Blue Schoolhouse Farm

Philistines vs. Philippines

2009-10-07T20:42:00.000-05:00

Hello!

Are you ready for more rain? As you read this, it’s probably raining cats and dogs. Just what we needed … more water. Seriously, it’s like living in the Pacific Northwest but without the good seafood.

I’m keeping it brief tonight because I’m typing in the dark. There is one downside to living in one big room altogether a la the Ingalls family – we need to turn off the lights when it’s bedtime for the boys. We’ve been letting them stay up a bit late but that came back to haunt us this morning when I got a phone call from the grade school telling me that Ben fell asleep on the bus this morning and ended up traveling all the way to Eureka High School. They found him when they did their walk-through at the end of the route. Don’t even ask me how an entire bus load of kids walked past our little porkchop without saying something helpful like, “Hey, that kid is asleep!” It’s a fend-for-yourself kind of world, I guess.

The funny boy thing that happened this week involved a Lego battle. Our little neighbor boy came over to play. When he walked in, Noah said, “Let’s have a battle!” Fresh from church, the other little boy said, “Yea, let’s battle the Philistines.” Noah then responded, “No, you mean the Philippines!” Yikes.

This weekend will be much the same as far as vegetables go … loads of tasty winter squash, fall greens, turnips, carrots, beets, and more! This will be the LAST WEEKED for the summer veggies because of the Saturday night frost in the forecast. So this is your last chance to stock up on sweet peppers and eggplant (if we even have any left). The sweet peppers will be available in mass quantities. Be sure to take advantage of our 5 lbs. for $10.00 deal and then just freeze them for later use in the winter. (Less than 5 lbs. is $3.00 per pound.)

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday …

Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli
Winter Squash
Parsnips
Eggplant (?)
Leeks
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Summer squash (?)
Potatoes
Carrots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to 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. Our phone service is won’t be restored until next week!

Best,
Mercy

The House is Home!

2009-09-30T20:19:00.001-05:00

Hello!

The house has been moved. It was amazing – so quiet and smooth. I imagine tomorrow will include more noise – the sound of 85 years worth of sagging being corrected in 5 minutes. Ouch! The world’s most expensive chiropractor visit.
How did you like the early fall broccoli last week? We’ll have more next week if you missed it.

As the cool weather sets in, you need to be prepared for the disappearance of your summer favorites. The first frost, which could happen any time, will kill off the sweet peppers, eggplant, green beans, and summer squash. So get some now before it’s too late!

October confuses people. They think the market is over, that plants stop growing, and that it’s time to stop eating real food until next May. NO! Please let your friends know that the market lasts until October 31 – come in costume, and we’ll throw in a free head of garlic! Ha ha.

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday …

Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli
Winter Squash
Parsnips
Eggplant
Leeks
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Green beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to 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. Our phone service is won’t be restored until next week!

Best,
Mercy

Autumn Broccoli and Sweet Potatoes

2009-09-24T06:33:00.002-05:00

Hello!

This will be a quick one because it’s early in the morning and I need to get the boys ready for school. This week’s big news is BROCCOLI! Have you been missing it? It’s back, and it will be delicious. This is the first year EVER that Bill has had fall broccoli. It is so sweet and crisp – be sure to get some!
Also, you should know that the squash is getting PROGRESSIVELY BETTER every week. It really needs to cure for a few weeks before the flavor fully develops. We ate acorn squash last night and were amazed at how much better it was than last week (when we also liked it).

We’ll also have SWEET POTATOES! Whoo-hoo! Like squash, sweet potatoes really need time to cure but we can’t wait that long to sell them. If you want to be really diligent, you could buy sweet potatoes and put them in a space heated to 80-90 degrees with 90% humidity for 7 days without burning your house down. (They are really a southern plant, so they like the heat.) We do this by putting them in our little space under the staircase, running a space heater and a humidifier, and covering the crates with wet towels. We just can’t do that for 1000 pounds of potatoes!

Here are two funny things from Noah this week. Yesterday in the car, Noah was reading a book out loud. I heard him read the phrase “a little black male.” I gasped and asked him to read it again. He said the same thing. My sensitivity meter going bananas, I asked for a spelling and it turned out to be “a little blackmail.” He was just sounding it out. Thank goodness. I thought Captain Underpants (the book) was going to have to be confiscated. The second funny thing was at the prayer before supper last night. We all went around the table to say one thing we’re thankful for. Noah said (and I’m not exaggerating), “Thank you God for the world being just like it is and not any worse.” (He’s been watching the Planet Earth series and the most recent episode was filled with some of the bad news, like animal extinctions and climate change.) Noah is already preparing for the worst. We try to reassure him, but he’s pretty smart and opinionated!

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday …

Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli
Squash – butternut, acorn, spaghetti
Parsnips
Eggplant
Leeks
Poblano Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Green beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to 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. Our phone service is dead for the next few weeks until the house is moved back onto the new basement!

Best,
Mercy

Fall crops are coming in. Welcome, parsnips!

2009-09-17T07:05:00.003-05:00

Hello!

We’re still in the neighbor’s basement, but our basement is coming right along. The walls are up, their pouring the floor today, and the house moves back next week. We just need this dry spell to hold.

The school year is also going well. Ben is doing a great job in kindergarten, getting a “smiley face” almost every day (which in his world is a big deal). He’s still in pronouncement mode, where he randomly bursts out with declaratory statements. Last night he said (with no obvious provocation), “You can’t get married when you’re little because your lips can’t reach anyone.” So there.

Noah has taken first grade by storm. He’s a little ahead of the curve right now, which makes our lives easier. He recently came home and asked for a shoebox. No explanation. I said we didn’t have one. He asked for any other box. I spotted a beer box on the floor and said he could have that. He busily got to work, cutting off the top flaps and coloring the inside. I finally asked him what he was doing. He said he was creating a diorama about the snowy white owl for his big assignment. Good lord … a diorama in a beer box. Not appropriate in any first grade setting but particularly inappropriate in such a religiously conservative area!! So he has to cover up the beer logo, etc. before turning it in.

But enough about our kids. Let’s talk farmer’s market. What happened to everyone? This past week marked the beginning of what we call “The Dropoff.” Many people just stop coming. We know that you are still coming, of course, and buying a lot of produce I might add. We appreciate that! Consider bringing a friend or at least talking about the market at work – we could use some extra traffic.

Here’s another reason why you should keep coming – this is Bill’s last season. Yes, Bill is not going to farm anymore. It’s complicated, but let’s just say that he’s tired of being tired. All the time. 10 months of the year. For very little money. Bill’s also concerned about the toll this takes on his body. Pick a joint above the waist, and it hurts. (Fortunately, he doesn’t have knee or hip problems! It’s all back, neck, shoulders, arms, etc.) We would also like to have more of a normal family life. We’ll actually be able to cook and preserve the food we grow next year! Yee-haw!

Clearly, the worst part about not farming will be that we won’t be a part of your lives anymore. We have really loved serving you the best food we have every Saturday for the past seven years. We know your kids, your food tastes, your politics, your favorite college football teams, and more. Sigh. It is sad, but I guess it’s just a seven year cycle that’s coming to an end.

But for the rest of this season, Bill will continue to bring you the best of what he has! No slacking off! (This season is paying for our basement!! Ha ha.) He’s also going to cap off his career with a rockin’ Thanksgiving market.

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday – note the new PARSNIPS!! …

Squash – butternut, acorn, spaghetti
Parsnips
Eggplant
Leeks
Poblano Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Green beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Basil

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to 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. Our phone service is dead for the next few weeks until the house is moved back onto the new basement!

Best,
Mercy

Tasty Squash now in season!

2009-09-09T13:59:00.005-05:00

A boat-load of squash

A busy day at the Blue Schoolhouse

Hello!
Sorry about missing a blog posting last week. Our house project is pretty time-consuming and I figured you could live without a rambling blog post! Ha ha. Speaking of the house, everything is going well. We should have the basement floor poured early next week and the house moved back to the new foundation the week after. We have gotten so comfortable in our neighbor's basement, though, that I'm not sure how we'll readjust to living in our place!
This week Bill will have some really delicious squash -- acorn, butternut, and spaghetti. We've been eating it, and it's PERFECT! Be sure to grab a few. It's easy to cook squash and scoop out the guts into a ziploc bag in the freezer for later use in the winter.
We will also have tons of sweet peppers. Have you ever roasted and frozen them? It's so easy, and it's wonderful to pull them out of the freezer in the winter to add to homemade pizza. We go through a ton that way. If you do roast them, put them into a covered bowl immediately afterward. The steaminess makes it much easier to peel off the blackened skin.
You'll notice by the veggie selection that we are transitioning nicely into fall. We'll have lots of head lettuces, beets, rose-heart radishes, Japanese turnips, arugula, ruby streaks, and more!! The radishes are pretty mild and very crisp right now. The rose-hearts have a brilliant pink interior -- perfect for slicing onto the side of a main dish. The ruby streaks are for those who like arugula -- it's just another fantastic mustard green with the perfect amount of sparkle in flavor and appearance.
Please come out this weekend. We're starting to experience that September slow-down in customers, which is disappointing because we have so much delicious produce to share! Bring a friend! Here's what we'll have:

Squash -- acorn, butternut, and spaghetti
Tomatoes (much fewer)
Eggplant
Leeks
Poblano Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Cucumbers
Green beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Basil
Okra

Best,
Mercy

Blue Schoolhouse on Stilts

2009-08-26T21:39:00.003-05:00

Hello!

Our house is now floating 8 feet above the ground – what a sight! The boys love it. It looks like our house just sailed in and docked on the side of the yard. They’re getting ready to excavate the basement. It will be a complete mess. The big trucks will have to drive through Bill's new blackberry and aronia bushes, which is quite sad. On the whole, though, they are restricting the damage to a pretty reasonable area.

The guys are all sleeping, so I have nothing that I can truthfully report about the farm. (I’ll avoid my usual strategy of making things up.) I will say that I had a hybrid tomato for lunch, and I honestly can’t believe how much better the heirlooms are. I ate it because I had no choice, but I will not do it again. Lesson: Buy heirlooms.

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday …

Tomatoes
Eggplant
Leeks
Poblano Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Cucumbers
Green beans
Dragon tongue beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Basil
Broccoli?
Cabbage (Red)
Okra

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to 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. Our phone service is dead for the next few weeks until the house is moved back onto the new basement!

Best,
Mercy

Heirloom Tomato Week -- We Mean It This Time!

2009-08-20T07:58:00.001-05:00

Hello!

The house move is underway. We are in the neighbor’s totally awesome basement, and there’s not much time for the blog. (Too much pool, foosball, air hockey, and Legos to play with! Ha ha!) The house move is going fine. Today we ran into our first two little problems. They discovered a large concrete pad under half of the back room in a location where we could not see it. We think it was the porch floor on the back side of the school house, and then someone just built over it. So they’re having to bust it up with a horizontal jackhammer mounted onto the bobcat – it sounded like a war zone. Then, the plumber found quite the leaky pipe in the back corner of the house where the water comes in from the well. He pulled up a section of the floor and said things you never want to hear about your own house, like “Wow, that’s a LOT of standing water!” and “There’s even a sinkhole!” The late afternoon deluge just added to the general soup-like quality of our yard. What a mess. I’ll post pictures next week.

Bill and Pete are working around the construction zone. This week’s harvest will be greatly complicated by the fact that we have no electricity or water at our house. It will work out, though. Just be sure that his extreme efforts don’t go to waste – be sure to come to the market with a big appetite!

It shouldn’t be hard to convince you to attend this week’s market given the mounds of beautiful heirloom tomatoes that Bill is bringing. I’ve seen the stack of tomato-filled crates, and it’s really amazing. (You’d cry to see all of the tomatoes that go into the compost – at least 75%!! People just won’t buy a tomato with a crack or too many cosmetic issues. Of course, he still has to pick them!) Our favorite market tomatoes this year are Pink Brandywine and Kellogg’s Breakfast. Here’s some tasty information sure to get you to the market with wallets blazing:

Pink Brandywine: This is Bill’s favorite. It’s very difficult to grow for market – lots of splitting. Bill estimates he only gets 10% of the fruit to sell at market. One book describes pink brandywine as winey, robust, mouth-watering, sweet, tart, and complex. Whoa. I’m tired just thinking of all the adjectives.

Kellogg’s Breakfast: Juicy AND meaty, this beefsteak variety is truly scrumptious. Look for a big, orange tomato, and you’ve found it. You can’t go wrong with Kellogg’s (product placement – we get paid for that. Ha ha!!).

Striped German: This is aesthetically the most beautiful varieties that Bill grows. And to top it off, it’s really delicious. I think it has a fruitier flavor with a bit less acidity than a red tomato, but I’m not sure if it’s just the colors that make me taste it that way.

Green Zebra: It’s ripe even though is a green-and-yellow striped tomato. The flavor is sweet and tangy. It’s a perfect foil for a sweeter tomato, and adds a visual flair.

Cherokee Purple: It is said that this variety was originally grown by the Cherokee Indians more than 100 years ago. It’s one of my favorites because it has a wonderfully complex tomato flavor and meaty texture.

Hybrids: The hybrids that Bill grows are also quite good. They’re cheaper at $2/pound because they’re easier to grow and yield much better. Of course, they have nowhere near the complexity of the heirlooms as far as flavor goes, and the skins are a bit thicker (hence their being more blemish and ding-free.) That said, if you need a lot of tomatoes and don’t want to spend as much, these are a very good substitution.

Bill is sure that this will be the biggest tomato week of the season (he was surprised about that, since last week was so good).

You may have noticed the lack of green beans last week, which was due to the beans being just too immature to pick. That means that Bill will be totally overwhelmed by beans this week. (Picking them is torture – seriously, every year I wonder why he does it.) This would, subsequently, be an excellent week for you to buy beans!!

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday …

Tomatoes
Eggplant
Leeks
Poblano Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Cucumbers
Green beans
Dragon tongue beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Basil
Broccoli?
Cabbage (Red)
Okra

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to 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. Our phone service is dead for the next few weeks until the house is moved back onto the new basement!

Best,
Mercy

Heirloom Tomato Week!!

2009-08-12T21:18:00.002-05:00

Hello!

Two words … HEIRLOOM TOMATOES! This is it. The week to end all weeks in 2009. The tomatoes have ripened and we’ll have a few hundred pounds to send home with you. We will set them all up on the outermost tables. And as was the case last week, there’s no pre-selecting your tomatoes before the bell rings. We have to keep it fair and minimize conflict. (There was actually some nice camaraderie last Saturday when the whole group of customers was irritated en masse about the new policy!)

We will also be bringing loads of onions. These are just about the best onions we’ve ever grown. Someone actually asked me what we do with onions, to which I almost asked what you CAN’T do with onions! It’s like garlic. Does a meal go by without it?

Bill may also have some muskmelons (incorrectly A.K.A. cantaloupe) and watermelon. I have a serious genetic defect in Bill’s mind because I just don’t like muskmelon (or honeydew for that matter). It does look beautiful and has such a nice mouth-feel. I hope you enjoy it as much as he does! (By the way, you almost NEVER see real cantaloupe in America. It’s not grown in many parts of this country. The stuff in the stores is really muskmelon.)

We are preparing for the house move, which starts on Monday. They’ll do some light excavating around the foundation so that they can run steel beams under it. They’ll actually move it over the course of a few days later that week. I think we have the logistics worked out – we’re staying at one neighbor’s house, our freezer is bunking with another family, and our ice blocks will be visiting Henry Brockman’s freezer. It takes a village, you know.

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday …

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

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

Do you need onions? Yes, you do.

2009-08-05T21:10:00.003-05:00

Hello!

This past Saturday was another record-setter, and by quite a margin. We have never brought so much food to the market before. We actually had to ask our friend Kevin, who had innocently offered to help harvest not knowing what he’d be getting into, to take a bunch of the food home with him on Friday and bring it to the market on Saturday morning. Another volunteer on Friday took another load to Kevin’s house, which is a few blocks east of the market. Kevin loaded it all into his mini-van and brought it down at 6:30 a.m. What a guy! We actually plan to use his house as a delivery point for the next few weeks because we have more food than we can fit into the truck/trailer/my car. Crazy.

Speaking of loads of food, we watched the movie Food Inc. this weekend. Did you? I could not stay for most of the movie because the boys were too squirmy, so Bill watched it solo. He thought it was quite good but nothing that he hasn’t read before.

We just got news today that the house mover will be here on August 17, weather permitting, to move our house. Yes, we’re moving our house. We need to dig a basement and, well, the house is in the way. You can look forward to hearing all about this adventure in the coming weeks. We have a marriage counselor on retainer.
We have wrapped up the first week of the boys having returned from the grandparents’ house. I’m not sure how long it will take for us to re-program them! Here’s a taste of what we’ve heard since they’ve been back …

1. Not two hours after returning from grandma’s, Noah announced that he was bored and wanted to go back to her house. (He wrote on the sidewalk in chalk “I M Bord.” Pretty good spelling for a little guy!) We have tried to explain that it’s not always that fun at grandma’s and that she actually has a full-time job. They don’t get it – they think my parents go to The Magic House or up in the Arch every day.

2. We went to pick blueberries and then vacuum sealed them to store them over the winter. Noah said, “You know, dad, there is a freezer bag that prevents freezer burn.” Seriously. He sounded like a little commercial (and we don’t have television here at the house for them to watch). He couldn’t remember the brand name, so the advertisers only did half the job.

3. When Bill got out the homemade yogurt, Noah asked how many calories it has, noting that “some brands have more than 100 calories per serving.” This from a kid who has never heard the word calorie to my knowledge.

4. Noah asked me more than once yesterday if I knew that I may be “missing an opportunity to buy a Honda.” He seemed pretty concerned about missing the opportunity, so it must have been a pretty compelling commercial. He now refers to himself on occasion as “Mr. Opportunity.”

5. As you may have guessed, they watched A LOT of commercial television while on vacation. My dad has a TV on at all times, even during dinner. The boys are totally in love with Animal Planet. Given how much moaning and groaning Noah has been doing about farming, we asked him if he’d live on a farm or in the city when he grows up. He immediately responded, “I want to live in the television.” Whoa.

I know some people think raising two boys on a farm must be idyllic (while members of my extended family think it sounds like torture). Let me assure you that our kids dislike us and our lifestyle (on occasion) as much as in-town kids dislike their lot in life. It just depends on the hour of the day. And our kids are “behind” in some kid activities. Like Noah can’t ride a bike yet without training wheels. We just haven’t gotten around to taking him somewhere that he can practice. On the other hand, he can use very sharp knives and clippers. Ben is similarly precocious with the dangerous implements.

Were you able to watch the big storm roll in on Tuesday? It was really impressive out here on the farm. Bill said it was like being on a movie set with special effects – like a scene out of Lord of the Rings (Gates of Mordor scene, anyone?). I was in my bunker of an office, where I never have any idea what the weather is doing. Bill said they were harvesting for the CSA on Tuesday morning – him and three interns. They knew a huge storm was coming from looking at the radar. The interns were furiously picking veggies while Bill tried to quickly mow a section of weeds. All of the sudden, a perfectly straight line of dark clouds moved over the trees next to the field. The temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and before Bill knew it, they were all staring at the sky. It was biblical. Fast-moving, low-to-the-ground, rolling clouds then moved in, followed by an amazingly powerful rain. Bill said it was awesome. And then they ran for cover, barely making it out of the field before it got too slippery to get the truck up the hill.

This week’s featured vegetable is the SWEET ONION. It’s hard to get people excited about onions, which is really too bad. Onions are CRITICAL to good eating. What meal, what dish, can’t benefit from a delicious, sweet onion. Bill’s onions – Walla Walla, Candy, and Copra – are truly divine. And I’m not exaggerating. The difference between Bill’s sweet onions and the onions in the store (you know, the cheap 5-pound bag) is AS STRIKING as the difference between store tomatoes and Bill’s tomatoes. It’s really something. You can roast, grill or sauté these suckers and eat them plain. Not kidding. And I’ll be totally honest here, we need you to buy a lot of onions. We have THREE THOUSAND POUNDS of them in our garage. It’s not a big garage. I fear they will turn up in my house if you don’t buy some, and quick. Ha ha. Seriously, we have a boatload and you need to start eating them! We’ll be selling them by the pound or in 5-pound bags.

We’re looking at another monstrous harvest this weekend. I’ll be driving a big portion of it in to town (to Kevin’s garage!) on Friday night. Kevin will most likely be unavailable to deliver it on Saturday morning because his wife Christina is expecting their second baby any minute now. Good luck, Kevin and Chris!

Here’s what we’ll have …
Tomatoes
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)
Okra

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

The Great Onion Harvest of '09

2009-07-29T20:04:00.004-05:00

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

2009-07-22T21:03:00.003-05:00

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

2009-07-15T21:27:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-07-08T20:53:00.001-05:00

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!

2009-07-01T19:51:00.006-05:00

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

Could it be Abe Lincoln?

2009-06-24T21:36:00.005-05:00

Hello!

And hello summer! It’s been one of those weeks when I’ve really appreciated the air conditioning at city hall while Bill has been toiling in the sun. We finally broke down and put in the window A/C units – it gets to be unbearably hot upstairs in the boys’ room, and Bill just deserves a little comfort in the living room after a hard day’s work. I hope you have managed to keep cool.

This week’s picture gallery is completely unrelated to our market stand (big shock!). I just had to put up this cool snail picture. Noah found him hanging out on the mushroom logs.

And these are the boys in Uncle Aaron’s motorcycle helmet. They looked completely nuts. Like upside down exclamation points. In addition to bringing the highly forbidden motorcycle to our house, Uncle Aaron was also kind enough to bring the boys wooden swords from Japan. Just what they needed.

This week was a big one at the farm – Ben turned 5 and Bill turned 38! It just so happens that Ben’s birthday (June 25) falls on the same day as the Harry Potter party at the Children’s Museum in Normal, so I am off the hook for one more year. I have yet to throw a kid-oriented birthday party. My parents always come up, and my mom makes a cake. We have our friends over (no kids!) and keep it simple. I hear about the more elaborate kid parties being thrown in other households and feel guilty for about a nanosecond. Some day my kids will really resent my poor parenting!

Movie endorsement: We saw Up this past weekend – the new Pixar film about the old guy who flies away in a house with a wayward boy scout. It’s very charming, but the 3-D doesn’t add much. And I was amazed that a kid-targeted 3-D movie would include 3-D glasses that are too big for a kid’s head (unless you have a big noggin’ like Noah).

