Starting this Tuesday (Aug 3), our CSA pick-up site will be moving just across the parking lot to the brand new Market building! Don’t worry — the new site is super easy to find. Go to our previous spot, and then turn around and look for the barn-looking building with bright green doors (and our truck parked in front). The pick-up window will continue to be from 3:30 – 6:30.
Lost? Questions? Call us: 503-474-7661.
I mentioned in this week’s newsletter that Rusty loves cauliflower. Here’s proof:
Ok — I think he usually prefers it cooked, but nonetheless he can try to eat it whole …
As you can see, the blog is fixed! Thanks to Rich Blaha from Mossback Farm for his help!!!!!
I will upload the last few week’s worth of newsletters tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I’m just basking in the glow of a fixed blog.
Oh, and now that we’re back in business, I have some upgrades planned. I’ve been inspired to change some things after so many years. Stay posted.
(CSA Newsletter: Week 25)
What is July? … July is a time for a breather on the farm as we rest between the spring planting and the fall harvests … a time to go hiking in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness Area … a time to sweat … a time for potato salad and hambugers (or bean burgers) … a time to sit in the shade … a time to weed … a time to plant fall cabbages and broccoli … a time to sow fall kale … a time to marvel at the growth in the fields … a time to go swimming in the river … a time for babies to be naked … a time to eat salad for dinner … a time to wake up early and enjoy the cool mornings … a time to wear sandals and shorts … a time when it feels like time stands still and winter feels impossible … a time to forget being cold … a time to feel lazy … a time to work hard … a time to watch the sweet corn grow … a time to go to market … a time to anxiously await blackberry season … a time to can and freeze and put up foods … a time to be.
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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What does a farm baby eat?
Answer: Good stuff! Since I’m always writing about the yummy things that Casey and I eat on the farm, I thought I’d take a moment this week to talk about our son Rusty’s diet so far.
Up until very recently, Rusty has had a diet of all breastmilk, all the time. And, now that Rusty is older than six months, we’ve begun exploring solid foods too!
But, we’ve skipped making Rusty purees and have been introducing solids by the philosophy called “Baby Led Solids” or “Baby Led Weaning.” The idea is that babies over six months can feed themselves real food.
Although these early explorations in food don’t actually result in much nutrition (99% of the food usually ending everywhere except baby’s tummy), the self feeding process teaches them extraordinary things: fine motor skills, how different foods taste or feel on the tongue, how to chew and swallow, etc. Food is cut into baby-sized pieces (usually long strips that are easy to hold rather than small bite sized pieces that pose choking hazards and are hard to pick up).
Obviously the baby needs to be ready and willing, however. When we first starting trying giving Rusty real foods at the six-month mark, he was excited but not quite ready. He gagged anytime food actually got into his mouth. Even when it wasn’t far in (we could still see it on his tongue), he would gag in an attempt to get it back out, and sometimes this was dramatic enough to be disturbing to us. This wasn’t life threatening (gagging is not the same as choking), and Rusty didn’t seem disturbed, but after a few tries we decided to wait longer before doing more foods.
So, he continued breastfeeding and chewing on spoons at the dinner table. But now at seven and a half months old, Rusty has shown a renewed interest in Mama and Papa’s food, so we’ve begun giving him his own unsalted portion of whatever we’re eating: curry cauliflower, hamburger, sourdough bread, cole slaw, fresh ripe blackberries.
The difference in his ability to feed himself now is amazing! Obviously, the softer foods like cooked cauliflower have a better chance of getting swallowed, but Rusty has clearly enjoyed tasting all of them and has good enough control over his tongue and hands that he keeps the food in the front of his mouth where he can “chew” it without gagging. Still, most of it is coming back out after a thorough tasting session, but we have proof that some of it is getting down (I will spare you the details of the evidence, however).
We’re excited about this new phase of Rusty’s eating life. He’ll continue to get most of his calories and nutrients from breastmilk for the next few months as he slowly eats more and more food each day. While I hope to continue breastfeeding through two years, it’s wonderful knowing that Rusty is learning to feed himself and enjoy good quality foods. The only things we’re avoiding for now are foods that pose a clear choking hazard (nuts, popcorn), foods that are unnecessary (such as cow’s milk), any added salts, and foods that pose known risks for young babies (such as honey).
