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Another Tuesday, another harvest, and we managed OK without Corey’s help!  Granted, Sonya and Rachael did a lot of pre-harvesting yesterday with the help of Andrew and Christine, a young couple from Massachusetts who are interested in apprenticing with us next season.  It was good to meet them and have some extra hands out in the fields Monday morning!  After the excessive heat of last week, we’re relieved that cooler weather has arrived.  It really does seem like summer officially ended with the Labor Day weekend.  The cool nights have been especially lovely…I’ve even had to put on a jacket when venturing out to lock up the chickens for the night.  At this time of year, in spite of the continuing big harvests and with the CSA and farmers’ markets in full swing, we do begin to slowly shift our attention towards next season:  Our new field needs to be worked with the tractor and spading machine to get it ready for next season…I need to start cutting wood for the new greenhouse woodstove…various fall projects beckon.  Cover cropping is also on our minds, and just today, Rachael and I sowed some oats in a few empty beds in Field 3.  Transitions…

Last week, I mentioned that Big Bear was missing.  Alas, he still is, and now our other cat, black-and-white Bosco, is gone, too.  He was 13 years old and had been struggling with illness for much of this season.  Still, he was getting around and in recent weeks he’s been fairly regular presence down in the barn during CSA pick-ups.  This past Friday morning, however, he couldn’t stand up on his own, so I knew it was time.  I want to thank Dr. Rennix, a CSA member and the cats’ vet, for her cat care advice at pick-up last week…with one cat missing and the other dying, I had a few questions!  Also, a shout-out to everyone else at the Poland Animal Hospital right down on Maine Street for their kindness and care of the cats during our time here in Poland.  I’m sure we’ll have cats again in the future, and I know exactly where we’ll go for veterinary care.

With our bumper crops this year, we’ve been trying to find some new outlets for our veggies, especially those incredible quantities of tomatoes.  We’ve been selling some produce to Square Root Natural Foods here in Poland for most of the season, and they are now making weekly orders of herbs, salad mix, zucchini and summer squash, and more.  This past week, we also began selling produce and flowers to Axis Natural Foods in Auburn.  Restaurants, too:  Fuel and Fish Bones, both just over the bridge in Lewiston, are buying tomatoes and more from the farm.  These local businesses are helping to support us, so we ask that you support them, too!

Many thanks to CSA members Jason and Jill Piper for bringing over a couple jugs of their homemade biodiesel last week!  Our Massey Ferguson had about a half a tank of regular diesel in her already, so we topped off the tank with the new fuel (it’s recommeneded that you mix the two).  Fuel is expensive, every little bit helps, and we love the biodiesel option…yeehaw!

Your CSA share for week #13 includes the following:

2 lbs of potatoes
1 lb of zucchini/summer squash
1 bunch of leeks
Choose:  1 musk melon -OR- 1 pint of husk cherries -OR- 1 quart of massive tomatilloes -OR- 1/2 pint of raspberries
Choose: 1 bunch of kale -OR- 1 bunch of chard -OR- 1/4 lb bag of arugula
1 sweet onion
2 cucumbers
1/2 lb bag of beans (green, wax, and purple)
1 bulb of garlic
Mixed beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes (up to 12 lbs!!!)
Herbs: 1 bunch of basil -OR- dill -OR- cilantro

Bread shareholders received a loaf of John’s Daily bread this week.  The goodies for sale at pick-up this week include eggs, flowers, pizza dough, pancake mix, bran muffins, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, zucchini relish, and more!  Have a great week, everybody!

We love ya, Cogi!

The handsome Mr. Bear

On to brighter things…  The farm continues to thrive this season.  The lack of rain I complained about last week was ended with a long day of soaking last Wednesday (with a major soaking of ME at the Portland Farmers’ Market) plus a brief but intense downpour Thursday evening.  Still, we could use more, especially with the heat we’re seeing so far this week…summer’s last hurrah?  Rain may come in the form of Hurricane Earl which I’ve heard might take a swipe at Maine this weekend.  The field tomatoes are in full swing, but the beefsteak and cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse are now officially done.  The gals removed all the plants last week, and Rachael and I rolled up and removed the ground cloths.  Rachael and Corey also spent much of yesterday afternoon adding soil to the greenhouse beds in an effort to build them up and add fertility.  This will help out next season’s tomatoes and the greens we plan to plant in there soon for the fall.

