May 27 - week 1

(photo from a pretty day in March when we were spreading compost on the fields...)

Red Springs Family Farm

May 27, 2010, week 1

Lettuces Yokatta Na Dried tomatoes

Leeks Garlic Scapes Cilantro/coriander

Herb bag: Arugula Sorrel

Oregano Lemon Balm Radishes

Welcome to the new garden season!

We’re excited to get things going, and looking forward to a good season. Thank you for joining us. Please take a look at our Membersip Information page. Some of you have been with us for awhile, and a few of you are completely new. It doesn’t matter – please read it.

General garden report… We’re feeling so fortunate to still have a garden, and a garden doing as well as it is, after the intensity of this Spring’s weather. A piece of one of our bean rows was lost in a large temporary rain pond, as was the majority of the spinach. The first planted spring garden took a good hit in the flood (radishes, arugula, spinach, peas), so pardon the sparse and sometimes split radishes. We’re doing an experiment with early tomatoes this year, and so far they’re looking good. They’re covered in blooms, as are the tomatillos. Basil is still warming up in the ground, but as long as the weather stays warm and moderately moist, it will grow rapidly.

We’re in a period of rapid growth and big work right now. The ground is finally warm and dry enough to plant EVERYTHING. Eggplants and sweet potatoes have been planted into the big garden in the last couple days. The first planting of corn is up and the tomatoes are in. We divide our time between planting, and hoeing, and soon it will be time to mulch it all in.

Coming attractions… Swiss Chard, Kohlrabi, Day Lilies, Gobo. Green beans and peas are blooming. Onions are swelling in the field. The garlic will be peaking and beginning its slow underground curing process soon. Those of you who have been with us awhile might be wondering – where are all the scapes? We’ve got a very nice looking garlic crop this year, but our experience is taking more in the direction of soft-neck garlics, which don’t make those pretty curly seed heads we’ve usually enjoyed in Spring. So, we have a few, but not too many. We’ll be anticipating some good looking fresh garlic late in June, tho!

In your basket this week…

Lettuces are Black Seeded Simpson and Kagraner Sommer. Simpson is a classic early lettuce with trademark neon green ruffled leaves. Kagraner is a butterhead. Spring lettuces are reliably soft and silky. We hope you’ll enjoy your new spring salads as much as we have this year.

Sorrel is the bright arrow-shaped leaf with a bright lemony flavor. Take a bite and you’ll know without a doubt. Arugula is spicier, darker green, more tender leaf. Both are salad stand-bys in our house, though a peak through a few cookbooks will reveal more uses for both.

Yokatta Na! The words translate loosely from Japanese as “That was good!” It’s an Asian green with round dark leaves and long green stems. It’s mustardy, but not bitingly so. Chop the leaves and stems into a stir fry, or cut them fine for use in a salad. Get your vitamin green!

The dainty white flowers are the blooms of cilantro. We tend to think of cilantro primarily in Mexican dishes, but it’s actually an extremely hardy plant with Asian roots. What you’re receiving today is our last planting of cilantro from LAST FALL. It stayed alive in the garden all winter without cover. It was just about the only uncovered plant that survived, and seems to have thrived, through that intense cold and snow. When the flowers mature to seeds, we could call them coriander. Whatever we call them, they’re flavorful as a salad addition, garnish on Indian or Mexican dishes, or in a marinade.

These Leeks are our other winter garden survivor this year. We will keep trying to grow leeks, and one day we will really have great success. These do not look like leeks from the store, but they still taste wonderful. I’ve made perfectly fine vichyssoise from them, completely ignoring the advice to use only the white part of the plant. We don’t use the blades of the leaves (except in making stock, which is key to good soup), but the entirety of the stem, as long as it is relatively tender, is good to eat.

Oregano is so good fresh. It enhances breads, beans, mushrooms, potatoes, squash, tomatoes, and eggs, and is classic in pizzas and pastas, Mexican and Greek foods. If you can’t use it all, dry it or freeze it.

These dried tomatoes came from last year’s crop of Principe Borghese tomatoes. They’re a little Italian heirloom variety bred specially for drying. We think they’re like candy. You can re-constitute them in hot water for a few minutes then throw them into pasta salad or the like. We enjoy a few in a pot of beans for good flavor. This recipe sounds great too:

Lemon Balm and Sun-Dried Tomato Tapenade

2 Tbsp sunflower seeds 8 oil-packed (or not) sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

1 medium red onion, diced, rinsed in cold water ½ cup chopped kalamata olives

½ cup extra virgin olive oil 3-4 anchovy filets, chopped (opt.)

