The Great Onion Harvest of '09

Hello!

The boys have returned … let the chaos begin!! Seriously, they are SO LOUD. And I think they grew while they were gone. It was probably from all of the horrifying snack food they were able to eat – are there growth hormones in Oreos? (The first night, I called to see how they were doing. Noah said, “It’s great, mom, but I have a little bit of a tummy ache.” I asked him what he’d been eating, and he said, “Well, there were some M&Ms, grapes, and hot chocolate.” Hmmm. Sounds puke-ifying to me.)

They did have an amazing time. If you have 5-7 year olds in your life and need tips on what to do in St. Louis, call me. They went up in the Arch (where Ben accidentally smacked some guy in the face while he was talking with his hands – the guy asked my parents if Ben is Italian!), visited Grant’s Farm, went to The Magic House, saw Ice Age 3 (the movie – I think it was the third one), swam at the public pool, and took a trip down to Johnson’s Shut-Ins and Elephant Rocks (where my dad started referring to Noah as Sir Edmund Hillary) in the Mark Twain National Forest (Missouri). They are covered in scratches and mosquito bites but otherwise seem to be unharmed. The worst part is the readjustment to life on the boring and awful FARM! Oh yes, they were immediately taken down to the field where they had to ... help pick tomatoes. Call DCFS; it’s child abuse if you ask them. Ha ha.

It’s great to have them back, of course. Ben is already saying hilarious things. It’s so interesting to hear his thought process right now. At 5 years old, he has given a lot of thought to life, death, and “spirits.” I’m not sure where he’s getting this, but he recently announced that “you can’t kill a spirit … you can only melt them.” Heh? He was so earnest that we had to cover our smiles.

Here’s another good travel idea for you … Plow Creek Farm in Tiskilwa, Illinois, 8 miles south of Princeton (http://www.plowcreekfarm.com/). It’s a wonderful U-Pick berry farm where they use little or no chemicals. The farm is part of an intentional community affiliated with the Mennonite faith. It’s quite a hike – probably 2 hours from Bloomington-Normal – but it’s worth it for excellent blueberries. We’re going tomorrow and then again later in August for red raspberries.

If you’re looking for a night out at a restaurant, we heartily recommend Chef Leo’s in Peoria on Monroe Street in the same building as the Peoria Bread Company. Leo uses a lot of local food, and the dishes are tasty. Check it out.

And if you’re looking for a fun local thing to do, join us this weekend at the Normal Theater for Food Inc. I believe we’re going on Sunday night, but it runs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as well. The movie website is at www.foodincmovie.com. They’re serving local organic popcorn and potentially Pepsi Throwback (with real sugar!). See you there!

So on to actual farm news (or the Mercy version of farm news). The onion harvest has been a humongous success this year. Notwithstanding the amazing patch of weeds that grew up around the onions, Bill and the farmhands were able to harvest two entire wagonloads of storage onions and beautiful Walla Walla onions (2000 pounds!!). I helped one day, and it was a lot like an Easter egg hunt. Bill had to whack the weeds back with a scythe first – very Grim Reaper of him. The last onions to harvest are the “candy onions.” Bill expects to get another wagonload’s worth.



Noah is going at the tomatoes like a little pro. When he didn’t know that I was listening, I heard him in the tomato row muttering, “I’m gonna get you, sucka!” to an unsuspecting tomato. He is a little carbon copy of Bill sometimes.
Harvesting tomatoes is one of the dirtier activities. It turns your skin green and grinds dirt into the smallest cracks in your skin – you basically look like a dirtbag for weeks. There’s no scrubbing it off. Pete, the farmhand, said it’s the worst part of harvesting tomatoes. He was lamenting how dirty his hands were the other day when Bill decided to start blaming him for all of the dirt (about 10 pounds of sludge) in the bottom of the wash tub. Pete did not think that was funny.

I am happy to report that Bill and the coons are at an impasse. Bill has successfully protected one bed of corn, which he will be bringing to the market this Saturday!! The coons are already checking out the next bed, of course. It is starting to ripen, and Bill needs to get the electric fence over to that bed ASAP after harvesting your corn for this weekend. It’s such a battle. Bill also has a new set of potential varmints to deal with – the wild turkeys are eating the oats in the potato bed. Of course, there’s not much he can do about that because turkeys are just too cool.