On to the veggies…  Your CSA share this week contains the following:

2 lbs of potatoes
2 lbs of zucchini/summer squash
1 green or red cabbage
1 musk melon -OR- 1 pint of husk cherries
1 sweet onion
1 bell pepper
2 cucumbers
1.5 lb bag of beans (green, wax, and purple)
1 bulb of garlic
Mixed beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes (up to 8 lbs)
1 bunch of parsley -OR- 1 bunch of basil

Bread shareholders received a loaf of Seeded Rye bread this week.  The goodies for sale at pick-up this week include eggs, flowers, pizza dough, pancake mix, carrot walnut muffins, peanut butter cookies, zucchini relish, and more!

The potatoes this week are Sangre (red skin, white flesh), Caribe (purple skin, white flesh), and Carola (golden skin, yellow flesh); your 2 lb bag many contain just one variety or a combination of two or three.  Carolas are to die for:  smooth and creamy, great for roasting and mashing.  You’ll swear they’re already buttered!  The cucumbers are slowing down and starting to look a little rough.  The scarring on the skins of some of them isn’t very nice to look at but shouldn’t effect the flavor.  Just peel the cukes before use.  We’re thrilled that our musk melons are doing well this year!  However, we didn’t plant too many of them and supplies will be limited this season.  We ask that CSAers who took a melon last week take the husk cherries this week to allow everyone a chance to enjoy a melon.  Cabbage is new this week, and we hope you’ll enjoy it.  It seems amazing to me that it’s ready.  In previous seasons, cabbage hasn’t gone out to the CSA until the last two or three weeks of the season, but this year, it, like so many other veggies, has come in early.  Your cabbage will keep for quite a while loose in the crisper drawer of the fridge, and be sure to check out our Recipes! page for cabbage cooking ideas.

The gals of Summit Springs Farm, 2010: Lydia, Sonya, Rachael, and Corey

Our happy hens.

Eggs from Da Girls not DeCoster.

I stepped outside this morning, checked the rain gauge, and shook my head.  What happened?  All the indications were that Monday was going to be a wash-out.  Instead, it was a tease…brief little showers that never amounted to much.  What we really need is a good soaking!  Here on our hill in Poland, we feel we’ve been generally less dry this summer than folks to our south and west and our soil holds onto the water it has quite well, but still, this dry spell is worrisome.  All yesterday’s wee bit of moisture will do is help keep the dust down for a day or two.  Wednesday may bring some more rain.  That would be wonderful for the farm as a whole and especially helpful for a number of fall crops we’ve planted in the past couple of weeks, including more lettuce and brassica mix, daikon radish, French Breakfast radishes, turnips, spinach, and kohlrabi.

This has been a phenomenal growing season so far, but alas, we have had some problems.  A handful of our Tuesday on-the-farm CSAers have had the chance to grab eggplant this summer, usually as a choice with bell peppers.  There hasn’t been much…we’ve harvested perhaps a dozen fruit all season so far.  It’s really maddening because the plants themselves look fabulous.  The problem is that this year has seen an explosion in the population of little critters called tarnished plant bugs.  They are generally not an issue but can cause damage to lettuce, strawberries, and (the kicker) eggplant and peppers by eating the buds.  The result has been gorgeous eggplants with no flowers, and with no flowers, there’s no fruit.  This has effected our pepper results, too, but not as drastically.  Again, the plants are healthy and look great, so we hope that perhaps a break in the life cycle of the plant bugs may open the door for some flowering in the weeks to come.  Eggplant fans, keep your fingers crossed!

Sonya wanted me to share with you all our new favorite zucchini recipe.  I’ll post it here and try to get it into our “Recipes!” archive in the near future.  This dish was introduced to us at a farm potluck by CSAers Jeannette and Ed Watt, and we discovered later that the recipe is actually from a cookbook we own, Food to Live By by Myra Goodman.  It’s a simple and refreshing summer dish.  Sonya made it recently with yellow summer squash instead of zucchini, and that was great.  I would imagine a combination of the two would be very pleasing to the eye.