3-4 Tbsp. chopped fresh lemon balm freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon

1 Tbsp capers salt and fresh ground pepper

1) Toast sunflower seeds in a dry heavy skillet until lightly browned and fragrant. Cool.

2) Combine tomatoes, onion, olives, olive oil, anchovies, lemon balm, lemon juice, and capers in a medium bowl; toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3) Chop or coarsely grind sunflower seeds (do not overprocess) and stir them into the mix. Cover and refrigerate to let the flavors blend for at least 30 minutes before serving.

To use our tomatoes in this recipe, just soak them in boiling water until they are plump and juicy. Rinsing the red onion takes away some of its bite – nice trick. This will work as a salad topper, with cream cheese on crackers, and on grilled veggies, fish, chicken, or beans.

If that sounds too weird for you – use your lemon balm to make a delicious iced tea, sweetened with just a dab of honey.

Enjoy your salad. We look forward to seeing you with more goodies next week.

To your good health… The Entwistles

"Nothing exists for its own sake, but for a harmony greater than itself which includes it." ~Wendell Berry

Membership Information

Red Springs Family Farm

Community Supported Agriculture

Membership Information

Here’s what you need to know about your vegetable deliveries.

We commit to a twenty week season of deliveries, with an Autumn extension for those who love the cool weather crops. When you register, we anticipate that you will remain with us for the entire season. Please give us notice if you need to withdraw.

Deliveries are each Thursday throughout the season.

We will be at the Cookeville Farmer’s Market Pavilion (1^st and Mahler) from 4 to 6 pm.

At the pick up, you can help us break the bag habit by bringing your own bags, baskets, or coolers to hold your veggies. We will also be glad to take your clean used plastic grocery bags to re-use.

If you foresee that you will be out of town or unable to make it to a pick up, please let us know as soon as possible. The best thing you can do is reach out to a friend or neighbor and share your veggies with them that week. If no one is available to take your basket, then you can also choose to donate it to the Genesis House Women’s Shelter (www.genesishouseinc.com). We need at least day’s notice to let them know to pick up. If it is a great financial hardship for you to lose a basket, we will work with you to credit the value of that basket forward into the season. This is our last preference, as it makes more paperwork and recordkeeping for us. We’d rather be in the garden.

Veggies: All of our veggies are field grown and will likely contain some grit, insects or possibly other stuff that you are likely to find outdoors. Please wash your veggies to remove anything that you don’t want to eat. We will sometimes include specific vegetable storage information in the weekly newsletters.

Besides the selection of veggies grown here at home, we’re glad to be forming partnerships with a couple of other local producers. Seasonal organic berries will be available starting at the end of June through Hidden Springs Orchard (www.hiddenspringsorchard.com), and artisanal cheese will be available by order on the first pick up of each month from Kenny’s Country Cheese (www.kennyscheese.com). Consider your fruit and cheese needs and think about making a standing order, if that’s appropriate for your household.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a concept used to help people connect with food, farms, and farmers. Each CSA is as individual as its farm and growers. No two are alike, and there many ways to organize and coordinate them.

As your growers, we keep open doors to you. You, the eaters, are our best organic inspectors, our best critics, and hopefully our biggest fans. You are always welcome to visit the farm (please give us notice so we can be sure to be home). We live simply. Our home is off-the-grid, small, and integrally intertwined with our working lives. There’s a lovely creek to cool off and play in flowing right by, and Lulah is always glad to have company (bring the kids!). We love to share a cup of tea and slice of life with you.

We also do our very best to inform you about our practices and experiences in the field. Each year, each season, is different. There are usually great crop successes, and a few failures as well. When you sign up for a CSA, you agree to ride the waves of the season, accepting the ebbs and flows of the harvest as they come, as if this is a garden that you have grown yourself.

Though we have, so far, maintained a method of valuing each basket of produce, we do not think of you as week-to-week customers, and we hope you will begin to think of your food seasonally as well. Your food is yours from seed to flower, while it’s in the ground, growing, and waiting for you to pick it up at the market. You pay to keep the farm growing, and we bring you dividends in the form of the farm’s produce each week.

Payment options for your CSA membership are flexible. We ask for a quarterly (5 weeks) payment up front. This is $100 ($20 per week) for a smaller share, or $150 ($30 per week) for a larger share. You may also pay for the entire season in one lump sum. If neither of these options fits your budget, we will still work with you. We ask that you stay at least one week ahead in payments. This way, you have an incentive to pick up your food, and we have “crop insurance” in the form of your investment. We will keep track of your attendance and send a reminder when your next payment is due.