In the end, who knows what sorts of foods he’ll end up preferring, but at our table he’ll be exposed to a wide range of vegetables (of course) and local meats, cheeses, breads, and other yummy stuff. We’ll keep you posted on his favorites as we go, but so far cauliflower seems to top the list!
And, absolutely the best part of the experience is how much fun Rusty has been having and how easy it is for us. There are no fights about getting a spoon in his mouth or trying to figure out whether he’s had enough — he determines everything, and gets to experiment with being in control of his own body (a unique experience for a baby).
You can find out more information about the Baby Led Weaning concept at: http://www.rapleyweaning.com/.
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CSA Potluck on Sat, August 21!
Our next on-farm CSA event is coming up. Hope you can join us! Save the date now! (More details will come soon.)
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Wear a Grand Island t-shirt!
Want to publicly support the Grand Island quarry fight? Consider buying and wearing a Protect Grand Island t-shirt. We’ll be selling them at the pick-up for $10 each. If we don’t have the size you need at the time, let us know and we can bring it the following week.
This is a Casey original, and it has become one of our favorite dishes of the summer. Ideally, it’s made ahead of time so that everything can chill and the flavors can meld. It’s a perfect light main dish for a hot evening. Serve it with a green salad for a complete meal that is simple, satisfying and won’t cause you to overheat while you eat!
Start by roasting a chicken and your beets. No need to peel ahead of time — just scrub clean; chop into quarters; and then roast covered at 375° until they are tender all the way through (test by poking them with a paring knife). Put cooked beets in fridge to cool.
As far as the chicken, we usually just throw a chicken breast in the pan with the beets and roast it at the same time, but sometimes we deliberately plan this meal after we’re planning to roast a whole chicken and know we’ll have leftovers. Either way, it’s good.
Once your beets and chicken are cooled, the skins should be easy to remove with your hands and a pairing knife. Chop beets into large bite-sized pieces and chicken into smaller pieces. Mix together with finely chopped sweet onion and then toss everything with a creamy dressing of equal parts mayonnaise and plain yogurt. Salt and pepper to taste.
Just before serving, top with or stir in a liberal amount of croutons (we make our own from leftover stale bread). The crunch of the croutons is an essential element of this salad!
(CSA Newsletter: Week 24)
As part of our summer field trip schedule, we always try to get to other farms too. This weekend, we visited three on social occasions (but managed to check out the fields too): Kookoolan Farms in Yamhill, Gathering Together Farm in Philomath, and Growing Wild Farm outside of McMinnville.
At all three farms, we saw new ideas in action and many diverse choices in similar farming considerations (irrigation styles, bed prep, field layout, etc.). The farms are of different ages and scales: Gathering Together has been in operation for several decades and operates on much more land that the other two relatively young and small farms.
Suffice to say, each farm looked dramatically different to us, but one thing was consistent across all three farms (and our own as well): the cool, wet spring is still making itself known in the fields.
The spring was visible mostly simply through the age of summer crops — they were all much smaller than what we would expect for mid- to late-July. In our own fields, many of our crops are behind, especially our fruiting crops: cucumbers, summer squash, melons, winter squash, beans, eggplant, peppers, and more. They are far enough along that we trust that we’ll have eventual harvests of most of these — and some have already begun.
But, we’re also glad that we planted extra non-fruiting crops, such as carrots, beets, and fennel bulb. We’re also glad we planted our tomatoes and some of our peppers inside our new permanent greenhouse — they are actually ahead of our normal expectations.
At our farm (as well as at others), we have also found ourselves with some extra weeds in some of the spring planted beds. For many weeks this spring, it was too wet in our fields to weed with our hands, let alone hoes or the cultivating tractor. Consequently, our spring broccoli and a few other crops ended up maturing without hardly being weeded — in spots, it’s difficult to even see the broccoli through the grass unless you walk right into the bed!
It’s certainly been an interesting year. Each season brings new surprises and challenges to the art of farming, and each year we respond to these new experiences with slightly greater perspective and calm.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t get frustrated or annoyed with extra wet or cold weather during planting season, but we no longer assume that we’ll never plant or that our late crops will never produce mature fruit.