Marinated Zucchini Salad

1 lb small zucchini
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons finely sliced basil
Coarse salt and ground black pepper
Parmesan or Romano cheese
1 sprig of fresh basil, as a garnish (optional)

Cut the zucchini into paper-thin rounds using a mandoline or vegetable slicer.  Whisk the olive oil and lemon juice together in a medium bowl; add the zucchini and toss to coat.  Add the sliced basil and toss to mix evenly.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Cover the bowl and let the zucchini marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour but no more than 6 hours.  Before serving, stir the mixture again.  Use a veggie peeler to shave very thin slices of cheese on top of the salad.  Garnish with the sprig of basil, and serve.

On to the veggies…  Your CSA share this week contains the following:

2 lbs of Sangre potatoes
2.5 lbs of zucchini/summer squash
1 lb bag of carrots
1 head of lettuce
1 musk melon -OR- 1 pint of husk cherries -OR- more potatoes (1 quart)
1 sweet onion
1 green bell pepper
5 cucumbers
1.1 lb bag of beans (green, wax, and purple)
1 bulb of garlic
5 lbs of mixed beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes
1 bunch of parsley -OR- 1 bunch of basil

Bread shareholders received a loaf of Cornmeal Wheat bread this week.  The goodies for sale at pick-up this week include the following:  eggs, flowers, pizza dough, pancake mix, John’s ever-popular corn muffins, choc. chip walnut cookies, zucchini relish, bread and butter pickles, and more!

Corey and Rachael setting up the barn for today's pick-up.

Goodness!  The season is about halfway over already!  Your CSA share this week contains the following:

2 lbs of Sangre potatoes
3 lbs of zucchini/summer squash/patty pan squash
1 head of lettuce
1 bunch of chard -OR- 1 bunch of Red Russian kale -OR- 1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 sweet onion
4 cucumbers
1 lb bag of beans (green, wax, and purple)
1 bulb of garlic
4 lb bag of mixed beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes
1 bunch of parsley

Bread shareholders received a loaf of Honey Oatmeal bread this week.  Look for all sorts of goodies for sale at pick-up this week:  eggs, flowers, pizza dough, pancake mix, carrot walnut muffins, cookies, zucchini relish, bread and butter pickles, etc.

Sangre potatoes are another wonderful early variety.  Red-skinned and white-fleshed, they are great boiled and baked.  The cukes finally seem to be slowing down a bit while the zukes and summer squash are hitting their peak.  The field tomatoes are really coming in now, too…we got a lot more out there than we were expecting today!  Remember the canning option.  Sonya’s been hard at work, making and canning salsa last week and canning a load of leftover market tomatoes this past Sunday in addition to her previous efforts with zucchini relish and sweet pickles (both for sale at pick-ups!)  It’s comforting to know that we’ll get a solid supply of tomatoes in for the winter this season after last year’s dissappointments.  Another wonderful and simple idea for saving tomatoes was passed along to us by a customer at the Bridgton Farmers’ Market a couple years ago.  Simply cut up a number of tomatoes, place them on a baking pan, drizzle olive oil over them, and roast them.  Let them cool, load up freezer bags, and freeze them.  These make the perfect base for a pasta sauce or a soup or a chili all winter long.

Newly canned tomatoes cooling off...

With summer drifting by, we have already launched and nearly finished another project:  attempting to address the issue of greenhouse flooding in the spring.  After storms, we try to get most of the snow off the top of the greenhouse.  By the end of the winter, we have quite the piles of snow along each side of the structure.  As the spring begins, the piles begin to melt.  Because the ground outside is still frozen and the ground inside the greenhouse is usually not, all that melt water comes inside.  The result is a muddy mess that makes working in the front of the greenhouse a slog and makes preparing the tomato beds at the back a real challenge.  With some conversations and good advice from a number of folks (most notably our pal, Hank Mosher, and farmer John Bliss of Broadturn Farm in Scarborough), we got to work.  For the front of the greenhouse, we plan to put down a thick layer of crushed rock.  For the back where we grow tomatoes, we dug trenches along the side walls and rear end wall, about a foot deep and a foot wide.  (We all helped, but Rachael, a former trail worker out in the Pacific Northwest, gets the award for Best Digger…she also had a knack for finding the biggest rocks.)  A thin layer of crushed rock went into the trenches, followed by lengths of perforated pipe covered with strips of greenhouse ground cloth.  More crushed rock was applied to fill in the rest of the trench, followed by a bit of soil on top.  The pipes lead to a deeper hole in the very back corner of the greenhouse with another pipe leading out of the structure to direct the water out towards Field 2.  Hopefully, this set-up will help with the overall drainage of the house each spring and enable us to get in there and work in a more timely fashion.  This was a big project, and I’m amazed that we got it done in really just a couple of days.  As they say, many hands make light work…

