What is our new strategy to fight our biggest pest? Find out after these brief messages!
We are open for on-farm pick-up and will be delivering boxes on July 4th. For drop site people, If you will not be picking up your box that day please let us know so that we don’t pack and deliver your box. You can also come out to the farm later in the week and pick-up your share if you’d like. For on-farm pick-up people, if you want to switch to a different pick-up day that week please let us know. We can be pretty flexible as long as we have the data!
A reminder to on-farm picker-uppers: If you are running late or can’t make it to your usual pick-up day/time you have a number of options. First, you can come to a different pick-up day. Second, you can text me and let me know when you will be able to make it. I can then pack a bag of veggies for you and leave them in the pick-up tent for you to pick up at your convenience. I can also store the bag overnight and put it out the next day, say for example you can’t make it to a Friday pick-up but could run by on Saturday. If you ever want to do this just text me and let me know who you are (I don’t have everyone’s phone number in my phone) and when you plan to grab your produce. You must text me before the close of our open hours for me to pack your share (6:00 T, Th and F, and 11:30 am W).
The first week of the harvest season went fairly well. Just a few no-shows and only a couple of glitches. It is surprising how complicated we’ve made this business.
Farm News
As frequent readers of this newsletter know, we are in a constant and ever increasing battle with deer. As more of the property around here gets developed into housing the deer increasingly proliferate. This past week a deer stood nearby watching me as I hilled the potatoes. Seemed like it had no fear of me or the tractor; more like a fascination of what I was doing. Then on Sunday a fawn was bedded down next to our water spigot just feet from our house. I think I was the more startled of the two of us. What we need are a few more cougars and wolf packs to balance out the ecosystem.
Over the years we’ve tried many different approaches to solve the deer problem. We tried ignoring it and that worked for a few years but then stopped. We tried fishing-line fencing. That worked for a year or two then stopped. We tried a stinky concoction of rotten eggs. That didn’t work at all. We tried plastic mesh with hoops holding it over the plants. This works but made working with the plants difficult. We tried an eight-foot high, temporary fence. This worked until a deer got stuck in it and dragged the fence several hundred feet away. Then when we reset the fence the deer seemed to realize it wasn’t very strong and they just walked right through it so it stopped working.
This year I got to thinking that the deer always seemed to eat our edamame (soybeans) but not the soybeans across the road. They eat our corn but not the corn across the road. I surmised that maybe ours just tasted that much better. But why? And more importantly, how can I get ours to taste bad — but just temporarily until we harvest it and give it to our members?
My hypothesis is that the across the road plants being raised on chemicals made them taste funky to deer. So why not spray our plants with chemicals? This should deter them? But not wanting to use synthetic chemicals, which we don’t want to ingest, made it difficult. Plus spraying our crops with Roundup would kill the crops — but I suppose it would solve the deer problem!
But that isn’t what we are all about. We grow organically. So synthetic chemicals are out. But is there something else in our arsenal we could use? And then it hit me. Fish emulsion is stinky and I suspect unpalatable to deer. Plus it is a fertilizer and organic! So off I went spraying all the deer susceptible plants with fish emulsion.
And the results? Mixed. On the positive side it seemed to dramatically reduce the deer damage on the crops we sprayed — the crops the deer preferred. But it pushed them to eat the crops they have never eaten before. They ate 189 pepper plants once they found the peas weren’t tasty. The second problem is it take a lot of time to spray everything. Based on the first problem we have to spray basically the whole farm to prevent deer damage. And that could take all day. The third problem is sometimes it rains — even a little bit can wash off the emulsion. Another problem is the plants grow so even if it doesn’t rain there are parts of the plant that never got fished. And finally, we discovered beans react badly to being sprayed with fish emulation. Their leaves become damaged. So using this approach to keeping deer off the beans isn’t going to work.
But, it also seems like once the deer get a taste of the fish they stop eating that plant — at least for a while. So if we start spraying the plants early in the season the deer hopefully realize how terrible they taste and just don’t try them later in the season. I’m skeptical seeing as we sprayed the sweet potatoes as soon as we planted them but once they grew and we got rain this weekend, the deer made themselves at home and devoured many of the plant tops.
So my final assessment is we’ll continue to try to “fish” the plants (sure, like we have time for that!) and hope the deer find another place to eat (fat chance). In the mean time, feel free to come out and get your free venison.
