Featured vegetable:  Arrowhead Cabbage

This week you’ll have seen some unusual pointy-shaped green cabbage in your share.  This type of cabbage used to be more common and is renowned for its tenderness and good flavor.  It makes and exceptionally good summer slaw.  Unlike many of the round cabbages that we grow, this arrowhead cabbage does not store well for long periods of time (although it’s fine for a few weeks, just not a few months), so enjoy it soon.  

Sweet and Sour Cole Slaw

1 arrowhead cabbage, shredded fine or chopped (6 cups)
1 large carrot , peeled and grated
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt or 1 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
Ground black pepper

1. Toss cabbage and carrots with sugar, salt, and celery seeds in colander set over medium bowl. Let stand until cabbage wilts, at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

2. Pour draining liquid from bowl; rinse bowl and dry. Dump wilted cabbage and carrots from colander into bowl.

3. Add oil and vinegar; toss to coat. Season with pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. (Can be refrigerated 5 days.)

News from the Field

Hey everyone!  This is Bennett Haynes, another member of the Hearty Roots crew, I’m here for the rest of the season and am enjoying the new fall-like weather!  

Things at Hearty Roots are going very well.  It seems that we are “ahead” of the weeds for right now, and the soils have been relatively nice and moist from some rain and lots of cool, moist mornings.  We’ve improved many of our harvesting systems – we are now piling squash, cucumbers and tomatoes in the pathways before picking them up with harvest totes, this helps to take care of the sensitive produce and manage the quantities we harvest more efficiently.  We also gained a new friend at the farm, Anne Margaret, who will be working with us for the month of September, focusing on key skills like harvesting squash and the art of the hoe.  “Anne Marg” as some call her, has added a new energy to the team and we are getting things done!

We also have very few seedlings around the hoop-house these days – the rest of our crops will be directly seeded for the remainder of the season.  Fall crops like turnips, carrots, radishes and spinach don’t like to be transplanted by hand, so our fun with the waterwheel transplanter is mostly over for this season.  And just as Zoe and I were getting the hang of it…

That’s all I’ve got for you.  Have a great week and enjoy the last of August!

Bennett

We are hoping to include potatoes in this week’s share. It all depends on the potato digger working properly, and equipment is never as reliable as we’d like it to be!

We plant our potatoes early in the spring and then hill soil up around the plants as they grow, using hilling discs on the tractor. This makes the plants produce more potatoes, since more of the plant is underground, and prevents any potatoes near the surface from “greening” that comes from sun exposure.

There are two main pests that bother our potato plants: Colorado Potato Beetles and Leafhoppers. Colorado Potato Beetles have a predictable reproduction cycle, and it requires careful attention to keep them from getting out of control in the potato patch. Once we see adult beetles in the patch, we scout every day or two for juvenile beetle larvae. Once these ugly orange critters get to a certain stage, it’s time to treat the potato patch with Entrust, an organic biologically-based spray that is toxic to beetle larvae but non-toxic to humans. The beetle larvae are fat and lazy, sitting on the potato leaves and munching away. I’ve never actually seen one try to fly, crawl, run, or scurry – they just sit and munch – so they don’t put up much of a fight as we approach with the sprayer. Before we had a sprayer, when we were farming just a couple of acres, we would just pick the beetles off by hand and squish them – and our faces would end up red from beetle juice! I don’t miss those days.

Leafhoppers are the other major potato pest we contend with. They are tiny green bugs, quick to hop from plant to plant, just about the opposite behavior of the Colorado Potato Beetles. This year the dry weather meant more leafhoppers than usual. These bugs feed on the underside of the potato leaves and suck the fluids from the leaf, causing the leaves to develop a black “burn” around the edges. We tried spraying a purified horticultural oil on the plants to prevent the leafhoppers from feeding (it works on the eggplants) but that didn’t do much good. We could have sprayed another substance to try to knock back these bugs: a biological pesticide called Pyrethrin, derived form chyrsanthemum seeds. However, that’s a spray that we prefer not to use since it kills the beneficial insects, like ladybugs, as well as the pest insects. So the potatoes weren’t as lush as they might have been, and we’ll see when we dig them up tomorrow whether the yields have suffered from that or not.

