Veggie Love

Vegetables are kind of like my children.

I tend them in their little greenhouse nursery when they are young, spoon-feeding them water and delicate nutrition. As teenagers, they are set out into the wilds of the fields to fend for themselves somewhat. To watch over them to give them a chance to live independently. I wage war with weeds and pests around them, feed them fertilizer, and give them a drink when times get tough.

In the end, however, they love me back (or so we hope). Maybe it’s payment for my protecting them or like a elder tired by the end of the season, the children at some point pick up the father and carry him after a season of hard work. All I can do is give the fields and plants gratitude for the bounty.

And they do provide bounty. This week, I’ve been wracking my brain about what DOESN’T go in the box. Everywhere I looked yesterday I saw a crop looking mature and ready. Bok Choi of beautiful size. The row of russets we dug was so bountiful that we left a quarter row. The tomatoes are all huge and those Carmen peppers have a dozen fruits per plant.

In the box:

• Russet Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Carmen Sweet Peppers: Long red pepper…
• Another Colored Pepper: Luck of the draw…
• Carrots
• Salad Mix
• Yellow Onion
• Sweet Corn: This is far from ideal corn! Most of the ends never filled out…really dismal corn year, but there’s definitely worthwhile kernals on there
• Delicata Winter Squash: Yellow with a green stripe. These are often baked dry. Cut lengthwise, scoop out seeds and bake cut side down on a baking sheet.
• Bok Choi
• Radishes

Cookouts and boating be damned! I’m working through another Labor Day, because, well, that’s just what I do.

In this respect my life isn’t that different from other small business operators. We just keep chugging along. We need to keep chugging along to make the business work. But, being that it is Labor Day and I come from a proud Union household, I’ll lay down my usual Labor Day message.

It’s quite fashionable in America today to credit the entrepreneur. Whether an independent farm operator or main street retailer or some high-flying Silicon Valley type, we love to put founders and owners up on pedestals. The lifeblood of the American economy and the source of American innovation and prosperity…all that stuff.

While I’m a free enterprise guy through and through and respect the efforts of all my fellow business operators, let’s remind us today that businesses don’t run without workers. In the world of farming, farm work is a job that gets zero respect. Often seen as the ultimate dead-end job that ranks right up there with fast food or food manufacturing, this work is difficult and must happen regardless of the conditions. 90-degree heat? Let’s go harvest. Smoke from wildfires? We gotta get out there and pound this out. Rain? Suck it up – let’s go.

Maybe I’m sensitive to the role because I come from a line of farm workers – nobody in my lineage owned a farm until me. My grandfather Adolph worked his whole life for others, operating machinery in the field and tending potatoes in one of those cold and dark warehouses that lined the streets of East Grand Forks. I don’t think he often got a pat on the back or thanks for his effort. But the farmers he worked for? Most certainly. They were the ‘Salt of the Earth.’ Respected members of the community – the people who made the local economy go round.

So, today, let’s share the spotlight just a bit. Let it shine on those who toil in the background. The immigrant up at 4 am to pick out fruit. The warehouse worker knocking out another overnight shift. My neighbors who pick turkey eggs at all hours or process meat at Jennie-O. And on behalf of Lida Farm, let me thank Sylvie, Emily, and Molly for their hours spent in the field this summer – it’s physical and dirty work, but I hope you find the joy in the practice as much as I do.

In the box:

• Cantaloupe
• Watermelon: Farmers Choice – maybe orange, red, or yellow
• Summer Turnip: Kind of ugly white root…simply peel, slice, and eat.
• Green Beans
• Carrots
• Eggplant
• Two Carmen Peppers: Red and Sweet.
• Two Anaheim Peppers: GREEN and HOT! I hope you read this and don’t mix up the two kinds
• Yellow Bell Pepper
• Cucumber
• Lots of Slicing Tomatoes
• Red Onion

You may have noticed that I never posted or sent a newsletter last week. Since my oldest, Sylvie, went to college last Thursday, I kind of fell apart. Not in a bereft parent way – although we certainly miss her – but in a ‘damn, I’m out of time’ kind of way. Boxes have been getting out the door each Monday this summer with me out harvesting and Sylvie washing and readying the produce until we assembled the boxes together. Her absence certainly threw me off.

Even though I used to do CSA day solo, now after 8-9 years of always working with an employee, I realize I’m not as fast as I used to be. I’m not saying I need to put out to pasture or anything, but it makes me wonder whether I still have the juice to make it happen. We’ll see if I’m late today, but as I’m downing this second cup of coffee, I feeling optimistic. Out to conquer the world!