Many thanks to Geof Hancock at Alma Farm in Porter for dropping his plow off over here on Sunday so we could finally open up some new land.  Sonya created much of the new Field 4 on Sunday afternoon.  She’s never used a plow before but found it to be pretty simple.  We’ve been wanting to do this for some time now, so it’s exciting to finally make it happen!  The master plan is to take weedy, weedy Field 1 (the field to the left of our driveway) out of production all together next season and work, work, work it to get the weeds under control.

Sonya plowing

The creation of Field 4

The gals

Folks, we need bags!  We (re)use plastic grocery bags for our customers at the farmers’ markets, and we’re running low.  If you’ve been saving up these bags, we would love to have them.  Only plastic grocery bags, please…we really have no use for other types of bags.  Thanks!  Also, don’t forget that the August potluck is happening this Thursday the 19th from 6-8 PM.  The evenings on the farm have been really beautiful lately, so we’ll be gathering outdoors, weather permitting, to share some food, good company, and conversation.  Bring a delicious creation to share, a blanket or chairs to sit on, and anyone who might want to come along.  We hope you can make it!

Your Summit Springs Farm CSA share this week contains the following:

2 lbs of Mountain Rose potatoes
2 lbs of zucchini/summer squash/patty pan squash
1 lb of carrots
1 bell pepper
6 cucumbers
.8 lb bag of green beans
1 bunch of scallions
1 bulb of garlic
1 pint of cherry tomatoes -OR- 1 lb bag of mixed beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes
Choice of 1 herb: Basil -OR- Cilantro -OR- Sage

Bread shareholders received a loaf of John’s Daily bread this week.  Look for all sorts of goodies for sale at pick-up this week:  eggs, flowers, pizza dough, pancake mix, bran muffins, cookies, zucchini relish, bread and butter pickles, etc.

Patty pans are those odd, pale, roundish squash that some of you may have found in your squash collection this week.  The flavor is similar to yellow summer squash, and the patty pans can be prepared the same way:  sauteed, steamed, tossed into a stir fry, or (our absolute favorite) grilled.  The farm is in the midst of a tomato transition.  The greenhouse tomatoes…those candy-like Sungolds and delicious Super Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and the ol’ reliable beefsteaks…are on the way out, and the field tomatoes are just starting to come in.  Hence, the choice this week between cherry tomatoes or “big” tomatoes instead of both.  If you choose the big tomatoes, you’ll find an heirloom fruit in there amongst the dwindling beefsteaks.  Now, about those heirlooms…  We grow many different varieties here, and I’ll try to highlight some of them in a future post once they really are coming on in force.  They often don’t look as pretty, but that’s the nature of the beast.  Heirlooms come in all shapes and sizes; they tend to be more fragile than beefsteaks; they often split or warp as they develop.  (As for appearance, there’s also the simple fact that they are outdoors in the field rather than in the more protective atmosphere of the greenhouse.)  But…just take a bite, and all is forgiven.  The flavor and complexity of the heirlooms cannot be topped.  It’s like rediscovering what a tomato should be.  So, get ready, folks, ’cause here they come!

Speaking of tomatoes, here’s the latest on late blight:  It’s in the state but still isolated in just a few pockets in the Waldoboro area.  With the return of the humidity, we did elect to spray copper on the field tomatoes last week and are adopting a “wait and see” attitude going forward.  We’ll keep an eye on the weather and on Eric Sideman’s frequent MOFGA Pest Reports to determine whether or not we should spray again.

Believe it or not, I (John) have been tapped to play some music this Saturday at the Bridgton Farmers’ Market.  I’ll be there, guitar in hand, playing folky covers and an original or two during the morning hours.  Come see me and check out the market, too!

