplants

Japanese eggplants (Providence/ Quincy) and Chinese eggplants (Dorchester/JP/Farm)

Melons

Diplomat Green Cantelopes for Quincy and some in Providence (Dania, Steven, Candice, D’andre)

Honeyblonde melons for the rest of Providence

Savor cantelopes (JP)

Watermelons (Dorchester)

Okra/ Yard Long Beans

Okra for Dorchester

Yard long beans for everyone else

A Slicing Cucumber for everyone

Jalapenos for those who requested them

 

Farm Update

Better sign up soon for the Fall CSA because we may scale our numbers back and space will be limited!    Stay tuned in the next few days for the e-mail, which will first go out a day before to CSA members, and then to the general public.   First come, first serve.  This winter, we’re adding MEAT to the CSA!    I can’t wait!    In other news, I want to say THANK YOU to my co-worker Serena Putterman.  They have been putting in 100% –  often pulling 10 hour shifts.   After a three month initial period, Serena is now our Assistant Farm Manager.   Serena oversees seeding, transplanting, washing/packing, documentation, and the Providence farmer’s market!     Also, our farmhand Justin Lamouthe will be returning to teach in a week.   We are now in search for a new farmhand – 20 – 30 hours a week and pay $10 – 12/hour + unlimited access to farm produce.   Please help us forward our job description – coming soon.

 

Recipe Ideas

1. YARD LONG BEANS. 

   These babies stir-fry particularly well, or they can be cut up and eaten raw.   They are a whole new bean, so don’t try to compare them to the standard green bean.   Here are a few recipe ideas.

 

 

Spicy stir-fried Chinese long beans with peanuts – Epicurious.com

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Stir fried Chinese long beans with garlic – tiny urban kitchen

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Yard long bean salad – by orgasmic chef

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Okra

Crispy Indian Okra (Bhindi) – by myheartbeets.com

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Bhindi Masala Recipe – by Vegan Richa

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Roasted Okra – by All Recipes

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JAPANESE EGGPLANT

Oven Roasted Japanese Eggplant with Carmelized Miso – by I Am A Food Blog

 

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CHINESE EGGPLANT

Chinese eggplant with spicey garlic sauce – by steamy kitchen

Our Own CSA Member Creations!!!

Honey sriracha salmon with zucchini noodles by Andie Janota

“Movement Ground Breakfast”
– duck eggs, melon, and nappa kimchi by Chesapeake First

White wine vermicelli, roasted chicken, cherry tomatoes, husk cherries, and honeyblonde cantelope by Laurence Louie.

 

 

 

Week 8: Melons!!!

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Celery

Cherry Tomatoes

Ground Cherries (aka husk cherries)

Watermelons and green beans for RI

Okra, honeyblonde honeydews, and duck eggs for Quincy

Honeyblonde honeydews and yard long beans for Dorchester

Diplomat cantelopes and green beans for JP

Savor cantelopes and green beans for farm pick-ups

Ground cherries (aka husk cherries)

Celery

Cherry tomatoes

 

Yard long beans, aka Chinese long beans

Okra

 

MELONS!   Click to see the variety.

Orange honeydews (Honeyblondes)

Green cantelopes (Diplomats)

French green catelopes (Savor)

Sugar baby watermelons

 

Dust Bowl 2016

The drought is just as bad, if not worse.   The recent heavy brief rainfall only soaked the first half inch of soil, none of it seeping into where the plant’s roots are located.   I am using the little water I have left  – my wells are about 2 feet deep – to barely keep things alive.   While I still feel blessed with our harvest and while production is good, we are probably getting about 50 – 75% less production in terms of weight.  And in this game, weight generally equals money!   So bare with our small melons, but they should taste just as delicious.  Sweet, organic New England drought-surviving melons!

So what am I going to do?  Well I can’t get water delivered unless I have a holding tank, which would cost over 3 – 5 grand and then I’d have to pay for several or constant deliveries throughout the rest of the summer and fall.  I do not want to invest in digging a deeper well  ($20,000 – 30,000) because this is not my property.

So I hired my friend to come dig a waterhole at one of the lowest point of my property.   The idea is that if we can hit the ground water, shove a massive PVC pipe down there, surround the pipe with rocks so that the hole doesn’t cave in, and so that water can be held between the spaces between the rocks, then I can throw a pump down into the PVC pipe and suck water out.  And hopefully the ground water will refill the hole faster than the pump is sucking.

 

 

Pasture- Raised Meat Chickens

Also exciting news on the farm is that we are raising broilers, or chickens for meat!   We are raising 190 Freedom Ranger chickens.  They are a moderate growing broiler… not as fast as commercial chickens that often grow so fast that they can’t even walk or often die of heart attacks.  They are pasture-raised in mobile chicken tractors.

 

Every morning and every afternoon we slowly move the tractors over onto a fresh pasture.  The chickens quickly eat up the tips of grasses and small plants,  and fight over crickets and grasshoppers.  Using two dollies on each side, we’re able to slowly move the without too many chickens escaping.  Okay it’s a little bit tedious.   But at the same time we are fertilizing the fields for next year. 

Here you can see what they do to the pasture in just 8 hours.   So, fed only organic grain, raised outdoors on pasture, with no antibiotics or hormones, these LOCAL chickens will be available to you on the DAY THEY ARE PROCESSED, meaning I hope you enjoy the freshest chicken you have ever experienced.  They will be ready around the second or third week of September, so stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

Week 7: Eggplant Tuesday

August 2, 2016

Italian eggplant

Tomatoes

Fresh Red Onions

New Potatoes

Siberian Kale (for RI) // Laccinato Kale (for MA)

Green Tomatoes

Everything will be in your box, EXCEPT your ripe tomatoes which will be stocked in crates that you must pick through.  There will be instructions about how many tomatoes to take.  Please let us know if our system is working and that you are receiving your tomatoes.

