Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Tractor toys for Bill



Hello Friends!

I just came in from the mini-orchard that we have in the back yard. This is the first year that we’ve taken the time to thin the fruit. Actually, it’s the first year that the boys have been old enough to leave unattended for long periods of time while I’m up in a tree. Tonight I thinned the three peach trees and the three Asian pear trees. Up next … semi-dwarf apple trees. We hope that the thinning will result in marketable fruits this year.

The boys getting older also means that we can call on them for various tasks. Last night as I stared at the mound of dirty dishes and the full compost pail, a light bulb went off … Noah can now take out the compost!! I felt so empowered sending him off with a new chore. Is that awful or what?? But hey, I still clean the toilet. I figure we’re still even steven.

Bill recently acquired two new farm toys – a bezzerides spyder and a basket weeder. Both are attachments for the electric tractor. The spyder is a hilling disc with curved teeth that pulverize the soil as it moves forward. This allows Bill to hill up the soil around plants like leeks, potatoes, and broccoli. The basket weeder (which I think looks more like a paddle boat than a basket) lets Bill weed around seedlings without damaging them. Both are great labor-savers.

The plants are looking good. Even with the cold temperatures, the veggies seem to have hit a tipping point and they’re taking off. This weekend should be just awesome. The spinach is FINALLY ready to harvest. The arugula is back in action. And the salad mix couldn’t be better. Here’s what all we’ll have …

Salad Mix
Spinach
Arugula
Head Lettuce
Baby Beets
Radish
Green Onion
Green Garlic
Kale

(I’m also going to post a picture of Noah from his preschool graduation. I meant to do it last week, but I hadn’t yet uploaded the pictures to the computer.)

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market this Saturday from 7:30 a.m. – noon. NOTE THE TIME CHANGE!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday night from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m. starting JUNE 2.

Please pass along these emails to any friends that you may think would be interested. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison


Thursday, May 22, 2008

Tomato wrestling


Hello Friends!

This is one of those Thursday morning blog postings – instead of writing my weekly email last night, I spent quality time with the tomatoes. Bill does not use tomato cages. Instead, he does the “Florida weave.” He puts three tomato plants between two stakes (in a row, of course), and then weaves twine between them in a way that keeps them upright. This year I have been designated the trellising manager. I let them get away from me recently, so last night was more like tomato wrestling than tomato trellising.

Bill has been busy as well. He has now transplanted all of the major plant groups – melons, squash, sweet potatoes, eggplant, peppers, etc. There’s another chance of rain tonight, which is always nice for new transplants. The rest of the veggies are still growing VERY SLOWLY based on the cool weather. On the positive side, it’s very nice to work in this weather! And fortunately, the salad greens have managed to grow just enough to be cut into mixed salad greens (Bill’s beloved “mesclun”!). Be sure to stop by our stand early this week to pick up a bag or two.

Speaking of fresh produce, here’s what we’ll have on Saturday:

Salad Mix
Baby Beets
Radish
Green Onion
Green Garlic
Kale

We hope that this narrow selection is not keeping you away from the market! Last week, although not the biggest veggie week, was a GREAT time to see old friends. So please come down and stop by no matter what our farm stand looks like – we just like to see you! Also, Bill is going to leave me at the market ALONE this week so that he can get back into the field. Who knows what could happen with an unattended me at the market.

Farm News

We have three good interns this year. (One of the annual high dramas of farming is the intern situation. We never know what we’re going to get, especially for what we pay!) This year we have two artists – Pete and Brian – and Kelly, a woman who went to an agricultural high school in Chicago. I’m not sure what that means, really (there’s an ag school in Chicago??). I will have to get more details from her when I actually meet her!

Noah graduated from preschool this past week. I have never seen anything cuter than 5-year-olds in little white caps-and-gowns. They even sang a cute little song about being ready for kindergarten. I can’t believe my baby is going to kindergarten!!

And tell your friends about Common Ground and the Garlic Press…

Keep in mind that Bill also sells produce at Common Ground in downtown Bloomington during the market season. We haven’t yet started those deliveries because the spring weather has been so cool that things aren’t growing as quickly as we’d like, but we’ll let you know when we start the deliveries. If you’re looking to eat Bill’s veggies already prepared, head to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. They do amazing things with vegetables!

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market this Saturday from 7:30 a.m. – noon. NOTE THE TIME CHANGE!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday night from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m. starting JUNE 2.

Please pass along these emails to any friends that you may think would be interested. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Time for the Market!


Hello Friends!

The first farmers market is ALMOST HERE! Whoo-hoo! We are so excited. It’s our sixth season at the Bloomington Farmers Market. So hard to believe. When we started, Noah was small enough to plunk into a crate with a radish for entertainment, and Ben wasn’t even an embryo. Now they’re real boys – lots of booger humor, raucous laughter, and giant messes. Noisy but fun!

