As many have been challenged by recent economic issues, Morning Song Farm’s CSA program lost 25% of its supporters this last month. Wow! We sure are passionate about continuing our CSA program, but do need our local community’s support. I thought perhaps I should consider offering a Laguna Beach, Hungtington Beach or Orange drop off. If anyone has a friend or organization that might be interested in joining or hosting in those communities, please let us know.
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Greetings!
What a scorcher of a week! Fruit photo at right is a Fioja Guava. Some people slice long ways and scoop out the contents. I like the spicy skin and eat the whole thing. Try it both ways and see what you think. Photo at right is sage, which you’ll find in your baskets as well this week. The garlic is another heirloom, and is medium hot, and fairly easy to peel.
Garlic Butter:
Either churn your own butter like I do, or buy butter and toss a cube in the Cuisinart. Add a couple cloves of garlic and salt to taste. Puree. Remember that garlic adds “heat” to a dish, as well as the familiar garlicly taste that at least I’m addicted to. So add as many cloves as you like to your butter as it’s being pureed, but make sure you don’t overdo it. If you do, just add more butter.
Use the finished product on baked fish, as a dip with cheese and crackers, on toast in the morning, on your baked potato, or over steamed green beans,
Following is this week’s basket contents:
Sage
Limes
Heirloom Melon
Avocado (Reed)
Apples
Asian Pears
Jalapeno
Weird long, heirloom hot pepper, requires drying
Eggplant
Arugula
Radish
Carrots
Baby Swiss Chard
Fioja Guavas
Rosemary
Mint
Basil
Heirloom Garlic
Baby Lettuce (large baskets oly)
Head Lettuce
Green Onions
Cilantro
Beans
Okay, I admit I was less than enthusiastic about adding kale to my
baskets. I got so many requests, I thought I’d at least try it.
It looks light Swiss Chard, only tough; I thought. But you have to
try this simple preparation before dismissing kale: Chop up, boil with a little
salt in pan. Drain, chill. That’s right, chill it. Serve as a sidedish with a little goatcheese, crushed walnuts, drizzled olive oil and lime juice. If you tried doing that with Swiss Chard, you’d be disappointed but Kale keeps its shape even after steaming, so lends itself to a sort of
cooked salad. I think the taste is stronger than spinach or Swiss Chard,
but really delicious.
Of course you can serve it hot like you would Swiss chard or Bok Choy, but I think what makes Kale special is that you can eat it cold. I did try eating it raw. Don’t try that. I think Kale is too tough to eat raw. Just my opinion.
We could use some help with our new hoop house! We’re putting up a small hoop house in an area of the farm that burned completely down (no clearing necesssary). We’ve discovered that the tiny greenhouse on the hill isn’t big enough to keep the flow of flats going that we need for our row crops, so we’re adding a cheaper version closer to the fields. Called a “hoop house” it’s constructed by bending PVC pipes in an arch, attaching to rebar into the ground and then covering with plastic. It’s like a giant tinker-toy project covered with greenhouse plastic. No beauty queens, but they get the job done.
Anyway, it’s just been too darn hot to invite subscribers to enjoy our farm, but I would think by October it will have cooled considerably. Adults and teens only, as this is a work day. Bring a picnic lunch, closed toe shoes, sunscreen. For those who have never seen the farm, I’ll do a tour at 9:00 and start work right after, breaking for lunch around 12:00ish and wrapping up by 3:00.
Let me know if you’d like to participate: donna@morningsongfarm.com
It’s been suggested that I put the pick ticket up on my blog before we harvest, and I’d like to try doing that this week. The drawback is that sometimes our best laid plans are circumvented by harvest disappointments, or surprises, so pre-harvest tickets won’t be absolute. That said, here’s what we’re planning on this week:
Lettuce, kale, zuchini, bok choy, tomatoes, maybe the first of our apples, Asian pears, avocados, radishes, Swiss chard, hot peppers, cukes, limes, mint, maybe figs.
We’re planting brocoli, cauliflower, and kale in our little greenhouse this week and Swiss chard, radish, cilantro, beets and lettuces in the field. We should begin the macadamia harvest this month, so by mid-October I would think we’ll be putting our wonderful raw macadamias in our CSA baskets again.
