Another week as flown by! I took some time this morning to take some CSA garden shots. CSA garden in July The Summer squash has started and yesterday we harvested our first summer cabbage. It’s very mild and good in cabbage salad! Most of you know how to use summer squash, but we do have some past recipes on the blog from previous years. I haven’t transferred them all to the new recipe section of this website, but if you type in a vegetable name in our “Search this site” box the old entries will come up. We have some summer squash, beet and lots of other vegetable recipes. We are always happy to post new recipe ideas. Please email your favorites and I will post them! Many people have asked what to do with kohlrabi and fennel and ideas other than chopping them up in salad or adding them to stir fry are welcome!
The new Suffolk stallion, Chester, is settling in. He has been driven single, but we are waiting to introduce him to the herd until after the mares have been bred. So far none of our mares have been interested… Our first cut hay is all baled and we hope to get in all mowed away tomorrow morning. So our horses won’t go hungry this winter.
The egg production has been gradually increasing with the new fence. We still aren’t able to keep up with the demand from our CSA members. However, we do still have lots of sausage and freshly ground whole wheat flour available for sale.
CSA member Avery and toad in pcik-up roomWe have had a very good strawberry season this year and many CSA members have taken advantage of our Pick-your-own strawberry option. Three full weeks of berries is about as good as it gets with regular season strawberries.
We are happy to have CSA members signing up to help with the harvest and the washing of produce for our pick-ups. The gardens are in good shape. It is always a relief to have the majority of the crops seeded, transplanted and mulched. We have taken off the row cover from the squash, corn, melons and early plantings and the pathways in the garden that we seeded down are growing. The garden looks its best in early July when the majority of the crops are still growing well. We got a bit of rain yesterday, but plan to start irrigating later this week and hope to finish our second cut hay. (That is if the weather forecast is correct…)
Chester, the stallion we bought a half share in, arrived yesterday. Ken is doing a bit of work with him in the round pen before he tries hooking him up to the stone boat. Jazz our new mare is adjusting to being here, however we don’t trust her in the barn with children. WE ASK THAT PARENTS KEEP THEIR CHILDREN OUT OF THE BARN. We would rather be safe than sorry. The horses we raise here become accustom to people from the time they are foals, however new horses are not so trustworthy.
Happy CSA memberWe are as pleased as our CSA members to have beets, carrots, strawberries and sugar snap peas for the CSA pick-ups! The warm weather and rain have brought things along well.
Zeus, our 5 year old gelding, has gone to join Whinnie on a CSA farm in eastern Ontario. We sold Whinnie last fall. Jazz, a four year old mare, has joined the herd to replace Zeus and Ken is hoping she will fit in well. Chester, the stallion, will be arriving the first of July. Ken continues to build new fences around our pastures in anticipation of Chester’s arrival.
We have another round of sweet corn to transplant this week and we hope to finish the mulching of the peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and melons. The cultivating and weeding of the garden went well last week. There is a bumper Strawberry crop this year. The patch will be open for CSA members to pick their own on Tuesdays and Saturdays during the CSA pick-up times from 11:00 am-7:00 pm. Bring your own containers. Good bye to Zeus
Introductions Gena and MabelWe have had fun introducing Mabelita (Mabel when she’s big) to other animals on the farm. Introductions Caesar and Mabel
We are busy on the farm transplanting. There are always a lot of plants to go in after the danger of frost has past and hopefully after the last week of over 30 degree weather we are there now! The sweet corn transplants went in yesterday and the squash and sweet potatoes Monday. We are gearing up to do the melons, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, outside tomatoes, and then the second planting of brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts and cauliflower). We are also hoping to take off our first hay of the season today.The hot weather is good for that.
Because we are expecting Chester our Suffolk Stallion to arrive in the near future we are having to sell our gledings. We run our horses together in a herd and stallions and gledings don’t always mix well when there are mares in heat around. Zeus has been traded for a young Suffolk mare from the farm where our Whinnie went last fall. Zeus and Whinnie were born the same year and are good friends. We look forward to working with Jazz, who should be arriving this weekend. She was an orphan foal and has been giving her “mom” who raised her some challenges. Hopefully, her new surroundings will help her to adjust to being a work horse.
I have had a couple of recipes forwarded to me by CSA members and will be posting them in the recipe section as well as below.