We also know that, actually, some things might not produce. At this point, it’s very possible that we won’t have ripe melons, give how far along they are and how mild the season continues to be. But that’s also why we plant diversely. This year already, we’ve had bumper crops of spinach and peas, and the broccoli has been sweet and beautiful. Cool weather is good for some crops!
Honestly, if each subsequent year offered exactly the same weather, farming might not be as interesting to us. I mean, you could just program robots and computers to do exactly the same planting and watering plan every year, and you’d get exactly the same harvest dates and yields. B-o-o-o-ring.
As the folks at Kookoolan Farms noted over dinner, the best parts of farming are the tasks that “make you think.” Amen to that. And, for better and for worse, responding appropriately to the weather always makes us think.
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
Also known as “broadbeans,” Fava beans are the original European bean (the beans we are most familiar with are native to North America). They’re uncommon in the American diet today, which is unfortunate since they’re delicious!
But, I’ll be honest: preparing fava beans is a lot of work, and that may be why they’ve fallen out of favor.
But the work is worth it, and they only come around briefly in the early summer, so embrace the work and enjoy:
Begin by shucking the beans out of the large outer pod. Each of the beans has a tight white bitter skin surrounding a tender, sweeter green interior bean. We highly recommend removing this white skin, which is the part that takes extra work. Some people peel it off the beans raw with a fingernail or paring knife (this is totally doable but requires some patience). We prefer to quickly blanche and then cool the beans. At that point, they ‘pop’ out of the skin easily.
Once you have the green inner bean only, you can prepare in any number of ways. Some people prefer their fava beans ‘al dente,’ in which case blanching might be enough cooking for you. Taste them before cooking further to see how you like them. You can salt them and add them to salads, or toss with pasta.
We prefer to cook our beans further by sautéing them in butter with onions. Once they are soft, they’re delicious served on pasta or mashed with a little salt and pepper and spread on toast.
Whatever way you prepare and eat them, fava beans have a distinctive and delightful savory flavor unlike any other bean.
(CSA Newsletter: Week 23)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
The first heat wave of the year arrived later than usual — in mid-July rather than May or June. This was fine with me personally, since I always find those extra early heat spells to feel just plain mean and harsh.
Even though it was hot last week and this weekend, we enjoyed ourselves on the farm. The heat was great for the produce — many summer-loving crops grew literally overnight and are that much closer to producing. We even enjoyed our very first of this year’s tomatoes (sliced on fresh sourdough with olive oil, pepper and mozzarella — mmmmmmmmm!).
We humans survived the heat by starting work early, carefully scheduling tasks around the cool and hot parts of the day (work outside in morning, wash bins in afternoon), and making and eating berry ice cream.
After a cool spring, it seems like many crops were delayed and are now all coming on at once. In addition to vegetables, here on the farm, we’ve been enjoying strawberries, raspberries and cherries (unfortunately, none of which are available for the shares this year — sorry!). It’s been a virtual berry bonanza!
It was also time for the garlic harvest this week! Casey and Jeff dug and pulled it all in a fast day’s work, and Casey spent two days sorting for seed and bundling it. We save our own seed from year-to-year and have been selecting for consistently larger, well-shaped heads. This year’s harvest represents our most beautiful garlic crop yet! We’ll start giving some of it out after it’s had a chance to cure, but you’ll receive most of it this fall and winter.
Of course, bringing in the garlic harvest is always a surreal reminder that fall and winter will arrive eventually. Hard to believe when it feels like summer has only just begun! On a similar note, Casey finished sowing the cover crop in our fallow west field, which we will irrigate and let grow (with a few mowings) until we’re ready to plant there next spring! I’m still amazed at how far ahead we have to plan to make sure all our work gets done in the best manner possible! (In a similar surreal case of way future planning, the garlic Casey set aside for seed this weekend will be planted this fall, harvested in July 2011, and eaten in the fall and winter of 2011-12!)