In the box:

• Yellow Watermelon: New variety for me this year – seems to be performing well.
• Cantaloupe
• Red Onion
• Green Beans: This third patch just came in and is looking great!
• Suyu Long Cucumber: Yes, this is a funny-looking crooked thing, but cucumber all the same. They seem to stay good even when big.
• Parsley
• Green Pepper
• Italia Pepper: Long red pepper – oftentimes people think these are hot pepper, but, no, they are sweet.
• Yellow or Red Bell Pepper
• A couple Jalapenos
• Tomatoes
• Fennel: Well, this stuff typically gets bigger, but got planted late and it has remained pretty small. If you’re not used to working with fresh fennel, think French or Italian – put in a sauce with the tomatoes maybe.

It’s hard to believe that I’m now grumbling about fields being too wet. But we’ve hit a point of ‘be careful what you wish for.’ I spent the better part of July praying for rain and I did so without specifying the amount.

Beggars can’t be choosers, no doubt, and I’m 100% grateful that it started to rain. Still, a lot of moisture creates challenges on a vegetable farm. The big one are the weeds! I don’t know how they do it really, but weeds can take an inch of rain and super-charge into small trees overnight. Good for them. They have a real strength. I guess this is why they persist the way they do.

Before the rain started like 2 weeks ago, we had a nice stand of fall carrots established. Looking good except for some 3-4 inch pigweed mixed in the rows. Today, those pigweed stand three feet tall. How did that happen? I swear I just walked by and said to myself, ‘Boy, I’ll have to take a half hour and pull those out.’ Now I’m looking at a 2-3 hour surgery to extricate a massive woody bush without tearing out all the little carrots. It’s like the weeds conspired with the rain to make sure it rained enough and rainded long enough so the mud would hold me at bay as they grew.

Yes, the weeds are winning right now. But the war is long and we still have the will fight here at Lida Farm.

In the box:

• Yellow ‘Satina’ Potatoes
• Cauliflower
• Daikon Radish
• ‘Allure’ Sweet Corn
• Green Pepper
• Purple ‘Islander’ Pepper
• Red Onion
• Garlic
• Bunch of Beets
• Eggplant
• Tomatoes
• ‘Torpedo’ Korean Melon

How Farmers Cook Dinner: Shredded Beef Corn Succatash

Ever since had a Southwest Bowl at The Fabled Farmer in Fergus last week, I’ve been into riffing on the idea. This weekend I did a beef roast in the instant pot – from frozen, mind you! See recipe.

I’ve made three meals out of it and it’s great having this chuck of meat together with broth in the fridge. So, today, as I was harvesting sweet corn in the morning I decided I’d do something like a succatash and put on the couscous I made yesterday. I used the scrunt-y tomatoes and sweet corn cobs together with the smallest green pepper.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup shredded beef + 2 ladels of beef broth
• Corn from 2-3 small ears, cut off cobs
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• Tomato, diced
• Couscous or grain of your choice – could be rice, quinoa, whatever
• 1-2 T Olive Oil

Put frying pan on medium heat with olive oil. When hot, add sweet corn and let saute until brown on one side. Add pepper, mix and saute a couple minutes longer before adding tomato and garlic. Saute another minutes and then add shredded beef and broth. Let simmer and stew until tomatoes soften

• I like a strong garlic flavor so I added garlic towards end with tomato, but you can add with pepper to brown it a bit.
• I also ended up adding maybe a half a cup of chopped cabbage with the pepper just because I wanted to stretch the meal with two kids and wanted to use up this head sitting in my fridge. If you have some veggies sitting around the sounds good in something like this, saute it in.
• I served over couscous because it was left over and with bread but pick your grain of choice.

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It always happens this time of year. Dreaming of family vacation. Maybe it’s being knee-deep in farm work and overwhelmed with all other things in my life or it could be that my mind gets bored with too many hours in the field and I just need another thing to think about…

More than likely it’s a function of being super-rooted in a place. I wake up and tend the same fields for hours a day. I walk down the same little paths that get made over the course of the season, like a deer that treads the same walk day after day. I appreciate the rooted-ness and how the fields change over the course of the summer, yet some new scenery sounds nice.

This year I’m hoping for New Mexico by train, maybe over Christmas? I like the idea of the whole family making the trek and luxuriating in some hot springs in the cool mountains of December, but Sylvie’s off to college and Will is locked into basketball – I hope I can get the stars and schedules to align.

In the box:

• Sweet Corn! Still a bit on the young side, but I think we’re all getting impatient.
• Carrots
• Orange Tomatoes
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Sweet Onion
• Garlic
• Green Pepper
• Purple Pepper
• Curley Kale
• Daikon Radish: This plump radish with its top cut short
• Hakurai Summer Turnip: White ‘radish’ looking thing with green tops. This is great just fresh like a kohlrabi or radish. Peel if you’d like, slice and add to salads or salt and eat fresh.
• Red Potatoes