It is also our first season without our dog Pepper. She finally let go in early April – a peaceful end to a fabulous dog life. Pepper wasn’t really “our” dog. She was everybody’s dog. She had a wide territory in which she would get biscuits and gravy, belly rubs, a good brushing, and the occasional new collar. From May through October, Pepper would disappear every Friday afternoon and return on Sunday evening – she was hangin’ at the club (the Sportsman’s Club) behind our property. She was pretty much the club mascot. The club had a sign posted at the gate – “No dogs except on a leash.” They might as well have put “except Pepper” at the end. In fact, at the meeting in which the club president reiterated the leash rule, a leash-less Pepper trotted right across the front of the meeting area, probably looking for scraps.

Everyone knew her, and everyone fed her. She was also our farming Buddha. You could always look to Pepper to witness true peacefulness, especially when she was sleeping somewhere completely inappropriate like Bill’s seed trays (full of seedlings, of course!). She’ll be sorely missed.
On Monday of this week we had our second and final pre-season veggie drop off in Uptown Normal. Harvesting for Monday happened on Sunday, which was amazingly bad weather. Whoa. Gusts of wind up to 40 mph, a driving rain, and chilly. We’re glad that wasn’t our new farm hands’ first day!

The veggie drop off itself went well. Early Monday morning must be vegetable delivery day in Uptown Normal. As I handed out bags of freshly picked sorrel and green garlic to market customers, the Valley View Fresh Food truck was dropping off large boxes of lettuce (or a lettuce-like product) to a local restaurant. When I pulled into the alley behind the Garlic Press to drop off a cooler full of early season produce, I was suddenly nose-to-nose with a tractor trailer with the name “U.S. Food Service” emblazoned across the front. It was a classic matchup … the veggie-laden Toyota Corolla versus the something-like-veggie-laden semi. We revved our engines. The semi driven whipped out a box of iceberg. I held out a bag of arugula, small but mighty … OK, it didn’t really happen that way, but it was quite the daydream.

Speaking of fresh produce, here’s what we’ll have on Saturday:

Baby Beets
Sorrel
Arugula
Radish
Green Onion
Green Garlic
Red Russion Kale (very young and tender)

With the exception of baby beets, I provided details on all of the veggies above on the last blog posting. (This is why I love the blog! I hope you do too!)

Are you a beet eater? Have you ever tried really fresh beets? Now is the time to dip in a toe, so to speak. The beets are small and tasty, and the greens don’t get any better.
Right now the baby beets are about the size of marbles and have WONDERFUL beet greens on top. This time of year, the beet greens are perfect because they’ve been living the life of luxury in our hoop house. No bugs + perfectly controlled water = awesome beets.

If you’re not cooking with both the beets and the greens together, you should cut them apart and store them separately in Ziploc bags. The beets themselves can last for months in the fridge. The greens only a few days. Beet greens can be cooked JUST LIKE swiss chard, although the beet green stalks are not nearly as big.

Raw Beet Salad (Elizabeth Schneider)

Prepare a dressing of balsamic vinegar, pepper, salt, olive oil, paper-thin shallot slices, and cumin seds. Tose with finely grated raw beets (or thin slices of baby beets). Let stand 15 minutes or more. Serve on a bed of lightly dressed lettuce.

Beet Risotto with Greens (Deborah Madison)

5 ½ to 6 ½ cups vegetable (or chicken) stock, including beet or chard stems
3 tablespoons butter or a mixture of butter and olive oil
½ cup finely diced onion
1 ½ cups Arborio rice
½ cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped basil (1 tablespoon dried)
2 to 3 medium beets, peeled and grated (about 2 cups)
2 to 3 cups greens (beet, chard, kale, or spinach) – stems removed, chopped
salt and freshly milled pepper
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon, use to taste
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Have the stock simmering on the stove. Heat the butter in a wide pot, add the onion, and cook over medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the rice, stir to coat it well, and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine and simmer until it’s absorbed, then stir in half the parsley, the basil, grated beets, and the chard or kale. Add 2 cups stock, cover, and cook at a lively simmer until the stock is absorbed. Begin adding the remaining stock in ½-cup increments, stirring constantly until each addition is absorbed before adding the next. When you have 1 cup left, add the beet greens or spinach. Taste for salt, season with pepper, then stir in the lemon zest and juice to taste. Served dusted with the cheese and the remaining parsley.