We dig up the potatoes with a tractor-mounted digger that we bought last year in cooperation with two other farms. On each one of our farms, we all realized that we needed a mechanical potato digger to avoid the back-straining work of digging them by hand; but we also knew that we’d only need the machine a few days per year. So it seemed a great candidate for a piece of shared equipment! We each chipped in equally and we run around to one another’s farms to pick it up when we need it. It’s a pretty simple device, a thick metal blade that cuts beneath the potatoes under the soil, and then lifts them onto a metal conveyor belt that shakes off the soil and drops the potatoes onto the surface of the ground, where we collect them by hand into boxes.

Here’s hoping that all goes smoothly with potato harvest today!

As you may have noticed, it’s been a little hot this summer!  But that didn’t stop Bay Ridge from showing up at Hearty Roots on July 17th to lend some helping hands . . .

With the wacky weather, everything has been growing ahead of schedule at the farm.  Garlic on July 17th (as originally scheduled)??  Garlic was soooo July 7th man, get with the progam.  Luckily when it comes to farming, pick any day between March and November, and there are a plethora of daily tasks to be done.

So despite the 90 degree weather, cooler, hats, sunscreen and kids were loaded into the minivan and up the Taconic Parkway we went. 

One of the great things about visiting the farm is there is space.   Lots of open space everywhere.  Space to camp if you want.   Need somewhere to eat a picnic lunch?  Pull up a patch of grass somewhere and get comfortable.  Or grab a free picnic table at Gigi’s Market (a great little market featuring local food, by the way).

After lunch was finished, sunscreen applied, water secured, we started down the long and winding road (waved to the goats) to the fields where the magic happens.  In the horizon we saw some familiar faces from Bay Ridge - “Brooklyn’s in tha house!”.  Rana (our CSA event coordinator) and her kids had arrived earlier, and were already lending helping hands to Farmer Benjamin.   The next hour or 2 were spent by all of us helping Ben in the eggplant rows, getting a tour from Ben of all the fields and where everything is growing, tasting veggies straight off the plant/vine/stalk (the raw corn tasted like candy!).  Ben’s patience was impressive as he endured constant questions and demands of his attention from the kids. “Look, Ladybugs!”  “What is this beetle?!”  “Is this a pigweed??”  “Look more Lady Bugs”  “Is this a weed?!” and on and on and on.

One of the highlights of the visit was visiting the Pick Your Own garden, available to CSA members to pick and take home flowers, herbs, and veggies (tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers & more).   The Pick Your Own garden alone is worth the trip.  With no bags, we filled my hat with frying peppers, orange cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, tomatillos and more!  In the background I heard our 3 yr-old Soonhee trying to comfort Rana’s son, Sufi (same age), that his mom was nearby in the garden picking flowers.

By the end of the day, everyone was fully satisfied, covered in dirt, and ready to relax in the car.   We stopped back in Gigi’s to rehydrate and wash up, and interrupted Rana and her kids feasting on chocolate cake (I was jealous) to say ‘See you back in BK’!  Then we loaded back in the minivan with our new passenger, lending a ride to a East Williamsburg CSA member, and started back down the Taconic.

We hope more CSA members can make it up to the farm in September for the Harvest Party.  It’s a trip worth making, Ben and his crew are wonderful hosts, and they appreciate seeing CSA members visit and show our support.  It’s a bit of an elightenment to make the connection between the produce that waits for us at 4th Ave Presbyterian, and where it originates.   Until then, see you at the next site distribution, and enjoy these photos from the Farm visit.