I mentioned in a previous post that we’re nearing the finish line to offer our farmhouse for vacation rentals to our CSA membership. We have planned on welcoming our first guests starting the weekend of October 3rd. Price for CSA members is $250 a night, two night minimum, with a $100 cleaning fee which includes bed linens. I’m working on an activities book that guests can make reservations from, prior to their arrival. There’s a local Swedish and Deep Tissue Massuese that will come out to the farm with her table. Ever the diligent farmer, I have voluntered to submit to a massage this weekend to see if I should include her in my activities book. I’ll let you know! There’s also several wine tours, cheese tasting, olive oil tasting, ballooning over the wine country of Temecula (which is just one exit north) and antiquing. I also thought I’d try to reach my old spinning teacher, Lila Sturges, to see if she’d come out by appointment and give an individual class to guests that wanted to learn how to spin our llama fiber. The farmhouse has a spinning wheel, so Lila would only have to bring her know-how. There’s several casinos a short drive from the farm, so some of you might enjoy that. Also the Lawrence Welk Resort is just down the 15 from the farm, and I’ll include showdates and times in my activity book, as well.
That Parsley Isn’t Plate Decoration!
Many of my adventuresome supporters must have rolled their eyes when they saw the parsley in their baskets this week. But wait! Hear me out! I too, remember being told not to eat the Denny’s plate parsley as a child. It wasn’t to be consumed, it was just there to class the plate up a little. The logic escaped me then, and the value of parsley has been in question ever since.
But several people have said how they enjoy cooking with parsley, and the seed catalogs claim it’s easy to grow (true) so I thought we’d enjoy trying it out. Of course numerous thumbs’ down will affect next year’s seed buying forays, so don’t hold back if you hated it.
But first just try this recipe, which is so easy it hardly counts as a recipe. I made 2 cups of a brown rice (no bleached rice in my kitchen which really is a kissing cousin of the zero value Twinkie and Ding Dong). I chopped off the woody stem ends of the entire bunch of parsley and put half in the cuisinart and chopped. Then I did the other half. Don’t do all at once or you end up with parsley pesto, which is a different deal altogether. I then combined the cooked rice, one crushed clove of garlic, )okay the truth is I used 3, but I could live on garlic, so maybe most of you are going to want just one) all the parsley, a little salt to taste and some walnuts. I drizzled a little (maybe 2 teaspoons) of a really good olive oil from Temecula Olive Oil Company and chilled. That’s it. Even if you don’t serve it for dinner, you can keep it in the refrigerator for an amazing, nutritional snack. I prefer it served cold.
Here’s the pick ticket for this week:
Parsley
Kale (that’s the heavy duty looking green thing) It can be chopped up and cooked just like spinach
Lettuce Head
Beans
Avocados
Asian Pears
Cherry Tomatoes; red and yellow
Swiss Chard
Beets in large baskets only
Baby lettuce in large baskets only
Mint
Basil
Peaches (I think I should grow more of this particular tree; they aren’t super pretty, but sure are good!)
Limes
Heirloom Cukes
Jalapenos
By October or so, we will finally be able to offer our little farmhouse for weekend farm experience rentals. It has 3 bedrooms (2 heated) with a total of 4 queen beds. We had always planned on doing this, but have had maintenance issues that needed addressing. We’re almost there! Feed the llamas, gather eggs, walk the miles of trails that cut through our farm. You’re far enough away from the city to actually see the stars!
One exit away from the Temecula vineyards and numerous golf destinations, there’s plenty to do for everyone. Temecula has a wonderful craft/food/farmer fair on Saturdays in the middle of their Old Town section of town. While you’re in Old Town check out Temecula Olive Oil Company’s tasting room. Farmers themselves, the olives for their oil is pressed from their own harvest. They actually have a CSA program just for their oil that may interest some of you.
There’s plenty of antique shops, candy stores, a magic store my own kids love, several restaurants, a Winchester Cheese store you won’t want to miss and lots more.
We’re happily pumping from our new water source, the well we successfully drilled months ago is operational. Before we had over 30 valves to cover the east portion of the farm, now it’s down to 2 valves. Water pressure is outstanding! Work load is reduced! We’re giving our beautiful macadamia trees more water than they’ve ever had, and the crop looks excellent. We should begin harvest in earnest end of next month or early October.
The clunker of a Kabota tractor we inherited isn’t working yet, but we plan to get it fixed. I can’t believe how much even a used crummy tractor costs, so this one will have to be repaired. It looks more like it has more value as scrap than anything else, but we’ve been told it can be fixed. Meanwhile we rented a nice one from the rental yard and tilled the rented acreage next door for our winter plantings.
The summer has proved to be pleasant! No heat waves since May. Would love to invite interested parties to a weeding event end of August. E mail me at donna@morningsongfarm.com if you or your over-12 child would like to volunteer. We sure could use the help.