We’re also bringing some mushrooms this weekend. They are unbelievable. I really count them among my favorite things to eat – turn the cap upside down, brush on olive oil, good balsamic, salt and pepper and then grill them for about 10 minutes or until the edges start to get a bit crispy. I can make an entire meal out of them.



This Saturday will be another crazy-great harvest. This is the most diverse and plentiful time of the farm season. We hope to see every one of you this weekend, because we’re bringing a boatload of food. Here’s what we’ll have …

Tomatoes
Sweet Corn
Okra
Eggplant
Leeks
Poblano Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Cucumbers
Green beans
Dragon tongue beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Kale
Collard Greens
Basil
Parsley
Broccoli
Radicchio
Cabbage (Red and Green)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.

Best,
Mercy

Empty Nesters on the Farm

Hello!

Or should I say bon jour! I’m preparing for a presentation tomorrow in which I will talk to a group of international students visiting ISU for a few weeks to learn about American systems (i.e. government, planning, education). The audience members will all be from Africa, and everything I say will be translated into French! I’m so excited. I anticipate that I will sound very intelligent and compelling in French!

I’ve also been working on plans for the upcoming run of the movie “Food Inc.” at the Normal Theater next weekend. It shows NEXT Thursday (July 30) through Sunday (Aug 2) at 7 p.m. Have you heard of the movie? Check it out at www.foodincmovie.com. The movie includes interviews with Michael Pollan (author of many foodie books such as In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (of Fast Food Nation fame). I talked to Dawn, the theater manager, and she will be serving Pepsi Throwback (with REAL SUGAR rather than High Fructose Corn Syrup) and potentially locally grown popcorn (if it will work in her popper). If you go to the move, be sure to show her some appreciation for the extra effort. I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE! It’s your chance to see Bill on the social scene as well. Now there’s a reason to come out!

Tomorrow is also the beginning of our boy-free week. My parents are taking Ben and Noah down to their house for a week of pure indulgence. I shudder to think of what they’ll be doing, and of course, what they’ll be eating. Ben and Noah are already planning a raid on Grandpa Rick’s Oreo cookies. We’ll miss them but not enough to refuse the offer. This will be the first time we’ve ever been without them. (We’ve been without them separately but not together.) I may just lay on the floor of the living room and enjoy the silence.

Trusty farmhand Pete will be on a family vacation next week (July 27+), so if you’ve had a hankering to help farm for a day or two, this would be the week to do it! As always I have to say that harvest days (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays) are the most social days. If you need directions, just email us.



From Bill … I spent much of today raking the second cutting of hay, and I’m still trying to keep the raccoons out of the sweet corn. I’m also planting fall crops such as radishes, carrots, lettuce, arugula, Japanese turnips, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, and radicchio. These crops are being planted in a new section of the field where I tilled in a clover, alfalfa, orchard grass cover crop, so they should do really well. And as always, Pete and I are weeding and thinning previous plantings, trellising tomatoes and peppers. It’s particularly gratifying to till in the empty beds and cover crops.

Today’s most exciting news is that Pete picked TOMATOES. I’d make a bigger deal of it but we still won’t have that many to sell this week. So if you’ve made it this far into the blog posting, you have been rewarded with an early warning about the tomatoes! Pete and I also moved the onions and shallots that we harvested last week out into the sunshine to help them dry out. We’ll be selling them for weeks to come.

Today I started working at 7am and finished at 8:30pm. I still am not able to keep up – one particularly frustrating thing to see this time of the year are all the giant weeds growing in various beds that are maturing and setting seed. That means lots more weeds next year. On a more encouraging note, the melons, winter squash, and sweet potatoes look really good. If all goes well I will have a lot of these crops to bring to market.

It will be another bountiful harvest this week, so we hope you have your re-usable bags ready for a big shopping trip! Here’s what we’ll have …

Eggplant
Cucumbers
Green beans
Dragon tongue beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Kale
Collard Greens
Basil
Parsley
Broccoli
Radicchio
Cabbage (Red and Green)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.

Best,
Mercy

Sweet Corn Blues

The field is just beautiful this year! The periodic rain, cool breezes, and fertile soil make for a happy farm (and farmer)!

Hello!