Farm update

Things are going well… except that it hasn’t rained.   I mean it barely snowed this winter, and I’m learning that snow melt is a critical source of water for the Spring and early Summer.  Then, it didn’t really rain this Spring.  We’ve hardly had one good rain this summer.  And now my wells are dry.   I have no more water and the plants all show signs of stress.  I’m working on a solution, and hope to update you all next week.  But now as I look out my window, I see some rain.

Weeks are passing like days, and our volunteer coordinating committee is starting to plan our harvest potluck.  So please SAVE THE DATE for Saturday, October 8th — rain date will be October 9th… and yeah, this time I hope it rains! =)

 

No recipe ideas this week…. sorry!

 

 

Get To Know Our Tomatoes

New Girl

Arbason

Purple Cherokee

Green Zebra

Striped German

Look Who Has Been Cookin’

Chioggia (aka Candy Cane) beet salad by Judy Khy

Hakurei sautéed with parsley by Lily Huang

Breakfast stuffed poblano peppers with eggs by Andie Janota

Halloumi. Hazelnut yogurt with red beets and mizuna by Laurence Louie

Collard chips by one of our loyal customers in Revere – Noh Won

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Mobile Chicken Coop?  Check

Finally, our mobile chicken coop is up and running.  So going forward, your eggs come from “pasture raised” chickens.   We will be moving their coop every week or so ensuring that our girls are always on fresh, clean pasture, where they can eat grass, plants, and insects, while also fertilizing our fields.

It all started with an old broken camper trailer and a pair of free windows.

Demolishing it was one thing.   Sorting through the ruins – separating the glass from the vinyl, from the nails, from the insulation – and finding a way to dispose or recycle was quite another.  Got new wheels, painted the frame, and built a platform.

Then the walls and roof went up.   I got a lot of help from a friend to make sure we were building something that could stay intact over the many bumps, hills, and ditches yet to come.

Got some help from my dad as well!   After the walls were up, we insulated the inside with used insulation (still, it was expensive), and then put up an interior wall.

The cheapest linoleum I could find will hopefully pay off  by making cleaning a piece of cake.

The doors, the nesting boxes, and the roof…  I thought this was never going to end.

But the girls need their roosts.

Wow.  Lesson learned.   A free trailer + free windows + cheap used insulation = still an expensive project.

 

 

 

 

Week 5: It’s Tomato Time, Ya’ll!

Hey! Can you believe we are already in Week 5 of our Summer CSA!

Farm Update: Coming Soon!

Here’s your Week 5 list!

• Tomatoes
• Chinese Broccoli
• Large, sweet hakurei
• Turnips
• Kale (Siberian for Rhode Island, Laccinato for MA)
• Mizuna

 

RECIPES for this week’s new items:

Tomatoes!

• Corn, Tomato and Zucchini Soup with Basil
• Roasted Eggplant, Tomato, and Mozzarella Salad
• Garden Fresh Bruschetta
• Fresh Tomato and Basil Pasta
• Chicken Stuffed wit Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil
• Or just eat raw!

 

Chinese Broccoli

Chinese Broccoli: This extremely versatile vegetable pairs well if grilled fish and rice. Like most Asian vegetables, it is a great addition to any stir fry. For a simple side dish, steam in boiling water for about 4 minutes.

This green is one of the world’s most nutritious vegetables, with one of the highest calcium contents of any food–move over milk! It’s also rich in iron, vitamin A and vitamin C.

Clean Chinese broccoli as you would other greens, removing the bottom portion of the stems if they appear tough and washing thoroughly.

Chinese Broccoli will usually last 3-5 days stored in a plastic bag in a drawer of your fridge.

Recipes:

• Stir Fried Chinese Broccoli
• Chinese Broccoli Beef Noodle Stir Fry
• Ginger-Chicken Meatballs with Chinese Broccoli
• Szechuan Shrimp and Broccoli

 

Laccinato Kale (left) & Siberian Kale (right)

Kale: This green is another versatile vegetable. Kale can be eaten by itself, pairs well with other veggies, mixes into salads, blends into a green smoothie for an extra healthy kick, and can even be baked into a tasty snack.

Kale has a variety of health benefits. One cup has more than one day’s worth of vitamin A–which helps protect eye health and the immune system. It’s also chocked full of vitamin K, C and B6, manganese, copper, calcium, and magnesium. It’s easy to see why kale is known as a “super-food.”

Kale should be washed thoroughly by submerging into a deep bowl of cold water and stirring to release dirt trapped in any curls of the leaves. Kale lasts up to about one week if wrapped in a damp towel or plastic bag in the refrigerator.

Recipes:

• Kale Dip with Snap or Snow Peas
• Sea Salt and Garlic Kale Chips
• Slow Cooker Tomato, Kale and Quinoa Soup
• Parmesan Kale Grilled Cheese
• Spicy Kale and Quinoa Black Bean Salad

 

Mizuna

Mizuna: The taste of mizuna has been described as mildly peppery or slightly spicy–but less so than arugula. Mizuna keeps well in the refrigerator for approximately 5 days. Rinse and dry the leaves before storing. Wrap in a paper towel and seal in a plastic bag.

To prepare: trim a few inches off the base of the plant. The plant is best cooked with steamed, boiled, stir-fried, or included in soups or casseroles.

Recipes:

• Warm Chickpeas and Mizuna
• Soy Milk Hot Pot with Mizuna
• Mizuna Salad with Cumin-Rosated Cauliflower

 

In dirt, feathers, and hope,

~The Movement Ground Farm Team