The weather, although much more bearable than the week of the heat-wave, is still very hot and dry. I sometimes feel like we are farming in the desert. The heat has made the sky hazy for the past three weeks, and all of us at Hearty Roots miss our usual view of the Catskill Mountains. While squash is thriving, other crops are suffering, specifically lettuce. Lettuce prefers the cooler weather of spring and fall. The dry hot weather has left many of our greens stressed and unhappy. We are working hard to keep up with irrigation, weeds, and continuing to transplant seedlings for second and third successions of crops.

Two weeks ago we had to harvest our garlic without having “a party”. It took us two full days of work in the field and many more days of hanging the garlic up in the barn for storage. I would like to send out a thank you to the CSA members that were able to show up and help us, it was great to have your company out in the fields. All of the garlic is now out of the ground and hung up in the barn at the Bulkeley farm. I was unable to attend the farm party that happened this weekend in place of the garlic harvest party, but thank you to all who attended and gave your time to Hearty Roots on a Saturday afternoon!

Featured vegetable: Squash

I know that you have been receiving squash in your shares for a while now, but I thought take some time to praise our summer squash. While some of our other favorite vegetables are struggling to stay alive in this hot dry weather our squash is thriving, and we at Hearty Roots spend a lot of time harvesting this rapid growing crop!

Summer squash are a subset of squashes that are harvested when immature (while the rind is still tender and edible). The name “summer squash” refers to the short storage life of these squashes, unlike that of winter squashes. They are harvested when small and tender for best quality. Squash grow rapidly; especially in hot weather and are usually ready to pick within 4 to 8 days after flowering. For us to keep up with our plants we pick them every 2 to 3 days.

Although summer squash has both male and female flowers, only the female flowers produce fruits. The female blossoms are delicious when dipped in a batter and fried. Summer squash can be grilled, steamed, boiled, sauteed, fried or used in stir fry recipes. They mix well with onions, tomatoes and okra in vegetable medleys. Summer squash can be used interchangeably in most recipes. Tiny baby squash can be used as appetizers, or left whole and sauteed with other vegetables.

I think summer squash are a great addition to sandwiches, so here is a recipe I hope you enjoy:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Slice summer squash into thin circles and place in a bowl.

Toss with olive oil, thyme, basil, oregano, salt and pepper until coated.

Lay out on a baking sheet and put in oven for 10-20 minutes depending on the thickness of your slices.

Take out when squash becomes soft and slightly transparent.
Let cool and store in fridge.

I add these flavorful slices of squash to all kinds of sandwiches, pasta dishes, and soups.

Once cooked they also freeze well! I hope I have restored your love for this hot weather loving vegetable!

Anyway, news from Benjamin and the Hearty Roots team below:

Featured vegetable: Onions

This week you’ve seen the first of the onions. The variety that “bulbs up” first is called Sierra Blanca, and it’s a white, sweet onion that’s good for fresh eating, but that won’t store long-term like yellow onions. You may have heard of Walla Walla onions from the northwest; these are very similar. They are juicy and have high sugar content, and less of the pungent, tear-jerking aroma and flavor that is associated with most onions. Some people eat these white onions like apples! We are giving them to you with the tops still attached, which you can use like scallions.

We also have some red onions and storage onions growing. This year we have had some trouble with onion thrips, very very tiny insects that live in down in the “growing point” of the onions, where the new leaves emerge. The thrips feed on the small growing leaves, causing white streaks on the onions green tops and making it harder for the onions to hydrate themselves. This means that the onions need more water, which as you know, was in short supply over the month. Some of our onions weren’t too happy about that, but now they seem to be recovering pretty well. We noticed that the onions that we planted on plastic mulch have been healthier than those planted on bare ground; perhaps because the mulch holds moisture in the soil better.

News from the fields

We were very relieved to get nearly an inch and a half of rain on Saturday morning! That’s about as much rain as we had in all of the previous 7 weeks combined. The plants had a big jump in growth as all of the soil was suddenly saturated for the first time in a while. The weeds, of course, had a jump too, so we are busy trying to take care of those.