Finally, this weekend also unofficially marked the beginning of our ‘field trip’ season. This is a new habit, begun last year when we finally had time to take more than one day off each week. Once the big planting push of May and June is over, we now make it a point to get off the farm at least once a week for a significant jaunt. Usually, we go hiking at some relatively nearby location — the last Friday we went to Silver Falls state park, which was the perfect place to be on a hot July day. Next weekend, we’ll head to visit Gathering Together Farm’s farm restaurant and hike on Mary’s Peak!
Getting off the farm is such a sanity saver for us during the hottest months of the year. By the time July rolls around, Casey (and previously me too) has put in so many extra hours of work on the weekends and evenings. Before the delicious summer harvests start but while it’s still hot, we can easily start to question why the heck we’re doing all this work of being farmers (especially when school gets out and all our CSA members start going on fun vacations!). But then, in July the weather dries out, giving us more flexibility in our work schedule, and the urgent work slows down … when we can finally get away regularly, our happiness level goes way back up, and the farm becomes a wonderful place to live and work again. And, then about that time, tomatoes start to ripen, and life is really good. (You’ll start seeing tomatoes in the shares in a few more weeks, so hopefully you can be patient!)
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
Adapted from The Wellness Encyclopedia of Food and Nutrition by Shelden Margen, M.D.
Try some of the following ideas for preparing fennel. Pair the cooked fennel with any of your favorite Italian or European inspired meat/fish dishes, pastas or salads. If you’re stumped for how to pair it, try tasting a bit raw — some people compare the flavor to anise, but really it’s a unique flavor. The texture is crunchy like celery when raw but smooth like an onion when cooked. We enjoying eating it with cauliflower, onions and couscous.
First, cleaning: Chop off fronds and set aside for use as an herb if desired. Trim the base and wash the bulb carefully, paying attention to the creases.
Baking: First, braise the fennel for about 5 minutes. Transfer to a baking dish and add just 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid. Cover tightly and bake at 350 degrees until just tender and beginning to brown. If desired, uncover toward the end to allow any excess liquid to evaporate, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan cheese, and brown under the broiler before serving. Cooking time: about 1 hour.
Braising: Braise fennel in broth, tomato sauce, vermouth or sherry (diluted 1-to-1 with water); add lemon zest, garlic, or onion for extra flavor. Braised fennel is delicious hot, warm, or chilled. Place fennel slices, or halved or quartered small fennel bulbs, in a sauce pan and add just enough boiling liquid to barely cover the vegetable. Simmer uncovered, turning occasionally, until the fennel is tender, adding more liquid if necessary. Cooking time: 25 to 40 minutes.
Sauteing: Cut fennel into slivers and heat in a small amount of stock, tossing and stirring it frequently. For extra flavor, cook chopped onion and garlic along with fennel. A sprinkling of lemon juice and zest makes a nice finishing touch. Cooking time: 10 to 15 minutes.
Steaming: Fennel steamed until crisp-tender can be covered with your favorite sauce or marinated in a vinaigrette, chilled, and served as a salad. To steam it, place whole or halved bulbs in a vegetable steamer and cook over boiling water until just tender. Cooking time: 20 to 30 minutes.
(CSA Newsletter: Week 22)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
As you know, this spring and early summer, we’ve had more than just beets and babies on our minds. Unfortunately, we’ve been trying to navigate how to respond to the gravel quarry application on Grand Island.
It’s been an interesting journey. We’ve approached it from several angles — we’ve had some good discussions with representatives from the rock company itself. As a result, they extended the list of conditions that would accompany a change in zoning status and be legally binding for any future quarry operators on the site (addressing things like hours and days of operation, number of trucks on the road, and other useful limits).
We felt somewhat better about a possible quarry after receiving these ‘concessions;’ however, the big concern still lingered … this is the second quarry application on Grand Island in less than ten years. If this quarry is approved, over one-eight of this small agricultural island’s land will have been converted from exclusive farm-use to mineral extraction. What’s stopping a third, fourth or fifth quarry from applying? When does our island stop being a great place to farm and live?
This fear of a slippery slope has kept us fighting. It’s hard to know how useful it is to bring up our concerns, since the Yamhill County Planning Department has twice recommended approval of the application. The cynical side of me can’t help but notice that approval is a much easier choice than denial in this particular scenario. There are a lot of complicated legal reasons why it’s difficult to deny a gravel quarry in the Willamette Valley, but it is possible and should be done when a quarry will have significant negative impacts on surrounding farms — which we believe this quarry will.