Your Summit Springs Farm CSA share this week contains the following:

2 lbs of potatoes
1 bunch of Red Russian kale
1 head of lettuce
2.5 lbs of zucchini/summer squash
1 sweet onion
6 cucumbers
.8 lb bag of green beans
1 bulb of fennel
1 bulb of garlic
1 lb of beefsteak tomatoes
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 bunch of basil

Bread shareholders received a loaf of Seeded Rye bread this week, a hearty loaf featuring a mix of organic wheat and rye flours, flax and caraway seeds, and local honey from Tom’s Honey and More in Buckfield.

Hooray for the arrival of potatoes!  The variety this week is Mountain Rose, a pink-skinned and pink-fleshed early potato.  Enjoy, and more varieties of spuds will be coming soon!  Fennel is new this week.  This versatile veggie has a flavor reminicent of licorice.  It can be sliced raw into salads or sauteed for use in stir-fries and more.  Sonya often adds it to her famous “roasted roots” recipe, along with potatoes, beets, and carrots.  Our garlic is drying quickly and well, so there’s no need to store this week’s bulb in the fridge.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the cukes, well, so are we!  We have two beds peaking and another planting that’s starting to come in.  They’re outpacing even the zucchini this season.  Our advice?  Get creative!  Add them to your salads and wraps.  A simple cucumber salad is a staple around here at lunch in the summertime, and if you’ve ever wanted to try pickling, this might be the summer to do it.  Feel free to get in touch with canning guru Sonya for recipes, tips, and encouragement!

Changes are afoot for our market schedule this coming Saturday, August 7th.  Sonya, Lydi, and I are taking the ol’ minivan over to Plymouth, Vermont for the weekend for some festivities with my extended family, so we will not be attending the farmers’ market down in Portland’s Deering Oaks Park on Saturday.  Apologies to our “regulars” and any market share CSAers who attend the Saturday market, but we’ll be back in force on August 14th!  We’ll still be in Bridgton on the 7th as usual from 8am-1pm, so come see Rachael and Corey and their abundance of fresh, organic veggies…eggs, too!

Is it really almost August?!  Your CSA share this week contains the following:

1 bunch of Red Russian kale or Winterbore green kale
Bag o’ roots (contains 1/2 lb of carrots and 1 lb of beets)
1 head of lettuce
2 lbs of zucchini/summer squash
1 bunch of scallions
4 cucumbers
.6 lb bag of green beans
1 bulb of garlic
1 lb of beefsteak tomatoes
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 bunch of herbs: Choose parsley -OR- basil

Bread shareholders received a loaf of Cornmeal Wheat bread this week, loaded with organic whole wheat flour, organic cornmeal, and local maple syrup from Sweet William in Casco.

Garlic is here!  The garlic you received this week is “green” or undried.  It should be kept in the refridgerator and used within a week or two.  Sonya and the gals harvested the rest of the garlic crop yesterday afternoon and have hung them up in the barn to dry.  Once the heads have cured (this takes a few weeks), they will keep at room temperature for a long time.

Last Thursday, we experienced one of the perks of Sonya’s membership in the MOFGA Journeyperson’s program:  a visit from Eric Sideman, MOFGA’s Organic Crop Specialist, and Andrew Marshall, MOFGA’s Educational Programs Director.  It was a great opportunity to tour the farm with these knowledgable fellows and pick their brains about all sorts of things:  pests, soil health, and much more.  It was also a timely visit, with news that late blight had appeared in Maine coming just a few days before their arrival.  We are blight-free here for now and have decided not to spray for the time being.  We’ve learned that the spread of the disease seems to have less to do with temperature than with humidity.  The blight has appeared on a few farms in the Waldoboro area, and for now, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the less humid days we’ve been experiencing this week will keep the blight spores from spreading very quickly or far.   Eric and Andrew addressed some very specific issues we’ve been having.  An example would be the somewhat stressed state of our greenhouse tomatoes.  We learned that the soil needs some additional nutrients and that we need to finally bite the bullet and install a drip tape irrigation system back there.  Many other questions were answered, too, and we want to thank Eric and Andrew for their insights.  We appreciate their visit and all the advice!