Thank you for participating in this year’s harvest. We look forward to sharing the season with you. Please give us feedback so we can grow an open conversation around this good food.

New Season Registration Open!

Happy New Year!

We're thinking Spring thoughts, even as the Winter rain, freeze, and muck holds us indoors a great deal more than we're accustomed.

Please let us know if you'll be joining us...

We'll post more updates soooooooon.

with best regards,

The Entwistles

Lack of newsletters 18, 19, and 20

Well, we're having some technical difficulties these past two weeks that are making it challenging to post these final few newsletters. Our apologies. If I can retrieve them and get them up here in the future I will.

Meanwhile, we're excited to be heading off to the great big chilly neighbor country - Canada - to see colors in the trees, frost on the ground, family and old friends.

No deliveries October 15.

We'll be back on the 22nd - and will try to remember your basil then, too. Look for an email.

Have a great week!

Yours,

Paul, Coree, and Lulah

Red Springs Family Farm

September 17, 2009, Week #17

Vegetable medley:

Lettuce Green Beans Garlic

Summer squash Sweet Pepper Cucumber

Acorn squash Swiss Chard Okra/Tomatillos

Melon or tomato Herb bag: Basil Arugula Parsley

Well, it’s a good day for ducks. Your leafy greens today will need a good washing, tho they’ve been washed well in the field over the last few days. We’ve received over three inches of rain, and it is still falling. This tropical remnant seems to have parked in our region.

We hope that this new Farmer’s Market works out well. It’s exciting to change, and nice to be able to spread out. We are grateful to New Century Books for supporting us over the past three years. It was a great incubation. Lulah can still be found over there with her Momo, if you want to go visit, browse, and support local business. We do encourage that.

We’ve done a lot of growing this year, besides all the veggies. We outgrew our old truck, and outgrew the veggie nook in the bookstore. We’ve utilized almost every patch of arable land on our property now, too. What will we grow into next?

If you take the time to look, you can see what a predicament we are in over our tomatoes. It’s sad. From the edge of the garden, looking at the row, there seem to be some pretty red blushing tomatoes. But upon closer examination, they’re all damaged by the blight. To add insult to injury, now most of them have split from the excess rain. When it dries up enough, we’ll probably quit torturing ourselves and just take them OUT. It will be a sad relief.

Summer crops are on fast decline now. The good news is that the Fall crops look great. As long as the seeds and baby seedlings survive this hurricane, there will be a nice selection of herbs and greens to come for the fall.

Acorn squashes, yummmmmmmy. This variety is called Paydons. It is an heirloom that some friends of ours grew last year. It looked good and has proved up well by us, out-producing the standard Table Queen variety in both size and number. If you’re not sure what to do with acorn squash, the answer is NOT TOO MUCH. Our experience is that their nutty flavor and creamy texture doesn’t need much help. Some basics and a recipe included below.

You will be seeing more winter squash in the baskets to come. These tips apply to all of them. Store winter squash in a cool, dry, dark place with good ventilation. Acorn squash will keep for a few months. Butternuts and pumpkins will keep for 6 months or more, thought their taste peaks in mid-winter. Once squash has been cut, you can wrap the pieces in plastic and refrigerate them for five to seven days. To make it easier to prep winter squash for your recipe, try the pre-baking method: pierce the squash to allow heat to escape while it is in the oven, then bake the squash whole at 350° F until it is just barely tender to the poke of the finger, 20 to 30 minutes. This softens the shell and makes cutting and peeling much easier.

To get more specific, acorns are among the easiest to handle of the winter squashes. They don’t take too long to bake. They’re not terribly difficult to cut. They’re not overwhelmingly LARGE. So, take your squash, cut it in half lengthwise, spoon out the seeds, and plop it into a baking pan with ½ inch of water in the bottom. Bake in a medium oven until the squash pokes completely soft (1/2 an hour or so?). Let it cool abit then turn the squash over, dress with butter, salt and pepper, or just butter and a little cinnamon. The squash keeps well in the fridge once baked. It can be a nice quick fix to just scrape out the cold baked squash flesh into a hot pan with some butter or oil, seasoned to your liking. Hope you will enjoy.

If you want something unique, try this:

Acorn Squash Salad from The Real Dirt on Vegetables

2 medium acorn squash ½ cup olive oil

1/3 cup fresh cilantro 6 Tbsp orange or tangerine juice

3 Tbsp maple syrup 2 Tbsp minced candied ginger (1 Tbsp fresh raw sub)

½ tsp salt 1/8 tsp cayenne

Salad greens, washed, dried, and lightly dressed in olive oil

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2) Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place the squash halves cut sides down on a baking sheet. Bake until tender, 30-45 minutes. Cool completely, scoop out eh soft flesh, and roughly chop. Place the squash in a bowl and set aside.