We and other farmers and concerned citizens made our case as such at two hearings in front the Yamhill County Planning Commission this spring; and last Thursday their vote gave us hope that we’re being heard — they voted five to two to deny the application.
Their decision to deny the application only creates a recommendation — we still need the Yamhill County Commissioners to hear our case and be similarly sympathetic. That’s the next goal, which we’re preparing for now. This time around, the more voices in opposition, the better.
As Jim Johnson from the Oregon Department of Agriculture pointed out last week to Grand Island residents: “In planning decisions, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” We hope to be as squeaky as possible over the next few weeks, and we’d like your help. If you care about Grand Island’s farming future, please take a moment to comment and voice your opposition to the quarry application.
You can voice your opposition publicly by writing a letter to the editor of the News-Register. Letters should be 300 words or less and emailed to letters@newsregister.com. Include your full name, address and daytime phone number for verification.
You can also submit written testimony to the Yamhill County Planning Department (525 NE 4th St, McMinnville, OR 97128). If you do so, remember to include the application number: PAZ-01-10/WRG-01-10. This week or next, we’ll be stapling a pre-stamped postcard to the paper newsletter that will allow you to submit your comments easily.
And, of course, if you feel strongly and have time, we’d love for you to testify in person at the Commissioner meeting — even if all you do is stand up and say, “I agree with the Grand Island farmers. I’m a citizen of Yamhill County, and I think this is important.”
… and, while I’m providing updates, I also wanted to make a quick note about how everyone’s fields are faring after the high water event of June. Our employee Jeff and his wife Carri’s crops that went under water for a week ended up surviving amazingly well.
You can still see a line where the high water mark was — the crops that were under water are smaller than those that were not (as far as we can tell, the difference in size is primarily because the crops under water didn’t have an opportunity to grow during that time, so they’re just “behind” the others). Their tomatoes didn’t fare as well, but fortunately they had many that didn’t go under.
We realized last week that we too suffered some damage, even though we didn’t realize it at the time. A section of our winter squash planting is lower and was affected when the ground water came up under it and prevented our newly sown seeds from germinating.
We now have a very large round hole in the middle of the planting that effectively cuts our entire winter squash planting down to less than half the number of plants we intended. Some of those seeds are germinating now, but they’re going to be so far behind the other plants that we’re not sure if they’ll produce mature fruit by the first frost. We’ll just have to wait and see and hope that the unaffected plants produce prolifically this year!
The quote on our Farm Bureau calendar for the month of July is from Will Rogers: “The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” Given what I’ve written about in this week’s newsletter, I suppose that’s an accurate sentiment.
Our farm is very much alive and thriving, in every sense, but it’s also true that we live constantly on a sharp edge of threats to our livelihood — both the daily vagaries of weather and the bigger impacts posed by development pressure and land-use decisions.
Yes, these threats are real, yet I can honestly say that Casey and I go about our daily work joyfully (the vast majority of the time anyway). Once upon a time, a ‘long’ time ago (i.e. 2006), when we started our farm, I viscerally felt the uncertainty of what we were trying to do. Farming for a living seemed like a fool’s goal, especially when we both held multiple degrees and had hirable skills in professions like teaching and scientific research.
However, things have changed since then. We’ve seen our peers struggle to find jobs in the professional world or get laid off from jobs that seemed great just a few years ago. These are different times, and I no longer think that Casey and I are unique in feeling that our livelihood is constantly ‘on the edge.’
In fact, more and more, I think that this feeling is probably the reality of life — during boom times, we just have the excitement of growth and prosperity to buffer us from that reality. There are reasons why people across faiths have traditionally prayed phrases such as “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Casey and I have much to be thankful for in our life and work: our work itself is pleasurable and rewarding; we’ve been able to save money to provide a cushion in case of real crisis; we have a beautiful healthy baby son; and we have a wonderful diverse community of interesting and supportive individuals.
But, of course, our thankfulness for these things is no reason to stop fighting to preserve our home and farm on Grand Island — it is all the more incentive to fight as hard as ever. Our opposition is a prayer of thankfulness.
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