One last non-farm tidbit – I took the boys to a Catholic wedding recently, which included a full mass. They were fascinated. They’d never seen a crucified Jesus before (we Protestants tend to just stick with the empty cross). Noah thought Jesus looked a bit like Abe Lincoln. Ben wanted to know why the priest put the golden chalice away in the “secret compartment” – he figured it was so that no one would steal it. And the bell ringing during the preparation of the communion was a real treat.

But let’s get down to the business of VEGETABLES! Here’s what you need to know …

1. It’s the LAST WEEK for garlic scapes. That’s right, no more scapes until 2010. Sniff, sniff. If you haven’t yet tried them, this is your chance.

2. It’s the FIRST WEEK for CARROTS, SHALLOTS, and GREEN PEPPERS (although the peppers will be in short supply).

I’m not going to tell you what to do with carrots, as that seems to be obvious. But let’s talk about shallots. They are totally essential for a high-falootin’ dinner, according to Uncle Aaron, who is a dynamite chef. Shallots have a pinkish flesh. Roasted until tender, the bulbs are meaty, sweet, mild and tender. According to Deborah Schneider (Vegetables A to Z), shallots are best known for their roles in sauces, raw and cooked. Throw them into a vinaigrette for salad, julienne them onto greens, or cook gently like a baby onion.

**NEWS FLASH**
There’s a cool CONTEST out there called “Love Your Farmers Market”. If you go to , you can vote for the Bloomington Farmers Market. The market with the most votes wins $5,000! And every vote helps promote local food, family farms and sustainable agriculture.

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

Carrots
Shallots
Green Peppers (not many!)
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Sugar Snap Peas
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Spinach
Garlic Scapes (LAST WEEK!)
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

The Lights Are Out, But We're Still Home

2009-06-18T06:05:00.006-05:00

Hello!

As I write this there’s a nice thunderstorm happening outside and the power went out. Not that we needed the rain, but what can you do?! And I’m not sure how long the battery on the laptop will hold out, so I need to get this blog posting DONE!

I hope that you all enjoyed the fantastic lettuces this past week! We will be bringing more gorgeous heads along with salad mix and spinach this week. We also have a few new items:

Fennel – Crunchy and fibrous raw, fennel is a great addition sliced into salads. It’s like crunching on celery but with a light anise flavor. You can also roast it, which adds a hint of pine nutty flavor. Just slice the bulbs into thick pieces, rub with olive oil, sprinkle with balsamic vinegar (and salt/pepper to taste), and cook in an aluminum foil-lined baking dish at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes until the fennel is cooked through and ready to carmelize. Delicious and easy!

If you want to try something a bit more complex (but still pretty easy), see below for a lentil salad with fennel.

Sugar Snap Peas – Last week I thought he was bringing them. This week, I know he is bringing them. Our kids are completely crazy about the peas. It’s hard to get them to pick ‘em without eating ‘em! These peas are best eaten raw either on their own or tossed into a salad. It’s a great snack a work, too! When your co-workers are bringing out the cookies and chips, you can reach for your bag-o-peas.

Kohlrabi – Looks like a root, but it’s really a swollen stem of a brassica (broccoli family). We prefer to just lightly peel it and then cut it into matchsticks and eat in a tahini dip (tahini, a dash of fresh lemon juice, a dash of soy sauce or Bragg’s, and water to get it to the preferred consistency). It’s a wonderful snack. You can also julienne it into a salad – it has a great apple-like texture. Be sure to cook the greens as well – simply sauté in sesame oil and soy sauce for a nice Asian-tinged side dish.

Swiss chard – There are lots of Swiss chard devotees out there, and for good reason. Swiss chard is just fantastic. We typically ribbon it up and then lightly sauté it with other greens. Basically, it can be treated like spinach for cooking purposes. I’d say more, but I’m afraid the computer battery is ready to die.

I did cut-and-paste the following recipe from www.culinate.com for fennel, if you’re interested.

Lentil Salad with Herbs and Fennel
From the Matthew Card collection at www.culinate.com

Introduction
While this salad can be served on its own or as accompaniment to grilled chicken or seafood, it also serves as a base for all manner of additional ingredients — sliced radishes, tomatoes, feta cheese, walnuts, pickled onions, etc. The salad should be tasted before serving and adjusted for salt and acidity, which will mellow as the salad sits.

Ingredients
3 qt. water
8 garlic cloves, peeled
3 bay leaves
½ onion, peeled but intact
~ Kosher salt
2 cups du Puy (French) lentils
2 Tbsp. white-wine vinegar
3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
~ Large pinch of sugar
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
~ Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 Tbsp. minced fresh thyme or savory
½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 large fennel bulb, diced

Steps

1. Combine the water, garlic, bay leaves, onion, and 1 tablespoon salt in a large pot and bring to a boil. Add the lentils, return to a simmer, and reduce the heat to medium, or just enough to maintain a slow but steady simmer. Cook until the lentils are tender, 25 to 35 minutes. Drain, discard the onion and bay leaves, transfer the garlic cloves to a small bowl, and spread the lentils onto a baking sheet to cool.
2. With a fork, mash the garlic cloves to a paste. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, and sugar and whisk together; whisk in the olive oil until emulsified. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooled lentils, thyme, parsley, and fennel. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the lentils and fold the mixture with a large rubber spatula until well blended. Adjust the seasoning to taste (the lentils should taste fairly salty; the seasonings will mellow as the salad sits).
4. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

You can also check out www.culinate.com for a new posting from chef Deborah Madison. She’s a great cook and writer.

I’ll leave you with a final few notes and then the list of what we’re bringing. I’ve recently fallen in love with the podcasts from www.slate.com. They’re politically progressive, but not ugly and mean like you’d find on most talk radio. We’re going to the upcoming Ralph’s World show at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on June 28. It’s only $5! If you haven’t heard them, let me assure you that Ralph’s World is a GREAT children’s band. Bill and I have been known to listen to him without the kids being at home!

I heard there’s a new documentary out called Food, Inc. Michael Pollan is involved, so it must be good.

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

Fennel
Kohlrabi
Sugar Snap Peas
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Spinach
Garlic Scapes
Beets
Green Onions
Garlic
Salad Mix
Kale
Collard Greens
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Radishes
Parsley

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

Lettuce Lovers' Market

2009-06-11T06:05:00.005-05:00

Hello!

Thanks for coming out in force last week to grab your portion of the biggest harvest we’ve had this season! I hope you enjoyed all of the food. This Saturday will be another big one!

We’ve been eating mixed greens and head lettuce like rabbits in our house. Speaking of head lettuce, that’s this week’s featured vegetable. It is in perfect condition right now and it’s abundantly producing. This week would be the time to sample different varieties to get an idea of how diverse the world of lettuce is. Here’s what we’ll be bringing on the lettuce front …

Rouge D’hiver – First described in 1840, this “Red Winter” Romaine lettuce was traditionally grown by Parisian market gardeners to supply Paris with winter lettuce. This beautiful dark red and green romaine has crunchy sweet pink ribs. This is Bill’s favorite lettuce – it has an amazing buttery texture and sweet flavor. It confirms his belief that the French are always right when it comes to vegetables (and most other things!). Savor some Red Winter Romaine and nourish your inner French self.

Forellenschuss – An Austrian heirloom translated as “trout self-enclosing”, forrellenschuss is a beautiful speckled romaine with superior flavor.

Cherokee summer crisp lettuce – This summer crisp has a stunning dark red color with bright green hearts and a mild flavor. You can’t find anything like this at Meijer or Walmart.

Red Fire leaf lettuce – This is our bestselling lettuce, and for good reason. The shiny wavy red and green leaves are beautiful and they taste great. From a practical point of view, it is also one of the easiest lettuces to grow, tolerates heat and sizes up well.

We will also have Bibb and many other varieties of leaf lettuce. We have about two weeks left for spinach. (It depends on how hot it gets.) DON’T BE DETERRED by the large leaves! The variety that we grow has large leaves and still remains tender and sweet!

We have quite a few shiitake mushrooms growing on oak logs under our pine trees. We plan to bring some this week. It’s also possible that Bill will be bringing sugar snap peas!

Another exciting development – garlic scapes! Bill will be bringing the first scapes of the season. You may recall these tasty flowering stalks of the hard-necked garlic plants. We sell them in an Indiana Jones-esque curled-up whip-like bunch, which adds to the cool-ness of your overall farmers market shopping experience. We cook scapes like asparagus, cutting them into 1-inch lengths and steaming or sautéing until tender. They’re perfect alone with just olive oil, salt and pepper OR stirred into rice or an omelet.

On the farm, Bill is in the middle of his first cutting of hay, which provides material for mulching our vegetables. Bill recently purchased a 1960’s sickle mower so life is better. Bill found it online and had it shipped from Kentucky to a local farm implement dealer. They were not impressed, calling it a “piece of junk” in the nicest way. Bill replaced all of the blades and various other parts, and it’s working very well. He saved thousands of dollars going with a used mower, so I’m thrilled.

We have also been up to our eyeballs in strawberries. Do you grow strawberries? If no, you should reconsider. Strawberries are not that hard to deal with and they're great to eat (esp if you have kids). We canned 12 pints last night, which is also not that hard to do.

The weather is still a bit weird – I can’t recall ever wearing a light jacket in June before! But it’s great weather to have the boys out in the field. They’re not totally roasting in the heat. (Although Noah decided to farm without a shirt like one of the interns last week – against our advice – and got a nice little sunburn. I don’t think he’ll do that again!) We also had our first incident with the electric fence. Noah ran right into it – knocked him over into a full somersault. Probably won’t do that again either!

Bill's little brother just stopped in for an extended stay, so we will have his help on the farm. He's an amazingly hard worker. It's in the Davison genes. We'll bring him to the market some time so that you can meet him. In the meantime, I am just surrounded by guys. I feel like I'm living in a frat house (minus the heavy drinking).

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

Head Lettuce
Spinach
Shiitake Mushrooms
Garlic Scapes
Sugar Snap Peas
Beets
Green Onions
Garlic
Salad Mix
Kale
Collard Greens
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Radishes
Parsley

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

Freshtables at the Market!

2009-06-03T20:59:00.009-05:00

Bill's wall o' beets

Hello!

We hope you are as excited as we are about this week’s veggie harvest! Finally … and I mean finally … the plants are happy and GROWING! We should have lots of great “freshtables” for you on Saturday. (“Freshtables” is a hybrid word invented by our 2-year-old buddy Mallory, who cleverly combined “fresh” and “vegetable.” Last year, our little Ben came up with “hu-mazing” to describe something that was both huge and amazing – a particularly large Walla Walle onion that he harvested. Future marketing executives, perhaps?)

Yes, this week will bring lots of new vegetables and in greater quantities. Salad mix, spinach, green onions, green garlic, radishes and beets will be joined by more head lettuces, kale, collard greens, arugula, parsley, and ruby streaks. Be sure to come out and grab some of your favorites. And maybe this is the year that you try something new! Have you yet decided that your diet needs to include fresh parsley? It’s amazing to us how little parsley we can sell. It is such a treasure! The flavor of freshly harvested parsley is just so … fresh! It’s like eating a little piece of the farmers market. I swear that the fresh green flavor of parsley will conjure up your Saturday morning in the crisp morning air downtown Bloomington, coffee and scone in hand, dog on a leash, you get the idea. And all you have to do is mince it onto just about anything. No cooking required.

I have a new favorite recipe website. It’s www.culinate.com. The website describes itself as providing simple, straightforward recipes using fresh, seasonal ingredients. They also believe “that eating well and living well are interconnected, and that the intentional act of preparing food with, and for, other people leads to both.” What’s not to like about that? They also have featured recipes. If this is any indication of how cool the site is, local food guru Deborah Madison posts a recipe and her commentary once a month!

And darn it if I haven’t forgotten another awesome recipe website recommended by customer Melissa Johnson. Melissa – you’ll have to email it to me. I can’t be trusted at the market to remember anything.

But back to www.culinate.com. Let’s see if it can’t get you pumped about kale and collards. And I’m not just saying this to get you to buy it – it’s really perfect right now! Early in the season, both kale and collards are particularly well-balanced in flavor and texture. Every year we tell you how we prepare our greens – sauté with garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and olive oil. But it’s just not that compelling. So go to culinate.com and read about Garlic Braised Kale for a tasty idea (http://www.culinate.com/search/q,ctype=recipe,q=kale,stype=/218157). You can swap out the bulb garlic for our green garlic, and you’re set. For collards (which are Ben’s FAVORITE green), try the same recipe and use collards rather than kale. Seriously – this stuff is tasty! And forget whatever you’ve previously been told about cooking kale and collards for hours to make them tender. Bill’s greens are tender already.

After all of the angst about how much rain we had been getting, you’d be surprised at how happy we were to get the most recent downpour. It’s perfect for germinating our most recent planting of seeds, including melons, winter squash, summer squash, beets, carrots, and basil. It also invigorated our early greens so the spinach and lettuce are perking right up. Potatoes are looking great due to our extreme potato maintenance regime – you can’t imagine how many thousand Colorado potato beetles that Bill, our little boys, and the interns have hand-picked and squished (technical term) in the past couple of weeks. It is seriously disgusting and makes me very happy to be in my office typing up Council Reports while they’re doing it.

The interns taking care of spinach

I’m not going to be at the market on Saturday – I have a wedding in Kansas City to attend. I’m so excited! It’s just great to get together with the extended family so that my kids can get to know my cousins’ kids. (We were a close family growing up.) We’ll be whooping it up at the Fairfield Inn while Bill enjoys the solitude of a kid- and Mercy-free house for the weekend. He enjoys the occasional quiet time to recharge his introvert batteries. (Do you ever wonder how on earth we ended up together? Chatty Cathy meets The Quiet Man.) So be sure to chat it up with Bill this Saturday to make sure he doesn’t miss us too much.

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

Head Lettuce
Spinach
Beets
Green Onions
Green Garlic
Salad Mix
Kale
Collard Greens
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Radishes
Parsley

This week was also Bill's first CSA pickup. Several of you are members of Henry's CSA in Bloomington. Did you know that we were members of Henry's before we started our own farm? Our CSA pickup is in Eureka behind our church (Eureka Christian). It's one of the most beautiful buildings and properties in central Illinois. The space is what I envision Europe looks like -- lots of brick and big old trees. Here are a couple of pictures. The two large trees are a burr oak and a chinquapin oak, the latter of which is pretty unusual in town.

Finally, some "boy notes" for those who like to hear about Ben and Noah. Ben "graduated" from preschool this past week. Is he not just the cutest little scholar that you've ever seen?

And the boys have been little harvesting machines this year. When they're not knee deep in the strawberry patch, they have been checking out the mushroom logs. They found some really big ones last week and were so proud.

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

Let us eat lettuce!

2009-05-27T18:29:00.003-05:00

Hello!

We’re heading into the last May market, and it’s looking to be very similar to the first two May markets with one new addition – head lettuce! It’s really crisp and tender this time of year, having not yet been subjected to the heat of summer.

We’re still moving a little more slowly in the field than we had hoped, though. As you may recall, Bill is using a new field this year. Four acres – a record area for Bill to manage. By all appearances, it should be functioning like the Garden of Eden – dark, black, crumbly floodplain soil adjacent to a babbling brook. Unfortunately, it turns out that the sandy component of the soil (which is great for root crops to grow through) facilitates the leaching of key nutrients under extremely wet conditions. So last fall’s and this spring’s heavy rains likely washed out much of the nitrogen that had been fixed into the soil by last year’s planting of soybeans and clover. As a result, the plants aren’t growing as fast and Bill has switched into his “Bill Davison, Soil Scientist” mode. He’s testing the soil, amending it with organic materials, and doing little dances to the god of soil to encourage faster growth. Like I said … very scientific.

Ben is doing his part as a farmhand. Although he appears to be dressed to hop into the next boxcar for a hobo adventure, this is actually how he dresses to farm (on a cool day -- sweater, quilted flannel, scarf, and train engineer hat). I really don't know where he gets his sense of style.

Did you know that the market is offering credit card/debit card payments? I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but you can go to the farmers market tent (not the individual farmers’ stands) and use your credit/debit card to get cute wooden tokens in various denominations. You can then spend those tokens at the farmers’ stands. We get reimbursed accordingly. We do make change for the tokens, so there’s no penalty for using them. We are also able to accept tokens through the WIC and Senior Nutrition Program, although we can’t give change for those tokens.

Thanks to everyone who patronized Noah’s Art Stand, set up directly north of the green garlic. Noah brought a few kindergarten art pieces and sold them for $.25 apiece. He made $4.55 (extra five cents thanks to a tip from Scrogin Farm!). Intoxicated by his financial windfall, Noah declared that he is coming to the market every week to sell art! (We only brought them this week because the sitter was out of town.) He doesn’t even have a plan for spending it … he just likes having it! He obviously hasn’t yet heard of his obligation as an American to stimulate the economy by wasting it on some little trinket. We’re working on that. Ha ha.

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

Head Lettuce
Spinach
Beets
Green Onions
Green Garlic
Nettle
Salad Mix.

If you have any questions (veggie, fruit, cooking, calculus, quantum theory), 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.

Mercy

Sunny Skies for Saturday!

2009-05-21T05:46:00.004-05:00

Hey all!
Thank you so much for coming out to see us last Saturday. It was a trifecta of suboptimal weather conditions – cold, windy and gray. Rain would have made it unbearable. I hope that the delicious vegetables made it worth the trek through the bad weather. The green garlic is really perfect right now, as are the beets. We had at least one first-time beet eater – you know who you are, and we’re dying to know how it went!
This coming Saturday will definitely be worth the trip because we are bringing two serious crowd pleasers … salad mix and spinach!! If you haven’t had fresh leafy greens since last fall (and I don’t mean Earthbound Farm pre-washed greens!), you are in for a real treat. The salad greens are a diverse mix of early spring favorites – leaf, bibb, romaine, speckled, and more! The spinach is to-die-for. Sweet and crisp enough to eat as a snack. Our boys go nuts for it. By the following Saturday, we hope to bring head lettuce.

We’re also bringing more nettle. Don’t be afraid of the stingers – they melt away when you drop them into boiling water. Blanch for two minutes, and then use it like you’d use spinach. I’m not just saying this … nettles are awesome! They are every bit as good as cooked spinach. We use them in omelets regularly, and we make nettle soup on occasion.
This week I had the opportunity to “teach” a group of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at Northpointe Elementary School. They were al l members of the school’s Ecology Club. The topic – local food. The kids were really into it! I brought some Earthbound Farm arugula and baby spinach for sampling and a bag of some other brand of baby carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. I revealed the truth about “baby” carrots (they’re just mature carrots that have been put through a lathe). It was a blast! (Especially the part where we talked about heritage turkey breeds. It didn’t occur to me how funny the 5th grade boys would find the discussion about broad breasted white turkeys, whose breasts are so large that they can’t stand up. In reality, it’s a very disturbing fact about factory-raised turkey. However, for a 5th grade boy, it’s just a chance to laugh about big breasts.)
Just when life couldn’t get any better for the boys, our farmhand Phil brought them a TRASH BAG full of his old Legos. Do you know how much space is taken up by a dumped-over garbage bag of Legos? About half of your living room. When Ben asked Noah if he could find tractor pieces in the pile, Noah answered, “Ben you can probably find anything you want in there.” Lego nirvana.

The boys also found the first ripe strawberries of the year. Whoopee!

Out in the field, Bill and the farmhands have been very busy taking advantage of the recently dry weather. They transplanted 600 sweet potato plants, weeded 6,000 onions and 8,000 garlic plants, transplanted 280 tomatoes, 250 eggplants, and 300 peppers, planted ½ acre of sweet corn (keep your fingers crossed and we may get some if we can keep the raccoons away), weeded four 150-foot beds of spinach, mulched about 1/3 of the 1200 pounds of potatoes that we planted, mulched the kale, collards, and Brussels sprouts. Bill also hooked up and tried out his new 1960’s New Holland 450 sickle mower for cutting hay. It works, but it needs a new sickle blades to be really effective.

Potatoes after hilling

For the next market, here’s what you can expect:
Spinach
Beets
Green Onions
Green Garlic
Nettle
Salad Mix

If you have a burning veggie question, 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

Coming to a market near you ... the Blue Schoolhouse Farm!

2009-05-11T21:41:00.007-05:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go online … out of nowhere comes a new posting on the Blue Schoolhouse Farm blog! Yes, that’s right. We’re back. Mercy, Bill, Noah, Ben, whatever cats are currently living here, and various family members who drop in for extended stays. I really don’t know how you were able to make it through the long, off-season months without hearing about our madcap farming adventures. Ha ha!

The off-season was great. Here’s a quick recap: Noah did well in kindergarten, Ben passed his kindergarten screening, both boys took beginning swimming lessons, Bill made 100 pounds of sausage, and I ran the first-ever Champaign-Urbana half marathon with friends. That’s it! Six months in one sentence … I find that to be oddly comforting.

Oh wait, I forgot that Noah learned the “F” word! Now that’s been fun. Noah came home last week and announced, “Mom, I learned four new curse words today.” I said, “OK, what are they?”, expecting him to list off something innocuous. Oh no. And the rest of this paragraph is R-rated for adult language … Noah answered, “Fuck.” Just like that – totally matter-of-fact. I about fell over. It’s really weird when your little baby (OK, he’s almost 7!) says something like that. I gasped and said, “Well, you’ve hit the jackpot. That’s the big one. The one you can never say again. You just say ‘the “F” word.’ Where did you learn that?” I was expecting him to say that he’d learned it on the bus from one of the big kids. (6th graders will say anything, as you know.) He told me he’d read it on the back of some playground equipment. I guess that’s what we get for teaching kids to read so young! Anyway, I thought I was clear about him never, ever, ever repeating that word in front of me or other adults when he asked “What does the ‘fuck word’ mean?” Once again, my jaw dropped. I told him, “It’s the ‘f word.’ You don’t say the whole word. And in any case, I’m not going to get into details. It means different things depending on how you say it. Just forget about it.”

I thought that was it until we came back from the field later in the day, and Noah had written the “F word” (spelled out, of course) in chalk on the sidewalk along with a list of words that rhyme with it – duck, luck, buck. You get the idea. He had turned it into a little language lesson. On some level, I was glad to know that he could rhyme and spell so well! And we haven’t had any further “F word” incidents since then. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

And while we’re talking about the boys, both Noah and Ben have become big fans of clip-on ties. They found one in a box of clothes, and they’ve never been the same. We had to go buy two more at the resale shop just to avoid a fight over the one they found. They wear them everywhere (Menards, for example and with anything (ever seen a clip-on with a t-shirt?). I feel like I’m living with two little Alex P. Keatons.