3) Combine the olive oil, cilantro, orange juice, maple syrup, ginger, salt and cayenne in a blender or food processor. Blend well.

4) Pour the dressing over the squash and toss gently. Chill for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to combine. Serve on a bed of lightly dressed greens.

And, to re-introduce cooking greens, here’s a nice idea that could probably be used with several kinds of cooking greens:

CHARD ENCHILADAS

2 tbsp. canola oil 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1 onion, peeled and chopped 4 cups chard, coarsely chopped

1 tbsp. butter 1 tbsp. flour

1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated

6 corn tortillas 1/2 cup hot salsa

Preheat oven to 375 F. Heat oil; saute garlic and onion until golden. Add chard (in small amounts) until it is cooked down. Make a bechamel sauce: melt butter, stir in flour, add milk and cheese. Stir until thick, then mix into cooked greens. Fill center of each tortilla, roll up, place in lightly oiled baking dish. Spread salsa over all; bake in hot oven for 25 minutes.

Recipe developed by Ellen Ogden. In "The Cook's Garden" catalog. Vol. 8, No. 1. Spring/Summer 1991. Pg. 7.

Next week we may be sending out the first of the butternuts. More white potatoes to come, and cooking greens, too. Hopefully another small run of green beans.

Thanks for your support. Eat well and be well.

Paul, Coree, and Lulah Entwistle

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

~Michael Pollan

Newsletter #16

Red Springs Family Farm

September 10, 2009, Week #16

Oops - forgot to post this last week!

Vegetable medley:

Lettuce Green Beans Garlic

Summer squash Sweet Peppers Cucumbers

Potatoes Eggplant Okra/Hot peppers

Herb bag: Basil Cilantro Arugula Green Onions Parsley

Well, we got our anniversary wish – while we were in town doing veggie delivery, an inch and a half of rain fell on the gardens. By the looks of things, it fell pretty fast, but we won’t complain. Another inch fell Sunday night. It feels good out here.

We are officially in the September slump. We are sad to not be bringing in ANY tomatoes, but glad to see the eggplants are trickling their production out just a little bit further. Fall greens are up and growing, but not quite appropriate to harvest. Most summer crops are waning, particularly dramatically this year with excess insect infestations and blight from the wet cool spring and summer. Nevertheless, the lettuce has turned beautiful again, and there’s always something thriving.

Ah – an update on last week’s pear recipe – rose petal wine comes from southern France. Bordeaux will work to cook with the pears, just let the sugar and spices take over.

The herb bag is diverse this week. We finally succeeded with a stand of cilantro. We love cilantro, but it has proved elusive this season. One crop dried up, another got pounded by rain. This one has finally made enough beautiful shiny leaves to enjoy. Arugula is beginning. This is just the first little pick. We’ll look forward to sending these pungent tangy soft leaves to you for the rest of the season. The basil has completely outgrown us. Trim down the flowers – their taste is bitter to us. If you haven’t made pesto yet, please consider it.

FABULOUS YUMMY MARINADE
This marinade can be used to marinate tofu and meats, as a sauce for noodles or rice, and as a dressing for a green salad.

5 tbsp. vegetable oil 1/3 cup packed fresh cilantro with stems
1/4 cup fresh lime juice 1/4 cup tamari soy sauce
1 inch fresh ginger in ¼ in. slices 6 lg. cloves garlic
1 1/2 tbsp. ground cumin 1 small jalapeno or other chile (optional)

Combine and blend all ingredients together in a food processor or blender until the chile, garlic, ginger and cilantro are finely chopped.

LINGUINE WITH ARUGULA, PINE NUTS AND PARMESAN CHEESE

1 lb. Linguine 1/2 cup olive oil
4 oz. arugula, trimmed 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted 1-2 cloves fresh garlic, or to taste

Additional freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Cook linguine in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add arugula and stir until just wilted, about 30 seconds. Remove from heat.

Drain pasta and return to pot. Add arugula and toss well. Add 1 cup Parmesan and salt and pepper to taste; toss well. Transfer to bowl. Sprinkle with pine nuts. Serve immediately, passing additional Parmesan separately. Serves 6.

