When I was young, I viewed Thanksgiving as a pre-Christmas and pre-shopping-season day of gluttony (I remember vividly one day, when I was a young teen, I ate so much I actually felt very ill – yuck!). Pilgrims and Indians were thought of when I was wee young, but as I grew older it just seemed a day to feast with family the same feast we’d be eating a month later at Christmas.
All of that has changed. For the past 10 or 15 years, Thanksgiving has become, for our small family of three, a day of thanks – giving.
Firstly, we are thankful for a day off. It is literally the first day all three of us have had off since, oh, sometime in June or July. That’s a mighty long time to go without a breather, but it is rather the norm for a small farm owner/operator. We enjoy our day off by sleeping in (for me, that means 6 AM – wow!), watching some movies, playing some games, and cooking some food – just for us. We decided long ago that traveling on Thanksgiving or having a house-full of guests just didn’t sound like a good day off.
Secondly, we are thankful to wrap up the harvest season. It seems like every year wraps up fairly nicely. We can look back and remember some of the crazy weather- or pest-related events of the season, but all-in-all we usually have very much to be thankful for each year at this time. We now begin planning for next season.
Thirdly, we are thankful for all the people who we’ve had the pleasure to work with or serve over this season: our intrepid farm helpers, the two couples we lease some of our orchard land from, our CSA members and farmers’ market customers, the farmers’ market managers and CSA pickup site hosts, the local (and not-so-local) suppliers of many of thie items our farm needs to source from year to year: seed companies, nurseries, garden supply companies, repair shops, Google, Constant Contact, Siteground, Credo Mobile, Fulton Bank, our webmaster at Veni Vortex, and (occasionally) Starbucks, just to name a few.
I’m thrilled with our Thanksgiving holiday now. It’s a day we look forward to as a nice little break, a shift to another season’s activities, and a time to be mindful and thankful for all the many, many people we have the pleasure of working with and working for each year.
One of my favorite things about going to market is answering (or trying to answer) the questions people ask as they walk up to the table. With so many beautiful but uncommon varieties of apples, postures range from hesitant interest, to unbridled curiosity. Common questions include: Which are the sweetest? Which are the most tart? What should I use for baking? What’s with this brown apple? Which is your favorite?
Some questions are easier to answer than others: Usually, the apples are arranged from sweetest to most tart, with a few varieties in the middle, to make things easier for everyone. The best apple for baking depends largely on personal preference. The brown apples are Asian pears…just kidding. Russeted apples like Hudson’s Golden Gem and Razor Russet have great textures that are different from all the others, usually with a less noticeable skin. My favorite apples seem to change each week, with Spitzenburg topping the list currently and Golden Russet following closely behind.
My favorite question at market always starts the same way, “I had this one apple…can you tell me what it is?”, and a wild goose chase of apple identification begins. If North Star had it recently and clues include the flavor, color, or some part of the name, a proper I.D. is fairly easy to come by. If the apple was from last year, or much earlier this season and the details are hazier, it gets a little tough.
Understandably, we have the desire to find out which varieties we enjoy, but talking with people about their recently-discovered-yet-unnamed-favorite apple brings up a deeper topic of what most of us have come to expect with food. Often, we want the same thing again and again throughout the year, and that’s not what you get from locally-grown fruit. There is this tension between seeing the same few varieties of apples in any supermarket no matter what time of year, compared with a wider variety from the orchard that changes weekly. The Summer Blaze apples picked in August won’t be around with the Emperors picked this week – and that’s a good thing.
There is something about stepping away from the regular handful of apples that you can find anywhere at any time, and enjoying new flavors from a freshly picked apple that you’ve never tried before, even if it means waiting a whole year to taste it again. There are so many incredible varieties to try in the meantime, that even if you forget the name, you can grab someone at the farm or market and explain, “I had this one apple…can you tell me what it is?”
Tiny onion plants, their first leaves just beginning to unfold, are arriving to nursery school. Meanwhile the matronly short stake tomatoes, sitting around a card table playing bridge, talk about their grandchildren and watch over the sprouting kale and spinach. The beets make eyes at each other, thinking of marriage and starting their families.
Yesterday, we were discussing the barely unfolding Winter Garden when farm helper Laura began this comparison of the veggies in the garden to the stages of life. It began an illustration in my mind of all of my beloved friends, some homo sapien and some plantae. This is truly the beauty of gardening, to watch the unfolding of life in a day by day experience. Surely we all enjoy the beauty of spring flowers with their promise of new life. We gardeners have the honor to watch every day as the seeds we sow push their primary leaves through the soil and begin the process of becoming mature plants. It is almost like having a family of thousands!
Sometimes, as in human interaction, the seeds we sow do not do as well as we had expected. The spinach I planted two weeks ago only came up half as well as I felt it should have. And I know how many hungry people LOVE spinach! Just like in my family life, when things don’t come to fruition it’s time to take a step back and think of a new plan to try for next time. So yesterday as we prepared to seed spinach again, we tried three different types of sowing methods in order to determine which would be most effective for successive plantings.