In farming news, our new field along Walnut Creek is beautiful. The soil is much looser than our upper field and we expect great improvements in our crops. Time will tell, but right now things look really good. Things in the greenhouse look wonderful. Check out the beets! We’re also including a pictures of the shooting stars (native prairie plant) that we grow in front of our house. It’s our 4 square foot attempt at “landscaping.”

And how have you been? You’d be surprised how often we think of you. And I mean individually. Like “Oh boy, customer X would knock over a little old lady to get this arugula!” So we’re very excited to start bringing you the vegetables that you love in the 2009 season. The first market is set for next Saturday, May 16 from 7:30 a.m. until noon. We will have our stand in the same place, although parts of the market will be relocating to the south side of Washington. You’ll figure it out as soon as you arrive – no worries! (Although you do need to be careful when crossing Washington, as traffic will not be blocked.) This unusual reconfiguration of the market is brought to you complements of … THE RECESSION. The recent economic downturn has hit the City of Bloomington in the pocketbook, and as I understand it (which is always sketchy) they needed to cut back on the expensive overtime costs required to have city employees close off Main Street west of the history museum.

As you have likely noticed, this spring has been a bit wet. From what I hear, a lot of farmers are about two weeks behind with many crops because they weren’t able to get out into the fields at the typical time. Bill managed to get things into the ground here and there when there were 24-48 hour periods of time when the soil was dry enough, but it was really nerve wracking. We called in reinforcements (Read: Friends who are too nice to say “no”) for potato planting, and I spent hours on my knees one day rescuing the garlic from the weedy oats that were growing through last season’s mulch, which was cut too late due to rainy weather issues. I’ve also been spending lots of time in the greenhouse weeding the beets (which look fabulous!).

That’s all to say that we’ve had our challenges this spring, but it’s still looking awesome out there! For the first market, here’s what you can expect:

Beets
Green Onions
Green Garlic
Nettle
Salad Mix
Carrots
Onions
Celery Root
Black Spanish Radishes
Rutabaga

Note that none of the above will be available in great quantities, so I’d advise you to get to the market early. You may want to consider a helmet and elbow pads just in case other customers get frisky over the limited offering.

As always, if you have questions, give us a call at 309-467-9228 or shoot us an email at bluescoholhouse@yahoo.com.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday!
Mercy

Thanksgiving Market, Here We Come!

2008-11-11T19:56:00.016-06:00

Hello my baby, Hello my darlin', Hello my ragtime gal ...

Aaaahhh, the Thanksgiving Market. We’ve had just enough time to rest and relax that one more intense market just sounds like FUN! If you were at our stand at last year’s Thanksgiving market, you probably recall the crazy crowd, the long lines, and the empty crates. Bill and I never dreamed that the market would be that successful, so we didn’t bring any help and couldn’t manage the long line very well and had no chance to re-stock the crates. We’ve learned our lesson! This year, we’re bringing 2-3 helpers. Our friend Kannan has been selling our vegetables at the stand all season, so he’ll help keep the line moving along. And current farmhand Pete and former farmhand Kevin will keep the crates stocked.

We’re also going to try to keep the lines away from the crates so that you can actually get to the food! The plan is to have two lines on opposite ends of the stand with the people lining up away from the crates. I really hope this works! Be sure to come by the market at the Coliseum on Saturday, Nov. 22 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. We plan to bring a ton of food, so if time gets away from you and you realize that it's 1 p.m., come on down!

And now for the important part of the email. What are we bringing?? A LOT OF VEGETABLES! If the weather cooperates, we’ll have many of the awesome greens that we had at the October markets. And regardless of the weather, this market will be dominated by the ROOTS!

Root Cellar Loaded with Your Root Vegetables

The Root Cellar "Guard Snake" (Bill found this snake living in the root cellar about three weeks ago. It's trying to hibernate, but the temperature probably isn't quite cold enough, so it keeps moving around.)

I’m going to list the vegetables that we’re bringing below with some basic information and cooking/eating tips. After that list, I’ll list STORAGE INFORMATION. And I’ll wrap up with some recipes. It’s a lot of information, but we really want you to a) come to the market and b) buy lots of food! Be sure to check out http://www.downtownbloomington.org/index.php?id=6 for more information about the market in general, which promises to be even better than last year’s event!

Roots
1. Beets (Traditional and Chioggia) – Beets are one of our TOP FIVE best sellers every season. That should be enough to convince you that they’re a must-eat! Beets can be grated fresh onto a leafy green salad or into a grated root salad. We typically roast them, skins on, for a deep, surprisingly sweet flavor. You don’t have to do much once they’ve been roasted or steamed – a simple balsamic vinaigrette is perfect.
2. Brussels Sprouts – A few rules from Elizabeth Schneider: Buy them small and superfresh. Do not overcook them. Do not undercook them. Last year we brought them on the logs, but this year we’ll be snapping them to be purchased by the pound. Brussels sprouts are a vegetable that gets better after a few good frosts, so Bill’s Brussels sprouts will be about as good as it gets. They also store well for a couple of weeks in plastic.

Brussels Sprouts

3. Rutabaga – Elizabeth Schneider nailed it: “Rutabaga is sharp-sweet when raw, mellowed by cooking; it is neatly cuttable into trim batons; it can be pureed in soup or slivered into slaw, grated and gilded as little pancakes, steamed in dumplings, braised with sweet spices and on and on. There’s really just one way NOT to cook it: in lots of water for a long time.” Our kids LOVE rutabaga, either mashed with potatoes, added to a pureed root soup, or roasted with other root veggies. Here's a series of photos depicting Ben's contribution to the rutabaga harvest ...

The Rutabaga

Boy Meets Rutabaga

Boy Sizes Up the Rutabaga

Boy Takes on the Rutabaga

Rutabaga Appears to Be Winning

Boy Resorts to Digging

Boy, Triumphant!

4. Carrots – No need to talk up the carrots! Bill’s fall carrots are amazingly sweet and crisp. We got a lot of positive feedback from people who purchased many pounds of carrots last year for storage. They ate them for MONTHS and agreed that the carrots were fabulous right up to the end. We stored about 100 pounds of them last year and ate them until late April!

Carrots!

5. Celery Root – Also called “celeriac,” celery root is just about the ugliest vegetable ever to be cultivated. Fortunately, celery root is really delicious with a mild celery flavor. Elizabeth Schneider describes it as an “earthy prize … imbued with herbaceous pungency.” I dislike fresh celery but LOVE celery root. I like to grate it into a fresh, grated root salad with a light lemon vinaigrette dressing. I also like it cubed and steamed and then added to potato salad. It’s also wonderful in a pureed root soup.

Celery Root

6. Japanese Turnips – It seems that many people have discovered the delightful Japanese turnip. They have a thin skin and a juicy sweet turnip flavor, which makes them perfect for eating raw. You can also roast or braise them, and they’re a natural combination with potatoes either mashed or in a gratin.
7. Parsnips – A classic fall vegetable, parsnips are sweet, nutty and earthy all in one. It’s hard to imagine the cold months without parsnips. They’re indispensable in pot roasts, roasted root vegetable dishes, and in soup/soup stocks. You can also puree them with potatoes. Parsnips are at their best after the weather has turned very cold, and they store well.
8. Radishes – All of the radishes are at their peak right now. With the exception of the spicier Black Spanish, all of Bill’s varieties are sweet and crisp. Radishes are often overlooked. Some people think they’re just too hot. Others worry that they’ll get radishes with a pithy heart. The truth is that Bill’s radishes are amazing this time of year. Crisp through to the center and beautiful in appearance, radishes should play a key role in your Thanksgiving feast – a simple fresh veggie platter is your best bet. (According to food diva Alice Waters, a meal at her nationally known restaurant Chez Panisse is not quite complete without radishes!) We’ll have 5 varieties:
French Breakfast – Half pink, half white, 100% delicious
Daikon – This Asian radish is at its best in late fall. Its distinctive elongated white shape makes it a good candidate for matchsticks.
Rose Heart – Don’t miss these. They are the most beautiful of all the radishes, with a crazy bright pink interior. They’re irresistible on a fresh veggie platter. If you peel the outer skin off, they are more like a carrot than a radish. When we take cut up roots to a party to share with friends the rose heart radish is always the first one to be eaten.

Rose Heart Radish

Cute Little Red Radishes – Classic radish with unparalleled cuteness.
Black Spanish – Locavores take note! This radish should be an important part of seasonal eating. They are meant to be stored and they reach their peak from December to April. Thus filling in at a time when the typical small radishes are not available. Pioneers relished them, so can you. Cocoa colored on the outside with an ivory flesh, the Black Spanish radish is an ancient variety. The dense flesh permits it to be stored for long periods without becoming pithy. The flavor mellows over time. We favor cooking them with other roots, rather than eating them raw. Cut into bite-sized pieces for roasting, and they’re much like turnips. Shredded into soup, stew or a braise, Black Spanish radishes add a unique flavor.
8. Potatoes - We're bringing fingerlings, russets, and more! It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without potatoes. Fingerlings make the most AMAZING potato salad ever, and russets are a classic, floury potato -- perfect for mashing!

Bulb
Garlic – Every dinner should incorporate garlic in some fashion, and not the kind that you shake out of a container with salt! If you’re feeling ambitious, roast garlic in aluminum foil (sealed).

Swollen stem vegetables
1. Fennel – Your first bite into raw fennel is quite an experience. It has the texture of celery and a very mild anise flavor. I personally like neither celery nor black licorice, so I was shocked to really enjoy fennel! We like to sliver it raw into salads or use it to replace celery in potato salad. Alice Waters also parboils fennel bulbs for pastas, caramelizes them as a side dish, braises whole bulbs, and adds to stocks. You can eat the entire plant.

Fennel in the Field

"Fennel Butts" (the technical term)

2. Kohlrabi – Our fall kohlrabi is spectacular, absolutely as good as they get. I find them to be irrisistable. I like to think of kohlrabi as a cross between an apple and a turnip. Elizabeth Schneider describes it as a cross between broccoli stalks, water chestnut, and cucumber. I hope that sounds good to you, because it really is! We tend to eat kohlrabi raw, cut into matchsticks and served with a tahini dip or a smear of soft cheese such as goat cheese or bleu cheese. Perfect for a fresh veggie tray.

Greens – I’ll write more about these later if we’ll be bringing them!
Salad Mix
Head Lettuce
Bok Choi
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Tatsoi
Stir Fry Greens
Kale
Swiss Chard
Collard Greens

Storage Tips

All roots – store in the fridge in plastic bags OR in damp sand in a garage*, basement or root cellar. (* The damp sand will protect the roots against cold weather until it gets down into the low 20s, at which point some damage may occur. If your garage is insulated or if you put the damp sand into an insulated cooler, it should be fine.) We have eaten roots into April from the previous fall season, stored in damp sand, and they were fabulous. You can also use crumpled newspaper or untreated sawdust (be sure it’s untreated!). We will have already cut off the greens, which is appropriate for storage.

Kohlrabi is best stored in a plastic bag in the fridge.

Brussels sprouts store in a plastic bag in the fridge for many weeks, although they are best eaten sooner rather than later.

Note where they can buy sand this time of year.

Garlic – Store garlic on the kitchen counter, not in a plastic bag. Good air circulation is important. If you want to keep it for months, it’s best to find a cool, dark place like a basement. (Don’t take them apart into cloves until ready for use.)

The greens will be a question mark until closer to the market. It all depends on the weather. I’ll try to send out another email the week of the Thanksgiving market when we can tell what will know for sure about the greens.

Since we're always telling you what to do with your food, we thought we'd end with a list of what you should ask Santa for this Christmas ...

1. Stick blender (Mercy)
2. Vegetables A to Z (Elizabeth Schneider)(Mercy)
3. Japanese Santoku kitchen knife, a big improvement over your German knives. Just search for them on Google. I just got a Masamoto Santoku, it is a pure joy to use, and worth every penny. (Bill)
4. Smoker (Bill)
5. Chinois strainer for soup and stock (Bill)
6. Elizabeth David, James Beard, and Richard Olney books (Bill)

Our best to you and yours during this holiday season!!

Mercy, Bill, Noah and Ben Davison

Season Finale -- Won't You Join Us?

2008-10-22T21:33:00.003-05:00

First, a word from the farmer …

We would like to thank all of you for making this a tremendous year for our farm. The season was not without its challenges, but overall it was the best year we have had yet. We could not do this without you and we sincerely appreciate your support. Our sales at the market were way up this year and they held steady right to the end. Our newly re-started CSA has also been a great success. Several factors came together to help us have such a good year. First of all, we had another crop of great interns. Then there’s the electric cultivating tractor, regular rains, moderate temperatures, our boys are getting big enough to actually help, my younger brother visiting for several weeks, and my getting better every year at figuring out the most efficient way to do any given task on the farm. Of course, it still involves a tremendous amount of work and virtually no break from March until November. But I love every aspect of farming and I derive great satisfaction from growing food for people who truly appreciate our vegetables.

I am already really excited for next year. The local food movement seems to be gaining more momentum every year. Have you heard about Will Allen? He is an organic farmer from Milwaukee who works with young inner city kids to teach them how to grow their own food. He just received a $500,000 genius grant from the McArthur Foundation. Also, Michael Pollan wrote a great piece for the New York Times magazine a couple of weeks ago entitled Farmer in Chief. He lays out what it would take to have a sane agricultural policy in this country that relies on sunlight and photosynthesis rather than fossil fuels. When the new president takes office, let’s all hope he appoints Pollan as the new Secretary of Agriculture!

And a note from the farmer’s wife …

I echo Bill’s gratitude. You all are really the best customers a farmer ever had! What Bill does for a living is a passion. But as much as he loves it, he could not keep at such hard work without knowing that people are enjoying his produce so very much. So pat yourselves on the back for supporting the Blue Schoolhouse!

We really, really hope to see you this Saturday. Why? It’s the LAST SATURDAY MARKET of 2008 AND it’s supposed to be rainy and nasty. That’s right … total crapola for the season finale. So don’t let us stand out there in the cold rain by ourselves. Join us! Seriously, we’re planning on going out with a bang. We aren’t going to pick just a little bit of everything, figuring that the customers will all stay home in their nice, dry homes. On the contrary, we know that you know that this is one of your last chances to get the best fresh produce in central Illinois! And you’ll all be out at the market in droves, right? Right!

And don’t forget the very last chance for Blue Schoolhouse veggies at the Thanksgiving Market. On Saturday, Nov. 22 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. the farmers will bring their produce, meat (we’ve heard rumor of a BISON vendor!), and a variety of prepared foods to the Coliseum for a pre-holiday extravaganza. That’s your chance to impress your foodiest friends with the delicacies of fall … salad greens, arugula, root vegetables of all kinds … it will be awesome! The event will also feature fine arts and crafts and a cool jazz ensemble.

This week’s photos …

The picture of the field with the four round bales is the location for next season’s garlic. In fact, Bill needs help planting and mulching garlic over the next few weeks. Are you interested? It is as fun as it sounds. Ha! Ha! It’s not that bad, and you’d be helping to get the 2009 season underway. And of course, we’d send you home with veggies just for helping! Email if you’re interested.

The jack-o-lanterns are Ben and Noah’s first. Uncle Aaron carved them based on the boys’ artistic skills. The one with the googly moogly eyes (as we call them) are a Ben original.

The leaf picture is a “find-the-boy” exercise. The bright, blue eye is Noah’s. Ben helped to cover him in a leaf pile, which inspired quite a bit of fun time together.

Please let your friends know about the blog. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Loads of Food in the Home Stretch!

2008-10-09T06:33:00.004-05:00

Hello Friends!

We’re still going strong. Lots of greens, beans, salad mix, and roots – you don’t want to miss it! Last week’s market was great, although we did notice a slight drop in attendance. What does that mean to you? Less competition for great vegetables! We will have a ton of food for you this week. Don’t miss it.

Bill’s brother Aaron is unexpectedly in town for two weeks. He’s a total work horse. Thank goodness! Right when Bill needs the help! That said, Bill still wants to extend an open invitation to customers to come out and help harvest on any of the remaining three Fridays of the market season. It’s really fun – just ask the 11 people who came out last Friday! The age spread was remarkable, from 18 to 78. There’s something for everyone.

This week we’re including a picture of one of our CSA members, who rides his bike most weeks to the vegetable pickup. He’s got a classic, one-speed bike that he’s rigged up with baskets for the 2-HOUR ride from Morton to Eureka. Can you believe that?! He also came out to harvest last week, which makes him a superhero in our book.

We’re also including pictures of delicious vegetables AND a photo of the new field where Bill will be planting the garlic in late October. (By the way, we’ll need help with the garlic planting!)

Don’t forget we have TWO MORE MARKETS AFTER THIS ONE!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Salad Mix
Potatoes
French Filet Beans
Dragon Tongue Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Cucumbers
Garlic
Leeks
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Bok Choi
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Radishes (French Breakfast, Daikon, Rose Heart, and cute little red ones)
Japanese Turnips
Fennel
Apples
Tatsoi
Stir Fry Greens
Celery Root
Parsnips
Carrots
Collard Greens

Bill will continue to deliver to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Thursdays through the end of the season, but we’re done with Common Ground until 2009. So if you need Bill’s veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!!

Please let your friends know about the blog. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Farming -- It Takes a Village

2008-10-02T05:53:00.001-05:00

Hello Friends!

With the help of modern medicine (big doses of ibuprofen to the rescue!), Bill’s back is feeling quite a bit better. He still can’t really lift anything, and he’s avoiding too much bending, but at least he can now put on his own socks and shoes!

We had a great response to the cry for harvest help! Five people have said they’d come out for a portion of Thursday and Friday. Whoo-hoo! We are so grateful for the help, and we know more of you would have come out if it weren’t for work-week obligations. Of course, with people coming out, I guess I’ll have to clean the bathroom …

This past week has been primo weather for the cool season crops. When you come out to the market on Saturday, you will see a stunning array of fall veggies. Did you see the spread last week? It was our BIGGEST WEEK aside from two tomato weekends in August. We were floored by the amount of people that came out and the amount of vegetables that we sold – THREE TIMES what we sold on the same Saturday last year. Whoa. We plan to bring just as much this week, so please come out!! We have only FOUR MORE WEEKS of the market, and you don’t want to miss a single one. The last market is on Saturday, October 25.

What’s on this week’s menu? I’ll list everything below, but let me highlight some of the most exciting items. First, the salad mix. Ahhh. We’ve been eating it just about every day. Our kids (ages 4 and 5) eat it by the bowl-full, and then ask for seconds! What better testimonial could you have? Second, the head lettuces. The heads are just beautiful right now. Third, the four types of radishes. According to Bill, the French Breakfast radishes are awesome this week. They are in perfect condition and are much milder than usual because of the cool weather.

In addition to all that, we’ll be bringing a few butternut squash. Jackie at the Garlic Press has been very impressed with the flavor of the squash this season. (And it’s the first time we’ve brought them to the market in years – Bill usually isn’t so successful in growing them!) We’ll also have amazingly sweet and tasty carrots and parsnips. It’s root season – time to make roasted vegetables, pot roasts, and soup!

The rest of the greens will also be amazing! The arugula is in perfect condition as are the ruby streaks, collard greens, swiss chard, and kale. The various chois (bok choi, tatsoi) are also crisp and delicious. And if you can’t quite decide, pick up a bag of the mixed stir fry greens.

Bill had an ISU horticulture class come out for a tour this week, and he got to meet the new hort professor (Dr. Kopsell). Dr. Kopsell is a major fan of kale, telling his students that “it’s the healthiest vegetable you never eat.” He also noted that it has more betacarotene than carrots and more calcium than milk!

So we’re just moving into our fall routines out here. Bill and Pete have now ripped out all of the tomato plants, tilled under most of the warm-season crop beds, and planted cover crops (which are coming up already!). Pete got to “top” the brussel sprouts (which makes them mature at the top of the stalk rather than continuing to grow) – he had a great time chopping those heads off with a sharp knife. It was a bit of a samurai experience for him.

We also had our first bat-in-the-house experience. It was last Saturday night. We were sitting in the kitchen drinking beer with the Mitchells (of Mitchell Farm fame), and the kids were out in the living room watching a movie in the dark. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a fluttering shadow near the ceiling. I quickly realized that it was a bat. We were so excited! Fortunately, everyone in the house loves bats, as they are very useful little creatures (eating bugs, esp mosquitoes -- who doesn't love that??!!). We calmly herded the kids into the bathroom, and then Carson Mitchell (age 14) gently scooped the bat into a mason jar after it landed on our bed. He (the bat) was very small, perhaps only 4 inches in length. We let him out after taking pictures, which unfortunately did not turn out. Oh well. It was quite fun!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

French Filet Beans
Traditional Green Beans
Dragon Tongue Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Cucumbers
Garlic
Leeks
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Bok Choi
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Radishes (French Breakfast, Daikon, Rose Heart, and cute little red ones)
Japanese Turnips
Fennel
Apples
Grapes
Tatsoi
Stir Fry Greens
Celery Root
Parsnips
Carrots
Collard Greens

Bill will continue to deliver to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Thursdays through the end of the season, but we’re done with Common Ground until 2009. So if you need Bill’s veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!!

Please let your friends know about the blog. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Welcome back to the SALAD MIX!

2008-09-24T20:35:00.004-05:00

Hello Friends!

Sneak preview … We’re bringing SALAD MIX this week! And now to the conventional blog format, in which I torture you with random person information before letting you in on the veggie news …

I decided to come back to central Illinois after a fabulous time in Madison, Wisconsin. I spent the first 24 hours in Madison talking myself out of looking for a job there! It’s just that kind of place. Of course, as my friend Christina pointed out, I’d be happy to stay in central Illinois once I started inquiring into the price of a house in Madison – apparently it’s pretty pricey!

You probably remember last week’s tale of woe about the “half marathon meets Hurricane Ike” event in St. Charles, Missouri. There was a bit of confusion in that story because I was referring to my unnamed friend Maggie, whose car was nearly submerged in storm water. Some of our CSA members in Eureka thought I was talking about my friend and Eureka native, Lil Hartter. She got many a question about the condition of her car! So here’s what happened to Lil. She ran 10 of the 13 miles with about 2,400 other insane people. Ha ha – not insane, just a very sporting group of runners. It sounds like the biggest problem area was the bridge, where the runners were crossing the raging Missouri River. The gusty wind coupled with Lil’s garbage bag rain gear (compliments of the hotel!) could have resulted in poor Lil meeting her maker. Fortunately, she took off the blasted bag before it parachuted her over the edge.