Thanks, too, to Maggie, our recent WWOOFer from Thailand, who left on Saturday.  It was great to meet her and have her help with weeding, harvesting, and much more.  Her enthusiasm and curiousity for the work we do was like a breath of fresh air!  She’s back in New Hampshire for now, then on to do some work at a farm in Vermont before returning to Thailand in a couple of weeks.  Thanks again!

Thanks to the folks who came to our weeding gathering and the potluck afterwards this past Saturday.  It was a gorgeous afternoon/evening, and it was nice to spend it with you all.

Your CSA share this week contains the following:

1/2 lb bag of salad mix
1 bunch of young carrots
1 head of Romaine lettuce
2 lbs of zucchini/summer squash
1 lb bag of turnips
Cucumbers:  3 large and 1 small
1/2 lb bag of green beans
1 green bell pepper
1 lb of beefsteak tomatoes
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 bunch of herbs: Choose cilantro -OR- dill

Bread shareholders received a loaf of Oatmeal Wheat bread this week, loaded with organic rolled oats and plenty of local honey from Tom’s Honey and More.

There’s nothing too “out there” in this week’s share…just a lot of solid summertime favorites!  You’re getting a lot of cukes this week, and I just have to suggest one of my favorite summer lunch sides:  the simple and refreshing cucumber salad.  Just slice up a cuke and toss it in a bowl with salt, pepper, a dash of balsamic vinegar, and a drizzle of olive oil (sesame oil is nice, too.)  After a long morning on a hot day, I can’t think of a better way to cool down.  The green beans are coming in strong, lovely to look at and delicious.  You may find a stray purple bean or two in your bag this week.  This “green” bean variety is called Royal Burgundy.  I love putting a big basket of mixed beans on display at market with green, purple, and yellow wax beans.  Alas, the rainbow of fun ends with the cooking process, for the purple beans turn green when cooked.  Those wax beans will be coming soon, too…  Also, if you’re cursing us for giving you more turnips, never fear:  this is it until the fall!  They keep for months in the fridge, by the way, so don’t feel as though you need to plow through them right away.  Sonya discovered a new recipe for sweet sauteed turnips with raisins that I will try to get up on the recipe page soon.  Even I, a turnip skeptic, was somewhat impressed.

Just as the weeds and the work in general are pushing Sonya, Corey, Rachael, and I to the limit, help has arrived in the form of WOOFFers.  WWOOF, as you may recall, stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.  Travelers can stay on a farm in exchange for a few hours of labor each day.  Our first WWOOFer, Pete from Halifax, came way back in April and helped us out with various projects.  This past week, we welcomed Melissa and Brendon, a nice young couple from Providence, Rhode Island.  She is a vet tech, and he is an Army reservist and student (history).  Both gamely braved the heat and humidity and helped with weeding and the big Friday harvest.  Just yesterday, Maggie arrived, all the way from Thailand via New Hampshire.  She’s actually been working in the states since the spring and wanted to try volunteering on a farm or two before heading back home in early August.  She helped out this morning with harvest and will be here for the rest of this week.

A ghost from last year has crept into our state:  MOFGA is reporting that late blight, a serious fungal disease that attacks tomatoes and potatoes, has appeared in Maine again this summer.  This disease did a number on tomato plants all over New England during last year’s incredibly cool and wet summer, and we were in the thick of it.  We lost every single one of our field tomatoes last season to late blight, roughly  a thousand row feet of plants.  It’s probably safe to assume that the blight won’t be as rampant this summer, but we are concerned nevertheless.  Sonya and I have talked about spraying copper, an organically approved fungicide, on our tomato plants this very evening.  Stay tuned…

Many, many thanks to CSA member Ted Bridge-Koenigsberg for delivering and dumping several truckloads of sheep manure here this past weekend.  We plan to compost the stuff for awhile before spreading it around in the fall, mostly in Field 2.  We appreciate it, Ted and Ted’s flock!

