Category Archives: outstanding in the field

In the Share – Week 24

October 21, 2015csa, outstanding in the field, peppersFarmer Rebecca

SWEET PEPPERS F/P Everyone gets a bag from the last haul out of the fields.

LETTUCE F/P butterhead or red leaf

ESCAROLE F See Tom’s post about it and it’s starring role in the Outstanding in the Field dinner.

GREENS CHOICE F/P Gai lan or bok choy. The choice for the partial shares include escarole.

ROOT MIX F A bag of beets, carrots, turnips and whatever else we can glean from the fields tomorrow.

HERB CHOICE F/P hot peppers, chives, thyme, sage or dill.

GARLIC F We had more garlic than we thought, so here’s an extra dose. It should keep well into winter if kept cool and dry.

TOMATOES F A mixture of ripe, ripening and green tomatoes. The last of the season.

BROCCOLI P We have a small harvest this week, just enough for the partial shares.

SWEET POTATOES F/P choice of white or orange.

NEXT WEEK: The fall extended season begins with harvests from the high tunnel: lettuce, greens and roots plus some items held over like potatoes and onions.

FARM REPORT:
This week your farmers got a off-farm break for the first time since March. The Outstanding in the Field dinner started the fun on Wednesday.

Linda Hezel, from Prairie Birthday farm, began with a toast.

By Saturday afternoon, we were driving south to Fort Scott, one of our nation’s military outposts on “the permanent Indian frontier” as it was considered to be back in 1842.

Heading home on Monday we hiked through the tallgrass prairie at the Mine Creek Civil War battle site near Pleasanton, Kansas.

Now here it is Tuesday and we are faced with the last week of the 24-week CSA season. For many this is goodbye for the year. A hearty hug of appreciation is sent to all of you who weathered 2015 with us! Community Supported Agriculture kept our farm afloat through pretty tough weather conditions this year and we cannot thank you all enough.

Despite a year’s worth of rain in two months and then no rain for two months, we have somehow managed to continue to find crops to harvest each week. From our varied crop list (about 40 in total) we lost many but were surprised by others that survived and even thrived. The carrots rotted but we had one of our best harvests of white potatoes ever – over a ton in total. The peppers, eggplant and okra rebounded from the rains and produced a bounty of fruits.

A special thanks go to Megan McQueen and Semra Fetahovic who apprenticed at the farm this season. They started back at the end of March and seven months later, 44 hours a week, they have successfully completed a job well done. Best wishes to them both!

And thank you to all who participated in the success of another season. To steal a phrase, it takes a community to raise a farm!!!

Saturday morning CSA members dismantling the cherry tomatoes

In the Share – Week 21

September 30, 2015cover crops, high tunnel, outstanding in the fieldFarmer Rebecca

KOHLRABI P

SWEET POTATOES F/P

SWEET PEPPERS F/P

TOMATOES F/P

EGGPLANT F/P

HERB CHOICE F Sage, cilantro or dill

GREENS CHOICE F Swiss chard, kale, gai lan, or bok choy

LETTUCE and/or FRISEE F/P The frisee makes a nice little salad.

GARLIC F/P Partial shares get a choice of garlic or herbs.

ROMA GREEN BEANS F The last week of these guys.

NEXT WEEK: Peppers, eggplant, greens, turnips, beets, green tomatoes and sweet potatoes

FARM REPORT:
Autumn is here and we welcome its arrival. After an especially eventful growing season, your farmers are looking forward to a winter rest. But, we are not there yet! Much lovely fall crops must be harvested, brought in for storage or protected outdoors. The high tunnel is ready for its hat to go back on for the wintertime. We planted it full of greens back in early September. It is nice to keep the plastic off of its top and ends for as long as possible to avoid overheating the plants inside, but it needs to be buttoned up before the first frost.

Out in the fields have a nice blanket of various cover crops that Tom sowed in late July. Sorghum Sudan grass, cowpeas, mung beans and oats cover the Spring fields. These plants growing now are next year’s fertility.

Speaking of out in the fields, “Outstanding in the Field” is returning to our farm on October 14th. Chef Ted Habiger from Room 39 in KCMO will be feeding us multiple courses of local delights from our farm and others in the region. Event details and tickets are here.

2011—Our Eighth Season

March 19, 2013broccoli, community supported agriculture, cover crops, csa, electric tractor, fair share farm, farm aprentice, greenhouse, jonathan justus, justus drugstore, kansas city, outstanding in the field, tomatoesFarmer Rebecca

Impression of Rocky

By 2011 we had experienced eight years of farming in the same spot and seen how the land responds to just about every weather condition. We continued to work on systems that could keep our farm resilient and sustainable for the future.

We were helped along by a principle promoted by Dr. W. Edwards Deming to “improve constantly and forever”… something I had learned in engineering and Rebecca knew inherently. It is an axiom that is in concert with the idea of sustainablility. We felt that we had a firm foundation to now build for the long-term future of Fair Share Farm.

The first couple months of the year were as busy as ever. We had one last area of the house to gut, insulate, re-wire, re-wall, re-window and re-door. We got it mostly done before things got too hectic and are enjoying the fruits of this labor to this day.

Only a memory now

The previous November, Lucas Knutter joined the farm team, house-sitting the apprentice house for the winter and joining us as a full-time apprentice in March. He had just finished a 27-month stint in the Peace Corp working with farmers in Senegal, and returned ready to start a farm of his own. He went straight to work in January, joining us to repair some problem spots on the greenhouse.

It was a great year for the soil. Our Spring plantings went as smooth as ever after a quick cultivating pass with the G.

The Summer cover crop of sudan grass and cow peas grew 7 feet tall and was our best yet. Between the top growth and an extensive root system, the soil was given a feast.