This week's pictures are the salad mix and Ben. He just ate his first-ever s'more and didn't realize how bad an idea it is to put your marshmallowy hands onto a straw bale. It made us laugh, of course!

This week I want to get right to the food business. It’s going to be an AWESOME WEEK! Why, you may ask? Because we’re bringing SALAD MIX, PARSNIPS, CELERY ROOT, and STIR FRY MIX! This is when the season starts getting exciting again. We’re really past the warm-season crops and into the best of the fall veggies.

Salad Mix
I don’t need to tell you about the salad mix, as you are almost certainly well-acquainted with it. Bill has quite the salad mix following … if you haven’t had it, you’re missing out on the irresistible flavor and texture of fresh mesclun. This week’s mix will have a combination of the following: leaf lettuces, arugula, ruby streaks, and tatsoi. Our sons Ben and Noah just can’t get enough of our salads; it is the first thing they eat at lunch and dinner, and they ask for seconds. That is a pretty serious endorsement!

Parsnips
And parsnips – a true sign of the fall season. Parsnips have been in the ground since April, taking up valuable space and requiring constant weeding. It’s kind of a self-punishing crop for Bill to plant and deal with for months, but you get to benefit from it. Parsnips are not much to look at – kind of a washed out carrot appearance. Their flavor and aroma, on the other hand, is quite remarkable. Elizabeth Schneider describes it as “a relative of carrot, cerleriac, and parsley root, having the sweetness of the first and herbal complexity of the others as well as its own pungency.”

Parsnips must be cooked to achieve its best flavor and sweetness. Parsnips have the same texture and crispiness as a carrot, so you can cook them in a similar way. They’re wonderful with a roast, in soups, or roasted with other vegetables. You can also steam them. If you roast parsnips with other vegetables, you will likely find yourself picking out the parsnips first.

Celery Root
Bill is also bringing celery root, which is also called celeriac. Like the parsnips, the celery root has been growing since April and we are just now getting to enjoy it. This year has been particularly good for the celery root, as it likes cool moist weather. The bulbs are particularly large and mild as a result. It’s truly the ugliest vegetable that we grow – all knobby and straggly looking. But like many things in life, you can’t judge it on appearance. Celery root is eaten both raw and cooked. Tonight, we steamed it in bite-sized chunks along with potato chunks and turned it into a wicked potato salad. The celery root had a wonderful texture and flavor. We actually thought it tasted better than the potatoes! You can also cook it into soups with other earthy root vegetables. You do have to cut off the peel – I just use a knife rather than trying to use a peeler.

Fennel
Unlike celery root, fennel is absolutely beautiful. Fennel has several unusual qualities that combine to make it one of the best vegetables of the fall. Fennel has a crispy, juicy texture akin to celery and a flavor that suggests anise. Overall, it’s very refreshing. We like to add it raw to salads in small slices. I also included recipes in previous blog postings on fennel.

Stir Fry Mix
The stir fry mix was such a hit two weeks ago that we’re bringing it back. If you missed it, be sure to pick up a bag or two this week. The bags of stir fry mix will include a combination of our various fall greens, including tatsoi, bok choy, arugula, mustard greens, and ruby streaks. This diverse mix produces a colorful array of textures, and flavors.

And finally, I am seriously in love with the ruby streaks cut raw into salads. It’s just such a stand-out, mustardy flavor without a hint of bitterness or heat. The boys also love it. You can buy a bunch to mix in with salads if you’d like to branch out a bit.

As for what’s done for the season, let’s play a sad song for the following: summer squash/zucchini and basil. Au revoir until 2009!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

French Filet Beans
Traditional Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Cucumbers
Garlic
Leeks
Cherry Tomatoes (but very few)
Okra (maybe a little)
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Bok Choi
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Daikon Radish
Japanese Turnips
Fennel
Pears
Grapes
Tatsoi
Stir Fry Greens
Celery Root
Parsnips

Bill’s now delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Thursdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!!

Please let your friends know about the blog. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Building the Ark ...

2008-09-17T06:46:00.006-05:00

Land ho!

The floodwaters are receding here in Woodford County, and fortunately we have made it through unscathed. That would not have been the case had we planted our crops in the new rented field adjacent to Walnut Creek. I’m putting in two pictures of the field covered in water – it was a truly impressive amount of water! The other pictures are from local roads and corn fields. The picture of the flooded creek at the bottom needs some context -- that creek is typically about 15 feet across! We were unable to get to our house from several directions on Sunday because water was covering the roads. We had a great time driving around looking at the flood (the Tour de Flood, as we called it). Noah was particularly interested in the flooded pastures. He figured the cow in the picture was thinking "what in the heck happened to my grass?!"

I was down in St. Charles, Missouri on Sunday attempting to run a half marathon. Even through Ike was predicted to bring heavy rain (100% chance!) on the race morning, many people still showed up for the race in their rain ponchos. It was ridiculous. The rain was coming down by the bucketful and everyone was completely soaked within seconds of being outside, poncho notwithstanding. I stayed for about 10 minutes before deciding it was insane. I still got to run one mile in the downpour to get from the shuttle bus to my car! My girlfriend stayed a bit longer (about 45 minutes), and by the time she got back to her car there was standing water in the parking lot up to the bottom of her door. She had to wade in knee-deep water just to get to it! She did have some engine trouble the next day due to the water, but it was pretty cheap to have repaired. Other people weren’t so lucky – the water was up over people’s tires in other parts of the parking lot by the time my girlfriend left. For people who actually ran part of the race (which was cancelled halfway through), I’m sure their cars were even more submerged.

But enough about the weather … let’s talk about bok choi for a minute. We have confirmation from culinary authority Jackie Pope-Ganser (head chef at the Garlic Press Café) that Bill’s bok choi is the best she’s EVER had. She said she steamed it for 2 minutes and it tasted like butter. Another great way to cook it, according to Jackie, is to cut in half lengthwise, drizzle sesame oil on it, and set it on the grill cut side up for about 3 minutes. Enjoy!

I'm also attaching a photo of the boys making tomato sauce. They love using the Victorio strainer -- and I have to do lots less work! I'm so glad to be at the end of the canning season!

That’s all for this week. I’m off to Madison, Wisconsin today for a planning conference. I’m speaking on a panel about LEED-ND, which is a green building rating system that the Town is following for part of the Uptown Normal plan. If you didn’t know it, Normal is pretty progressive on the sustainability front. I can’t wait to get to Madison … it’s where I recharge my liberal batteries. In my job I have to be pretty neutral and keep my political opinions to myself (which is fine and makes my life easier), but it’s really nice every now and then to go somewhere with a bunch of lefties!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

French Filet Beans
Traditional Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Garlic
Leeks
Cherry Tomatoes
Okra
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Bok Choi
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Daikon Radish
Japanese Turnips
Fennel
Pears
Grapes
Tatsoi
Stir Fry Greens

Bill’s now delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Thursdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!!

Please let your friends know about the blog. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Bring on the Bok Choi!

2008-09-11T05:48:00.003-05:00

Hello!

I hope you are all enjoying this fabulous late summer weather! The days are getting shorter, the nights cooler. It feels great! It doesn’t make the heat-loving plants happy (tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.), but it’s perfect for the fall greens. In fact, the transition from summer to fall crops is well underway.

So what about the food at the farmers market this week? We’ll be bringing a great variety, as we did last week. (Were you there? The market stand looked simply amazing.) I’m posting the list of foods below, and take note of the last item … stir fry greens! You may recall that Bill brought this to the market two years ago, and it was quite a hit! The stir fry greens will be young plants thinned from the rows so that the other plants have more room. Thus, each bag will contain small leaves (pretty much ready to eat!) of arugula, tatsoi, and bok choi … perfect for sautéing right out of the bag (after you wash it, of course!).

This week I want to focus on one vegetable: bok choi. Have you had it yet? It’s wonderful!

The name “bok choi” actually covers a range of leafy greens. What they all have in common is their mild flavor and crisp texture. Bill grows three varieties, one of which is called “joi choi”! Funny, eh? At this point, all of the choi that Bill will be bringing to the market will be fully mature. (In some markets you’ll find chois at various stages of development.) The stalks of bok choi are satiny in texture topped with lightly curled leaves. They have a similar texture to Swiss Chard and can be prepared in much the same way. (Stalks cook a bit longer than the leaves, for example.)

Bok choi can be stir fried, ribboned up into soups, or oven-braised with stock. Here are a couple of recipes from Elizabeth Schneider (Vegetables A to Z):

Spicy Bok Choy Salad

Thin-slice bok choi leaves. Cut stems lengthwise into narrow strips. Toss with salt. Let wilt ½ hour. Rinse and dry. Combine with red pepper julienne, hair-thin Thai chilli strands, sliced mint and Thai basil, slivered ginger in syrup, toasted sesame seeds, rice vinegar, salt, and pepper. Serve freshly made as soon as assembled.

Crispy “Seaweed”

Wash and dry the leaves. Cut into a chiffonade. Spread on baking sheet. Dry 20 minutes in a low over. Cool. Deep-fry in small batches of peanut oil; drain on towels. Toss with salt, sugar, and toasted pine nuts.

I have two exciting, farm/food-related events to tell you about …

1. Nutraceutical Evening at the ISU Hort Center TONIGHT (Thursday, Sept. 11). I’m pasting a bit from Patt Mitchell’s email (you know Patt – co-owner of Mitchell’s market stand!). She had such a good description that I thought I’d spread it around. All credit to Patt, and here goes …

“We've all heard that you are what you eat, but have you ever really thought about HOW the food you eat (all local of course!) affects your health? Everywhere we look, plant extracts & essence are in EVERYTHING – but is there really a benefit or is it just another marketing ploy?

My good friend, Jessica Chambers, queen of the ISU Hort Center (http://www.horticulturecenter.ilstu.edu/), has taken on that question in her 2008 garden plan, The Nutraceutical Garden. Nutraceuticals, a combination of nutrition & pharmacetuical, are foods that contain a medical health benefit beyond that of simple nutrition. Interesting, no? Jessica and her tireless staff of volunteers & students have created 6 interpretive gardens that focus on different nutraceutical plants.

This Thursday, September 11 from 5 pm to 7 pm, the Hort Center is hosting a Nutraceutical Evening for the public to learn about what they eat and how it affects their health. There will be garden tours, info booths, Farmer's Market (yes, Bill Mitchell and Bill Davison will be there!) and seminars.

Also mark your calendars for Saturday, October 4. Why? It's the Hort Center's Annual Autumnal Festival! If you haven't been out to this, make sure you come this year. Why, you ask again? There is a bird watch/stroll, more kid activities than you can shake a stick at (lots of fun!), cooking demo utilizing pumpkins and squash, corn maze (again, tons of fun) scarecrows and the chance to get your fall pumpkins and gourds."

Here’s the link to last year’s festival for more information … http://www.horticulturecenter.ilstu.edu/events/autumn.shtml.

2. The Future of Food – FREE documentary AND panel discussion by local farmers and food folks at the Normal Theater (MONDAY night, Sept. 15). Bill Davison will be on the panel and hopes to see some familiar faces in the audience. The documentary is supposed to be very well-done, and it’s a rare opportunity to talk about our growing local food system. Please try to attend and help us put the spotlight on local food. For more info on the movie, check out www.thefutureoffood.com.

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

French Filet Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Garlic
Leeks
Tomatoes
Okra
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Bok Choi
Arugula
Ruby Streaks
Daikon Radish
Japanese Turnips
Fennel
Pears
Grapes
Tatsoi
Stir Fry Greens

Bill’s now delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Thursdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!!

Please let your friends know about the blog. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Late Breaking Vegetable News ...

2008-09-05T11:54:00.000-05:00

Hello again!

This is a Friday teaser to make sure you come out tomorrow! Bill has AMAZING vegetables for tomorrow. The cool, wet weather means awesome greens for you along with some new and returning items …

1. Daikon Radishes – Some call the daikon an “oriental radish”. Daikons are long and white and very versatile on the menu. Eaten raw, they are crisp with a mild radish flavor. Cooked, daikons become mild and sweet. You can also slice the roots into soups and stews. Try this from Terra Brockman:

Daikon Remoulade

1 pound daikon, peeled
3 Tbsp Dijon mustard
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp wine vinegar
¼ cup minced fresh parsley

Cut the daikon into 2-inch-long julienne strips OR grate it coarsely. Rinse a large bowl with hot water, dry it, and in it whisk the mustard with 3 Tbsp hot water. Add the oil in a slow stream, whisking until the dressing is emulsified, and whisk in the vinegar with salt and pepper to taste. Add the daikon strips and parsley and toss well.

2. Bok Choi – like a faintly mustardy Swiss chard, bok choi is excellent raw in a salad, lightly sautéed, or tossed into a soup at the last minute.

3. Fennel –It’s great featured in a salad (finely sliced) with a simple dressing. I also love adding it to potato salad. Fennel is very aromatic with anise overtones. Terra Brockman recommends raw fennel wedges served with crumbles of fresh Parmesan and chilled dry Marsala.

Sauteed Fennel with Lemon

2 medium fennel bulbs
2 Tbsp olive oil or butter
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp finely grated lemon zest
pepper to taste

Trim and reserve the fennel leaves. Quarter each bulb lengthwise and then cut each quarter crosswise in very thin slivers. Mince 1 Tbsp of the fine leaves.

Heat oil in a large, heavy skillet. Toss fennel slices to coat. Add salt. Continue tossing frequently over moderate heat until tender – about 10 minutes. Toss with lemon zest and pepper. Sprinkle with minced fennel tops and serve.

4. Japanese Turnips – You know ‘em and you love ‘em. Best eaten raw in slices, you can also cook them like a conventional turnips. But why go to all that trouble?

5. Arugula – We had a few bunches last week and will have more tomorrow. We have perfect arugula growing conditions right now, and it’s amazingly delicious.

6. LOADS of head lettuce – doesn’t this gray, crisp weather make you want to move into the fresh, crisp fall greens? You can never eat too much salad. Ever.

Add that the list from the previous blog, and you have yourself a great market experience. We hope to see you there!!

Mercy

Farmhand for Hire

2008-09-03T17:24:00.007-05:00

Hello all!

This is a quick one … I’m heading into my second of three after-work meetings this week. Last night was a great work session with the Town Council, where we discussed the upcoming development of a “community-wide sustainability plan.” Tonight, I’m talking to an IWU class about Town sustainability initiatives. And tomorrow night, it’s the Planning Commission. Whew! I’m tired thinking about it!

This past week was a doozy with our new farmhand … Ben. At four years old, Ben has funny ideas about how to help out. He begged to use the dangerously sharp snippers to cut down the delicate heirloom tomatoes. Bill agreed, thinking that would give Ben a real stake in the harvesting process. Well, that didn’t turn out as planned. Although Ben did a great job harvesting the tomatoes, he later thought it would be fun to throw them one by one out of the crates into the field. That’s right … 40 pounds of beautiful heirlooms smashing onto the grassy lane of the farm field. He would’ve done the entire truck-load had our other farmhand Pete not heard the suspicious splatting sound in the distance. Brings a tear to my eye. Bill, on the other hand, came momentarily unglued and yelled at him, finishing with, “Why would you do that??!!” Ben answered, honestly, “I like throwing tomatoes.” Hard to argue with that.

This week will be different. Bill has started locking the truck and hiding the tools! I don’t have Bil to consult with, so I’m going to assume it’s much the same as last week …

Green Beans, Yellow Wax Beans, and French Filet Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Leeks
Radicchio
Tomatoes
Okra
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Grapes

And what are these historical photos? It's from our first ever farmers market in Oak Park, Illinois. Have I ever told you the story of our first market? What a train wreck (aside from the great wad of money we made!). Bill didn't know how to load the trailer, so it swayed back and forth dangerously the whole trip (3 hours). I drove behind him with my mom in her minivan, watching the trailer lurching around. We got pulled over just before getting on to I-55 because our tail lights weren't working. Noah was only 8 months old. Truly a nightmare. Since I'm stuck here at work right now, these are the only pictures I could find.

But back to business. Please do join us this weekend! We are amazed at the continued strength of the market even after the start of the school year. We don’t seem to have the annual drop-off in customers that we typically see. It’s been AWESOME! About this time every year, Bill starts wearing down a bit. He starts thinking about next season, which is a bad idea when you’re really tired. So having such strong crowds makes it that much easier for Bill to keep his batteries charged. He really loves this part of the season, too. The fall is like spring in reverse … wonderful greens, crisp carrots, and more. We hope you like it as much as we do!!

See you Saturday!
Mercy

Join us for some great music!

2008-08-27T20:21:00.002-05:00

Hello friends!

We just closed out our season at the Normal Trailside Market. Thanks to all who made it such a great success! We sold 20% more in Normal this year as compared to 2007, and we’re sure it was because of the increased crowd. NOTE that the Normal Market is still running UNTIL THE END OF SEPTEMBER. Be sure to continue supporting the rest of the vendors who will continue to bring great produce and baked goods until the very end.

Of course, we’ll still be at the Bloomington Farmers Market for ANOTHER TWO MONTHS! That’s right, two more months of the best food on the planet. This is a wonderful time of year for fresh produce, with all of the bounty of summer merging with the beginning of the fall crops. In fact, this week Bill will be bringing ARUGULA for the first time in weeks. It is PRISTINE – like a misty mountain-top (that’s what Bill just said, and he has no idea I’m putting that into the email!). Seriously, it’s young, tender, and very flavorful.

We’re also bringing more pears – Bartlett and Asian. We just turned a few pears into dried fruits for the boys’ lunches, and they’re delicious. For once I agreed with Bill that it tasted, indeed, “like candy.” (He’s always saying that about vegetables, and it’s not quite true. At least not for anyone acquainted with the sweetness of real candy.)

And finally, we’re bringing grapes – purple, seeded grapes. They are spectacular, and you get to spit seeds. (Bill just eats them, as they are very nutritious.) Seeded grapes are healthier than seedless, so be sure to grab a bunch.

This week’s big news revolves around our good friend, Peter Kennell, a great musician who will be playing THIS SATURDAY at the market! Whoo-hoo! I strongly encourage you to check out his act. He’s a wonderful singer-songwriter whose music is hard to classify. We just like it a whole darn lot. He’s playing from 9 to 11 a.m. You can check out his stuff at http://www.peteradriel.com/home.html or on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/earthrock where you can hear Peter and Jake playing. I just love this new-ish thing that he’s been doing with his guitar – he attached a little, tiny piano thing to it called a calimba. He also has this noise box get-up that he uses for percussion. I’m sure it’s painful for anyone with musical talent to read this description, so I’m just going to stop. But suffice it to say that my kids are enthralled when he plays.

Peter is also organizing this FANTASTICALLY COOL event on Sept. 5 and 6 at The Depot in El Paso. You may recall a similar event last year, which involved local music, local art, and local food. It was totally awesome! Well, it’s happening again. Here are the details from Peter:

On Sept 5 and 6, El Paso's historic railroad depot comes to life for
Alt. Corn Fest 2008 – two days of live music, art installations, and great
food and beverages – all locally produced!

On Friday, enjoy artisanal goat cheeses from Prairie Fruits Farm and fresh
fruits from Blue Schoolhouse Farm, Teresa's Fruit and Herbs, and Henry's
Farm. You can wander the Depot's lush grounds and enjoy an art opening
filled with sculpture, photography, paintings, and thought-provoking
installations from cutting-edge local and regional artists. 6-11 pm.

On Saturday, arrive early for a fresh-grilled feast of Woodford County
organic beef burgers (with all the trimmings), Dave's famous curly fries
(local potatoes!) and more ... Dinner is served at 6, and quantities are
limited. Then the Depot Theater doors open for great live music from local
folk-rock artists Peter Adriel, Ben Schreck, Ghosttown Gramophone, and
more. 5-11 pm.

The depot is an all-ages venue, open all day on Friday and Saturday. With
gardens, koi ponds, and mini-golf, there's something for everyone!

Location: On Rt. 24 in El Paso. (11 E Main St.)

I know everyone has a busy schedule, but this is really worth checking out. I now that last year’s audience was blown away by the quality of the music. And Dave’s curly fries are to-die-for.

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Green Beans, Yellow Wax Beans, and French Filet Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Leeks
Radicchio
Tomatoes
Okra
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Grapes

Bill’s now delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!!

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Is This Farming?

2008-08-20T21:00:00.004-05:00

Hello friends!

I’m only writing a short portion of the weekly email because I’m all taped and gauzed up. I’m sure you’re just dying to know why, right? OK, I’ll tell you. It’s a bad case of poison ivy. I am pretty darn allergic to it. In nature, there’s a word for sensitive people like me: dead. I mean really, if it weren’t for modern living standards, I’d have been left behind as the tribe forged ahead into new territory very early in life.

And it turns out that little Ben is also quite allergic to poison ivy. (I’ve passed along my sensitive skin to Ben and my sneezy allergies to Noah. I’m so generous.) So anyway, Ben picked up poison ivy last week only to turn into Quasimodo just in time for our oh-so-special Day Out With Thomas (the Tank Engine) event with grandma and grandpa. Yep. Ben’s face swelled up to the extent that he could hardly see out of his right eye. It totally changed his look – now we know what he’ll look like if he ever puts on too much weight!

So the doctor hooked him up with some steroids. I’m usually pretty conservative about medicine, preferring to suffer. But with a 4-year-old, it’s completely unreasonable. He couldn’t sleep (thus, nor could I!) for 3 nights because of the itching. Benadryl did nothing for him. Post-steroids he got better rather quickly, although not in time for the Thomas thing. (He was an unbearable crab ALL DAY.) By the way, it was an awesome event – I’d HIGHLY encourage you to check it out next year. It’s in Union, Illinois at the Illinois Railway Museum, which itself is awesome. They have so many working trains, from electric street cars to Metra-style double deckers. And the Thomas train that they brought in was great. Although there were thousands of people/kids/strollers there, it did not feel crowded or unpleasant.

That’s that. I’m going to turn it over to Bill now while I let the effects of Benadryl x2 + beer take hold. I plan to sleep well tonight! And here’s Bill …

Ben replaced Noah as the miniature farmhand this week because Noah’s now in kindergarten. It was nice to have Ben help. He talked non-stop all day long and in the process said a few funny things. He got to use hand shears after he told me, “Daddy, I’m 4 years old. That’s old enough to use the clippers.” He used them for his first time harvesting basil. When we were done harvesting the basil, he looked at me and said “Daddy, is this farming?” I assured him that we were indeed farming, and he seemed to be very happy about that. Ben also got to see a locust emerging from its shell (if that’s what it’s called!).

