Leafy Greens Farm: May 2012

Friday, May 18, 2012

200lbs of lettuce - Grown and Gone!

Damian harvesting lettuce

So, we planted a lot of lettuce this season with the hope that we could sell it and we did! So far, we have sold over 200lbs of lettuce to restaurants and farmers markets. It has been a fun challenge!

Planting, watering, and weeding around the lettuce was the easy part. However, harvesting and packaging lettuce was the most difficult part of the process. Head lettuces are fragile creatures. You cannot scrub them like a potato or be rough with them. You have to pick, wash, box them with a gentle touch otherwise leaves will break and the lettuce will be bruised.

Submerging the lettuces in cold water

Another thing is that lettuce has to be stored cool and dry or else it will wilt and become inedible. Lettuce actually "breathes" and has what's called a respiration rate. We need to cool it down immediately after picking it in order for it to maintain its crispness. This posed a problem for us because we don't have a refrigerator or a walk in cooler at the farm. What we do have is cold well water, so we decided to pick it and immediately submerge it in cold water to cool it down. This seemed to work! After cooling the lettuces down in cold water, we gently shook them dry and boxes them up. Once again, we couldn't be rough boxing them up and had to delicately package them so that none of them would be bruised. We did all of this under our canopy tent so that the sun wouldn't heat them up after the cooling process. Finally, Damian quickly puts the boxes in his truck and makes a immediate delivery. We don't want the lettuces sitting outside for too long and we wanted to get them into the walk in coolers at the restaurants or markets that we delivered to.

We have put effort and time into growing the lettuces and want to make sure the final product looks and tastes good as well as holds up over time for our customers. We want to be delivering lettuces that stay fresh for up to 2 weeks not ones that go bad after 3 days. Thankfully, we have been learning the best practices for doing that from workshops, books, and our other farmer friends. With farming lettuces, we are trying to learn and practice the best ways to do everything with the hope that we will continue to sell more lettuces in the future!

Damian picking off the outer leaves

Me packaging the lettuce

Trying not to squish any of the lettuces

Boxing and weighing the lettuces at the end of the process

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

More friends and less bullies on the farm

The other day I gave a talk to middle schools girls about bullying. I asked them to use art materials to depict what it felt like to be powerful and powerless. After they shared their collages and drawings, I noticed that the recurrent theme for feeling powerful was to have more friends. We talked about how to make or attract more friends and how this could help them be more resilient to the criticism of bullies.

Friendly Lady Bug with Cucumber Beetle bully

After the presentation, I went to the farm and smiled to myself about how certain bugs can be considered "farm bullies" and how I wish I had more bug-friends that would help us keep our crops safe and looking beautiful. When I turn to the farming research for techniques to get more bug-friends, I sometimes get lost in the terminology. In the organic farming world, there are buzzwords like "bio-diversity," "integrated crop management," and "companion planting." What does it all mean??? Basically, it means to have a variety of plants growing on your farm - some that attract beneficial (or friendly) bugs while others deter plant-damaging pests.

We chose not to use pesticides or insecticides on our farm because we don't want to damage the soil or ourselves. We want to decrease any potential toxins or carcinogens going into our body. We want healthy produce. Unfortunately, some bugs try to eat or damage vegetables before farmers can harvest. Just because we try to grow organically, it doesn't mean that we want "buggy" produce.

We use row covers on our farm to keep out pests and bugs. They do a great job, but they do not keep out 100% of the bugs. Many bugs overwinter underground and then emerge from the soil as it gets warmer outside. If they emerge from the soil after we have row covered it and planted our produce in it, we have just created a bio dome for pests to multiply. Due to the very mild winter, we are worried that this may be a problem this year.

Do we have bio-diversity going on at our farm? The answer is some, but not enough. However, we are slowly learning enough to be dangerous to those pests and how to bring in the "friendly" bugs that benefit our garden.. We recently read a great article in the Organic Gardening magazine about how to introduce more bio-diversity into your garden called "10 Fast Ways to Control Pests: 10 easy ways to outsmart garden pests." It is helpful with identifying key plants that exude a deterring smell and others that attract an "airborne defense squad" of beneficial "insects that feed on the bad insects. We definitely want more of those friendly bugs. We will be introducing more of these strategies to our farm in the fall! Ideally, we will have marigolds and nasturtiums growing next to our lettuces. We will also have dill planted between our beans.

Solving mysteries on the farm

As a child, I loved reading Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mystery books. As a young adult, I preferred murder mystery and crime novels. Now, as a new farmer, I am solving farm mysteries by doing a lot of research! It is a challenging new hobby that always seems to leave me with more questions at the end of the day. Here are a few of our recently solved mysteries that might help some of you other new farmers out there!