Beet Greens with Raisins

Chop the beet greens coarsely. Chop an onion and sauté it in olive oil. Add 2T water and ¼ cup of raisins and cook until the raisins soften. (You can chop the raisins or not.) This should take about 5 minutes. Add the beet greens, 1T olive oil, and 2T water and cook, covered, until the greens wilt (about 3 minutes). Uncover and cook a few more minutes until liquid evaporates. Add salt and pepper and eat up.

Every year I seriously crave this recipe for pickled radishes. It’s always a fun side dish at a party, too:

Quick Pickled Radishes

12 small radishes (about 2 cups)
4 T sugar
2 T salt
2 bay leaves
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 T cider vinegar
1 tsp crushed red pepper

Cut tops off radishes and score the bottom with an X about ¼-inch deep. Place all ingredients in a nonreactive bowl, cover, and shake to coat radishes. Leave covered overnight or at least 5 hours. Makes a delicious accompaniment to Asian dishes.

You can also use the radish tops in this soup from “Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini”:
Radish Top Soup

Very fresh tops from 2 large bunches of radishes
3 medium scallions (green onions)
2 medium flowery potatoes (3/4 to 1 pound)
1T oil
½ tsp sugar
3 cups vegetable broth
salt and white pepper
Nutmeg
8 to 12 radishes

Wash radish leaves. Trim scallions and then chop the white and light green parts; thin-slice the greens. Peel and thin-slice potatoes.
Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add radish greens, chopped scallion, and potatoes. Toss until leaves wilt. Add sugar and 2.5 cups broth. Simmer, covered, over low heat until potatoes are soft (20 minutes).
Puree until smooth. Return to pan and stir in remaining broth for desired consistency. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg.
Slice radishes into soup and garnish with scallions to taste.

Farm and Market News

This year we really want to make a big change – far fewer plastic bags!!! It is just tragic to consider how much plastic is literally floating around in the world. In trees, on power lines, in the ocean. Did you know there’s a clump of plastic bags and other plastic debris glommed together in the Pacific Ocean with a size twice that of Texas?? So we are transitioning to biodegradable bags this year after we run out of the non-degradable type that we’ve always bought. Of course, the biodegradables are quite a bit more expensive. What we really want to do is to encourage you to BRING YOUR OWN BAGS. The awesome thing is that this year the market is going to offer free re-usable bags for the first few weeks. I think they’ll be like the kind you get at the grocery store, which are really durable and easy to carry.

The market is also changing its hours – we’ll now open at 7:30 a.m. and end at noon. Hallelujah! 45 more minutes of sleeping on Saturday mornings means a lot to me!

There’s not much else to report about the farm right now. The strong spring winds blew over our nicest chicken coop-on-wheels. It’s pretty smashed up, but fortunately none of the chickens were flattened. And of course, we always have our back-up chicken coop, affectionately known as the "Coop-a-cabana" because it has this Prohibition-era speakeasy feel to it. I'm always tempted to hang up party lights for them.
In other news, Bill’s new electric tractor kicks butt. You can read about it in a previous blog. Bill is also renting new land for next year. The soil in that field is a rich black silt loam and it is adjacent to a babbling brook. Less wind, more scenery, and not next to a road – what more could he want?!

And tell your friends about Common Ground and the Garlic Press

Keep in mind that Bill also sells produce at Common Ground in downtown Bloomington during the market season. We'll be staring those deliveries next week. We would've started earlier, but the spring weather has been so cool that things aren’t growing as quickly as we’d like. If you’re looking to eat Bill’s veggies already prepared, head to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. They do amazing things with vegetables!

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market this Saturday from 7:30 a.m. – noon. We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday night from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m. starting JUNE 2.

Please pass along these emails to any friends that you may think would be interested. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Friday, May 9, 2008

Pre-Season Veggies! Arugula, Green Garlic, and more!

Hello Friends!

This fabulous spring weather means that Bill has quite a few veggies ready for you to purchase for pickup on Monday, May 12! (If our CSA members are interested in getting a jump start on the season, they could use this as an opportunity to visit the farm while purchasing some pre-official-season produce! The pickup would then be at the farm Monday night any time after 5 p.m. I’ll put directions at the bottom of this blog posting.)