Entwistle’s favorite one-pot-wonder meal

An onion or two, sliced, and maybe a clove or two of garlic

Family-sized portion of white potatoes, chopped to comfortable fork-sized chunks

As many green beans as you want to eat in a sitting, washed and snapped

A summer squash or two, sliced or cut into chunks

And maybe a sweet pepper, sliced

Olive oil and/or butter salt and pepper

Heat olive oil and butter in a large skillet with a good lid. Saute the onions until they are translucent and sweet. Add the potatoes and green beans, all at once, with a little water so that they steam instead of fry. Sprinkle on some salt, stir the beans, potatoes, and onions together, turn down the heat and cover the pan. Check the pan frequently to make sure the potatoes aren’t sticking and see how things are coming along. When the potatoes are almost done, add the peppers and summer squash. Add garlic, any other herbs you’d like (parsley is nice here), and a sprinkle of pepper, now as well. Cover the pan again and cook just a few more minutes. Turn off the heat, keep the lid on a couple minutes longer. Serve with a little more butter or oil. A sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan cheese can be excellent on this dish as well.

This week we enjoyed the company of some of our farmer companions and their interns for a farm tour. We have agreed to share this sort of time once a month – rotating to one another’s farms, giving us insight into each other’s operations, and giving interns (which we don’t have yet) a chance to see other ways that farms work. You might imagine, it’s a little nerve wracking to prepare for the company of our peers, but the event was very pleasant. We walked the gardens, chatting about what went right and what went wrong, then sat in the yard for a demonstration of our seed saving projects. The kids played like the wild little critters they are, and we had a great pot luck dinner at the end of the day. Before this program was implemented, it was rare for us to see our farmer friends during the growing season. Farmers’ socials are too rare. We’re grateful for the company of friends.

A few of you have been inquiring as to the duration of our season. We committed in the Spring to make 20 continuous deliveries. This is our 16^th. Our final delivery of the main season will be October 8. We will go to Canada for a break and a visit with Paul’s family, and come back for a few more weeks of greens, squash, and sweet potatoes until around Thanksgiving. If you love kale, collards, Chinese cabbages, butternut squashes, and the like, you’ll want to stick around. If you’re really just here for tomatoes and cucumbers, then we’ll understand if your interest wanes.

Next week, we anticipate sending, more green beans, swiss chard, more acorn squashes, and hopefully the last few eggplant as well.

Keep in touch and enjoy your piece of the harvest.

Paul, Coree, and Lulah Entwistle

“The kinds of plants best suited to domestication are those that thrive in an open and disturbed habitat, like a farm; that grow rapidly and splendidly; and that make seeds in abundance. These also are traits of weeds. So crops and weeds are shadows of one another, and it is an irony of farming that the farmer must work so hard at this shadow play.

It is not just eh vegetable beds that need cultivating. The farmer must also cultivate himself, for he too has his weedy tendencies. He has to be vigilant at chopping out those coarse and hairy thoughts that threaten to overwhelm more tender notions, and at uprooting bitter and prickly attitudes that make him unfit for the table. Like weeding the beds, this is a task that will never be finished.” ~Mike Madison, from Blithe Tomato

Newsletter Week #15

Red Springs Family Farm
September 3, 2009, Week #15

Vegetable medley:
Lettuce Tomatoes Garlic
Summer squash Sweet Peppers Acorn Squash
Cucumbers Last tiny Beets Green Beans
Herb bag: Basil Celery Oregano

Today is the Entwistles’ five year wedding anniversary. Some of you were there for the event itself – thank you for being part of our lives! Excuse us please for not making much of a newsletter. We’re in need of a rain for an anniversary gift. This is the last of the beets, cleaning out the beet row. More eggplant to come next week. First of the winter squash – Yippeeee! They’re really yummy.

Here’s one beautiful pear recipe from Cella. If anyone figures out where to get dry rose wine, please let me know.

Rose Pears
Combine in saucepan, boil, and then simmer @ medium heat uncovered until pears are soft, 30-60 minutes, depending on ripeness:

8 pears, peeled but retaining stem bottle of dry rose wine

12 cinnamon sticks 16 cloves

1 c. sugar water to cover (but no more than wine amount

Serve at room temperature.

ON A DAY WHEN THE WIND IS PERFECT (from Rumi)

On a day

when the wind is perfect,the sail just needs to open

and the world is full of beauty.

Today is such a day.

My eyes

are like the sun that makes promises;

the promise of life

that it always

keeps each morning.

The living heart

gives to us as does that luminous sphere,

both caress the earth with great

tenderness.

This is a breeze that can enter the soul.

This love I know plays a drum.

Arms move around me;

who can contain their self before this beauty?

Peace is wonderful,

but ecstatic dance is more fun, and less narcissistic;

gregarious He makes our lips.

On a day

when the wind is perfect,

the sail just needs to open

and the love starts.

Today is such

a day.