Strangely similar, after months of being frustrated with trying to teach toddlers to pick up their toys, I have recently found that the incentive of a penny for each area tidied is proving effective in our house. Hurray! I’m sure that, like everything with children, this will not be effective forever, but it works for now and that is enough. Just like those stubborn little spinach seeds, providing the right frequency and methods will prove to yield more desirable results – I hope!
What to do when the plants that you have been tending all summer with regulated water and pest control begin to curl up and die despite your best efforts? I fear it may be time to say goodbye to some of our brassica crops. Surely we will have plenty of cabbage and broccoli, but after weeks of brutally hot temperatures followed by weeks of downpours, some of the cauliflower and brussel sprouts are simply collapsing. It makes me frustrated and sad to see some of these friends melt away before their time, but I can’t help but think that these are lessons for life.
Sometimes letting go is all there is to do. It’s been years since I’ve lost a loved one, but watching my Big Granny fade was just that way. I spent time with her every week watching strong, stubborn coal miner’s wife slowly fade into nothing but a memory. In the end there was nothing to do except to let Mother Nature take her back. So as we lose crops due to disease or weather-related issues, I try to take my grains of salt and remember that we come from the earth and will return to it. It is my life to enjoy this brief moment; to plant seeds and harvest their crops and in the process grow a little myself.
You know the story; Shakespeare lines up yet another mixed up tale of love and judgment, in which somehow in the middle of the confusion all ends up “right”, or at least dead.
For the first few weeks of growth, I thought that our delicious yellow beans were called Merchant of Venice and thought, “Hmm. Interesting. I wonder why they chose that for the name.” But I was wrong, instead we have Marvel of Venice beans. A name much more fitting because although they do not contain a secret potion for wooing a lover, they are lovely and abundant!
Venice is a city known for its amazing water navigation systems, for its beauty, for its extravagance. You might expect a bean named to be it’s marvel would have gothic scroll work on the leaves or tiny cathedrals on its flowers. But alas, no. But if you’ve eaten these beans you know why they are named such. Such flavor, such freshness!
I’m proud to say that we picked last Monday nine baskets of beans! I think that’s a record, at least for this year, from these bean vines. We are also trying a new trellising system in that looked like a giant harp before the beans covered it. Rather than the plastic netting we usually have, we put up a tight zig zag of sisal twine for the beans to grow up. The hope is that when they beans are done we can cut loose the twine and put the whole “wall” of beans into the compost. Anyone who has grown pole beans (or any vine) knows how tightly they can coil themselves around whatever they grow up. It can take hours to unwrap their tiny curls!
I loved watching them grow up and up the twine. As the wind blew across, it made a sort of slow moving wave, like someone slowly playing the harp. We could almost hear music! Just kidding! Wouldn’t it be great though if vegetables were also musical? Carrot clarinets anyone?
I hope you have gotten to enjoy some Marvel of Venice beans. If so, I think you’ll agree that even Portia, Shylock, and Antonio would have enjoyed these buttery, prolific legumes!
It is amazing how quickly all the available spaces in the garden are filling up with broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and the like.
Hundreds of seeds sown into soil blocks in the greenhouse looked like trays of chocolates in Willy Wonka’s factory. And now, as they are maturing into young seedlings, they stand proudly in their tidy rows, filling up dozens of beds we haven’t used yet this year – and dozens more that have held lettuces, beets, and carrots. It’s funny to find bits of carrots and parts of dill plants as we make our furrows for planting these fall wonders.
The cruciferous or brassica family includes mustards, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, kale, collards, pac choi, and many others.
I love the little, almost perfectly spherical seeds, especially the color variation from brick red to golden yellow to dusty purple. All these colors can exist within a single species and so as we plant them its like getting to know a class full of children. They are all the same age, around the same size, and love to grow! Each has its own personality though, and will have a few variations – sometimes three “seed leaves” develop and sometimes the edges of the leaves are tinted white. By the time it’s time to go into the field they are all essentially the same, but if you look closely you can see these distinguishing characteristics. Thank goodness we don’t have to remember their names!
In my own garden at home, I usually forget about sowing cruciferous seeds until September and by then it’s too late. Last week, my daughter Jaden and I planted short rows of each type of seed. We will transplant them as soon as they are big enough, probably in around 3 weeks. Today when we were harvesting corn we she said, “Mom! Come see this!” She was delighted to see that our seeds are growing well, each one a little different from the others.
We look forward to watching them grow and harvest them in October and make broccoli soup, cauliflower curry, and sauerkraut!
We often think of the smell, the texture, the color, and of course the taste of vegetables. But what about their sound? And if you had to describe that sound what words would you use? Here’s my attempt at relaying the sound of working with onions:
Do I hear a troupe of centipedes wearing rubber boots strolling through a dewy meadow?
Or rather a thousand tiny sailboats in a turtle marina all coming home for the night and as they dock the hulls briefly rub against the mooring?
I know, it’s a preschool class of teething field mice and they can’t resist easing their aching new incisors on a bit of rubber band left in the field from bunching chard.