Mowing down the cover crops before turning them under

Weather played its usual good guy/bad guy role, threatening tornados in the Spring, baking us silly in the Summer, and providing for a robust harvest in the Fall. Kim Conrads joined us for the summer right after high school graduation and spent one of her first hours at the farm in our root cellar with the farm crew of CSA members, workers, farmers, a dog and two cats. Luckily no funnel stopped by.

Safe in the root cellar

August 2, a record high.

Among the standouts that year were our record snap pea (400+ lb), tomato (5,600+ lbs) and sweet potato (2,100+ lb) harvests . Other crops did excellent too, as the almost 2.7 lb head of broccoli pictured below can attest.

The tomato share during Week 11

CSA morning in the packing room

Colorful carrots

Head-sized broccoli

Fall share

July 25 was a unique day for us as we hosted Justus Drugstore and Outstanding in the Field for an al fresco dinner on the farm. It is tough to describe in one paragraph what a wonderful event it was. The food was unique and satisfying, the crowd happy and boisterous, and the presentation professional and artful. The whole story is in our July 26 blog.

The long table on a hot Missouri day

By August, Kim had headed to college and we had a new apprentice in Dani Hurst. She was ready to put the homesteading and farming skills she had learned about as a writer for Natural Home magazine into practice. Her energy and good nature was appreciated for the next 1-1/2 years she spent with us.

Dani mulching leeks

Another group that has helped out over the years is my family. The road Rebecca and I took to where we are right now was not a normal one. While no doubt skeptical at first, their love and support for us over the years has been true and real. My brother and five sisters have all done a stint or two at the farm, visited during unique events like OITF, and otherwise used their talents to help us out. It has been a fun family affair.

My brother Bill juicing pears with our great-grandfather’s press

Autumn 2011 was warm and the crops thrived into early winter. The fields were plentiful past the end of our CSA season and for our annual night at the Bad Seed pre-Thanksgiving Market.

October

A rarity for us, the hustle and bustle of running a market table on a busy night is a lot of fun. So is catching up and bartering with all the other vendors, seeing our big city friends and enjoying the festive atmosphere.

Fall bounty

Next up…one year ago and a new high tunnel, more record harvests, the drought, OITF II, and back to the present.

In the Share – Week 23

October 10, 2012frost, high tunnel, leeks, outstanding in the fieldFarmer Rebecca

LEEKS (F/P) I love the way the walk-in cooler smells when it is full of leeks. It smells like buttery goodness.

LETTUCE (F/P) Tender red leaf and butterhead varieties this week.

TOMATOES (F/P) A couple of green tomatoes and a few more ripe ones.

GREEN PEPPERS (F/P) The last of the green peppers

NAPA CABBAGE (P) We are harvesting the prettiest Napa cabbage crop we have ever had: dense heads of delicate leaves.

CAULIFLOWER OR BROCCOLI (F) We planned on putting out more broccoli and cauliflower transplants this summer but as insanely hot as it was we are grateful to be able to offer a choice of the two. Partial shares will get broccoli next week.

BEETS (F) The first harvest of the fall beets, mostly a long variety called “Cylindra”

TURNIPS AND WATERMELON RADISHES (F/P) A couple of each. The watermelon radishes are good keepers. To reduce the heat of radishes slice them into rounds and peel the hot outer layer off.

HERB CHOICE (F) Arugula, dill or tarragon

NEXT WEEK: The last week of the regular 24-week season. More lettuce, herbs, broccoli, cauliflower and sweet potatoes. Carrots, savoy cabbage and bulb fennel.

FARM REPORT:

The thermometer read 26 degrees F Sunday morning and with that the summer crops took their exit. The fields are now stripped with brown rows of dead plants. Everything does not die with the frost. We are gladdened by the resilient cabbages and broccolis that will keep growing until the hard freeze. Other crops fared just fine under a layer or two of row cover. We are just beginning to harvest the fall roots and look forward to many more warm days before winter. The high tunnel plants are growing rapidly within the protected environment.

Next Friday 10/19 we will be hosting our second Outstanding in the Field dinner at the farm and we invite you to join us. The talented folks at Justus Drugstore will once again be serving up their hand-crafted recipes to 100+ diners sitting at a long table in our fields. The chef will be using some of our produce along with other local meats, wines and cheeses. There are still seats at the table available. Go here to learn more and to purchase tickets. Last year the food was amazing and we met so many interesting people who traveled great distances to eat dinner in our farm field.

FSF to Host “Outstanding in the Field”

March 26, 2011jonathan justus, outstanding in the fieldSemra Fetahovic

We received some exciting news this week at the farm. We have been chosen (and agreed) to host an Outstanding in the Field dinner.

This program travels around the country, setting up their long dinner table in a farm field, while having a celebrated local chef serve up a farm inspired meal. Our event will be held July 24 (rain or heat or shine) with chef Jonathan Justus providing the meal. For more information on Justus Drugstore, the Restaurant read this New York Times article.

The tickets are $180 per person. You get the unique experience of dining in the field and eating arguably the best local food from the area’s most celebrated chef. Along with appetizers, wine parings, a five course meal you get a chance to rub elbows with real live farmers (that’s us!).

We receive a generous honorarium for hosting, and plan on putting some of it towards farm beautification. We like our scruffy side, it is proof that we are indeed a working farm busily producing food and not manicuring the grounds, but we don’t want to look too shabby for this celebrated event. To help with this we anticipate having a volunteer day or two as the date approaches to help showcase Fair Share Farm in the best possible light.

Spread the word. The folks at Outstanding in the Field say that tickets sell out quickly. We are looking forward to playing host to the region for one night’s dinner.

Tom and Rebecca