1. Why are some of our pac choi yellowing and dying off while others are healthy and still growing?

Answer: Sometimes over watering can cause yellowing and wilting leaves. We noticed that the pac choi that are yellowing are in a part of a row that sometimes gets flooded after watering for an hour with our drip tape. Next year, we need to make sure to level out this part of the row, so that flooding doesn't happen.

2. What is making holes in our beautiful green bean leaves?

Answer: We think it is either bean leaf beetles or grasshopper nymphs. Bean leaf beetles, as their name implies, primarily feed on bean species including soybeans. They typically feed on younger, more tender foliage. They are not always evident at first view as they feed on the undersides of leaves.Small grasshopper nymphs will eat very small holes in the leaf, similar to the injury caused by Japanese beetles, but the holes are often jagged and not very oval in shape.

3. Why does our potato trench look like a green algae-ridden swamp land?

Answer: We meant to do that! We are growing our own bio-fuel! :) Hahaha! Okay, we are not that advanced yet... Our potato trench is a green swamp land because we mistakenly dug it at the lowest, downhill spot in our farm. All of the rain water runs downhill and into our potato trench. Unfortunately, this is where our blue potatoes are planted and I think they may not yield any harvest this year due to rotting. Lesson learned!

4. Why do slugs and roly polys like our compost bin?

Answer: Slugs and roly polys like to hide out in damp, shady places during the heat of the day. In fact, slugs, snails, worm etc are all good workers in your compost bin. You're giving them an 'all you can eat' buffet and they are helping me break down vegetable matter.

5. Why do some weeds never seem to die?
Answer: After covering rows full of weeds with black plastic for two-weeks, we killed most all of the weeds. However, there are some weeds that still seem to survive. One in particular hard-to-kill weed is this seeded pod weed. It is my professional opinion that some weeds have evolved to withstand atomic bombs, nuclear strikes, and possibly live on the face of the sun. I pull these weeds out by hand and throw them in a far off ditch.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Pac Choi - What is it? How do I cook it?

After delivering several of our "Veg Out & Be Healthy" boxes, we had many questions about Pac Choi. Most people wanted to know, "What is it?" and "How do I do with it?" So, here is a post about one of our favorite and fast growing veggies.

Pac Choi (also known as pak choi, bok choi, or Peking cabbage) is a Chinese cabbage. It's commonly used in stir fry and spring rolls. It is also great sauteed or used as a substitute for spinach in cooked recipes.

Pac choi is also nutrient ricjh. It's high in vitamin C, beta carotene, folic acid and calcium, as well as many essential minerals. In fact, 1 cup of cooked pac choi contains 15% of your recommended daily allowance of calcium - the equivalent of 1/4 pint of full fat milk. Studies show that phytochemicals found in pac choi and certain types of broccoli fight off damaging molecules that can cause heart disease and cancer.

Here are 5 fun recipes to try with pac choi:

Ginger And Garlic Pak Choi

Ingredients

1 small pak choi (boy choy)

½ inch fresh ginger root

2 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon sesame oil (or olive oil)

Method

Separate the pak choi leaves and cut off the chunky stalks.

Slice the stalks finely. Roughly chop the leaves.

Peel and grate the ginger. Peel and crush the garlic.

Heat the oil in a wok until almost smoking. Add the garlic and ginger. Cook for 1 minute, stirring often.

Add the pak choi stalks. Mix well. Cover and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the pak choi leaves. Stir and then cook for 1-2 minutes, until they are just wilted.

Asian Bok Choy Salad

   1/4 cup olive oil

2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. sea salt, such as Maldon sea salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

   6 cups bok choy, rinsed and chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 bunch green onions, sliced

1 pkg. Ramen noodles, crushed (save seasoning packet for another use)

1/3 cup wasabi peas

Put first five ingredients (through pepper) in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake well. Set aside. Toss remaining ingredients in a salad bowl. Pour dressing over salad. Toss and allow flavors to marinate 30 minutes before serving. Serves 4.

Unwrapped Spring Roll Salad

1 pack thin rice noodles – cook and save some of the water.
2 small bunches of Bok Choy thinly sliced including the greens.
1 bunch green onions thinly sliced including some of the green.
1 cup diced cucumber.
1 grated carrot.
handful of chopped mint
handful of chopped cilantro

Toss together.

Make a dressing using:

½ cup of the reserved water
½ cup chunky peanut butter
¼ cup Hoisin sauce (or less depending on your taste)
And for a little kick a dash of garlic chili sauce

If serving later, wait to add the dressing. I had some shrimp left over from the night before so I tossed these in with the salad. You could add just about any vegetable.

Pak Choi Stir Fry

1 bunch Pak choi

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

½ of an onion, thinly sliced

½ teaspoon dry mustard

2 teaspoons soy sauce

½ teaspoon rice vinegar

2 teaspoons sake or dry sherry

Salt and pepper to taste

Garnish: toasted sesame seeds

Cut the Pak choi stalks into 1-inch lengths. Finely cut the green tops and reserve. In a large skillet, heat the oil, add the garlic and the onions and stir fry until softened. Stir in the stalks, mustard and soy sauce and stir fry until the Pak choi is tender, about 10-12 minutes. Stir in the tops, vinegar, sake or sherry and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook 2 more minutes. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and serve.