A word from Bill … The raccoons are totally destroying my sweet corn. I knew they would come, but I was not prepared for the overnight dinner party. I am in the process of trying to recover, but my feeling is that I will not be able to keep them out of the corn this year. I could probably keep them out next year if I spend a lot of time working on that and hundreds of dollars on fences and traps. I could also just give up and buy corn at the market. Part of me wants to put up a fight, but raccoons are very smart and determined animals. They are unnaturally abundant in our area and in many parts of Illinois. This is due to several factors, including our highly fragmented landscape, low fur prices, lack of natural predators, their adaptability, and lots of corn to eat. I gave up raising chickens because the raccoons kept eating them. The next few weeks will determine if I will give up growing corn too. So next time you buy corn at the market you can be glad you got the corn before the raccoons did.



An ear of corn enjoyed by a local raccoon





You can see how the raccoon "tested" this one to see if it was sweet enough before moving on to another ear.



A corn massacre

And now a word from Mercy … Bill’s down at the field trying to rig up something to keep the raccoons out of the sweet corn. He hasn’t tried to grow sweet corn in many years, and as I recall the raccoons had something to do with it back then, too! Raccoons are great eaters – they know a good thing when they find it. So in the course of one night, they wiped out about 75% of his sweet corn. He was tempted to just mow the rest of it down, but then he pulled a Caddyshack on me and headed down the field to do who-knows-what. Just picture him, like Bill Murray, setting out explosives and you get the general idea.

I will be at the market briefly this weekend with the boys. Noah, Ben, and I are going down to St. Louis on the Amtrak at 9 a.m. to a baby shower for my brother’s girlfriend. (It’s very 2009, to be sure.) I hope I get a chance to see many of you before we have to bug out.

Last week’s market was our best ever. (Do you remember that I said that just about every week last season?) The rain came late enough that most of the serious eaters had already been and gone by then. It was just tremendous. Bill thought the market had a really different feel last weekend as well – we both noticed A LOT more people that we’d never seen before. That’s great – I guess the word is finally getting out that fresh, local food really is worth the special trip!

The boys finally appear to be moving from farm liability to farm asset -- between the two of them (and with much arguing that could be heard ACROSS the field), they harvested 150 lbs. of summer squash and 120 lbs. of cucumbers. Noah is genuinely helpful (although he doesn't always enjoy it). Ben is only helpful when he wants to be. One day this week, he spent a significant amount of time spinning around like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music so that he could "see the world spinning." Very helpful. The boys are also so very curious. Bill tried to explain to them the difference between birds of prey (like turkey vultures) that can't be hunted by humans and "game" birds that can be hunted in the right season. Ben immediately wanted to know if we could also play games with them. Sheesh.

This week’s featured vegetable is the cucumber. Bill will be bringing traditional and Asian varieties. They’re both very crisp and tasty – a cool burst of flavor in your mouth! Unlike the tough-skinned, waxy cucumbers that you find at the store (or in a restaurant salad), Bill’s cucumbers have a thin, delicate skin with minimal bitterness. The Asian varieties are “burpless,” although chemists have not yet figured out what it is about various cucumbers that are more or less “burpy.”

And what’s with the Zephyr summer squash? You know, the yellow and green ones. Several customers have told us they thought the Zephyr is a gourd. No, no, no! It is a thin skinned, flavorful zucchini-like summer squash. You eat the whole darn thing. Slice and sauté, grill with balsamic vinegar, add to pasta – it’s that easy.

Bill will be bringing BOATLOADS of everything else – prepare to make yourself some side dishes with beets, potatoes, green beans, head lettuce and more. THIS SHOULD BE AN AMAZING MARKET! Bring a (hungry) friend!!

Here’s what we’ll have …

Eggplant
Cucumbers
Green beans
Dragon tongue beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Kale
Collard Greens
Basil
Parsley
Broccoli
Radicchio
Cabbage (Red and Green)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.

Best,
Mercy

Down with Kartoffelkafers!

Hello!

The calendar claims that it’s July, but with the cool wet weather I’m starting to wonder! I seriously can’t remember ever wearing jeans and a sweatshirt on July 8. It’s hard to complain since a typical July 8 would be hot and humid. If the weather holds, THIS WEEKEND could be the first comfortable SUGAR CREEK ARTS festival in years. (It’s usually either a thunderstorm or uncomfortably hot and humid.) The Garlic Press will be open all weekend and will have AWESOME food made with Blue Schoolhouse veggies. Be sure to stop in at the Press to get your lunch or dinner during the festival.