From Dianne (& Mac) MacVicar
BROTHY CHINESE NOODLES WITH TURKEY
Makes: 6 servings about 1 ½ cups each
Active Time: 30 minutes Total: 30 minutes
2 T toasted sesame oil OR hot sesame oil, divided
1 lb lean ground turkey
1 bunch scallions, sliced, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T minced fresh ginger
4 C reduced-sodium chicken broth
¾ C water
3C thinly sliced bok choy OR pak choy OR spinach
8 ounces dried Chinese noodles
1C sliced mushrooms
3 T reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 T rice vinegar
1 small cucumber sliced into matchsticks for garnish
1. Heat 1T oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Add ground turkey, all but 2 T of the scallions, garlic and
ginger and cook, stirring and breaking up the turkey,
until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a
plate.
2. Add broth, water, bok choy OR pak choy OR
spinach, noodles, mushrooms, soy sauce, vinegar
and the remaining 1T oil to the pan. Bring to a boil
over medium-high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the
noodles are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Return the
turkey mixture to the pan and stir to combine.
Serve garnished with the reserved 2 T scallions and
Cucumber (if using).
CSA member Rob Wilkin sent the following email after bringing us some bread made with 60% Orchard Hill Flour. It was very tasty and had a very nice texture.
Here is a link to a version of the bread recipe I use.
The site makes a reference to Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads. This book is an excellent resource for serious bakers of whole grain breads.
Peter’s blog:
http://peterreinhart.typepad.com/
3 notes regarding the recipe.
1. It calls for instant yeast–I substitute an equal amount of Fleischmann’s Active Dry Yeast.
2. I use hard white wheat in the Biga.
3. I use butter milk in the soaker which gives a slightly acidic flavour note.
Finally the recipe may seem a bit complicated. However the biggest difference is the creation of 2 doughs–the Biga and the Soaker–which are allowed to ferment for at least 12 hours. I usually prepare these the day before. The next day, after combining the 2 doughs together the process is very familiar to any bread maker.
The New AdditionWe have had a busy week on the farm! The newest addition is a very sweet jersey calf. We hope that she will become our future milk cow on the farm…Caesar is very interested in her, but especially likes to lick our hands after we have fed her.
We harvested some beautiful head lettuce and Pac Choi from our hoop houses for the first pick-up of the season. (See pictures in the blog from the beginning of April when they were planted.) It is always great to see all our old CSA members again when the pick-ups begin and to welcome new members to the farm.Sheri, Nora and Elaisa harvesting in hoop house for first pick-up
CRAFT DAT at Orchard HillWednesday we had the first CRAFT Day of the season at our farm and over 80 farmers and apprentices from southwestern Ontario came to our farm for the day. How wonderful it is to see so many young farmers in the making! As the “work project” for the day we mulched a 50’x 375′ plot in the garden with old hay for the squash and pumpkins. It only took about 10 minutes to mulch the whole area! We have a link to CRAFT if you are interested to learn more about it.
Jesse and Nora single row cultivating with GenaNora and Jesse have been doing quite a bit of work with the horses this spring and I finally caught them in action with a single horse. Working with a single horse is one of Jesse’s favorite horse driving activities. It sure beats the rototiller in terms of enjoyment!
We are gearing up for the first pick-up on Tuesday, May 11. Yesterday, we began the spring cleaning in the pick-up room, half of which serves as a wood shed during the winter months. It always amazes me how much “stuff” accumulates in a temporarily unused space! Our planting of seeds in the greenhouse and outdoors continues at a great pace. We tuck in the outdoor plantings with row cover to get them off to a good start. There are a good stands of peas, spinach, beets and carrots already up and growing to provide our CSA with lots of produce in a few weeks. In the meantime, the hoop houses will be supplementing our rhubarb and asparagus plantings with lettuce, radishes, green onions and even some Pac Choi.Chester Our big news is that we are purchasing a new stallion with another Suffolk breeder from Ontario. “Chester” will be coming to the farm sometime in July. Ken just couldn’t help himself from going back into the breeding of Suffolk draft horses. This means next year we should have some foals again…
Our CSA is full for the 2010 season. We begin our pick-ups next week Tuesday, May 11 and Saturday, May 15. Members can come to the farm on their chosen pick-up day any time between 11:00 am and 7:00 pm. They need to bring their own containers to hold produce.
Transplanting KohlrabiTeam marking out rows for brassica transplantsGrafting TomatoesElaisa with Sweet Potato SlipsSheri teaching basket making from Dogwood branches
We have had a busy week. Elaisa arrived from Germany on Monday for three months. Her arrival was delayed because of the volcano in Europe. We transplanted leeks, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, fennel, kohlrabi, radicchio and head lettuce into the main garden. We also planted our seed potatoes and finished planting our oats.
Work in the greenhouse also continues. We are trying two new things this year. Growing our own sweet potato slips and grafting tomatoes onto a stronger root stock to produce more vigorous plants for hoop house production.
