admine9519, Author at Morning Song Farm - Page 43 of 44

We had a witcher come out to the farm this weekend and douse. If I’d known how cool it was to watch him, I’d have made a party out of it and invited everyone to tag along. He used an obviously well-worn prong and walked along until the prong swung down on its own, indicating water. We walked back and forth across a couple separate areas until he found what he explained is the center of the vein, which is where a well should be drilled. We’ve contracted him to drill a well for us. There is no guarantee he’ll actually hit water, but the alternative is cutting down 1/3 of our trees, so we’re drilling. And praying.

This is a very busy month for us! We’re planting both the shell peas and the pod peas, along with more garlic (lot’s more). Last year we mistakenly cut the new green sprigs of our garlic when it reached 12 inches, thinking the garlic would just grow another sprig. It did, grudgingly. The cloves aren’t as big as they should be, so this year I researched how to specifically grow Garlic Chives. They’re planted with the intention of eating them before they’ve grown into a new clove, and are spaced tightly, like seeding the row for beets. We ordered an enormous quantity of seed to try our hand at growing this delicacy correctly this year.

We’re also preparing the soil for our regular garlic and potato planting. And then the usual: more lettuces, (now that’s it’s cool they’ll be easier to grow), brocolli, more beets (this time we’re trying an heirloom yellow beet), more chives, shallots.

I’m writing this before I actually know if anything’s gone wrong during harvest, but here’s our tenative list for baskets:

• The last of our Russian Garlic
• Mint
• Rosemary
• Limes
• Pakistani Sweet Lemon
• Persimmons
• Swiss Chard
• Fioja Guava
• Beets
• Radish
• Lettuce
• Oranges
• Pommegranates
• Baby Cukes
• French Melons

This week we’re putting a little something in your basket that at first glance fails to impress. It’s the weird looking lemon thing with a little hat on top. That’s our Pakistani Sweet Lemon. Although the juice of the fruit is usable, it’s not very sour. Where the jewell of this fruit lies is in its skin. The peel will impart a scented-geranium scent to baked goods and more. Here’s how to use it easily: grate the entire fruit using a potato peeler, sharp knife or cheese grater. Throw in your Cuisinart or high-speed blender (I use a Vitamix) and add sugar. Blend. Let sit overnight in the fridge. Then use in baked goods, lemonade (limeade this week). It makes a killer sugar cookie.

Another easy use: grate and mix with lime juice, (you can use the juice of the Pakistani Sweet Lemon, too) good quality olive oil, salt little rosemary, a little bit of water (I actually use ice) and blend. It’s a salad dressing with ingredients that appreciative guests have a hard time putting their finger on.

The other fruit new on the scene is the Wonderful Pommegranite. Here’s how we were told, years ago, to avoid getting ourselves completely stained in the process of extracting the delicious, shiny juice pods: cut fruit in half. Place in sink or bowl of water and gently pry the fruit away from the skin, keeping the fruit completely emerged in water as you work. You can put the pretty juicy seeds directly on top of salads (swallowing the tiny seeds) or you can throw all your seeds (now separated from the rind) in your blender with just enough water or juice to make the blades work. Then sieve the gunk out, and enjoy pure pommegranite juice. This juice makes an incredible sorbet: freeze juice, add sugar, put in blender, serve. Top with a pretty sprig of mint.

Tuesday baskets are ready to be picked up after 2:00 at the farm, and after 4:00 in San Clemente. Wednesday’s baskets are ready to be picked up after 5:00 in Costa Mesa and Santa Ana. Enjoy!

It’s 9 a.m. Tuesday morning and we’re mid-harvest today for Tuesdays baskets, so this list is tenative. But here’s what we have on our harvest ticket for baskets this week:

• Our fabulous melons
• Carrots
• Cilantro
• Baby Cukes
• Young Head of Lettuce
• Radish
• Swiss Chard
• Baby Bok Choi -Looks like a very small head of Swiss Chard. Tastes a little stronger. Can be cooked like spinach, or Swiss Chard. Also good in a quiche.
• Green Onion bunches
• Rosemary
• Basil, purple Thai
• Basil, green Italian
• Persimmon – looks like a flat tomato, can be eaten out of hand
• Beans (maybe)
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Oranges
• Fioja Guavas – has a dusty green color, will scent your kitchen if you leave it on the counter

Really Bad News from The Rainbow Water District

This just in: All farms in the Rainbow Water District that participate in the agricultural rate program have been ordered to reduce their water use by a whopping 30% or face staggering fines. (Morning Song Farm’s water bill for September was $2500. The fine, as discussed, would double the bill) Organic family farms that have already been practicing mulching, composting, and micro irrigation don’t have any way to reduce their water usage any more than they already have. So everyone’s talking about which trees they’re going to cut down. Ax the avos, or the macadamias? Everyone agrees: keep the cactus! Surprisingly, new building permits continue to be issued, and residential users aren’t affected by these mandates. Just farms. The pending loss of a third of the fruiting trees in an entire geographic region in a single year has got to be a new low for family farms in California’s drought-stressed frost-free growing areas.

This just landed in my e-mail box:

Mandatory Pasteurization of Almonds as of September 1st, 2007 has taken effect.

From now on it’s impossible, in fact, illegal, to get raw Almonds in the United States. Nuts sold as “raw” are not actually raw any more, but processed. Here’s what Jason Sinclaire has to say on that subject:

“Truly raw almonds, with their enzymes intact, are a living, nutrition-packed food. Raw almonds that have been soaked and sprouted are nutritionally superior food to heated almonds, and are more easily assimilated in the digestive
process. Heating almonds over 112 degrees destroys their enzymes, and greatly
diminishes their nutritional value. Heating also leads to rancidity of nuts.”

Every almond sold commercially from here on out has to be pasteurized. Also, let’s keep an eye on almond pricing, because almond growers are now required by law to truck their almonds to one of five just-built USDA approved pasteurization facilities in California and then back to their packing facilities on-farm, at their own expense.

As a grower of macadamia nuts whose primary market has for years been to raw foodists, this law is a huge concern. What might be next? Macadamias? Maybe limes?