Don’t forget that the next farm potluck is happening later this week on Saturday 7/24 from 5 - 9 PM.  If the weather is nice, we can all eat outside under Martha the red maple at our spiffy new picnic table!  Bring along a dish to share and chairs or blankets to sit on (alas, it’s only one picnic table!)  Potlucks are a great way to check out the farm and meet or reconnect with some great neighbors and friends.  We will also be hosting the season’s first weeding party on the same day from 3 - 5 PM.  If you’ve been wanting to visit the farm, get your hands dirty, and get a little closer to the fields where your food has been coming from, this will be a great opportunity for you to do so!  It’s also a good way to get to know fellow CSA members better.  Bring gloves if you would like to keep your hands clean and any weeding tools you may have.  Come for both the weeding and the feeding or one or the other.  We ask that folks RSVP this time around so we know what to expect.

Let’s hear it for this past weekend’s rain and for happy, happy plants!  Your CSA share this week contains the following:

1/2 lb bag of salad mix -OR- 1 lb of broccoli
1 bunch of broccoli raab -OR- 1 bunch of Red Russian kale
1 head of lettuce
2 lbs of zucchini/summer squash
1 bunch of turnips -OR- 1 bunch of beets
1 bunch of chard -OR- more (1 lb) zucchini/summer squash
1 pint of sugar snap peas -OR- 1 pint of snow peas -OR- 1/2 bag of shell peas
1 lb of beefsteak tomatoes
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 bunch of herbs: Choose cilantro -OR- dill

Bread shareholders received a loaf of John’s Daily Bread this week, the “flagship” bread of the 2010 bread armada.  My goal with the Daily was one-bread-for-all:  simple, light but healthy, solid but not flashy, ever-so-slightly sweet, perfect for sandwiches, excellent for toast, all-purpose, hot or cold, etc., etc.  It contains a mix of organic white and whole wheat flours and local honey from Tom’s Honey and More (and we mean local…Tom keeps a dozen or so hives at the farm, so some of that honey could have originated right here!)

Beets are new this week, and boy are we happy about that!  They are so good for you, packed with fiber, vitamins, and minerals.  Try them roasted or shredded raw in salads and wraps.  Don’t forget to eat the greeens, too!  Broccoli raab makes its first appearance this week, too.  This green is excellent steamed and even better sauteed.  We love to sautee it with olive oil and garlic, then toss it with fresh pasta, along with grated Romano cheese and chopped walnuts.

Nothing says “summer is here” quite like zucchini, and with the recent hot weather, the stuff is going crazy.  My dad had a veggie garden for a couple of years at our house in Georgia when I was a kid.  I remember that we would go away for a couple of weeks in the summer (usually up to Vermont to visit my grandparents), and when we got back we would inevitably find a few 2-foot zucchinis we’d overlooked before leaving.  Now imagine much of an entire bed like that!  Alas, it’s true.  A zucchini/summer squash planting waaaay back at the end of Field 2 somehow escaped our notice until today, and I discovered a section of mega-zucchinis, enough to fill a bin.  These big fellas are really only good for one thing, and that’s zucchini bread.  You won’t be disappointed if you choose to take one of these monsters home!

Potatoes have been on my mind lately, for a number of reasons.  First off, our potatoes here at the farm are coming along nicely.  They are just past the flowering stage, which means the tubers under the soil have been set and are growing steadily.  The potato bugs have been out in force, but so have Rachael and Corey, unflinchingly collecting into buckets the yellow and black striped adults plus the slimy, rust-colored larve PLUS any egg sacks hiding on the underside of the plant’s leaves and delivering the whole mess to the enthusiastic chickens.  New potatoes will be coming soon…

I’m also thinking about potatoes because of my aunt and uncle, Meredith and Tom Hughes, who I’ve written about at some length on this blog in the past.  They started The Potato Museum in Brussels in the 1970s, took it to DC in the 1980s, and expanded their research and activities into The Food Museum in the 1990s and beyond.  This year, the potato once again takes center stage with them as they present “Spuds Unearthed!” at the US Botanic Garden in DC.  The exhibit opened in May and runs until October.  Some photos and video of potato activities from Summit Springs Farm…cutting seed potatoes, planting, harvesting, etc…are included in the exhibit.  If you’re in the DC area, stop in and check out this entertaining and informative exhibit (and the rest of the Botanic Garden, too…it’s quite something).

