Week 17 2015 CSA

Produce for This Third Week of October 2015:

Arugula,  Daikon Radishes,  Kale,  Komatsuna,  Tomatoes,  Cilantro,  and Celery

 Pam and Milan

“The soil is the great connector of lives,   the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease  passes into health, age into youth, death into life.  Without proper care for it we can have no life.”

Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

You may have noticed by now that we here on Eight Mile Creek Farm think Wendell Berry is wonderful!  We do!  He is someone who has consistently been ahead of his time.  A sweet, powerful and poignant writer;  an environmentalist;  a father;  an activist;  and a farmer, his books are well worth reading.  He has written both fiction and nonfiction.  His ideas for healing and strengthening this country rest in strengthening agriculture and in the protection of  our natural resources.  He also has a way of seeing and expressing things in a manner which makes you truly have to think to completely understand what he is saying, and then all at once, you realize how very simple it really is, thus bringing back a certain simplicity to life.

As organic farmers here on Eight Mile Creek Farm, we believe that the soil is the foundation of our existence.  Therefore, we do everything we can to protect and foster it.  Last week, as many of the summer vegetables were finished being harvested, we planted cover crops of winter rye, clover, vetch, radishes, and  field peas.  This will act as a blanket over the soil, protecting it from erosion and run-off.  The peas, vetch and clover will fix nitrogen from the air in little nodules inside their roots and store that nitrogen until spring time when we till it in before planting the first spring crops.  In this way it will provide nourishment to the soil and thus the vegetables, thereby acting as a “green manure.”  The radishes will grow down deep into the soil and loosen it, thereby acting to improve the tilth of the soil so it can absorb and hold water better.  We have also begun applying compost to our fields to further feed the soil and improve the organic matter.  All of these things encourage healthy soil, and that helps ensure healthy plants, animals and us!

Turkey feeding frenzy…hard to get them to pose for the picture….moving so fast they are a blur!

Don’t forget to reserve your Thanksgiving and/or Christmas turkey!  We still have both the traditional white and the heritage breed broad breasted bronze left.  Let us know what approximate size you want, which breed, and what holiday you want it for.

 

Daikon radish pushes up out of the soil letting us know it’s time for it to be harvested

Pan Fried Daikon Cake

1 1/2 cups grated daikon radish

2 tsp salt

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp chile-garlic sauce such as Sriracha

1 1/2 cups high heat oil

Place daikon in a large bowl and sprinkle with salt.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Drain.  Stir in garlic, onion, egg, bread crumbs, pepper, paprika and chile sauce.  Mix.  form into small round patties.  Pour oil into a large skillet and heat over medium heat.  Fry patties in the hot oil until firm and nicely brown, about 3 minutes per side.  Drain on paper towels.

from allrecipes.com

Nadia and Rosalind grazing below the sumacs

Komatsuna with Sesame Oil and Ginger

1 bunch komatsuna, 1/8 inch of ends trimmed

1 Tbsp minced, fresh ginger

2 Tbsp sesame oil

Heat sesame oil in pot over medium heat.  Add ginger and cook, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes.  Add chopped komatsuna and sprinkle with sea salt.  Mix to coat with oil.  Place lid on pot and turn heat to low.  Cook, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes until wilted.

Celery in the field 7  1/2 months after being started from seed in the greenhouse

 

Next week

dill,  mustard greens,  baby bok choy, red onions

 

 

“Sit and be still until in the time of no rain you hear beneath the dry wind’s commotion in the trees the sound of flowing water among the rocks, a stream unheard before, and you are where breathing is prayer.”

Wendell Berry