Noah had his first day of kindergarten today. We all rushed up to the bus and I took pictures of him getting on for the first time. Mercy looked in at all the kids on the bus and realized that we were playing the part of the dorky parents escorting their capable child onto the bus. The bus driver thought it was funny, though.

We will be bringing Bartlett Pears and Asian Pears this week along with our Russian Osh Kirgizia watermelons. If we have time to pick them, we will also be bringing in some grapes. They are deep purple wine grapes and they do have seeds, but they also taste really good. The purple skin and the gel around the seeds help make them a nutritious snack.

I started to water yesterday with my new high flow drip tape. I managed to get a few newly seeded beds of radish, arugula, lettuce, choi, and turnips to sprout by running the pump for 6 hours. I also have been watering head lettuce, so I will have more head lettuce this week despite the hot dry weather.

Last week was the best market we have ever had – even better than the gold standard Thanksgiving market. Thank you to everyone that came out to support us. We did notice a serious drop off in the Tuesday market this week. We assume it was related to kids starting school, but we hope that once the school-year routine sets in, people will have time to come get their vegetables. You can come by any time before 6 p.m. and still find a decent selection of the finest veggies in town!

Have you tried the pints of cherry tomatoes yet? They are truly fantastic. There are six varieties in almost every pint, all selected for flavor. There are sungolds (bright orange), which are one of the best tomatoes we sell. There are also red cherry, a wild cherry tomato from Mexico (the tiniest of the 6 varieties), yellow pear, red pear, brownberry (a brown cherry tomato with a great, unique flavor), green gage (bright yellow with a ping pong ball shape), and a red grape tomato variety. We have to painstakingly harvest all of these varieties because they split so easily. All in all, a pint of cherry tomatoes is like party in your mouth. We’re including a classic picture of Ben glowering over the pints of tomatoes. He’s reached that charming age where he grimaces for all photos.

I was fortunate to have my in-laws in town this past week. My mother-in-law was here for a week, which was great for the boys. She took them everywhere – swimming at Anderson Pool was the highlight. Noah was even brave enough to go down the big water slide alone! Grandma Sue (as the boys call her) is also a great farmhand. Mercy’s brother Nelson also came up for a day. He’s a foodie and remarked, as we were eating cooked, salted soybeans, “Did you put butter on these? Because they taste like butter.” There’s a testimonial. Be sure to try some this week!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Soybeans
Green Beans, Yellow Wax Beans, and French Filet Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Radicchio
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Head Lettuce
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Watermelon

Bill’s now delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

When Life Gives You Peppers, Make Paprika!

2008-08-13T19:58:00.004-05:00

Hello Friends!

Are you ready for some hu-mazing vegetables?! That’s Ben’s new word. It’s a combination of humongous and amazing, and we really love it. It’s kind of like “ginormous” but not popular yet. The humazing thing this week will be the heirloom tomatoes. I hope you’ve been enjoying them. We eat tomatoes every single day. We are now bringing both heirlooms ($3/pound) and hybrids ($2/pound), although the heirlooms just kick hybrid butt. (I am a certified tomato snob.)

We’ll also have a nice offering of hot and sweet peppers. The hot peppers are poblano and Anaheim. Both have a great flavor that gets even better when you roast them. We’ll often roast a bunch, peel the skins off, and then freeze them for use in the winter on pizzas and pasta. The sweet pepper varieties are numerous, from Bell to Jimmy Nardello. They’re all quite good.

This week I’m posting pictures of Bill’s best recent project: homemade paprika. Did you know that paprika is just ground peppers? Typically it’s made from sweet peppers, but Bill’s favorite kind is smoked Spanish paprika. The pictures show the start-to-finish process, although not in order. (I still haven't figured out how to move the pictures around.) It’s lovely, isn’t it? And I can’t tell you how amazing the flavor is. Seriously. Check out the picture with the glove -- Bill wears gloves while cutting out the seeds, which make the paprika too hot to enjoy the flavor. He's using a hot pepper called "Cyklon." He only grows enough for us because in previous years, no one bought it! But you can make paprika with any of our peppers. After drying the peppers in the dehydrator, we just Cuisinart them into oblivion. It works great.

Bill and the farmhands have been totally enjoying this oddly un-hot August weather. It’s just been wonderful. Bill appears to be “caught up” with certain farm activities such as tilling and planting fall crops (of course, all to the detriment of any yard maintenance!). We would be run out of town if we tried to live there – between the compost and the unmoved grass, we’d have a million dollars worth of ordinance violations to pay.

This week Grandma Sue is visiting. It’s been AWESOME! The kids are being treated to all sorts of fun activities like swimming down at the lake behind our house, swimming at Anderson Pool in Normal (where Noah went down the big blue slide!!), and buying school supplies for kindergarten. All the things we have so much trouble making time for. It’s just been perfect. My mom is a very good guest, too. She eats anything and works as hard as any farmhand we’ve ever had. At some point I think she’s going to just get out the mower and take on the “lawn.” It’s been so long since we’ve mowed (3 weeks?) that it may be easier to have it baled. Ha ha!

My fun little project is getting estimates to put a basement UNDER the house. Whoo-hoo! What a crazy idea, right? But it’s the only way we can insulate under it because there’s almost no crawl space. We could also some “cool” space in the house. Since we don’t have central air and the house is small anyway, we have to keep our two chest freezers out on the porch where it gets quite hot. It’s an energy efficiency nightmare. It would also be great to have better space to hang the garlic and to store other vegetables. Also, the floor in the house is freezing in the winter because there’s no insulation whatsoever under it. I’ll keep you posted!

I won’t be at the market this week – Grandma Sue, Grandpa Rick, the boys, and I will be going to Union, Illinois to a “Day Out With Thomas.” You know Thomas, right? He’s the Number One tank engine on the Island of Sodor. We have spent a great deal of the last 3.5 years watching Thomas, reading about Thomas, doing Thomas puzzles, and discussing the precise location of Sodor in relation to Central Illinois. Now we get to see him in person. (It’s a real train made up to look like Thomas. We even get to RIDE Thomas.) The boys are beside themselves. I’ll take lots of pictures and there’s a good chance I’ll post one or two to the blog. (Go figure!) We’ll also be spending the night in a HOTEL, which a huge deal for the boys. They think hotels are practically magical.

Naturally, Bill will be at the market with the veggies. He’ll have his assistant Kanna, and my brother Nelson will be there to re-stock the crates. Take it easy on them! Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Soybeans
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Radicchio
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra

Bill has recently started a new delivery system. He’s delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Holy Hotness, Batman!

2008-08-06T20:39:00.004-05:00

Hello Friends!

And hello hot August weather! Monday was completely miserable … and I only spent 20 minutes outside walking from city hall to the Movie Fan to get a guilty pleasure flick to watch between the end of work and the start of the Town Council meeting! I can only imagine how hot and uncomfortable the farmers were that day.

Tuesday was much worse, though, for so many reasons. Tuesday was filled with the most improbable of circumstances. A ripper of a thunderstorm came through around 5 a.m. Not a problem for us – just one branch down and the power stayed on. Not so in Eureka. I took Ben in to preschool Tuesday morning to find that the entire town had no power, and huge tree limbs were laying all over highway 117. The preschool teachers told me they’d have to send the kids home if power wasn’t restored within a couple of hours given the forecasted heat. That was bad news since it was a harvest day (in which Bill has no time for anything) and it was a day in which I was giving a presentation at 10 a.m. for which I had not prepared.

I proceeded to work, hoping that of the 27,000 people without power in the Peoria area, the Ameren line workers would come to Eureka’s rescue first. Right.

About 8 miles from the preschool (and half a mile before getting onto the interstate), I heard a very unpleasant and very loud grating noise under my car. I immediately pulled over and found that the strap holding my muffler up had busted. I called my neighbor, who works at ISU, and was able to hitch a ride to work with him, leaving my car to be towed.

I furiously prepared for my presentation (which turned out mediocre at best – I’m not being modest, either!), and at 9:30 a.m. I got a call from the preschool. No power. I had told Bill to check the phone messages frequently, figuring it was likely that he’d get a call from the preschool. Unfortunately, Noah had been the last person to use our phone and hadn’t hung it up correctly. So when I called home, all I got was a busy signal. I had to then call the neighbor (the one neighbor that we have who would be home!) and have her send her kid over to find Bill either at home or down in the field.

The story ends with Bill picking up Ben, harvesting with two small-and-marginally-helpful boys, and bringing them both in to the market. I then took part of the afternoon off to help run the circus that we call our market stand. (It was also Noah’s first market where he sold his “art” – colored pictures out of the Elmo coloring book – for 25 cents.) If we seemed a bit out of sorts (code for “crabby as hell”!), that’s the back story.

But enough about us, how are you? Are you feeling like making pesto this week? I hope so! Our basil is kicking some major butt right now and needs a serious thinning. We will be bringing in small bunches as usual AND one pound bags for a discounted price of $6/bag.

Here’s a very easy pesto recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook:

Place 3 cups (packed) fresh basil leaves and 3 garlic cloves into a food processor and mince well. Add 1/3 cup pine nuts, walnuts, or almonds (we use almonds – CHEAPER!) and keep blending until ground. Drizzle in 1/3 cup olive oil while machine is still running, until you have a smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl and then add in 1/3 cup parmesan. Add salt and pepper to taste. (Side note: You can also make pesto with the same recipe but substituting cilantro, dill, parsley, etc. for the basil.)

We primarily use pesto on pasta and pizza. We always freeze batches of it in the summer for use in the winter. To freeze it, just mix up everything except the parmesan. You can add that when you thaw it out. We have had great success freezing into ice cube trays and then popping them into a freezer bag. It also works to use mason jars with a layer of olive oil on top. In fact, if you keep a layer of oil on top, you can keep pesto in the fridge for weeks and weeks.

Many customers have asked about storing fresh basil. It is a very perishable item, but we’ve been most successful getting it nice and wet (especially after a morning out at the market stand) and putting it into a glass of water on the counter. If you want to put it into a bag, it can’t be nearly as wet or it just turns to mush against the plastic.

What’s going on in the field? Many of the fall crops have germinated – rutabaga (which has yet to become a chic vegetable), fall radishes, chois, arugula, tatsoi, salad mix, head lettuce, and daikon. The sweet potatoes look great. And thank heavens that the parsnips look awesome. What a change of pace. Usually, Bill plants parsnips and can’t keep them weeded and they turn out to be a big failure and waste of space. Not this year! The fall markets promise to be amazing unless we have a serious breach of security in the deer fence.

We hope that the market won’t experience the annual drop off in customers after the start of the school year. We think it won’t be as drastic given how many new people seem to be attending the market this season. It’s truly been amazing.

Here’s some additional info on erstwhile missing vegetables … head lettuces will reappear in two weeks with Japanese turnips following in another two weeks. I also anticipate some salad mix before too long.

New this week will be sweet peppers and fresh soybeans! Yay! As most gardeners will tell you, this has been a bad pepper year. We’re not sure why, but the cool weather in June was likely the culprit. Our bell peppers aren’t as productive as usual, but they’re still tasty! We’re also bringing non-bell sweet peppers that are more flavorful than the bells. This year we’re featuring Jimmy Nardello, Carmen (an Italian Sweet Pepper!), Marconi Red, Krimson Lee, and Golden Treasure.

We’ll also have some hot peppers, including Anaheim and Poblano.

And since not a week can go by without a mention of my sweet baby boys (am I becoming Kathy Lee Gifford?), I should point out the pictures this week of Ben helping with the onion harvest. He’s actually quite helpful with the less delicate vegetables. He can be very focused when he gets set on a task. He’s got two cute little habits that I wonder about in the long-term … he’s a hand wringer when excited and he sticks out his tongue when concentrating. It’s so cute, but I have a hard imagining a 40-year-old doing the same thing.

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel
Peppers
Soybeans

Bill has just started a new delivery system. He’s delivering to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal on Tuesdays and to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

The Rare Posting from the Elusive Farmer Davison

2008-07-29T19:42:00.007-05:00

Hello Friends!

We’re approaching a major life and farm transition … Noah starts kindergarten in three weeks. Our little baby boy is growing up! Sniff sniff. Actually, we’re just so happy for him. He’s totally ready for the next big step in life.

As for the farm, when Noah goes to school, Ben will become our littlest farm hand. He will start staying home from preschool on Tuesdays and Fridays (as Noah has for the last two years) to help with the harvest. He may enjoy farming more than Noah – he is very eager to please us lately, and he truly loves vegetables and eating them! You should see him in the green beans. Somewhat like a very big Japanese beetle but without the hard shell. Ha!

I’m including a picture of our boys in their new sun hats. We purchased them from a company called Sunday Afternoons. The hats are rated for maximum sun protection. Bill and I have had similar hats for a long time, and they’re amazingly light and comfortable. I let the boys pick the colors. After all, it’s important for kids to control what little they can in life. When I showed them the colors available online, Noah immediately picked his favorite color … bright blue.

Ben then had to choose from sand, dark grey, hot pink, and lavender/pink. He immediately chose the lavender. It was one of those parental dilemmas … do I say something about the fact that a pinky purple is, in many people’s opinions, a “girl color”? I asked him, “Are you sure that’s the color you want?” No hesitation … “YES!” Then I just had to ask him (based on the fact that I was spending $25 on a hat that I can’t afford for him to suddenly decide is unacceptable), “What if the other kids say it’s a girl color?” He looked truly puzzled for a second and then said, “But it’s beautiful!” And that was that.

I’m also including a photo of a ginormous onion with boys for perspective. This is Bill’s banner onion year. If you haven’t eaten any, you’re missing a real treat.

And now a word from the farmer himself …

I have a confession to make. This will be our first poor tomato year in 6 years of farming. After walking through our large hoophouse tonight, I can no longer deny that our bligh-infected plants are only going to yield a quarter of their normal production. (Fortunately, the tomatoes we will harvest will TASTE GREAT!) Since tomatoes are our best selling crop, this really hurts. I have been taking care of these plants since March. I have invested a tremendous amount of time, mental energy, and hope on these plants and they are now nearly dead. I kept thinking they may still produce despite the fungal infection that steadily crept up from the bottom of the plant and now has browned the leaves up to the top ¾ of our 10 foot tall plants. Hundreds of full size green tomatoes sit in a state of suspended ripening, waiting for nutrients the plant cannot deliver because it has almost no green leaves. Their photosynthetic capacity reduced to near zero.

Our field tomatoes are in better shape, but many of them have the same blight due to our rainy growing season. Of course, I have been breaking a cardinal rule of farming by trying to grow the same crop in the same space for three years in a row. You are always supposed to rotate your crops to prevent diseases from building up to the point they destroy your crop. Such is the allure of tomatoes! It is hard not to keep planting them in the hoophouse because few other plants can produce $60 worth of income from a single plant.

You tomato lovers may be asking yourselves what I am going to do to recover from such a tragedy. Do not worry. I have a plan. I am going to research the possibility of grafting tomatoes onto disease-resistant rootstock and planting those in the hoophouse. I am also going to research the possibility of creating mobile hightunnels in the field. They will consist of fabric rowcovers over wire hoops and a layer of plastic over pvc or re-bar posts above the rowcover. I may also lay down plastic mulch to help warm the soil and prevent soil from splashing up on the leaves. That is how the fungal spores get transmitted from the soil to the plant. All of this work will partially re-create the near perfect tomato growing conditions of the larger hoophouse but will allow me to rotate my tomato plantings. Of course this entails much more work, but my early tomatoes are worth it!

I learn so much every year and this year is no exception. I am already on my second 50 page field notebook. I take the time to write down everything I see and learn that I think will help me improve next year. As a result, I continue to get better every year. So, rest assured I will do everything I can to ensure a tremendous abundance of tomatoes next year. The poor yield of this year’s tomatoes is very disappointing, but learning to overcome such challenges is also one of the reasons I love to farm. Mercy tells me I am obsessed with vegetables. She may be right, but I think there are worse obsessions in life.

While I am filling you in on our challenges this year, I may as well let you know that we will have a gap of a couple of weeks in our head lettuce production after this week. I switched from transplanting lettuce to direct seeding and I lost track of time and did not plant lettuce seed soon enough, hence the gap in production.

I planted fall crops today and I am so glad to see the rain this evening! I planted winter radish, daikon radish, arugula, choi, lettuce, tatsoi, kohlrabi, turnips, mesclun, beets, rutabaga, and ruby streaks mustard greens.

I have included a picture of a winter squash blossom with its biggest enemy (the cucumber beetle) and its greatest ally (the bee). I'm also including a picture of a young butternut squash. The plants look good and they appear to have potential. I will spare you all the details of what can go wrong with winter squash. Let’s just hope for the best.

And back to Mercy …

Wow. I’m exhausted after reading Bill’s posting! I usually don’t know this much about what’s going on, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. He usually makes it look so easy!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

The Rare Posting from the Elusive Farmer Davison

2008-07-29T19:42:00.000-05:00

Hello Friends!

We’re approaching a major life and farm transition … Noah starts kindergarten in three weeks. Our little baby boy is growing up! Sniff sniff. Actually, we’re just so happy for him. He’s totally ready for the next big step in life.

As for the farm, when Noah goes to school, Ben will become our littlest farm hand. He will start staying home from preschool on Tuesdays and Fridays (as Noah has for the last two years) to help with the harvest. He may enjoy farming more than Noah – he is very eager to please us lately, and he truly loves vegetables and eating them! You should see him in the green beans. Somewhat like a very big Japanese beetle but without the hard shell. Ha!

I’m including a picture of our boys in their new sun hats. We purchased them from a company called Sunday Afternoons. The hats are rated for maximum sun protection. Bill and I have had similar hats for a long time, and they’re amazingly light and comfortable. I let the boys pick the colors. After all, it’s important for kids to control what little they can in life. When I showed them the colors available online, Noah immediately picked his favorite color … bright blue.

Ben then had to choose from sand, dark grey, hot pink, and lavender/pink. He immediately chose the lavender. It was one of those parental dilemmas … do I say something about the fact that a pinky purple is, in many people’s opinions, a “girl color”? I asked him, “Are you sure that’s the color you want?” No hesitation … “YES!” Then I just had to ask him (based on the fact that I was spending $25 on a hat that I can’t afford for him to suddenly decide is unacceptable), “What if the other kids say it’s a girl color?” He looked truly puzzled for a second and then said, “But it’s beautiful!” And that was that.

I’m also including a photo of a ginormous onion with boys for perspective. This is Bill’s banner onion year. If you haven’t eaten any, you’re missing a real treat.

And now a word from the farmer himself …

I have a confession to make. This will be our first poor tomato year in 6 years of farming. After walking through our large hoophouse tonight, I can no longer deny that our bligh-infected plants are only going to yield a quarter of their normal production. (Fortunately, the tomatoes we will harvest will TASTE GREAT!) Since tomatoes are our best selling crop, this really hurts. I have been taking care of these plants since March. I have invested a tremendous amount of time, mental energy, and hope on these plants and they are now nearly dead. I kept thinking they may still produce despite the fungal infection that steadily crept up from the bottom of the plant and now has browned the leaves up to the top ¾ of our 10 foot tall plants. Hundreds of full size green tomatoes sit in a state of suspended ripening, waiting for nutrients the plant cannot deliver because it has almost no green leaves. Their photosynthetic capacity reduced to near zero.

Our field tomatoes are in better shape, but many of them have the same blight due to our rainy growing season. Of course, I have been breaking a cardinal rule of farming by trying to grow the same crop in the same space for three years in a row. You are always supposed to rotate your crops to prevent diseases from building up to the point they destroy your crop. Such is the allure of tomatoes! It is hard not to keep planting them in the hoophouse because few other plants can produce $60 worth of income from a single plant.

You tomato lovers may be asking yourselves what I am going to do to recover from such a tragedy. Do not worry. I have a plan. I am going to research the possibility of grafting tomatoes onto disease-resistant rootstock and planting those in the hoophouse. I am also going to research the possibility of creating mobile hightunnels in the field. They will consist of fabric rowcovers over wire hoops and a layer of plastic over pvc or re-bar posts above the rowcover. I may also lay down plastic mulch to help warm the soil and prevent soil from splashing up on the leaves. That is how the fungal spores get transmitted from the soil to the plant. All of this work will partially re-create the near perfect tomato growing conditions of the larger hoophouse but will allow me to rotate my tomato plantings. Of course this entails much more work, but my early tomatoes are worth it!

I learn so much every year and this year is no exception. I am already on my second 50 page field notebook. I take the time to write down everything I see and learn that I think will help me improve next year. As a result, I continue to get better every year. So, rest assured I will do everything I can to ensure a tremendous abundance of tomatoes next year. The poor yield of this year’s tomatoes is very disappointing, but learning to overcome such challenges is also one of the reasons I love to farm. Mercy tells me I am obsessed with vegetables. She may be right, but I think there are worse obsessions in life.

While I am filling you in on our challenges this year, I may as well let you know that we will have a gap of a couple of weeks in our head lettuce production after this week. I switched from transplanting lettuce to direct seeding and I lost track of time and did not plant lettuce seed soon enough, hence the gap in production.

I planted fall crops today and I am so glad to see the rain this evening! I planted winter radish, daikon radish, arugula, choi, lettuce, tatsoi, kohlrabi, turnips, mesclun, beets, rutabaga, and ruby streaks mustard greens.

I have included a couple of pictures of our winter squash blossoms and a very young butternut squash. The plants look good and they appear to have potential. I will spare you all the details of what can go wrong with winter squash. Let’s just hope for the best.

And back to Mercy …

Wow. I’m exhausted after reading Bill’s posting! I usually don’t know this much about what’s going on, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. He usually makes it look so easy!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Bill Takes to the Air Waves

2008-07-23T06:15:00.003-05:00

Hello Friends!

Thanks so much to all who came out for last week’s rainy market! We had an awesome crowd!

Did you hear Bill on the Dean of Green last week? Laura Kennedy and Don Schmidt did a very nice piece on local food. They even interviewed Jackie at the Garlic Press Market Café while she was cooking with local food – you could even hear her Cuisinart chopping up the pesto ingredients! I thought they did a great job, and not just because it featured our farm. Here’s a link to the show: http://www.wglt.org/podcasts/dean_of_green/audio/dog080718.mp3

I also have another link for you to check out: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-evanston-farmer_bdjul20,0,4473050.story
It’s an article from the FRONT PAGE of the Chicago Tribune about local farmer, Henry Brockman. The piece is about Henry charging for his biodegradable bags rather than handing out free plastic bags. As you know, we’re also charging for bags this season (although a dime per bag rather than Henry’s 25 cents for up to 4 bags). It’s been going remarkably well. I’d estimate that we’re still handing out 75% fewer bags as a result. We’ve only had one or two irritated customers – we try to explain to everyone why we’re doing it. The bags are expensive and we’re just covering our cost. Henry also has a great letter on his website about bags if you’d like to check it out: http://www.henrysfarm.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=62

I’m including photos of our friends Sandy and Annie, the horse and goat next door. They feast on Bill’s compost every week. Have you ever had a horse run straight for you? It’s pretty funny (and not terrifying, because I’m on the other side of the fence!). When Sandy sees me walking to the compost pile with the pail, he just goes nuts. He’s a big fan of carrots, corn husks, and various other green things.