Here’s what we have:
Sorrel -- $1.75/bu
Arugula -- $2.50/bag
Radish -- $1.75/bu
Green Onion -- $1.75/bu
Green Garlic -- $2.00/bu
Red Russion Kale (very young and tender) -- $1.75/bu

What are these vegetables and how do you use them?
1. Sorrel – It’s a leafy green with a great, lemony flavor. You can either cut it into a salad for a little zing of lemon flavor or cook it down into a sauce and use it on chicken or fish. You can also make sorrel soup, which is mighty tasty. Check out www.epicurious.com for great recipe ideas.
2. Arugula – This is one of the best greens out there, in my humble opinion. I prefer to eat it raw in a salad. You can also wilt it down into any recipe calling for wilted greens. Arugula has a very distinctive flavor – earthy, nutty, spicy in a peppery-kinda-way (although this time of year it’s on the milder end of spicy). It really adds so much to a meal. In my next blog I’m going to talk about the need to add sparkle to the American diet with veggies that some people would consider to be – perish the thought – bitter. Usually, they just mean it’s not mild and sweet and easy to swallow. But ya know, there’s more to life than easy-to-eat food. Food can be like wine or beer … you learn to appreciate new flavors and textures based on what you’ve learned about the food/drink. You can also become a more principled eater. And I don’t mean eating things you abhor just on principle. I mean that you could adopt the principle shared by many cultures throughout the world that different parts of the meal should taste … DIFFERENT!
3. Radishes – no need for explanation, right? Red round radishes are just what you think: red and round. French Breakfast are, like the French, a bit fancier. (We’ve been reading “Fancy Nancy” books to the boys, and she LOVES the French.) Because it’s so early in the season, they are at their mildest. (They get hotter with the weather.) Our boys just pop them into their mouths right in the field. NOTE: You should (not “can”) eat the radish greens!!! You cook them like any other green, and radish greens are tasty. Again, visit www.epicurious.com for details. (I’m going to stop pretending that I cook and just refer you to the experts! After all, I really don’t cook anymore. Bill is the King of the Land of Food, and I am the Queen of cleaning up after him. It works very well.)
4. Green Onions – uh, yea.
5. Green Garlic – This is one of those real seasonal treats. Green garlic is simply young garlic that has not yet formed the bulb and that has not yet developed a tough stalk. So you can eat the ENTIRE plant for the next few weeks, leaves and all. Do not miss this. It’s very “foodie” food. (Foodies are food connoisseurs.)
6. Red Russian Kale – Politically incorrect name? I’ll leave you to decide. Nonetheless, this is a wonderful spring green. At this stage, it can be eaten raw in a salad. (Later, kale is really only cooked because the leaves develop more texture later.) Kale is unbelievably healthy, and it has a distinctive flavor. You’ve probably been eating it in those bags of mixed spring greens in the store and didn’t even know it. Kale is a fluffy green – it holds its frilly shape in a salad – so it helps to keep a salad fluffed up. (A structural green, I suppose!) Bill also likes to make wilted greens with sautéed green garlic, green onions, arugula, and kale. Add salt and pepper, and it’s a great side dish in about 10 minutes. We’re all about simple preparation given how busy we are when the veggies are coming on strong.

Part of the key to eating fresh foods is to have a diverse array of it sitting around. Then you can simply toss a couple of radishes onto the side of the dinner plate as a mini-side dish, sauté some green garlic in with a cooked dish, or perk up a salad with arugula or young kale. Last night, Bill made this pasta with a little bit of everything … wilted greens, bell peppers from the freezer, green garlic, green onions, radish greens, you name it.

NOTE: If you have any comments on these veggies or recipes to share, please post them to this blog. We’re doing a blog for this very reason. (I used to get lots of emails with other people’s great recipe ideas but then I couldn’t really share them easily with the rest of the email list.)

You must order by Saturday night or fairly early Sunday morning so that Bill can pick everything on Sunday. I’ll bring things in on Monday morning to the Coffeehound in uptown Normal (next to the Normal Theater). I’ll be there between 7:30 and 8:15 a.m. Please send your orders to our email at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com. (You can't order on the blog!)

I’ll be sending out a more detailed market email in the next few days, so stay tuned for updates on the farm, the kids, the cats, and more!

And remember that the Bloomington Farmers Market starts Saturday, May 17 around the historic courthouse square. The market now starts at 7:30 a.m. rather than 6:45 a.m. AND it lasts until noon. Yay! We get to sleep in for 45 more minutes!

Looking forward to a great 2008!
Mercy Davison
Blue Schoolhouse Farm
309-467-9228


Directions to the Farm:

From Eureka: Head south on Hwy 117. About a mile south of Eureka, go left (east) on Guth Road (700N). Go about a mile and then go right (south) on 1500 E immediately after the little bridge. This road curves around a bit but ultimately keeps heading south. Take a left onto 550 N. Go down about a mile, and the road comes to a T intersection. Our driveway is right at the end of that road.

From El Paso: Take 24 W toward Eureka. Turn left (south) on 2000E. Go a couple of miles and turn right (west) on 700N. Turn left (south) on 1800E and then right (west) on 600N. Turn left (south) on 1625E, and we’re down about half a mile on the left. We live in a blue schoolhouse, as the farm name suggests!