The somewhat milder temperatures have also been a relief, getting through last week’s heat wave feels like an accomplishment. Seedlings that we plant are much happier as well, no longer wilting right after they go into the ground. This week we are transplanting fall cabbage, lettuce, fennel, and melons, as well as seeding fall beets, carrots and greens.

Despite the change to the schedule, the Hearty Roots folk do still want to invite everybody along to the farm on July 17th as planned. There are plenty of other farm tasks that can be undertaken by those coming to visit, and they’ll also be offering tours of the farm at 11am and 4pm. It’s a perfect opportunity to spend a day outdoors, getting to see exactly where your food comes from.

It’s also a great opportunity to visit the farm’s pick-your-own garden. In the small garden, the farm plant herbs, flowers, and a few veggies that are too labor intensive to be picked for the CSA, but that CSA members and locals might like to pick for themselves. Peas and basil are currently ready for picking, and who knows what else you might find!

Snacks and beverages will be provided, but feel free to bring a picnic lunch and make a real day of it. Benjamin and co would love you to come for as much or as little time as you like, either to do some work in the field or just to take a farm tour or enjoy the day.

If you’re planning to go and you have space in your car that could be filled by another CSA member (or if you’d love to go but have no transport) please contact Rana at email hidden; JavaScript is required, and we’ll try to put people together.

Everybody who has been to the farm before has had a great day, so why not get involved this year. The event runs this Saturday (July 17th) from 10am – 5pm!

Hearty Roots Community Farm
223 Pitcher Lane, Red Hook, NY
Map

Organic farming ain’t all fresh watermelon and chirping birds – we’re in the midst of a pretty rough week. With the continued drought (less than an inch of rain in six weeks), and now temperatures in the high 90′s every day this week, working at Hearty Roots is not easy under these conditions. We have altered our schedule for the week to work in the early mornings (starting at 5am) and then take a long break after lunch before doing some more work in the evening, when the temperatures are more bearable.

We’re doing a ton of irrigating, barely keeping up with the plants’ water needs as our sandy soil dries up super fast under these hot dry conditions. Unfortunately, we have a lot of seedlings in the greenhouse to transplant right now, our fall crops. Seedlings absolutely hate to be transplanted under hot dry conditions; their roots are too small to deal with the lack of water. Late last week we transplanted some lettuce, kale, chard and leeks, and watered them heavily. By Monday afternoon, they all were wilted and about ready to die, as we ran around dragging irrigation pipes into place to give them some emergency water.

Good news is that the more established crops are growing well with all of the sunshine and irrigation water, and are disease-free thanks to the dry weather, which limits fungal diseases on plant leaves. And our supply of irrigation water is holding out well, and the forecast calls for some cooler temperatures and maybe even some rain on the way.

Featured vegetable: Radicchio

About Radicchio
It is actually Italian Chicory. Some (the popular) varieties includes radicchio di Verona which looks like a small head of red lettuce and radicchio di Treviso that looks a bit like a red version of Belgium Endive. This vegetable is very popular in Italy and has gained in popularity in the United States in the last few years. It can be eaten raw with just a bit of olive oil and salt, or mixed into a variety of salads. You may also see it on menus grilled or roasted or combined into other dishes such as risotto.

Balsamic-Marinated Radicchio with Fresh Ricotta

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
5 garlic cloves or garlic scapes, smashed
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus additional for drizzling
1 head radicchio, quartered lengthwise
1/2 cup basil leaves
1/2 pound fresh ricotta

Preparation

Preheat broiler.

Whisk together vinegar, garlic, lemon juice, 1/2 cup oil, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a large bowl.

Put radicchio in a 4-sided sheet pan and toss with remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Broil 5 to 6 inches from heat, turning occasionally, until slightly wilted, 3 to 4 minutes.

Add hot radicchio to balsamic marinade and gently toss to coat. Cover bowl (to keep heat in) and marinate, tossing once or twice, at least 1 hour.

Transfer radicchio to a serving dish, pouring some of marinade over top. Scatter basil over radicchio. Drizzle ricotta with oil in a small bowl and serve with radicchio.