This week’s recipe is my favorite cucumber salad. I have never been a fan of cucumbers because the ones in the store have thick skins and are somewhat bitter. Bill’s are crisp, refreshing, and without a hint of bitterness. This salad is very quick to whip up. I’d say it requires a half hour lead time, and that’s only because the yogurt and cucumbers need to sit for a while.

Cucumber Salad with Tzatziki Sauce

Put 1 cup of yogurt into a fine sieve and allow to drain for 2 hours. (I do it in about half an hour by stirring frequently. That encourages the water to drain out more quickly.)

Peel and dice about a pound of cucumber and then put into a colander. Toss in 1 tsp of salt, and let cucumbers drain for half an hour. Press out excess water, rinse quickly, and blot dry. (I skip this step and then don’t add the following amount of salt.) Mash together 2 cloves or garlic and 2-3 pinches of salt. Combine yogurt, garlic and cucumbers in a bowl along with:
2-3 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp chopped mint OR dill (It’s AMAZING with mint, although I’ve made it many times without any fresh herbs.)
Salt and ground pepper to taste

Bill is trying a couple of new things this season: fennel and okra. Here’s what Alice Waters has to say about fennel:

Fennel has celery-like stalks (although more bulbous at the end) covered with feathery leaves topped with umbels of yellow flowers. Its strong characteristic anise flavor goes well with many other flavors, particularly fish. Alice adds the feathery leaves to marinades for fish and to numerous salads, sauces, and soups. It also works as a garnish. Alice frequently slices the bulbs raw into salads, parboils it with pastas, caramelizes it for a side dish, braises it whole, and cooks into broths. You typically peel away the outer layer and eat the white hearts.

Okra is a favorite southern vegetable. I’ll admit to never having eaten it until college, when we bought a bag of frozen okra! It’s a tasty little veggie. Elizabeth Schneider (Vegetables A to Z) describes okra as a bit like eggplant in that its flavor is heavily impacted by the accompanying ingredients. She also says the slippery texture on the inside is balanced well with something more acidic, such as tomato, lemon, and vinegar. It thickens dishes while cooking, which is nice in low-fat recipes. Okra is pretty perishable, so eat it within a couple of days. To prepare okra, just trim off the stems. Elizabeth Schneider’s favorite way to eat okra is steamed with butter.

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Japanese Turnips (white and pink)
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Okra
Fennel

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Let the Tomato Extravaganza Begin!

2008-07-16T07:05:00.001-05:00

Hello Friends!

I hope you are all well. We are great! We’re excited to really get Tomato Season 2008 started … this week we’ll be bringing many varieties of tomatoes to the market. Stupice, Rose de Berne, Striped German, Prudens Purple, Cherokee Purple, Nyagous, Juliette, AND MORE! Every year we include the following two recipes because they are just that good …

A Big Tomato Sandwich
(Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors)

1 large loaf ciabatta*
Herb Vinaigrette (see below)
2 or more big ripe, juicy tomatoes**
1 large yellow or red bell pepper, roasted, peeled and quartered
4 oz fresh mozzarella, goat, or other favorite cheese, sliced
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Slice the top third off the loaf of bread and set it aside. Pull out the inside. (You can use it to make bread crumbs for another recipe.)
2. Paint the inside of the bread with some of the dressing, then make layers of sliced tomatoes, pepper, and cheese. Bathe each layer with the dressing and season with salt and pepper.
3. Add the top, press down, then cut into quarters or sixths.

The Herb Vinaigrette . . .
¼ cup basil
1 T chopped marjoram
1 T chopped parsley
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup olive oil
4 t aged red wine vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Finely chop herbs with the garlic, then add olive oil. Add vinegar and season with salt and pepper.

* Ciabbatta is an ideal bread for this – crusty, strong-textured, and able to drink in some of the juice without falling apart.
** Choice tomatoes for this recipe are Prudens Purple and Striped Germans.

Tomato salad
(Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters)

Simply chunk up some ripe tomatoes. Moisten with balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper, and drizzle generously with olive oil. Mix gently. Excellent additions include croutons, slivered fresh basil, avocado, red onion, corn, fresh mozzarella, cucumbers, and small pieces of broccoli. This healthy and delicious dish can be made in about 10 minutes, and is best eaten fresh. (The texture gets funny if refrigerated and eaten the next day, but it can be done.) We eat this almost every day!

I’ve also had a request for the dip recipe that we make for eating Japanese Turnips raw. Here it is:

1 cup Tahini (a sesame paste – it looks like pale peanut butter! If you don’t have tahini, peanut butter works, too!)
2-3 Tbsp soy sauce or Bragg’s
2-3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Stir it and then add water to make it a good dipping consistency. The amounts are really approximate – just add the soy sauce and lemon juice to taste.

This week’s visual art are posters from the World War I and/or II eras. Bill really wanted me to include them because he thinks the times, they are a-changin’. Seriously. I am no historian, but it does seem that we are entering unchartered waters with the global economy and global food production. The demand for food will continue to increase quickly, and the demand on farmland will similarly increase. What will we choose to do with the good farmland that we have? Develop it? Grow ever more corn and soybeans? We can’t leave it to large agribusiness to grow food that we need to be healthy (and to enjoy!!). Instead, we will increasingly look to small-scale farms to provide the best, most nutritious food on the planet.

Could you be one of those small-scale “farmers”? How about in your own backyard with a Victory Garden?? We don’t face the obvious enemy of Hitler or his ilk, but we do have a war to win against shortages of good food. I just love the posters from the past. At one point during World War II, approximately 40% of the food eaten in this country came out of home gardens. Wow! Bill may do a class this fall/winter to help you plan a small victory garden in 2009. It’s really not difficult to grow a handful of vegetables … and we assume that you’ll still come to the farmers market to fill the gaps. Some of our best customers have gardens!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Green Beans
Eggplant
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Collard Greens
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Japanese Turnips (white and pink)
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Green Onions
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes

Don’t forget that we’re delivering fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press on Tuesday evenings …

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

60% Chance of Rain, 100% Chance of AWESOME VEGETABLES!

2008-07-11T12:47:00.004-05:00

So the weather forecast is less than farmers market stellar ... what to do? COME TO THE MARKET! We will not be deterred by the clouds. Nay, we'll be out there with totally awesome vegetables no matter the weather! And it's that time of year when the produce is so DIVERSE and DELICIOUS that you really don't want to miss it.

Heirloom tomatoes just picked off the vine -- Bill has too many varieties to name! Be sure not to miss the first week of the brandywines, striped German, and more.

Cucumbers and Onions -- sounds like we making gazpacho at this point! Have you discovered the joy of gazpacho? Tomatoes, cukes, onions, and whatever else you like! We always add croutons from the Garlic Press Market Cafe! We also LOVE to make a quick cucumber salad with a tatziki sauce -- thinly sliced cukes in a dressing of strained yogurt, onion, garlic, and white wine vinegar with a dash of salt and pepper. Toss in some fresh dill or mint if possible!

Awesome lettuces -- Bill grows varieties that don't get bitter in the summer heat. It takes a very special farmer to do this (in my unbiased opinion!).

Carrots -- to die for! These are so crisp and sweet that they'll be eaten up before you know it!

Potatoes -- get in on the new potatoes before they get ... older! They're great all season, but there is something extra special about the newbies.

And all the rest of the amazing greens! This could be your week to try swiss chard, kale, collards, or some other tasty green heretofor missing from your diet.

We REALLY hope to see you tomorrow, rain or shine! Come join us under our rain-free tent!

Mercy

p.s. WE HARVESTED ALL OF THE GARLIC YESTERDAY! We had an amazing crew of volunteer harvesters who helped bring it in from the field in one day. To Liz, Timothy, Kevin, Jeff, and our loyal farmhands -- THANKS!

Name that Bug

2008-07-09T21:36:00.005-05:00

Hello Friends!

It seems that summer has finally arrived. The hot daytime temperatures and warm nights are just what the doctor ordered for the heat-loving vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. We hope you enjoy this change of seasons as much as we do!

As the season progresses, so does the crazy parade of bugs that we see on various plants. The picture I’m including this week is a mystery caterpillar. If any biologists know what it is, feel free to post the name on the blog! We just love the color. It says, oh-so-subtly, "Eat me and puke." (I'm also including a photo of the garlic harvest in progress. It's going well!)

Did you happen to catch the recent New York Times article on “The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating?” It a great list – check out the article at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/the-11-best-foods-you-arent-eating/?em&ex=1215316800&en=1d0deabcae7532d5&ei=5087%0A.

And what are the TOP THREE items on that list?
1. Beets
2. Cabbage
3. Swiss Chard

Does that sound like our farmers market stand, or what??!!

We recently heard that one of our youngest customers -- a high school BOY, no less -- has been cooking up a storm with our vegetables. His mom called me to say that he'd seen swiss chard cooked on the Food Network, and he was inspired to try the recipe out on his family. They all LOVED it! And now they all know the joy of cooking with greens!

Another customer recently told us that she’s having her wedding in Bloomington rather than the Chicago area because she wants to incorporate Bill’s food into the reception! How flattering! If you have any special requests for catering ingredients, just let us know and we’ll see what we can do!

And finally, a fit of insanity came over me this past week and I mowed. I grew up with three brothers, and my dad never made me mow. They always had to do it. My first time mowing was only a couple of years ago. Can you believe that?? So the urge to mow just came over me and Bill got me set up. He has to pull the cord the first time (when it’s harder to start), and then he has to give me the refresher course over which levers do what – a blade lever, throttle, speed lever, and those two bars. Totally confusing.

I was using the 1987 John Deere from my grandma. (We call it the Sissy Mower because Grandma went by “Grandma Sissy.”) We inherited it a few years ago after she passed away. She spent almost $900 when she purchased it in the late 1980s, which was a small fortune. She had it tuned up EVERY YEAR. It’s all metal, has 5 speeds, and is self-propelled. I was practically pulled off my feet a few times! I think I may have suffered permanent hearing loss, and the smell of exhaust was horrendous. Still, I had a pretty good time!

Here’s what we’ll be bringing to the market this week:

Head Lettuce
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Collard Greens
Parsley
Basil
Swiss Chard
Japanese Turnips (white and pink)
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Garlic
Green Onions
Bulb Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Tomatoes

Don’t forget that we’re delivering fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press on Tuesday evenings …

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Garlic Harvest Help Needed!

2008-07-07T18:43:00.005-05:00

Hello all!
I realize I may be pushing it to ask for help TWICE in the span of one week, but it really must be done. We are now on the cusp of the GARLIC HARVEST. The rain, although desperately needed for new seeds and seedlings, was poorly timed in relation to the garlic harvest. You see, there's a very narrow window for garlic harvesting, as I understand it. Bill wanted to start harvesting it today, but the rain meant it would be too muddy. (And you don't want thousands of heads of muddy/dirty-cloddy garlic hanging in the garage.) So after waiting a couple of days for it to dry, the garlic all has to come out at once or else two things will start to happen: 1) the thin, papery garlic covering will start to deteriorate (which leads to earlier rotting) and 2) the stalks will dry out and will tend to snap off while harvesting (which is awful).
Thus, we need to harvest the garlic THIS WEEK on THURSDAY, SATURDAY, and SUNDAY! Would you like to help? You don't need any prior experience, and we don't require letters of reference! It's not all backbreaking, sunny work either. Some of the time is spent in the field pulling garlic, and some of the time is spent in the shade bunching the garlic to be hung in the garage. I'm attaching pictures to inspire you! It's really quite a lot of fun, and you'd get to see how some of the season's more important harvesting happens.
You wouldn't have to commit a ton of time, either. Just come out for an hour or two -- many hands make light work, it takes a village, make hay while the sun shines, etc.!! Pick whichever aphorism seems most appropriate.
Let me know if you're interested. This is a kid-tolerable activity for kids 4 and older. We have our 4 and 5 year olds who will be helping and/or who will be available for playing with other kids.
Thanks for helping to run our farm!
Mercy

T-Shirts! Tomatoes! Market Help NEEDED!

2008-07-03T18:09:00.004-05:00

Hello Friends!

Guess who’s NOT using dial-up anymore? That’s right … the high-tech Davisons at the Blue Schoolhouse Farm. We’re flying high with our new wireless connection, downloading YouTube videos and checking out all of the other memory-intensive things that we’ve been “missing” on the internet for all these years. I’m afraid Bill may not have time to farm anymore now that he’s connected to the rest of the world at a reasonable speed. Ha ha! And now that we have the speedy connection, we can attach photos with ease. Instead of taking 25 minutes to attach one photo, I was able to stick in these VERY ATTRACTIVE photos of Ben (top) and Noah (bottom) in about 2 minutes.

I have three news items for you …

1. T-SHIRTS! We’re selling t-shirts with the farm logo on the front. The shirts are 100% organic cotton and cost $15. We have a women’s and a men’s style – the women’s has a more feminine neckline and shorter sleeves. The men’s is very masculine. Ha ha.

2. HELP AT THE MARKET STAND! Our awesome new assistant, Kanna, is going on a family vacation this holiday weekend. The nerve! Just kidding. He’s been a great help and really helps the stand run much better in the early hours of the market. Have you noticed? We actually have produce in the crates for the first two hours while we still manage to sell food. (Previously, we’d either leave customers high and dry, holding dripping wet lettuce while we tried to stuff more food into the emptying crates OR we’d just keep selling and people would have no idea what was being sold from the empty crates. QUESTION: Would you like to help us this Saturday?? We really need help from about 7:30 a.m. until 9 a.m. The first hour is the most critical, so even just an hour from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. would help. The benefit is that you’d get first dibs on the produce, and we’d give you a free bag of food. And, of course, you’d get to hang out with us – that’s reason enough, right? And don't worry -- working for us once does not mean we'll be bugging you all season.

3. TOMATOES! That’s right, the first tomatoes of the season. There won’t be that many, as we’re just picking them from the small greenhouse. It’s the “Stupice” variety, which does well for us every year. It’s a great, medium-size heirloom tomato hailing from the Czech Republic. Remember that tomatoes DO NOT like to be cold – don’t put them into the fridge unless you want to greatly reduce the flavor. Here’s our absolute favorite thing to do with ‘maters …

Tomato salad
(Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters)

Simply chunk up some ripe tomatoes. (We halve the cherry tomatoes.) Moisten with balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper, and drizzle generously with olive oil. Mix gently. Excellent additions include croutons, slivered fresh basil, avocado, red onion, corn, fresh mozzarella, cucumbers, and small pieces of broccoli. This healthy and delicious dish can be made in about 10 minutes, and is best eaten fresh. (The texture gets funny if refrigerated and eaten the next day, but it can be done.) We eat this every day!

This recipe is infinitely variable with additions and subtractions to your heart’s content. Let us know what you like to do with it on the blog as a “comment”! (Note that you don’t have to “register” to leave a comment. You can just hit the button for “anonymous.” That’s what I do when I leave comments on the Mitchells’ blog site!)

We think this Saturday is going to be a fabulous market weekend!! The weather will be perfect, and many people are staying at home (for a “staycation”) to avoid the high price of gas. There is an up side to that – all the more time to relax and enjoy a nice barbecue/cookout with friends and family. Not to get started on a diatribe about modern life, but there is something positive to be had with a forced slow-down of the fast-paced American life.

As a recap, here’s what we’re bringing:

Head Lettuce
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Garlic Scapes (LAST WEEK!)
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Collard Greens
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Japanese Turnips (white and pink)
Summer Squash
Cucumbers
Carrots

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Come Hungry!!

2008-07-02T06:49:00.002-05:00

Hello Friends!

I’m typing with a 4-year-old boy in my lap. It’s like having a really heavy cat. He just insists upon this arrangement every now and then, and I figure I’d better make the most of it while he’s still interested in me at all!

We all went into the field over the weekend to do some weeding. I used Speedy Weedy for the first time – it’s a crazy little machine that that our friend Dave made. It moves forward very slowly with the wheels straddling the bed. It has a pad that you lay on, facing the ground. From that position, you weed away. It saves your knees and your back, but you end up with funny sun burn marks on the backs of your legs if you’re not careful!

This is the LAST WEEK for garlic scapes! Be sure to snatch them up because it will be another year before they’re available again. They are a wonderful seasonal item!

NEW ITEMS AT THE MARKET!

1. Cabbage

This week we are bringing a new vegetable to the market. It may well be the most underappreciated vegetable that we grow: cabbage. Many people see cabbage as merely survival food, or something you eat on occasion just because it’s there. The cabbage in the store feeds into that notion – cheap and bland.

According to the book “From Asparagus to Zucchini,” cabbage is possibly the most cultivated member of the brassica family in the world. Fermented cabbage in northern Europe and Korea was a traditional preservation method – consider sauerkraut and kim chi as two prime examples. The spicy/sweet flavor of cabbage comes through when eaten raw or cooked, although if overcooked it can result in a strong odor and flavor. Alice Waters serves cabbage with duck and pork and even wraps fish in it for steaming. (The cabbage traps the juiciness and flavor.) Our friend Saad uses cabbage as a “vehicle” for other food. He simply lays out cabbage leaves on a plate and uses them to transport a variety of side dishes such as tabouli from plate to mouth.

Bill and I have made wonderful sauerkraut with our cabbage, and it’s very easy to whip together coleslaw. For a twist on the traditional coleslaw, try this recipe from Alice Waters:

Warm Cabbage, Onion and Apple Slaw

1 medium red onion
1 medium red or green cabbage
2 large crisp, sweet apples
olive oil
salt and pepper
vinegar

Peel and slice the onion very thinly. Trim the cabbage, core it, cut in half, and slice into fine chiffonade, as for coleslaw. Peel, core, and slice the apples very thinly.

In a large sauté pan, heat a little oil and begin to sauté the onions. When they are translucent and just beginning to brown, add the apples. Saute about 1 minute so everything is sizzling, and add the cabbage, the seasoning, a dash of vinegar, and a little water. Stir on a hot flame just long enough to barely cook the cabbage. It should retain a little crunch and the sweetness of fresh cabbage.

Serve with pork, roast chicken, or duck; a savory grain and legume pilaf or roasted potatoes; or by itself, cold.

Serves 8-10.

Cabbage varieties have many different colors, shapes and flavors. Bill will be bringing “Tendersweet” and “Super Red” cabbage. Tendersweet has an oblong/flattened shape and is light green. As the name implies, this cabbage is amazingly tender and sweet. Super Red is round and dark purply red.

2. New Potatoes

Finally, we have the season’s first new potatoes at the Blue Schoolhouse. We’ve eaten them once in our favorite dish …

New Potatoes
(Local Flavors by Deborah Madison)

Scrub, but don’t peel, the potatoes. Boil 3 qts water with 2 cups sea salt. Add potatoes. Boil until fork-tender, 15-30 minutes, depending on potato size. Drain and then toss potatoes with ½ cup unsalted butter (melted) and 1.4 cup finely chopped mixed herbs (marjoram, chives, lemon basil, etc.) and freshly ground pepper. It’s really delicious!

You can also roast new potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper. They’re just so tasty and moist that it’s hard to mess them up.

3. Garlic Heads

We had a few heads last week, but now we’re in full swing. One customer last week said that he couldn’t believe how moist our garlic is, given that the heads in the store are frequently dried out. Bill’s garlic is also more flavorful. The heads in the store are all softneck garlic, and most of it is grown in China. (I have no quarrel with China but I do know that shipping veggies from half way around the globe takes a heavy toll on both the vegetable and the environment.)

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Would you like to help harvest garlic? It’s quite fun pulling them out of the mulch, cutting them, sorting by size, and hanging them in the garage. A day of garlic harvesting typically involves beer around 5 p.m.! Let us know if you’re interested in helping us our even for part of a day. We will be starting to harvest on Thursday and will continue through Monday of next week. This is one of Bill’s largest tasks every season and ensures that we will have garlic every week of the rest of the season and enough cloves to plant more next year.

4. Basil

We had basil about two weeks ago from a bed-thinning event, but now we’ll have the regular-size bunches until the first fall frost. Basil is an amazing herb with a distinctive, refreshing flavor. We love to sliver it onto anything involving tomatoes.

Basil makes a great pesto. (Did you know you could make pesto out of any other green, including parsley, arugula, cilantro and others?) Here’s the pesto recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook . . . Place 3 cups (packed) fresh basil leaves and 3 garlic cloves into a food processor and mince well. Add 1/3 cup pine nuts, walnuts, or almonds (we use almonds) and keep blending until ground. Drizzle in 1/3 cup olive oil while machine is still running, until you have a smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl and then add in 1/3 cup parmesan. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you want freeze the pesto for later use, leave out the parmesan, which can be added when you thaw out the pesto. We freeze pesto into ice cube trays and then put the pesto cubes into freezer bags. Then we thaw cubes as needed.

Here’s what else we’ll be bringing to the market:

Head Lettuce
Beets (Traditional, Golden, and Chioggia)
Garlic Scapes (LAST WEEK!)
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Collard Greens
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Japanese Turnips (white and pink)
Summer Squash
Cucumbers
Carrots

What happened to the radicchio? The d**n deer ate it last night. After two months of growing with no incident, the radicchio was taken out over the course of a few hours. Two words spring to mind … deer burger. So no more radicchio for a very long time. Sniff sniff.

Don’t forget that we’re delivering fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press on Tuesday evenings …

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Blue Schoolhouse Birthday Boy!

2008-06-25T20:03:00.003-05:00

Hello Friends!

Today is a very special day … four years ago today I went into labor with Ben on my way in to work. It was a harvest day, and Bill was in the field with our then-farmhands April and Matt. I tried to ignore the obvious signs of labor, figuring I could ride it out (until when??). It was pretty obvious by the time I got to work that something was up. I called Bill to tell him the news. He gave his farmhands some quick instructions and left them in the field. Baby Ben was born a few hours later on June 25, 2004. Bill stayed with us all day and night. After a sleep-deprived night on the hospital pull-out bed, Bill drove back to the farm at 3:30 a.m. to pick up the truck full of what veggies the farmhands could pick and pack, and returned to town for the market.