Around the edges we have been making some baskets from Dogwood branches under the instruction of Sheri. She has made some beautiful baskets that she brought with her to show us. As we attempt to make our own we appreciate the skill she has acquired.
First pickups will be Tuesday May 11 and Saturday May 15. The pick-up times are at the farm from 11:00 am – 7:00 pm. Please bring your own containers to hold produce and payment for the remainder of your share cost if you haven’t already done so.
Those of you who have done a working share in the last couple of years may have noticed that we have been expanding into the back yard with additional washing stations when we wash produce before a pick-up. The clay ground can become quite muddy…as a result we have decided to dig out some of the clay and add some more crushed stone. Jesse and Sheri have done a majority of the work, although Caesar tried to take some credit in the picture of them resting from their labours!
Aylmer Youth Group visit
Last Saturday we had a youth group from St. Paul’s church in Aylmer come to visit the farm and see how we grow our early vegetables. They toured the greenhouse, hot bed, hoop houses and barn. Sheri showed them how to plant a few beans to take home and start indoors. It was a cold day and they were very happy to step inside the greenhouse and hoop houses.
We have been continuing to plant and care for our early seedlings. Our work horses have already done the first cultivation in the garden. We were busy taking the row cover off and putting it back on again after. It is quite a job, but really makes a difference in bringing those young early plants along. We have also planted a new block of raspberries and strawberries for the future and next week we plan to plant out our onions, leeks and potatoes.
The apprentices have been learning to drive the draft horses and have all tried their hands at plowing. We are having a draft horse workshop the last part of this week and Nora and Jesse will be taking part. A young German girl was planning to arrive at the farm last Saturday to stay until early July. She is now planning to come on April 26th due to the canceled air travel from the volcano!
We have 7 shares still available so if you know someone who is interested in joining there is still room.
Sheri weaving rug for BunkhouseWe welcomed the rain during the past week. Our early garden was already planted and I was starting to worry that we were going to have to start irrigating in April! Ken and our working horses had also planted some Red Fife wheat, a variety of heritage wheat for our bakers to try. The rain will help everything off to a good start.
After having most of the winter off, it doesn’t hurt for a work horse to have some cooler weather and a bit of a rest. It can be hard on heavy horses when the weather becomes extremely warm early in the spring before they are accustomed to it and they are back in working condition. Nora weaving rug for Bunkhouse
Having had some unsuccessful attempts looking for an area rug for the Bunkhouse I decided that a good rainy day activity was to weave a rag rug. The project met with considerable enthusiasm from the apprentices. The project is coming along well and we are getting excited to see it off the loom. Jesse took some time off weaving to cook supper. Today Nora and Jesse are off at a farm auction sale bidding on a grain bin and an irrigation pipe wagon. We are anxious to see if they end up getting anything. Yesterday, when Ken and the apprentices went over to look over the items for auction, Nora thought that the massive combines looked like “Transformers”. Over the years we have purchased many items at auctions and hopefully it will be a good learning experience for them.Jesse cooking super
Our two full season apprentice, Nora and Jesse, have arrived for the 2010 season. We are happy to have the much needed help and are excited to have the bunkhouse ready for occupancy!
Hello there, my name is Nora and I am a new full season apprentice on the ‘Hill. I am from Rockville, Maryland originally, and pretend to be Canadian when I get the chance. I have worked on and off organic CSA farms since 2005, in far out places such as Michigan, Maryland, New York and Ontario. Halfway through last season, which I spent at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, a great mission-based non-profit farm in the Hudson Valley, it dawned on me that I really and truly wanted to farm for a living, and I needed to learn how to farm with horses. Maciej, a friend of mine and former apprentice, said Orchard Hill was just the horse’s feathers, and so here I am! I’m still trying to hone in on what my farming dream is, but I think it contains these adjectives and nouns: cooperative, draft power, friends, grains, direct, family, justice, beans, democracy, seeds, and songs. I’m looking for ways to farm during the day, and to help build more just and beautiful community-based food systems at night. Thanks in advance for welcoming me into yours!
Hello, my name is Jesse and I am currently an apprentice at Orchard Hill Farm. Originally, I am from Sarnia (Chemical Valley) and am, to be frank, enjoying my time away. Although I have no previous farming experience, I have come quick to realize I’ve chosen (and been chosen) to be part of a farm that is nearly wise itself.
This week Sheri Fleischauer arrived for the month of April. We look forward to getting to know Sheri and perhaps finding some time to for her to teach us some of her basket making skills. She is from another Ontario organic farm and has already proven to be a great addition to the crew here. Sheri, Jesse and Nora transplanting lettuce in the Hoop House
Ken breaking the team in for the season with Caesar supervising