As it turns out, the weather has no respect for calendar dates, and practically every grower in the area has had an “early” season this year due to the hot dry weather, with most plants weeks ahead of schedule. The garlic is no exception, and it is almost ready to come out of the ground now!

As a result, Hearty Roots plan to harvest the garlic early – possibly on Wednesday July 7th. While they know that it’s difficult for most people to attend on a weekday, they would very much welcome volunteers for this! Please e-mail email hidden; JavaScript is required if you are interested in helping out.

The farm will still hold a farm event on July 17th, but it will probably not involve harvesting garlic. Instead they will likely work on various farm tasks, with an emphasis on weeding!. There will also be tours of the farm, and just the pleasure of a day spent outdoors. Benjamin and the whole Hearty Roots crew still hope you’ll join them for a fun and maybe more relaxed day at the farm on the 17th!

The CRAFT Program

This week, Hearty Roots hosted a meeting for the CRAFT program. CRAFT stands for Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training; it is a program for young people who are participating in apprenticeships on organic and sustainable small farms, to help them learn about the systems and practices of other farms in the area. There are CRAFT meetings weekly, each focusing on a different topic, in an effort to provide a well-rounded curriculum for participants. One of the great features of CRAFT is that is is a broad, grassroots program; it is a collaboration between many farms, without a centralized organizing force or funding.

Hearty Roots hosted a meeting of about 50 young farmers on the topic of “starting your own farm from scratch”. Since Hearty Roots was founded 7 years ago by young farmers with no land, equipment or family farming background, we feel that our story and the steps that we took to establish a successful farm can be instructive to other young people in similar circumstances. We had a great tour of the farm, followed by a summer solstice potluck celebration. There were young people there from Hilltop Hanover Farm in Westchester, Phillies Bridge Farm in New Paltz, Glynwood Center in Cold Spring, Stone Barns Center in Westchester, Long Lane Farm in Connecticut, and others.

We participate in the Mid-Hudson Valley CRAFT network; but the original CRAFT network was founded in the upper Hudson Valley and western Massachusetts, where the program is still strong. CRAFT has spread far and wide, with strong programs in the mid-west, Canada, and on the west coast. Visiting other farms to learn about their practices first-hand is an invaluable experience for young farmers, and we were proud to participate by hosting this week’s meeting.

Vegetable of the week: Tuscan Kale

This variety of kale is loved by the chefs to whom the farm sells produce. It is tender with great flavor, and is traditional in the Tuscany area of Italy, where it is called “Cavolo Nero”, translated as “black cabbage”. In addition to being a great cooking green, Tuscan Kale can be used raw to make a delicious kale salad. Francesco Buitoni, chef at our town of Red Hook’s great Mercato restaurant, makes a particularly good version and orders from us every week. His salad varies depending on what’s in season, but here’s an example of a good Tuscan Kale salad:

1 bunch Tuscan kale
1 thin slice country bread (part whole-wheat or rye is nice), or 1/4 cup homemade bread crumbs (coarse)
1/2 garlic clove, or 2 garlic scapes, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely grated pecorino cheese, more for garnish
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, more for garnish
Freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

1. Trim bottom 2 inches off kale stems and discard. Slice kale, including ribs, into 3/4-inch-wide ribbons. You should have 4 to 5 cups. Place kale in a large bowl.

2. If using bread, toast it until golden on both sides. Tear it into small pieces and grind in a food processor until mixture forms coarse crumbs.

3. Using a mortar and pestle, or with the back of a knife, pound garlic into a paste. Transfer garlic to a small bowl. Add 1/4 cup cheese, 3 tablespoons oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper flakes and black pepper, and whisk to combine. Pour dressing over kale and toss very well to thoroughly combine (dressing will be thick and need lots of tossing to coat leaves).

4. Let salad sit for 5 minutes, then serve topped with bread crumbs, additional cheese and a drizzle of oil.

Yield: 2 to 4 servings.