I should say that things always happen when I’m out of town.  So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Maree called me when I was boarding a plane in Pittsburgh yesterday.

Sitting in the kitchen getting some stuff ready for Satuday’s harvest party, Maree and my mom heard an outburst of yips from our neighborhood coyotes, seemingly just outside the patio window.  Knowing something was up, my parents and Maree quickly jumped into action, tramping all around a sheep pasture in the middle of the night without a flashlight to ward off the predators.  They were a bit confused that they couldn’t find the whole flock, but what was one to do at midnight, especially when Mar had to drive into the train station at 2 am to pick me up after a botched MSP connection?  They figured they had scared the pack away with all their commotion and went off to bed.

Coyotes, after finding a good source of protein, are pretty persistent I guess as my survey of the pasture this morning uncovered 7 sheep (mainly lambs slated for sale this winter) strewn from the trees down to the pond.  With one unaccounted for, losing 8 sheep when you only start with 20 is pretty major.  Damn.  It always seems that when we feel like all of the balls we’re juggling are doing fine, one has to drop.  I think this is why country songs are so tragic and sad.

In the box:
Edamame: Edible soybeans – the big messy bunch stuffed into the box.  Your job is to take all the pods of the stem and boil them in salted water for a few minutes.  All the other stem and leaves can be composted.
A Couple Peppers
A Quart of Tomatoes
Turnips: There are two kinds of turnips in the box, the traditional white and purple ones and these all red ones you may mistake for beets.
Rutabaga: These roots should bigger than the turnips with yellow flesh, although it would be east to confuse the two.  Typically turnips are rounder and rutabagas are elongated with a bigger top.
A Couple Yellow Onions
Fresh Rosemary: With all these roots in the box, this would go great with these roasted in the oven.
Pontiac Red Potatoes
Sunshine Kabooca Squash: These orange/red winter squash are a lot like everybody’s favorite, buttercup, but better.
Blue Bonnet Hubbard Squash: Since traditional hubbards get to be the weight of a boat anchor, I do these mini hubbards
 

Don’t we all look back in life and see how we became the person we are today after making certain decisions when we were young?  Maybe it was taking that English class instead of Organic Chemistry or that time you caved to peer pressure, made a bad decision, and got onto a bad track.  It’s certainly not as emotional or complex as us humans, but corn is like that too.

Turnips: Everyone receive some standard ‘Purple Top’ with a couple ‘Scarlet Queen’ mixed in.  I pasted in a few ideas to get you going with the turnips – see below.  

4 Quick Turnip Recipes from www.realsimple.com

Rooting around for an in-season vegetable with inspiring possibilities? Turn to the turnip.

by Sue Li

Levi Brown

Sautéed Turnips and Greens
Cook peeled and cut-up turnips and sliced garlic in olive oil in a large skillet until tender. Add the turnip greens and cook until just wilted. Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Roasted Turnips With Ginger
Peel and cut turnips into wedges. Toss with sliced fresh ginger, canola oil, salt, and pepper on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with honey and roast at 400° F until tender.

Mashed Turnips With Crispy Bacon
Simmer peeled and cut-up turnips in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and mash with butter, salt, and pepper. Fold in crumbled cooked bacon and chopped chives; top with shaved Parmesan.

Let me start by saying I am deathly afraid of snakes!  I don’t care if they are gardner snakes or king cobras – I kind of lose it when I see one.   So I have mixed feelings about a gardener snake that took up residence in the peppers near our driveway.

On the bad side, I did my usual jumping and yelling fit when I first ran into the snake.  Also, I’m just waiting for the day when I’m out picking peppers close to sundown and reach down only to feel something scaly – nightmare.  My son, like any 6 year old boy, suggested we go out and kill it.  When I told him no, he asked the typical “why?”  That made me push aside my fears and think about the good side of the snake.  First and foremost for an organic grower, any signs of reptiles or amphibians on the farm are good.  Since creatures like snakes and frogs have permeable skin, toxins in the environment will soak right into their bodies.  So when we see them around the farm we know the environment we helped create is healthy.  Also, getting a little mystical here, snakes are lucky.  As an undergraduate I was a Classics major (you know, Greek, Latin…that kind of stuff). Going all the way back to Ancient Greece, snakes were revered as a holy animal and were a associated with Asclepius, the God of Healing.  This is where we got that snake wrapped around a staff which represents the medical profession.  It’s interesting that in an environmental way the snake again is filling the same role as symbol of health and healing.

The weather has been frustrating as of late.  Many of those summer crops like corn, tomatoes, and melons are just not ripening in such cold weather….pray for heat!

Some of the chickens will be processed this Sunday…please see email for details.

In the box:
Shunkyo radishes: The bright-red and long radishes with greens on top.  These are traditionally grown in Korea, but you eat and prepare as you would any other radish.
A mix of tomatoes
A couple sweet onions
A couple cucumbers: Yes, we finally got cukes in the box…I’ve been waiting a while.
Mint: The little green bunch that smells like mint.  It seems like we use it most in mojitos…lime, sugar, rum, and this mint and you’re in business.
A good sized basil bunch: This should be enough to make some pesto.  We’re cheap, so we skip the pine nuts and use walnuts instead (http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/fresh_basil_pesto/)
Garlic
Arugula: The darker green bunch of leaves shaped like a long oak leaves
A couple little heads of lettuce (romaine, green leaf, or red leaf): It’s tough to get a big head of lettuce in the middle of summer, so I cut small…they are cute.
Sweet corn?  I was hunting as best as I could to find ripe sweet corn this morning, but only found a couple dozen.  Our cool temps are keeping ears from maturing.  I’m staking my reputation on getting corn in the box and on the farm stand next week!

I’m glad some members were able to make it out last week to pick some of the many peas still on the vine.  That field is now being prepared for fall carrots.

Pea Field – yes, there are actually peas growing in there!

15 minutes with a flail mower and the field is transformed

Keeping weeds under control is priority number one at Lida Farm this time of year.  Now that the heat has finally come, all those weed seeds sitting in the wet ground have germinated, and, voila, a weed explosion hit the farm.  Foxtail, lambsquarters, red root pigweed, wild buckwheat are popping up all over, so we’ve been throwing everything we have to keep the little barbarians from taking over.  First we cultivate by tractor, then wheel hoe, then hand hoe, then, finally, weed by hand.  If you’ve ever feel like you can’t keep your garden free of weeds, imagine trying to do that over two and half acres where an acre is about 3/4 the size of a football field.

Still, the battle against weeds isn’t constant drudgery; there are little things to celebrate along the way.  One such milestone each year is the hilling of potatoes.  Typically this is done in June before the plants think about flowering, but, this year being what it was, I only got the job done yesterday; the field was too wet and the plants were too small all June.  For organic potatoes, we cultivate the crop twice by tractor and hoe so that the field is pretty clean of weeds before hilling.  Since a lot of farming is a real mind game, it’s that image that matters most and why I just love hilling potatoes.  When done, it just doesn’t feel like a little victory, but it’s a real beautiful sight.