Some of you may remember Bill that day … the proud dad with the hospital bracelet still on his wrist. Totally zombied out. I’m sure a few of you were shorted some change given the challenge of adding and subtracting while in a walking coma. And some people probably came out ahead! In any case, we appreciated all of the well wishes and general support. We brought Ben to the market the following week – I’d attach a photo of that, but I think the picture was taken with my mom’s camera. The pictures I’m attaching are from the first few months and then from his birthday this morning. He’s at that age where he can’t smile on command without doing that crazy little boy grimace (showing all teeth while scrunching eyes tightly shut – very natural looking). So we captured him looking serious about his gift of bungee cords, pulleys, ropes, caribiners, and a toolbox. He loves to use Bill’s cords/ropes to tie his tricycle to the barbecue grill and the front door, so now he has his own.

I regret to inform you that I’m still doing this blog via dial-up. Boo-hoo. We did hear from several very helpful people with suggestions on our best options. We are going to go with a Verizon cell phone thingy (I assume they’ll know what I mean!!).

Bill and his farmhands are making great progress in the field. They spent a good part of today trellising tomatoes in the greenhouse. It started great … the cloudiness had cooled off the greenhouse to a nice temperature. About halfway through trellising, the sun came out. Within minutes the greenhouse heated up like Death Valley. The guys couldn’t stop, though, as they were stuck mid-row with twine everywhere. By the time they emerged from the greenhouse, Brian said, “I feel like I just came out of hell.” And this from a guy who uses words sparingly.

Speaking of hell, we had a heaven-sent rain this morning. Bill could have cried, he was so happy to hear the pitter patter of raindrops on the window. He was facing the inevitability of irrigation … that means hours and hours of laying drip tape, walking back and forth to the water pump, and all-around suboptimal conditions for the veggies. The soaker that we received was just what the doctor ordered.

The hotter-than-Hades greenhouse also served as a reminder that we’re transitioning from the cool season crops to warm season crops. So bye-bye to spinach and mixed baby greens and hello to summer squash (a.k.a. zucchini) and more! It’s a great time for diversity, and in the coming weeks you’ll see us bringing quite the variety of veggies. The warm season crops are all easy to prepare with minimal effort. Take the summer squash … our favorite way to eat them is to slice them down the middle length-wise, cut slits into the cut-side, and brush with olive oil, balsamic, and salt/pepper. Lay it on the grill cut side up until tender. The kids absolutely love it! They just grab entire halves of summer squash and demolish it.

Fortunately, warm weather does not eliminate the greens altogether. We will have head lettuce, swiss chard and kale every week. I’m going to focus on chard this week. Chard is very versatile, and you can eat the entire leaf WITH the stalk. Even when the stalks are big, they are still amazingly juicy and tender. You can cook with chard in the same way that you cook with spinach. According to Vegetables A to Z (one of our favorite books), in France both the succulent stem and leaf are incorporated into daily fare as regularly as spinach in the U.S. The pale, broad stalks are simmered in fragrant bouillon that is then thickened and seasoned with pounded garlic and anchovies and presented alone, to star in the way that asparagus do. Or they are bathed in sauce and browned in a gratin. Leaves are folded into terrines, omelets and soups, pureed in gnocchi, wrapped around pork patties, and even made into a dessert pie. Be sure to share your favorite chard preparation on the blog!!

Bill will likely be harvesting most of the garlic next week. After harvesting it, we hang it all in huge bunches from the rafters in the garage, where it can dry out a bit. We will be bringing GARLIC SCAPES to the market again this week. We probably only have this week and next week before the scapes are history. Be sure to get in on this rare seasonal treat!

People have been pretty excited about the beets. We’ve finally made it into the field with the beets. (The first few weeks were beets out of the greenhouse.) We’ll be bringing three types – traditional red beets, golden beets, and chioggia beets. The goldens have a milder beet flavor than the reds, and they don’t bleed their color into the rest of the dish. The chioggias are the sweetest variety and have red and white stripes on the inside. Any of these beets can be grated raw onto a salad for a wonderfully sweet beet flavor, amazing nutrition, and an awesome aesthetic. Try this recipe:

Beet Salad*
(Chez Panisse by Alice Waters)

Use as many beets as you like in this recipe. Cut off the greens, leaving the top and tail on. Boil for about 20 minutes, or until they can be poked with a fork. Dump off the water and slip the skins off. (They should very easily slide off the beet without a knife. Wait until they’ve cooled off, though!) Top and tail the beets, and then quarter/cut them into bite-size pieces. Mix in vinegar (we prefer balsamic) – just enough to get all of the beets coated with it. Add salt and pepper and let it sit for at least an hour. This allows the beets to absorb the vinegar flavor. Then add olive oil – again, just enough to coat the beets. You’ll end up with a small puddle of vinegar and oil at the bottom, which is fine. Serve at room temperature. It’s easy and fabulous! It’s also infinitely variable … we like to add chopped walnuts, fresh parsley, and goat cheese.

* CAUTION: This beet salad recipe is likely to turn the most beet-skeptical into a beet-lover. Be sure to warn them that it can turn your pee pink. The boys consider that a major bonus!

Here’s what else we’ll be bringing to the market:

Head Lettuce
Beets
Garlic Scapes
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Collard Greens
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Radicchio
Japanese Turnips
Summer Squash

The new bag system went well. We decided to charge 10 cents per bag, and people were pretty receptive. I’d estimate that we handed out 75% fewer bags than usual, which is AWESOME!! Thanks to all who brought their own bags and to those who were supportive of the new system.

Don’t forget that we’re delivering fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press on Tuesday evenings …

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please let your friends know about the blog. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Let's hear it for ... GARLIC SCAPES!

2008-06-17T21:19:00.002-05:00

Hello Friends!

I hope that this is the last time that you’ll be getting this emailed blog announcement from me via dial-up internet. I’m generally in favor of patience and a zenlike acceptance of things beyond my control, but dial-up would irritate the most seasoned yogi. I mean really … when I go to upload the pictures onto the blog, I hit “send” and then can eat my dinner AND do the dishes before it’s done loading. And after all of that, sometimes the internet disconnects. I have actually screamed when that happens.

So we’re finally considering the plunge into expensive high speed internet. (Now that Noah is finishing his expensive preschool career, we need something new to do with our fortune!) I’m not even sure how we’re going to do it. There’s something called “dtn speednet” or something like that, and then there’s some weird cell phone technology that’s been working for our neighbor. Satellite is no good because you still upload via your dial-up connection. I consider shopping around for an internet plan to be less pleasant than shopping on the Veterans Parkway strip on a hot July afternoon … so if you have any suggestions for the best plan of attack, please let me know!!

And while we’re throwing our money around, we’re also talking about getting a box truck. We’ve FINALLY outgrown the little Toyota pickup and homemade trailer. (The trailer was purchased, but the big red box on top is an original design by Bill!) This season has just been phenomenal for Bill, especially on Saturdays. In previous seasons we only filled up the trailer and truck (thus requiring the Toyota Corolla to save the day!) for a couple of weeks in August when both tomatoes and watermelons are in season. This past week we already had to bring in the Mighty Corolla. It’s astounding. And we’ve been selling almost all of what we’ve brought. I’d love to hear your thoughts on why people are buying more produce at the market this season – post your thoughts to the blog so that everyone can ruminate together.

Speaking of the Saturday market, one of the tasty new treats this week is GARLIC SCAPES! Rock on! (That’s what former farmhand Dusty Roads, as we called him, would say about most things.) Are you familiar with scapes? They are a cult vegetable, somewhat along the lines of ramps (wild leeks). You just can’t get these very easily, and the season is very short … about 3 weeks. I Googled scapes this evening and found a Washington Post blog entitled “My Friend the Garlic Scape.” Not kidding. The author describes scapes as “the garlic lover’s nirvana.”

What is a garlic scape? It’s the flower stalk of a hard-neck garlic. If you don’t pick it, you end up with a smaller garlic bulb. Thus, Bill will be picking all of the scapes from the hard neck garlic varieties that he has planted. (He primarily grows soft-neck varieties because they’re easier to grow and sell.) Bill has read in many places, including the Washington Post blog, that the premier way to eat scapes is in pesto. Here’s the recipe:

Garlic Scape Pesto

1 cup garlic scapes (about 8 or 9 scapes), top flowery part removed, cut into ¼-inch slices
1/3 cup walnuts
¾ cup olive oil
¼-1/2 cup grated parmigiano
½ teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste

Method:
Place scapes and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and whiz until well combined and somewhat smooth. Slowly drizzle in oil and process until integrated. With a rubber spatula, scoop pesto out of bowl and into a mixing bowl. Add parmigiano to taste; add salt and pepper. Makes about 6 ounces of pesto. Keeps for up to one week in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.
For ½ pound short pasta such as penne, add about 2 tablespoons of pesto to cooked pasta and stir until pasta is well coated.

Here’s what else we’ll be bringing to the market:

Salad Mix
Spinach
Arugula
Head Lettuce
Beets
Garlic Scapes
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Collard Greens
Carrots
Parsley
Swiss Chard
Radicchio

This would be the perfect week to try your hand with greens. We just have so many wonderful varieties … kale, collards, radicchio (not really green!), spinach, etc. We prepared a family favorite dish for friends over the weekend, and they were really impressed with how simple yet delicious it was. The recipe was a bean-and-rice dish with wilted greens. I’m including a recipe for rice below. Even though you can make rice with just water or a good stock, we find this recipe to really add something special to the meal without requiring a ton of work.

Basic Brown Rice I (Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon)

2 cups brown rice (long or short)
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 cardamom pods
4 cups chicken stock (or good veggie stock)
1 Tbsp gelatin (optional – I’ve never used it)
½ tsp sea salt

In a heavy, flameproof casserole, melt butter and olive oil. Open cardamom pods and add seeds to the casserole. Saute rice in butter and oil, stirring constantly, until rice begins to turn milky. (This takes about 10 minutes.) Pour in liquid, add salt and optional gelatin, and bring to a rolling boil. Boil, uncovered, for about 10 minutes until water has reduced to the level of the rice. Reduce flame to lowest heat, cover tightly, and cook for at least 1.5 hours or as long as 3 hours (I’ve only ever done it for 1.5 hours!). Do not remove lid during cooking.

While the rice is cooking, Bill simply sautes onions and garlic in olive oil with some salt and pepper. He cooks it slowly over a low heat so that the onions and garlic become somewhat sweet. He then adds sliced up greens … radicchio, endive, kale, etc. … to the pan and covers it to wilt the greens. He sometimes adds a bit of water to steam it all. If you’re a meat eater, a couple of pieces of fried and chopped bacon never hurts.

One last news item … we are switching over to biodegradable bags. This is a big deal for us for two reasons. First, they’re about four times as expensive. Second, we’re going to charge people 25 cents for 1-4 bags. (We could charge a dime per bag, but we generally work with quarters.) The goal is to reduce the number of bags that people use, not to make any sort of profit. The world is so full of plastic, and plastic bags in particular are choking our waterways, killing our wildlife, and degrading community aesthetics across the globe. Many countries are doing away with plastic bags almost altogether (i.e. Ireland, China), and many cities in the US are starting to tax the bags to reduce their prevalence. We do hope that you help us avoid bags entirely. After all, biodegradable bags aren’t really very biodegradable in a landfill!

The photos this week are of broccoli and Bill's nemesis ... the potato beetle. Bill is spending quite a bit of time knocking them off the plants and squishing them.

Don’t forget that we’re delivering fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press on Tuesday evenings …

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. BRING YOUR BAGS!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

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

Broccoli Bonanza!

2008-06-12T20:39:00.001-05:00

Hello friends!

It’s only been a day since the last blog posting, but I have BROCCOLI NEWS! (I also have to correct the blog address – it’s .com as in blueschoolhousefarm.blogspot.com. Sorry about that!) This just in … Bill has gigantic heads of broccoli that he’ll be bringing this Saturday, and lots of ‘em. You simply must put this on your grocery list for the farmer market.

According to Alice Waters (Chez Panisse Vegetables), broccoli is the dense, unopened budding sprouts of a member of the cabbage family. Terra Brockman’s cookbook notes that broccoli was popular among the Romans. Broccoli is very rich in Vitamins A and C and all of the cancer-fighting phytochemicals in the crucifer family.

So eat the whole darn plant. Stems, leaves, and all. And keep it SIMPLE! Try these recipes:

Sauteed Broccoli with Olive Oil and Garlic (Terra Brockman)

1.5 pounds fresh broccoli with leaves attached
salt
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp garlic, chopped finely (green garlic works great!)
2 Tbsp chopped parsley (we’ll be bringing parsley)

Bring 4 quarts of water to a fast boil. Add 1 Tbsp salt and as the water returns to a boil, drop in the broccoli. (If you have one large head, cut it into a number of smaller stalks, coarsely chopping the leaves.) Cook until the broccoli stalks can be pierced with a fork. (Careful! Don’t over-boil!) Drain.

Choose a skillet that can hold all of the broccoli. Put in the olive oil and garlic and turn to medium heat. Cook and stir until garlic is golden. Add broccoli, salt, and chopped parsley. Turn the veggies 2-3 times to coat thoroughly. Cook for about 2 minutes, then serve at once.

Broccoli Piemontese (Terra Brockman)

3 pounds fresh broccoli
2 finely chopped cloves garlic (or the equivalent in green garlic)
olive oil
salt, freshly ground pepper
white wine

Cook broccoli in boiling, salted water until barely tender. Drain. Saute garlic in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a large skillet. When lightly browned, add broccoli and spoon hot oil and garlic over it. Season to taste. Add wine and cook down quickly. Serve broccoli with pan juices poured over it.

If you notice any small green cabbage worms, soak the broccoli in a bowl of cold water with a teaspoon of salt dissolved in it. The worms will soon float to the top.

Rare treat -- Sweet Cherries!

2008-06-11T21:34:00.005-05:00

Hello Friends!

It’s been a troubling week for vegetables in the national press. First, food prices continue to rise at a significant pace. Then the rains wreak havoc on the industrial farmers with the expected outcome of more price increases. And then we hear that we have to throw out those store-bought tomatoes because they could make you sick. (As if a hard, pink, out-of-season “tomato” couldn’t already make you mildly ill.) What are we to do?? Of course, come to the farmers market!

We will have some delightful vegetables for you this week; however, we will also have an unexpected treat. SWEET CHERRIES! When we bought our house six years ago, we got some fruit trees in the deal, two of which were 6-foot tall sweet cherry trees. Bill has been pruning them every year for six years but we have yet to get more than a few cherries from these trees because they usually get moldy in rainy weather or the birds eat all of them in the course of one day. The trees are now 20 feet tall. For some unknown reason, we actually get to eat them this year. We don’t have many (15+ pints), so you’ll have to be very early to get some. I’m including a picture of me up in a tree picking them. I never climbed trees as a kid, although I did read books about kids climbing trees! I just love it. Especially when you’re near the top and the wind blows the branches around. It makes me feel like I’ve just had a big pint of beer … kind of swooshy!

And this weekend we promise … the sun will shine. Bill said that last Saturday the rain came down the instant the market bell rang. We still sold a lot of food, but we also had to compost a boatload of it. So sad! (Of course, the neighbor’s horse was in heaven with all of the head lettuce. He eats it out of our compost.) Our best quote from last week's market came from a 4-year-old girl, whose mom is a major supporter of local food and local farmers. The mom was telling Bill about the barbecue she was having that night. Bill asked her if she'd still have it rain-or-shine. She said, "Yes." Then her daughter said, in a flight of ideas, "You're local farmers so you'll come to the market rain or shine because you don't matter." We're not sure what she meant, but it was darn funny.

Here’s what we’re bringing …

Sweet Cherries!
Salad Mix
Spinach
Arugula
Head Lettuce
Beets
Radish
Green Onion
Green Garlic
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Japanese Turnips
Collard Greens
Carrots
Parsley
Swiss Chard

Bill had his first significant setback – he had to till under his first planting of watermelons. Most were dying due to cold weather. Fortunately, he has more in the ground, but it is touch and go with them as well. The cucumber beetles are attacking the seedlings and many of them are starting to die back. Could this be a year without watermelons? Perish the thought!

How do you like this week’s photographs? Bill wanted you to see the new “bottom field” that he’s renting across the road. It’s loaded with soy beans and sorghum sudan grass, both of which Bill planted as a cover crop. Unlike our current 7 acres, which are totally exposed to wind, the bottom field is down by the creek. It’s sheltered from the wind by the row of trees lining Walnut Creek, which makes a nice, creek-y noise next to the field. The soil in the bottom is totally black and crumbly, another major difference from the field we’ve been using. But with all things, there is a down side that many farmers with bottom fields are experiencing this year … flooding AND disease. That’s right. When you’re down in the bottom, there’s no wind to blow away the fungi, etc. that thrive in this sort of wet, soggy weather. So we plan to keep both the upper and the bottom fields in the future as something of an insurance policy – with organic farming, you can’t put all of your eggs into one basket. Disease or pests in one field can be offset by a fine year in the other field.

Bill also wanted to include a close-up photo of his cover crop. (He just bought a new digital camera while I was out of town – I just about killed him.) The land owner, Gail Fisher, let Bill use his vintage (1940s?) John Deere/Van Brunt seed drill. Bill felt like a real farmer doing that!! In the photo you can see the alfalfa, red clover, and oats coming up amidst the dried corn stalks from last year. The bottom field has been conventionally farmed for many years, so we will let it rest and recover this year. What you see in the picture is succession in action. Nature abhors a vacuum, so it’s filling the space with not only our cover crop but also weeds like ragweed and foxtail. The race is on … cover crop versus weeds. This cover crop will be mown as many times as necessary to minimize weed seeds propagated from mature weed plants. It’s an awesome responsibility to tend to 9 acres of new farm land, and Bill just loves it!

We still have Bill’s brother Aaron at the farm. What a bonus! The poor guy decides to spend his “break” from work hanging out at our farm, and it turns out to be two weeks of hard labor. It’s back to his wind turbine job tomorrow!

We’re all working really hard on the farm right now. Today I called home at lunch to see how things were going, and Bill said, “I’m totally behind! All of this harvesting is keeping me from the doing 6 other things that really need to get done!” (He’s harvesting on Tuesdays for the market + Common Ground + Garlic Press, on Wednesdays for the CSA, and on Fridays for the market.) I had to just cut the conversation short and get back to my work. I’ve told him before that I have enough anxiety issues without taking on vegetable anxiety. I mean really. So he called me later to reassure me that everything is actually going OK and that I shouldn’t worry. What a guy (and what a liar!).

Noah got himself a big ol’ black eye over the weekend. My mom’s neighbor girls (ages 14 and 11) were watching Noah and Ben while I attended a wedding, and the boys were extra-squirrely. You know how kids get when they’re A) at grandma’s house B) eating total junk food loaded with who-knows-what C) with babysitters they’ve never met. Recipe for disaster, right? Right. So at some point they were running around like chickens chasing a mouse (have you ever witnessed that? Too funny!) when they crashed into each other … Ben’s noggin into Noah’s eye. The noggin won, of course. The poor babysitters felt so bad. They even called my mom’s cell phone to leave a black eye voicemail. (I didn’t have my cell phone with me. After all, it was a wedding reception in St. Louis . I told them that if something that serious happened to call 9-1-1, not me!) I’m sure they’ll never babysit for us again. Oh well. But back to serious business …

Don’t forget that we’re delivering fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press on Tuesday evenings …

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays 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.

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

Can you eat too many greens? No way!

2008-06-04T07:09:00.003-05:00

Hello Friends!

Last week’s Bloomington Farmers Market was the biggest we’ve ever had during the regular season! (We made more at the Thanksgiving Market, which was mind-blowingly great.) We aren’t sure what to attribute that to. We brought a lot more food, figuring that those 10:30 a.m. people (you know who you are!) need to have a bountiful display to draw them in. We’ve also heard some people say that the grocery store prices are now high enough that they’d prefer to spend even more money on truly local food. But who really knows. We just hope you all keep coming and buying the best local food available.

We had an interesting collard greens experience at the market as well. We actually sold out! It’s only surprising because people in B-N don’t seem to know how awesome collards are. We just love them. We had one customer stop by and say, “My brother in Minnesota told me I absolutely had to buy collards.” That’s pretty funny when you consider how historically southern collards are.

After the Bloomington market, we had another rainy/stormy harvest day on Tuesday. Preparing for the first Uptown market was a bit bogged down by the thunder/lightning/strong wind. I’m not one to attribute weather to the wrath of God, but some days do make you wonder. Bill’s rain gear is pretty much a Kleenex now – totally soaks through. Honestly, it stays dry for about half an hour and then Bill gets drenched through the zippers, pockets, etc. It’s kind of a good workout – he gets to bend over and pick veggies while wearing a 30-pound, water-saturated raincoat. Fortunately, after all of the harvesting drama, the first Uptown Market was quite good. We saw many old friends and made some new ones. We’re right next to the Crumps and the Ackermans, at the far east end of the parking lot.

The farmhands this year are particularly good-natured about the weather situation. Of course, even they have their limits. After several hours of picking spinach leaf-by-leaf and delicately transferring to plastic bags, the farmhands were sick-and-tired of spinach labor. So Bill decided to be a wise-guy and tell them that he had another cooler full of spinach for them to rinse and bag … Brian, a very nice guy, actually said, “I will kill you.”

Did you buy green onions last week? If yes, you may have noticed the residual skin of the onion set near the root. We intended to remove that, but the heavy rain made it impossible to focus on that type of detail. I tried to tell people at the market, but it seemed a bit unappetizing to use the word “goobery” when describing this onion set issue!

We have a new “corporate customer” – Ryan Fiala, the owner of D.P. Dough in Uptown Normal. His store has one main focus … the calzone. What’s not to like about ingredients wrapped in tasty bread??!! Seriously. So anyway, he really wants to have a calzone featuring local ingredients. He’s calling it the “LOCAZONE.” I love it. He visited Bill’s stand and promptly bought a variety of items, asking why it looked “so much better” than the stuff at the store. Bill answered, “It was hand picked about 3 hours ago.” I think Ryan was pretty impressed, and he told Bill that the first Locazone would be featuring Bill’s Spinach and Green Garlic. Whoo-hoo!