We so appreciate all of you coming in last Saturday to the market to buy veggies! What rotten weather!! A special kudos goes out to loyal customer Marilyn Townley, who braved the bad weather only to be doused by a few gallons of cold, wet rain water UNDER our tent. (She thought she was safe under the tent – HAH!) You really have to watch the edges of the tent, even where the two tents come together in the middle. The rainwater collects in the sagging parts of the tent (a common problem with a 7-YEAR-OLD tent!) and then dumps over when a breeze comes through and lifts up the fabric. Marilyn was a trooper!

This week we hear that there’s another slight chance for rain. We hope that’s not the case, but if it is … you know where to find us. At the market, under our pathetic tents. Bring an umbrella, and use it under the tent. Ha ha.

This week’s exciting new vegetable is the cucumber. A cool, crisp cuke is one of summer’s best features. I never liked them until I had Bill’s. The ones in the store and on the salad plate at a restaurant are usually tough-skinned and slightly bitter around the edges. Not so for a Blue Schoolhouse cuke. Be sure to check them out.

There will also be even more summer squash (a.k.a. zucchini), big Walla Walla sweet onions, tasty broccoli, and much more.

It’s worth mentioning that Bill has had a major victory over the potato beetles this season. By relocating the potatoes to a completely new location where potatoes haven’t grown in decades, Bill thought he would have very little beetle pressure. Unfortunately, the beetles found the potatoes. So he’s had the interns and our little boys out there squishing potato beetles for weeks. He also adopted our friend Dave’s method of beetle removal, which involves tennis rackets and baskets. He lightly whacks the potato plants with the rackets, dropping the beetles into the buckets, and then does a little dance on them. He could also just dump them into a bucket of soapy water, but he really likes the dancing part.

Our friend Kevin found some great information about potato beetles online. Apparently, the potato beetle is native to the United States and has proliferated throughout the world. During World War II some propaganda in Europe suggested that Americans had intentionally released the beetles in Europe for diabolical reasons.
Check out these web links for more (it’s truly entertaining!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28N6TSaKQ-g (video with subtitles)

http://www.potatomuseum.com/exPotatoBeetle.html (potato museum with beetle history)

http://potatobeetle.org/memorabilia.html (propaganda posters)

The best part of our potato beetle research is the German name – kartoffelkafer! The boys now refer to them as such. It makes them sound very well-traveled.

This will be the last week for salad mix for a while. Don’t miss it!

Here’s what we’ll have …

Green beans (boatloads – please buy some, as they are a killer to harvest)
Dragon tongue beans (yellow wax beans – even better than green beans, although they look funny)
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Salad Mix
Kale
Collard Greens
Basil
Parsley
Broccoli
Radicchio
Cabbage

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.

Best,
Mercy

Celebrate the Fourth with Green Beans!

Hello!

We hope that you have big cooking plans for the Fourth of July and that you plan to shop the market for the ingredients!! Bill will have so much delicious food this week. And many items are just perfect for the grill or a potluck party. Here are some ideas …

1. Green bean salad
2. New potato salad
3. A fresh veggie tray with young carrots, sliced green peppers, kohlrabi matchsticks, and broccoli
4. Grilled summer squash (just slice it lengthwise in half, cut slits into the inside face, stuff with garlic slices and grill face up with a light coating of balsamic and olive oil)
5. Roasted beets on the grill – easily turned into a beet salad after grilling. And why not add some of the goat cheese that I mention below?

So that’s right, we have GREEN BEANS! Do you remember last year’s beans? Bill grows truly amazing beans. This week he’ll have French Filet (tiny, thin and very fancy) and traditional green beans. He will have dragon tongue beans later. Hand-picked green beans are one of life’s pure joys (especially when YOU have not been picking them!). We like to blanch them and then add a vinaigrette with some chopped SHALLOTS and GARLIC. I also found this good-looking recipe on the 101 Cookbooks website (check out http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vibrant-tasty-green-beans-recipe.html).

Vibrant Tasty Green Bean Recipe

The following recipe is best made just before serving time. But as I mentioned in the main post you can make/prep this ahead of time by cooking the leeks and dill first and setting them aside. Instead of cooking the green beans in the skillet, blanch them in a pot of boiling, well-salted water for about a minute. Drain the beans and dunk them in a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and place the beans in a bag or bowl in the refrigerator until ready to use. When ready, combine the components - you can do it at room temperature, or heated quickly in a skillet or pan.