What will we have this week?
More bok choy. (As I mentioned to some of you in the pick-up tent this week, “The bok choy will continue until moral improves!”) We will also have green garlic, garlic scapes, green onions, some lettuce, some chard, a few cucumbers, a few more pickling cucumbers, lots of zucchini, a few radishes, some basil, some chard, and maybe some other things I am forgetting.
We have EggShare and FlowerShare starting this week. No coffee or ‘shrooms.
Recipes of the Week
It seems if you are looking to use veggies for your meal there is no better place to look than Asian food! So here are a few ways to use this week’s produce!
Bok Choy Salad
Ingredients
- 1 head bok choy chopped
- 5 green onions sliced
- 1 pkt ramen noodles crumbled & toasted
- 1 T sesame seeds toasted
- 2 T olive oil
Salad Dressing Ingredients
- ¼ c brown sugar
- ¼ c olive oil
- 2 T rice wine vinegar Other vinegar could work as well
- 1 T soy sauce
Instructions
- Crumble raman into a pan with olive oil. Add sesame seeds. Saute until toasted and lightly browned. Cool and set aside.
- Wash and chop bok choy into bite size pieces. Put into salad bowl.
- Wash and slice green onions — including tops — into small pieces. Add to bowl.
- Add all dressing ingredients into a small mixing bowl and whisk together.
- Add cooled ramen/sesame seeds to bok choy.
- Pour dressing over bok choy. Toss.
Notes
Though we are a long way from getting red peppers I thought I would throw this recipe into the newsletter. You can always leave out the red pepper or buy one from the store. Also, Thai peppers are a ways off as well…Anyway, maybe you can still make it work!
Kung Pao Chicken
Ingredients
Main Ingredients
- 2 lbs boneless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces
- 2 zucchini cut into bite size pieces
- 1 bell pepper cut into bite size pieces
- 3 green onions sliced thinly with green and white parts separated
- ½ c unsalted peanuts or cashews
- 5 Tbs sunflower or other cooking oil
- 1-many Thai peppers depending on heat level desired
For Marinade
- ¼ c low sodium soy sauce or tamari
- 2 Tbs rice vinegar
- 1 Tbs sesame oil
- 1 Tbs corn starch
For Kung Pao sauce
- ¼ c low sodium soy sauce or tamari
- 2 Tbs sugar or honey
- 4-6 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 Tbs corn starch
- 1 tsp powdered ginger
Instructions
- Whisk together all marinade ingredients.
- Cut-up chicken and add it to marinade. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- While chicken marinates, cut up remaining ingredients.
- Whisk together Kung Pao sauce ingredients and set aside.
- Once chicken has marinated, heat oil in wok until hot.
- Add chicken and stir fry until just cooked.
- Remove chicken from wok and set aside.
- Add more oil to wok and heat.
- Add zucchini and Thai peppers to wok. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
- Add bell pepper to wok and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- Add white part of onion to wok and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add a small amount of water if vegetables start to stick or burn. Don't overcook vegetables. They should remain firm.
- Add nuts and heat through.
- Add chicken and Kung Pao sauce. Heat through until sauce thickens.
- For thicker sauce, whisk together 1 Tbs corn starch and 2 Tbs water or soy sauce and stir into wok ingredients.
- Remove from heat and toss with the green parts of onions.
- Serve with cooked rice.
Notes
I made this last night. Seems like it really doesn’t matter what you put garlic and Parmesan on it will always come out delicious!
Parmesan Zucchini with Garlic Scapes
Equipment
- 1 Food processor optional
Ingredients
- 4 zucchini sliced into 1/4" thick disks
- 4 garlic scapes or green garlic finely chopped or processed in food processor
- 4 T butter or olive oil
- ½ c Parmesan cheese grated
Instructions
- Slice zucchini into 1/4" disks
- Finely chop garlic scapes or process in a food processor
- Melt butter in pan over medium heat
- Add zucchini in single layer
- Cook until bottom is lightly browned
- Flip over zucchini and add garlic to pan
- Cook until bottom of zucchini is lightly browned
- Remove from heat and add parmesan cheese
- Serve warm
Notes
That is all for now. Feel free to send in your favorite bok choy and zucchini recipes. We all might be eating these for awhile.