Before I tell you what we’re bringing to the market, I want to take a paragraph to describe a couple of lettuces that people have been raving about: Della Catalogna Radichetta and Cherokee Red Leaf Lettuce. The Della is an Italian heirloom lettuce with a delicate flavor and crisp texture. The Cherokee is new for us this year. It’s strikingly dark purple with a tightly wrapped, bright green head.

(I’m including some pictures of lettuce. The first is a lettuce bed prior to being transplanted. You can see the low, white cushion-on-wheels with a tray of lettuce off to the left. Bill made that so he could sit up and transplant rather than squat or bend over. The second photo is a bed of the Cherokee. I’m also including a photo of hard-neck garlic, which is from a bed that we have not been selling as green garlic.)

Our new item this week will be kohlrabi. I knew nothing of this vegetable growing up, but boy is it tasty sliced up and eaten raw. You can also do great things with cooked kohlrabi and bacon – just channel your inner German and get out a cast iron pan. We’ll also have more broccoli than we had last week.

We always have lots of greens. You know … radicchio, winterbor kale, lacinto kale, collards, turnip greens, radish greens, dandelion greens, and Red Russion kale. We’ve had a hard time describing it to customers, so we recently had an elaborate greens taste testing event in our kitchen with some friends. Bill sautéed the 8 different kinds of greens listed above with the following result: winterbor kale kicked butt. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most “bitter,” we found radicchio to have the most bite. I could go on all day about the American aversion to bitterness, but suffice it to say that a complex bitterness coupled with a good crusty bread with butter is one of life’s true delights. That said, our taste testing group most preferred the winterbor kale, finding it to be slightly (and pleasantly) tobacco-y in flavor with a hint of morel mushroom at the end. And this was simply sautéed in good quality olive oil with light salting. The turnip greens were also highly rated. The others were all tasty as well.

And one last thought … salad mix. It is simply one of our best items. Did you know how long the salad mix keeps in the fridge? At least a week if not two. Many people are unaware of this, thinking it’s like the “mixed baby greens” in the store from Earthbound Farm and Dole. I don’t want to sound too negative, but the Earthbound/Dole stuff is pretty pathetic compared with really fresh greens. It’s true of all the beautiful-but-tasteless greens sold in bags at the store. They may triple wash it for you, but you’re still not getting the real flavor and nutrition. These mega-salad companies grow the greens in extremely controlled environments (too much watering = too little flavor) and then bag them with a complex mix of gases that prevent everything from wilting in the bag UNTIL YOU OPEN IT. At that point, you have about 24 hours to eat it before it totally melts. Our greens grow outside where they can develop their true flavors, and then they’re picked within 24 hours of the market. No comparison.

We're looking forward to Saturday! Bill will be at the stand with his baby brother Aaron. I'll be in St. Louis at a wedding. Here’s what all we’ll have at the market …

Salad Mix
Spinach
Arugula
Head Lettuce
Baby Beets
Radish
Green Onion
Green Garlic
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Japanese Turnips

Random tidbit …

It’s become something of a joke to consider how many special days/months we have for various causes. (Fruitcake Toss Day, National Oatmeal Month, etc.) And then there are the associations to support these worthy causes. I recently ran across one that made me laugh periodically all day yesterday … the National Patio Enclosure Association. There it was … the NPEA … emblazoned across the mug that I had selected from the Inspections break room. Who would've thought patios (and enclosed ones at that) would have their own association. And the motto: “Help Keep the Patio a Patio.” It made me wonder if patios are under siege in some fashion. (It turns out they are – from the “3-season room”!) I’m always looking for a new source of anxiety. Why not incorporate enclosed patios along with conflict in the Middle East and the faltering U.S. economy?!

And we’ve finally delivered fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press…

On Tuesday evening Bill delivered produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays 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.

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

Tractor toys for Bill

2008-05-28T20:02:00.004-05:00

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

Tomato wrestling

2008-05-22T06:08:00.002-05:00

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

Time for the Market!

2008-05-14T07:17:00.004-05:00

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

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

2008-05-09T06:54:00.002-05:00

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!

The Electric Tractor How-To

2008-04-24T05:25:00.003-05:00

I took my first ride on the electric tractor recently – so cool! It’s so quiet and not smelly, unlike the bigger diesel tractor that Bill has. It’s working just perfectly for Bill. He uses it primarily for cultivation, hilling, and marking the rows, but he is working on setting it up to lay plastic mulch, next year he will also use it to plant three rows of seeds in one pass.

For people interested in a few more technical details, I’ll do my best to give the highlights as I understood them. (Keep in mind that I’m an urban planner with a journalism degree – not exactly a technical expert!!) Our friend Dave Kennell converted a 20-horse power Tuff Bilt tractor to an all-electric cultivating tractor. I believe the company had a rough plan for doing the conversion while keeping the hydrostatic drive, but Dave removed the hydrostatic drive. Email us for a copy of the plans.

The original Tuff Bilt had a hydrostatic drive, which was part of its gas-powered design. Dave converted all the hydraulics over to electric and built a little box for them. Dave removed the gas-powered engine and replaced it with an electric engine. The original engine and hydrostatic pump were located behind the seat. Dave put the four batteries in their place. The batteries were a marine deep cycle type. With this 5kWhr battery pack, we’ll spend about 35¢/hour versus the $7/hour he’d be spending on 2 gallons of gas per hour. Over the course of a year, Dave estimates that we’ll be able to charge the batteries for about $10!!

Dave also rearranged the brakes and pedals so that the brakes are now on the left and the accelerator is on the right. (Why they had it reversed is beyond me.)

In regard to durability, Dave said the first thing to wear out in an electric engine is typically the brushes, which are fairly easy to replace. That’s provided, of course, you haven’t burned out the engine by misuse first!! What would qualify as misuse? Towing it in gear, running it at a high RPM while not in gear, etc.

Dave added an AWESOME safety feature. There has to be weight (i.e. Bill’s rear end) in the seat of the tractor for it to move. That means it will be much harder for a child standing next to the tractor to press on the pedal and start the tractor moving, which wouldn’t make enough noise to scare the kid out of the way. I didn’t even think about the danger until the safety mechanism had been installed – way to go Dave!

So what qualifications should you have before attempting this tractor conversion? Aside from befriending Dave, you really need to have experience with electrical work, such as wiring relay switches and reading electrical diagrams. Welding experience is also helpful.

If some of this doesn’t make sense to you, it’s probably my explanation!

CSA membership -- What's it all about?!

2008-04-03T20:27:00.008-05:00

Are you interested in fresh, locally grown, chemical-free vegetables and can't make it to the Bloomington or Normal farmers markets?

If so, you should join the Blue Schoolhouse Farm 2008 CSA! CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It’s a way to connect consumers directly to a farmer who will supply them with freshly picked, local produce for an entire harvest season. The way it works is that you pay for a share of our farms produce at the beginning of the growing season and then you get weekly deliveries of 5-7 different vegetables every week for 24 weeks. The types of vegetables vary with the season, but everything is picked the day it is delivered to the CSA pickup. A typical weekly share will fill a large paper grocery bag. One share will feed two vegetarians or four people on a mixed diet for a week.

How to become a member: The CSA runs from May 28 – November 5 with weekly pick-ups on Wednesday night from 5-6pm in Eureka (Location to be determined). One share in the CSA costs $382 (24 weeks @ $15.50/week + $10 cookbook). Full payment is due by May 28. Send a check made out to the Blue Schoolhouse Farm at 550 County Road 1625 E, Congerville, IL 61729. Throughout the season we will post a weekly blog to give you updates on the trials and tribulations of raising three acres of vegetables and two small, rambunctious boys.

More info on the CSA: At the Blue Schoolhouse Farm, we use absolutely no chemicals or GMOs, which makes the produce that much healthier for you and your family. What would your weekly box of produce look like?

Spring means the crisp, fresh veggies that you’ve been craving all winter: lettuces, spinach, arugula, green onions, broccoli, carrots, radishes, green garlic, turnips, and beets.

Summer brings the mouth watering classics like tomatoes (I could go on all day about Bill’s 24 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and their indescribably delicious flavors), summer squash, green beans , potatoes, green, yellow, orange, and red bell peppers, cucumbers, garlic, sweet corn, watermelons, muskmelons and basil.

Fall is like spring in reverse, but with a few additions: leeks, parsnips, brussel sprouts, celery root, sweet potatoes, and winter squash.

Frequently asked questions:

1. Why do members have to pay up front for the season? There are a few reasons. First, as a farmer I need to know how many people I am growing food for. Second, as a member of a farm CSA, you are taking part in the risks and rewards of a full farming season. Third, your membership fee helps cover the seasonal start-up costs, which include seeds, mulch, drip tape, greenhouse supplies, and much more.

2. How does the price of a CSA compare with grocery store prices? Depending on what's in a weekly share, the cost is typically about the same as at the store or considerably less. This is particularly true if you're looking at organic produce (if you can find it!). On top of that, the quality of our produce can not even be compared with the industrial produce found in the stores.

3. Why can't members choose which vegetables they'll get every week? The record-keeping for that would be incredibly time-consuming. Instead, I choose the vegetables that are at their peak ripeness and flavor each week for your share. This strategy also helps me manage my crops at maximum efficiency. For example, if the forecast is calling for a drop in temperature, you will see heat-loving veggies in your share that week.

4. Can I visit the farm? Sure! We just need a little bit of notice since we're not always at the house. There are also times in the week and season where we are just too busy to stop working. We usually try to have members out to the farm at least once in a season.

About our farm: We are a small but diverse vegetable farm in Woodford County, about 4 miles southeast of Eureka. We are entering our 6th season of growing and selling vegetables. We sell our produce at the Bloomington and Normal Farmer’s Markets and to local restaurants and a grocery store. Our market stand is very well known among the local “foodies” because we have such a spectacular array of high quality, hard-to-find vegetable varieties. This year we will grow more than 120 varieties of 40 different vegetables.

Call us (Mercy or Bill Davison) at (309) 467-9228 or email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com for more information.

2008-03-29T19:07:00.004-05:00

Hello Spring Greens customers!

We have one more, very cool item for sale … we’re calling it “Spring Tonic” salad. It’s a bag of young dandelion greens with one beet and one carrot. We just ate it for dinner, and it was AMAZING. Simply wash the dandelion greens and grate on the beet and carrot. Mix well and add a light vinaigrette. We used olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Orange juice or any other vinegar would also work well. If you add some tuna, other salad greens, a hard boiled egg, croutons, etc. it would be a meal.

These dandelion greens were harvested from the cover crop area surrounding Bill’s vegetable crops. These are deep-rooted perennial plants that harvest minerals from deep within the soil. Wild dandelion greens are much healthier and more flavorful than their cultivated counterparts.

Vegetables A to Z describes spring new dandelions as “vervy,” a bit mushroom-y, and a bit tannic. We can’t really come up with adjectives to describe the flavor, but it is very distinctive in a good way. The texture is sturdy but not tough – it fluffs into a really big salad when you get it out of the bag. The combination of these extremely healthy greens along with beet and carrot should protect you from just about any germ out there.

One order is $4.50 and would provide a nice, big salad for 3-4 people. It’s a rare treat, and we hope you take advantage of it! Please let me know if you’d like any.

Mercy

Early Spring Greens and Pepper's Last Stand

2008-03-29T08:54:00.002-05:00

Hello!

Are you ready to order some early spring greens? Eggs? This is your first pre-season opportunity. Right now, Bill has the most amazing collard greens and mustard greens you could find. (OK, you actually couldn’t find these anyway!) Both types of greens are delicious this time of year. Many people don’t cook with greens around here. It’s a shame because you really can’t get much tastier or healthier than collards and mustard greens. What do we do with them? Here’s the deal …

Collards
Collards are a form of kale but with a much milder flavor and silkier texture. They are best prepared with minimal fuss. Bill typically ribbons the collards and then sautés them in olive oil with salt and pepper and a bit of garlic. Then we’ll eat them as is, or he’ll throw them into an omelet. Really … it’s that easy. Some cookbooks advise boiling them until tender in a broth, simmered for hours, or blanched before cooking. None of this is necessary with Bill’s early collards. They are already tender and cook into a perfect texture within 10 minutes. It’s always good to throw in some bacon if you have it, but it’s not imperative. Cookbooks also recommend discarding the stems, but again, these collards are tender and can be eaten in their entirety.

To add a little something special, try the following recipe from Vegetables A to Z:

Collards with Sweet Spices

2 – 2.5 lbs collard greens
2 qts water
1T kosher salt
2T butter
1 lg onion, chopped
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Cut the greens into ribbons. Bring water to a boil. Add salt, then collards, and bring back to a boil. Boil gently until tender (not too long!). 15 minutes will do it. Drain liquid and chop greens more finely if you’d like.

Melt butter in the same pot over low heat. Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add spices. Stir a minute or two, then add collards and 1 cup reserved cooking liquid. Simmer gently for a few minutes.

Mustard Greens
Mustard greens have more attitude than collards. If you’re the kind of person who likes a dash of horseradish or a bite of arugula, mustard greens are for you. Elizabeth Schneider sums up the wide array of mustard greens so well in her book Vegetables A to Z that I will simply quote …

Stir ribbons of mustard greens into hot soup just before serving for depth and brilliance. Or stew mustard greens with starchy vegetables, mild greens, or apples and pears, then puree for a creamy soup or sauce. For assertive flavor and maximum aroma, fold slivered leaves into rice, stir fry, or braises at the end of cooking. For a more earthy, gentler effect, cook the chopped mustard greens along with potatoes, beans, or grains.

As you may suspect, Bill cooks mustard greens in much the same way as collard greens. The resulting mustard green dish has a bit more bite, though, which we really enjoy!

What’s going on at the farm?
In anticipation of the rain, Bill spent all day yesterday planting 15 beds – lettuces, radishes, spinach, beets, carrots, turnips, arugula, onions, leeks, and sugar snap peas. Some of the varieties will be ready in 40 days, so you’ll have the chance to get some pre-market season veggies. Bill used his new electric tractor yesterday and was blown away at how well it works. It’s so quiet compared to the big diesel tractor that he thought something was wrong with it when he heard this strange crackling sound – turned out that it was the sound of his tires crunching the dead grass! Whoa. We figure he’ll use about $10 worth of electricity per year recharging his batteries. We feel very good about this given our constant effort to conserve energy and anything else conservable!

The boys are getting so big. You won’t even recognize Ben any more – he’s turned into a kid. No more babies for us! It just kills me how Ben and Noah’s personalities are so different. When I have them help me sort the laundry for folding, Noah makes these neat little piles. Ben, on the other hand, insists upon hanging the underwear on hangers. (It’s how HE thinks it should be done. Very helpful.) Ben is also very conversational, which can be funny. He recently mis-heard the pronunciation of “parmesan” and now we all have to call it “farmer john” cheese. Say it fast, and you can see the confusion.

Pepper our beagle is not doing so well. I think she’s finally getting old (12 or 13 is our best guess) and thinking about letting go. She suddenly developed this common beagle problem with her neck/spine. She spent several days in so much pain, hardly walking, that I thought for sure it was the end. We finally got the medication figured out and she’s bouncing back a bit. The vet said we’re supposed to keep her CRATED for 4-6 weeks while she recovers. (Of course, this is an issue that she’ll never recover from. It could come back with a vengeance at any moment.) Crating a beagle who’s spent her entire life roaming around is like torture. And it involves a lot of peeing on the floor. I’m OK with the pee but it’s hard to keep her cooped up. We’re just going to give it a week or two and see how it goes. She’s been our farming Buddha -- there’s nothing like watching a truly happy beagle just LIVE. We’d like to see her through one more market season.

How to Order:
Email me by Sunday MORNING, March 30. Bill has to pick the greens on Sunday, so if you email later on Sunday, he won’t have time. At this time you can order …
1. Collard greens (1 bunch = $1.75)
2. Mustard greens (1 bunch = $1.75)
3. Eggs (1 doz = $3.50). We really have very few eggs, so only the first three or four people will get them. Limit of one dozen per family. Sorry! (We had a bit of a raccoon issue in February. Let’s just say that dead chickens don’t lay eggs.)

I’ll be at the Garlic Press on MONDAY, March 31 between 7:15 and 8:15 a.m. with the veggies and eggs for anyone who has ordered. (I only bring what has been ordered because I can’t take extras to work.) I really need to leave by 8:15 a.m., so if you’re late you will probably miss me.

Also, please bring back any egg cartons that you have from now on, as we are trying not to buy more. Feel free to bring us cartons from any other source as well. We really appreciate it!

Hope to hear from you!Mercy Davison
467-9228 for questions

Dave Kennell and the electric tractor

2008-02-25T13:44:00.003-06:00

Here is a picture of Dave with the electric tractor. As you can see, this is an unusual tractor. It is a cultivating tractor that is designed to give the operator an unobstructed view of the soil you are driving over. This allows you to closely monitor your cultivating tools and to put them as close as possible to the crop plants. Dave's right hand is on a fender, under which is mounted a new hydraulic powerpack. That little black motor delivers an amazing amount of force and it powers the front and rear hydraulic cylinders.

Mushrooms and my electric tractor

2008-02-25T13:12:00.002-06:00

I just finished seeding 30 oak logs with Shitake mushroom spawn and I hope to do 50 more logs this weekend. If all goes as planned, I will be bringing Shitake mushrooms to the market this fall or in the spring of 2009. As soon as I finish the mushroom logs, I will start planting seeds in my hoophouse. That will signal the end of most of my winter activities as I shift my attention over to taking care of plants. Fortunately, I am just about done with my big winter project- an electric tractor. My neighbor Dave Kennel and I are putting the finishing touches on my newly converted electric Tuff-bilt tractor. I am so excited about this tractor, as it has great potential to increase the efficiency of my farm. We will be posting more detailed information about the tractor and how we converted it in future posts.

Winter on the Farm

2008-01-13T19:06:00.000-06:00

Hello Friends!

Happy 2008! I can’t believe it’s already January. The holiday season was so busy and fun that I’m just now catching my breath. Oddly enough, it was the mushroom logs that inspired me to write you all. Yes, the mushroom logs. Over the weekend we discovered that our mushroom logs were producing shiitakes. How wonderful! We could tell that in addition to the mini-harvest we picked on Saturday, there was a second flush in progress that would almost surely be killed by the dropping temperatures. Bill then mentioned that to really have good mushroom harvests, you need to keep them inside in controlled temperatures. I thought that made sense in concept – after all, our little house is not big enough for four humans, a fat beagle, and mushroom logs. Bill, of course, being a man of action, decided to put four of the most promising mushroom logs into … the shower. Naturally. So now we’re all showering with oak logs, trying not to douse them with shampoo or soap. I really can’t believe it. I figure at some point Bill will read that broccoli produces better if it sleeps in my bed.

(On a related note, Bill is also ramping up his overall mushroom planting. He’s inoculated logs for shiitake mushrooms, which we hope to have at the 2009 market. I hope the shower will not be involved.)

You may be wondering what else Bill is doing this time of year. Well, he does sleep in quite a bit later! He is also out chopping wood for the woodstove, repairing the tractor, reading seed catalogs and ordering seeds, repairing equipment, cooking, hunting and butchering. Bill and our good friend Dave Kennell are also converting a Tuff Built cultivating tractor from gas to electric. It will be nearly silent when in operation and will have no nasty fumes! They’re so excited. I’ll be posting photos and more detailed information on a separate blog entry for people who want to read about wiring, batteries, and the like.

Bill’s also spending time in the Lazy Boy reading. We thought you might enjoy catching up on reading as well this winter, and the following is our list of absolute musts for the bookshelf …

Cookbooks
1. Alice Waters (any cookbook)
2. Joy of Cooking
3. Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking – Marcella Hazan
4. Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers Markets – Deborah Madison

Cookbooks “Plus” (a lot more commentary)
1. Cooking by Hand – Paul Bertolli
2. The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating – Fergus Henderson
3. Larousse Gastronomique (French cookbook or the French bible, as Bill calls it)
4. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats – Sally Fallon
5. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Cultured Foods – Sandor Ellix Katz
6. Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini – Elizabeth Schneider
7. Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them – Peter Kaminsky

Science of Food
1. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen – Harold McGee
2. Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition – Paul Pitchford

Food-related books
1. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto – Michael Pollan (his most recent)
2. Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals – Michael Pollan
3. Real Food: What to Eat and Why – Nina Planck
4. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Barbara Kingsolver
5. French Women Don’t Get Fat – Mireille Guiliano

Farm-Related Books
Wendell Berry – anything!
The Organic Salad Garden – Joy Larkcom

Bill just read “In Defense of Food,” the latest book by Michael Pollan (of Omnivore’s Dilemma fame). Bill really enjoyed this book, but I have yet to read it. Apparently, Michael does quite a job of comparing the American diet and approach to eating to that of Europeans, particularly the French. So tonight at dinner, Bill suggested that we eat a bit slower and really savor the meal. Of course, that meant delaying the custard that he’d made. Noah was bouncing around in his chair asking about the custard for the entire meal when Bill reminded him that we were trying to be more like the French and that he’d just have to wait a bit longer. Noah said, “Dad, I don’t think we should try to be like the French.” Touché.

We also enjoy movies in the winter. We recently watched an amazing movie on bugs. No narration – just awesome footage. It’s called Microcosmos and may be French. (I think it’s the same people who made “Winged Migration.”) When two bugs would start feeling each other up with their antenna, Noah would ask, “What are they doing??” Bill would say, “They’re kissing.” Then Noah would ask, “Are they married?” What do you say to that? “Well, son, sex outside of marriage is quite common in the bug world.” Nah. We just said that they were, in fact, married.

Other favorite movies this winter include Once, The Live of Others, and The Yes Men.

Goodness, I just re-read this email and realized that it’s just one big description of what we like to do in the winter. What we read, what we watch, what’s currently living in our shower. I hope someone enjoys it. And for the rest of you, don’t lose hope. At some point I will update the blog with information pertinent to the farmers market!!

And one last thing ... since this is a blog, we're looking forward to hearing back from YOU! Do you have any great books or movies to add to our list?

Thanks!
Mercy Davison

Blue Schoolhouse Farm enters the Blogosphere!

2008-01-01T13:17:00.000-06:00

It's January 1, a time for new year's resolutions. This year's big resolution ... make a blog for the farm. And here I am doing it. How nutty is that? (I'll work on my "no sugar" resolution later. Ha!)

Of course, setting up the blog does not mean that I have any real content. In order to use the internet, we have to use a dial-up line, which also ties up our phone line. Thus, I need to log off in order to craft my blog message. So low-tech, I know!!

I hope you are doing well this winter! Stay tuned for farm updates from the Blue Schoolhouse Farm ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Mercy Davison
The Farmer's Wife