4 leeks, well washed, root end and tops trimmed, sliced lengthwise into quarters and then chopped into 1/2-inch segments
1/3 cup fresh dill, well chopped
3/4 pound green beans, tops and tails trimmed and cut into 1-inch segments
extra-virgin olive oil
fine-grain sea salt

In a large thick-bottomed skillet of medium-high heat add a generous splash of olive oil, a generous pinch of salt and the leeks. Stir until the leeks are coated and glossy. Cook, stirring regularly until a lot of the leeks are golden and crispy. I stir every minute or two in the beginning, and more often as they brown using a metal spatula. All in all it takes me roughly 7 - 10 minutes to brown the leeks. At this point stir in the dill, and then stir in the green beans. Cook for a couple more minutes - just until the the beans brighten up and lose that raw bite. Turn out into a bowl or onto a platter and serve immediately. Serves about 6.

New Potatoes

The new potatoes are also just unbelievably delicious right now. We prefer to eat them simply – just boil in salted water, drain, and then add melted butter, salt, and pepper. Throw in some rosemary if you’re feeling adventurous. The new potatoes have a very creamy texture, even without butter. Or try this awesome sounding recipe from 101 Cookbooks at http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/grilled-potato-salad-recipe.html.

Grilled Potato Salad Recipe

When I went to grill the potatoes and squash I set each piece on the grill, I suspect you could also use one of those grill baskets with success as well. I also thought about finishing this version with chopped jalapeno, cilantro and toasted sesame seeds - you can make it as simple or embellished as you like, depending on your individual tastes. I used a red-leafed lettuce here.

10 medium-sized new potatoes, unpeeled and quartered
3-4 small yellow summer pattypan squash, cut in half
1 bunch of green onions or spring onions
a big splash of olive oil
2 lemons, cut in half
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
clove of garlic, mashed and chopped
a couple drops of toasted sesame oil
salt
1/2 a head of lettuce, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces

Toss the potato wedges, squash, and green onions with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Place them on a medium-hot grill. Place the lemons on the grill as well, cut side down. Grill for 10-20 minutes or until golden and cooked through - moving around the grill if needed and flipping to get color on all sides. The squash will likely cook faster than the potatoes, remove pieces and place on a platter when they are done grilling.

While everything is grilling, whisk together the rice vinegar, olive oil, garlic, sesame oil, and a couple pinches of salt. When the onions come off the grill, let them cool for a couple minutes and then cut into 1/2-inch segments. Set aside.
Toss the lettuce with a splash of the dressing, and turn it out onto a large platter. Now toss the vegetables (but not the lemons) with a big splash of the dressing and arrange it on top of the lettuce sprinkled with the reserved grilled green onion segments. Garnish with the lemon (which I like to squeeze over my salad just before eating for an added layer of extra mellow tang that goes great with the potatoes. Serves 6 (or so) as a side.

Garlic



We have been harvesting this year’s garlic crop for the past several days, and we have many more days to go. That said, NOW IS THE TIME to start buying some garlic! It’s absolutely perfect right now. It may be our best garlic year ever. The heads sized up really well, and the cloves are nice and big. Bill will be bringing hard-neck and soft-neck varieties. The flavors are almost indistinguishable, but those with a serious garlic sensor could tell that the hard neck is better. Hard neck also has fewer, large cloves than the soft-neck. What you see in the stores is invariably soft-neck because it stores much longer (many months as opposed to several months). Braided garlic is also a soft-neck variety.

New Cheese Vendor!!

Did you notice the newest vendor at the Bloomington Farmers Market? We are very fortunate that Leslie Cooperband of Prairie Fruits (Urbana, IL) has decided to make our market one of her newest outlets for fabulous goat and sheep cheeses. I visited her website at http://www.prairiefruits.com/ and saw that she’ll have some cheeses on sale this week because the hot weather impacted some of the cheese varieties. I DEFINITELY plan to stop by her stand to pick some up!! We brought some home last week, and the boys loved it. (They have a pretty refined palate for being so young, although they have a hard time describing flavors. When we asked Noah, age 6.5, to use some words to describe Leslie’s cheese, he said, “It’s a foot away from awesome.” High praise!)

For the next market, here’s what you can expect:

Green beans
Summer squash
New potatoes
Cabbage
Carrots
Shallots
Green Peppers
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Sugar Snap Peas (maybe)
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Spinach (very little)
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Salad Mix
Kale
Collard Greens
Arugula
Basil
Parsley
Broccoli

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.

Best,
Mercy