But the MAIN reason I’ve got spuds on my mind is because of a potato controversey here in Maine.  This season, we applied for and received permission to accept WIC checks at out farmers’ markets.  WIC stands for “Women, Infants, and Children”.  As described on the USDA WIC website “WIC provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk.”  It’s a great program, but it’s taking some heat because it has banned potatoes from its approved list of foods.  When we received our informal training session here at the farm on how the WIC program works, I was surprised by the potato’s exclusion.  It’s off the list because it’s considered too starchy and fattening.  I’m not alone in my surprise, it seems.  A few weeks ago, I noticed a front-page article about the controversy in the Portland Press-Herald and read a follow-up editorial about it in last week’s edition.  Maine is, of course, a major player in the potato industry, and the major potato producers up in Aroostock County are outraged by WIC’s exclusion.  So are many consumers and health advocates, who argue that the potato gets a bad rap because of the uses to which it is put rather than any inherent faults.  For many, many people, a serving of potato takes the form of a bag of chips or a basket of fries.  Even something as healthy as a baked potato quickly becomes something else entirely when slathered with butter, sour cream, and cheese.  In and of itself, however, the potato is quite healthy…not too high in calories and a good source of protein, vitamin C, and dietary fiber, especially when eaten with their skins.  If folks can get their potatoes fresh from the farmers’ market, along with some helpful preparation advice from the farmer, then I see no reason why spuds should be excluded.  Do you?

Your CSA share this week contains the following:

1/2 lb bag of salad mix -OR- 1 lb of broccoli
1 bok choy -OR- 1 bunch of Red Russian kale
1 head of lettuce
1 bunch of scallions
1 bunch of turnips
1 green pepper
1 1/4 lb bag of snow peas
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 pint of sugar snap peas

Bread shareholders received a loaf of seeded rye this week.  This hearty loaf features a combination of organic rye and organic unbleached wheat flours, local honey, and both caraway seeds and organic flax seeds.  Enjoy, and I’d love to hear any feedback from bread share members or any of you who have bought bread or muffins or cookies at pick-ups!

And this bountiful season keeps rolling along.  Green bell peppers in the first week of July?!  Yikes!  It’s extremely exciting for us to see things growing so well after the previous two very wet seasons.  The heat this week has been tough to work in, but the summer veggies are loving it.  The greenhouse cherry and beefsteak tomatoes are coming along, and the peppers and tomatoes out in the field are looking great.  The zucchini and summer squash are coming on strong, too.  I’m taking some to market this week, and hopefully next week we’ll have enough to include in the CSA share.  Turnips are new this week.  Enjoy them, and don’t forget to eat the greens!  They are extremely good for you and have a flavor and texture reminicient of collard greens.  Try them steamed or sauteed.  We grow two varieties of cherry tomatoes here at Summit Springs Farm:  red Super Sweet 100s and orange Sungolds.  As the name implies, the Super Sweets are a wonderful red cherry:  great in salads, quite sweet, and absolutely gorgeous.  For me and many of our CSA and market folks, however, the Sungolds steal the show.  I eat them like candy.  They are incredibly sweet, and their flavor is much more complex than the Super Sweets.  If you are a dedicated red tomato fan, I urge you to take a chance and try the Sungolds!  Orange and yellow tomatoes are also a bit less acidic than red ones, making them a little easier on the stomach for those with such sensitivities.

Folks, the veggies are growing very well…and so are the weeds!  Sonya, Rachael, Corey, and I are doing our best to keep up, but it’s an uphill battle.  We could use any extra time and energy you could spare to help us try and get the weeds under control.  Thursdays are generally a good day for helping out here at the farm; it’s one of the few days where there isn’t either harvesting or a market/CSA pick-up happening.  Any time you could come over, however, would be great!  Just call or e-mail us, and we’ll work out the logistics.

Does anyone know of a local family who is into veggies and in need?  We have a CSA member who will be out of town for the next couple of weeks and would like to donate their shares.  If anyone comes to mind…a senior on a fixed income, someone facing an unexpected illness or job loss, etc…please let us know, and we’ll see if we can work it out.  On this website’s CSA sign-up form we ask folks if they are interested in making a donation towards a CSA share for a family in need.  We also give our members the option of donating a missed share.  The share usually goes to market with us, after which whatever is left over is donated to either the Wayside Soup Kitchen or the Poland food bank.  In this case, however, we thought we’d ask for input about a specific situation here in our community where some extra food might be helpful.  We’d love to help!