CHINESE PAK CHOI AND CHICKEN SOUP

What it does: Strengthens your immune system

6 large spring onions
4 tablespoons canola oil
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1.2 litres or 40 fl oz chicken stock
2 chicken breasts, skinned and shredded finely along the grain of the flesh
4 heads of pak choi, thick stems removed and reserved, the leaves finely chopped
150g or 2 oz Chinese noodles or vermicelli (optional)
1 teaspoon tamari or light soy sauce

Chop the white parts of four of the spring onions very finely; cut the others lengthwise almost to the root and reserve. Heat the oil very gently. Add the chopped onion and garlic and sweat for just two minutes. Pour in the stock.

Bring slowly to simmer and remove the garlic. Continuing to simmer, add the chicken and reserved pak choi stems and cook for ten minutes - until the chicken is almost tender.

Remove the pak choi stems. Add the pak choi leaves, noodles or vermicelli, and tamari or soy sauce and simmer for five minutes. Serve with the reserved spring onions floating on top.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

How do you like to dress it up?

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

It is time to "Veg Out & Be Healthy!"

We are offering our first "Veg Out & Be Healthy" box of the 2012 season! It includes 3 fabulously farm fresh items including: 1 green butterhead lettuce, 1 red roxy bibb lettuce, and 1 pac choi! We are flexible, so you can also mix and match. For $5, it is cheaper than you can buy at a grocery store, but twice as fresh!

Try the lettuces tossed with your favorite vinaigrette, shredded carrots, and tasty cheese. Saute the pac choi with garlic and soy sauce for a delicious Asian inspired side dish! However you want to make it, we have the leafy greens to do it with! :)

Our vegetables are grown using organic practices, which means no pesticides or chemical fertilizers! They are harvested the day of delivery and brought to you FRESH! Let us know if you are interested in purchasing our "Veg Out & Be Healthy" box!

Here is a picture of the lettuces

growing at our farm.

Our lettuces are also furry friend approved!

Our first sale and gifts of the season

Making lots of connections is important in the farming business. Since Damian is an amazing salesperson, he has been calling and meeting with chefs and wholesalers in our community so that we can sell all of our beautiful leafy greens. We were successful in reconnecting with an awesome chef in Chesterfield who purchased our first pac chois of the season. YES! We sold about 15lbs of pac choi! I can't wait for our next sale. The coolest part of this sale was that the chef knows about and was interested in farming. He appreciates and supports local farmers!

We also were given our first gifts of the season, radishes and strawberries, thanks to the Grangers and "Eat here" Andy. I made a delicious shortcakes with strawberries, banana, yogurt, and honey. Then, I made a yummy radish dip and Damian almost ate all of it. If you are one of those people that don't know what to do with radishes, try the following recipe:

Radish Dip
*   2-4 cloves garlic, peeled
*   6 radishes, quartered
*   1 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
*   salt to taste
  *   2-3 green onion stalks or a 1 tablespoon of dried chives

Directions: Place garlic in the container of a food processor, and pulse until finely minced. Add radishes, and mince. Add cream cheese and herbs, and mix until well blended. Transfer to a serving dish, and chill until serving.

Getting used to the buzz of bees

Three Rivers Beekeeping association opened their apiary last weekend. An apiary is a place where bees are kept or a collection of hives or colonies of bees kept for their honey. Since I am starting my own bee hives soon, I want to learn as much as I can about how to install the bees in the hive and how to keep them happily making honey. I also wanted to get used to bees buzzing around me.

The demonstration took place quickly due to looming storm clouds that were ready to unleash torrential rains and hail. They installed 5 hives in a matter of 35 minutes! It isn't ideal to work with bee hives right before a storm because they usually all return to the hive for shelter. Ideally, I will want to inspect and install my bees during the day while most of the bees will be out of the hive collecting nectar and pollen.

The expert beekeepers answered questions about how find your queen bee and how to identify if your queen has been laying eggs. The term "bee brood" refers to the egg, larva and pupa stages in the life of bees. The honey comb turns a darker color brown as the bee develops. They also showed us the light-colored honey in well-developed honey comb. Lastly, they talked about helping to feed the growing bees with a sugary syrup so that they can have enough energy to create a strong honey comb in new hives.

Even though they smoked the hives to calm the bees during the demonstration, there were still hundreds of bees flying around our heads. I was thankful for the loaner "bee veil" and had my first bee attach itself to the veil to check me out. I talked sweet to the bee and we became friends! ;) It is actually exciting to have that many bees swarming around without getting stung! YAY BEEKEEPING!

Me in a bee veil!! :)