Surely the leaves of this paramount veggie are important, but most often we see onions without them. During the spring and early summer we saw these grass-like leaves growing, and as we weeded the leaves rubbed against each other, sounding very much like tiny bits of rubber being chewed or squeaking against its self. All season the leaves have given food to the bulbing part and then as we harvest the onions, they are cut off and make a strangely soft and cool mat on which to rest our knees.
Since the leaves are long gone, composting back into the soil by the time we enjoy eating the onions, I thought I’d give you a auditory walk through this all encompassing allium. I raise my glass, or rather my water bottle, to the leaves of onions!
What do you do when you have too many cucumbers? Make pickles! This past Wednesday evening seven of us from the farm made 38 jars of pickles from some of the delicious Tasty Jade cucumbers.
I was late since I needed to go home and pick up all my canning supplies and my family. When we got there slicing had been under way for an hour and every bowl had been filled. I thought, “Wow! I sure hope we have enough jars to fit all these into!” And of course, as we made the Dill & Garlic plus the Bread & Butter brines and began to fill jars they did indeed (thankfully!) all fit.
We also decided to make a cucumber kim chee. These are still fermenting and I will be adding the spices very soon. I’ll jar them up on Saturday afternoon and I’ll guess it will bring our total to at least 50 jars!
It’s so wonderful to have an abundant harvest and also great friends to share the work with. From seed, to plant, to harvest, to preparing, and finally to eating. This is my favorite thing about working with food: there’s always something yummy to look forward to!
I’ve gotten a number of questions lately about how to keep various vegetables from wilting in the refrigerator. People are often surprised to find carrots wobbly and soft after several days in the fridge, not to mention the condition of lettuce or chard after the same period of time.
Remember – most vegetables are very high in water content. The chilly air in a refrigerator is very dry, and sucks moisture out of all produce (even beets will get wilted!).
However, since our vegetables are picked so fresh, they should keep a very long time for you in the refrigerator….IF you make sure to keep that moisture contained! For most items, that simply means putting them in a tightly-sealed plastic bag or sealed container and trying to make sure most of the air is removed.
Plastic bags can be used over and over again for various vegetables, and you’ll find that even our fresh lettuces will keep upwards of two weeks in this manner! Carrots stay crispy, chard stays puffy and brilliant, you get the idea!
This is truly the beginning of the summer squash season. Last week there were a few, but now every day we’re picking more and more of these summer-long delights. Last night we enjoyed some grilled zucchini and patty pan squash. Even Enid, our two year old, loved it! There are many recipes we love to use squash for: raw with dip or hummus, zucchini bread, stuffed patty pan, and at the end of the season when they are growing faster than we can keep up we make Zu-canoes!
To make a zu-canoe take a zucchini, top cut off and seeds scooped out. Fill it with breadcrumbs, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Then bake till it’s tender. The best part of this way to use summer squash is the fact that it’s alright if the squash is as long as your arm or as big as your new born baby. (A friend actually brought us one when Jaden was born and we ate it for a week!)
A friend recently reminded me of a lesson she heard upon moving to a rural area. She asked a close neighbor if she worried about locking her car at night. The neighbor answered, “Only in August.” “August? Why only then?” she wondered. “If you don’t,” her neighbor replied, “You’ll go out to your car in the morning, ready to go to work, and find it filled with zucchinis!”
We promise we won’t bring summer squash to your house in the middle of the night. But we do hope that as well as pulling out the old recipes, you will learn new ways to enjoy:
Dunja – a flavorful, smooth skinned green zucchini Costata Romanesco – a ribbed, green and white stripped zucchini Soleil – a yellow variation of zucchini Yellow Scallopini – a mottled green and yellow patty-pan type
Want to try a new idea for a crabcake-like flavor? As a native Marylander, no summer is complete without Old Bay seasoning. But it is not just for crabs; we add it to soup, corn on the cob, potato salad, and french fries. (And yes, we even like it on our ice cream.) During my 10-year stint as a vegetarian, I came upon this recipe and found that not only is it easy to make, but also that everyone in my family loves it!
Zucchini “Crab Cakes”
3 cups grated zucchini, water drained if necessary
1 cup bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1 egg (optional)
1 Tbsp Old Bay
Mix together thoroughly. Heat a skillet to medium high. Make patties and place into pan. They will not hold form so do not make more than fit in a pan at one time. Toast both sides to medium brown.
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What do you do when you have too many cucumbers? Make pickles! This past Wednesday evening seven of us from the farm made 38 jars of pickles from some of the delicious Tasty Jade cucumbers.
It’s so wonderful to have an abundant harvest and also great friends to share the work with. From seed, to plant, to harvest, to preparing, and finally to eating. This is my favorite thing about working with food: there’s always something yummy to look forward to!
Remember – most vegetables are very high in water content. The chilly air in a refrigerator is very dry, and sucks moisture out of all produce (even beets will get wilted!).
This is truly the beginning of the summer squash season. Last week there were a few, but now every day we’re picking more and more of these summer-long delights. Last night we enjoyed some grilled zucchini and patty pan squash. Even Enid, our two year old, loved it! There are many recipes we love to use squash for: raw with dip or hummus, zucchini bread, stuffed patty pan, and at the end of the season when they are growing faster than we can keep up we make Zu-canoes!