LETTUCE (F2/P1) More romaine and red leaf lettuces that are so far surviving the heat!

SWISS CHARD (F/P) The first picking of this leafy green from the beet family.

BROCCOLI (F/P) Again, keep an eye out for any pesky caterpillars we might have missed.

SUMMER SQUASH (F/P) It feels like summer once the yellow squash and zucchinis make their entrance.

PEAS (F/P) It is most likely the last week of  a bumper crop of peas.  We think we’ll top 500 lbs. after tomorrow’s picking – a record for us. See Tom’s post for a deliciously simple recipe for cooked herbed peas.

HAKUREI TURNIPS (F) These are from our second spring planting and they are faring remarkably well considering they’ve had no water for a month!

SCALLIONS or HERBS (F) Parsley, dill or green onions.

NEXT WEEK: We are transitioning from spring to summer crops and the shares may be lighter for few
weeks. We will have more squash, lettuce, and turnips. Cabbage and baby beets.

FARM REPORT

The last time rain fell on the farm in any substantial amount was about a month ago. Thanks to our big irrigation pond and solar-powered pump we are keeping all the crops watered and alive. We are also adding a thick layer of mulch whenever we find the time.

Tom and I are looking forward to taking a break from our dryland worries and instead soaking up some good food and friendship THIS Saturday, June 9th at the . . .

Farm tour starts at 4:30 pm, followed by potluck dinner. The Parker family will provide the grilled meats, you bring a dish to share and a lawn chair. That’s it! So simple.

The shindig is in part an open house for current Parker Farm CSA members or anyone else that is interested in learning about their farming practices. The Kansas City CSA Coalition is also promoting the event amongst their membership, of which Fair Share Farm & Parker Farms are two of 14 CSA farms.

The Parker Farm sits atop one of the many gently rolling hills of rural Ray County. The pigs, sheep, chickens and cows move through the farm on fresh grass and lots of space. The Parkers have a beautiful system of rotating the animals around the farm very much like Polyface Farm in Virginia, farmed by rotational grazing farming advocate, Joel Salatin, who is as brilliantly entertaining of a sustainable agriculture spokesman as we’ll ever have. Anyway, I digress, the Parkers are our Missouri “Polyface” and they deserve a ton of credit for showing us all how it is done.

We have been incredibly fortunate to partner with the Parker family, Tom, Paula, Jessica, Tiffany, Brittany and Kimberly for the past 6 years. Tom and I receive the vast majority of our meat for the year from the Parkers CSA and can’t recommend it enough. If you’re curious about how animals are raised using humane and sustainable methods, come on out on Saturday. The more, the merrier!!

RSVP to the Parkers at: (816) 470-FARM (3276).  View their CSA Coalition listing here .

The KC CSA Coalition is promoting several farm tours in the coming months. Here’s the rest of the schedule:

Each farm on the tour is unique, please visit the KC CSA Coalition website at www.kc-csac.org for more information on this year’s hosts.

Spring is passing to Summer right now. The peas and broccoli are finishing up their runs after a good season. The peas are a record harvest, and the broccoli might be too. Hope you have enjoyed the bounty.

Summer squash harkens the new season, hopefully followed soon by its cousin, cucumbers. But now is your chance to enjoy a good mix of two different season’s vegetables. Tonight I made a pasta sauce by sauteing onions, garlic greens, broccoli florets and chopped summer squash and then adding enough cream and butter to build it into a sauce. A little salt, black pepper and nutmeg and you have a dish that’s as good as you can get, and filled with share items.

We went to the open house at Urbavore Farm on Saturday and enjoyed an excellent pot luck, while seeing the farming practices of farmers Brooke and Dan. They have put down a wonderful landscape of orchard, fields and “barnyard.” The no-till practices they use are based on their knowledge that, as a farmer, your job is to feed the soil. Keep it up guys.

Member Emily Akins’ contribution was a pea salad with a mint vinegarette dressing. I missed it but Rebecca raved, so we got the recipe. Emily’s version used scapes instead of shallots and was minus the lima beans. We made it tonight using garlic greens and dill and it was very good.

One another note, we have a telescope here on the farm that we use for just such an astronomical event as the transit of venus. While the telescope is not equiped with a camera mount, I have found that you can take a decent picture through the eyepiece with a digital camera. It was a thrill to see first hand.

Venus transiting the sun.

The fields continue to produce in a grand fashion this week. The name of the game for week 2 is greens and roots, with some juicy red fruit thrown in. Time to settle into an eating cycle full of these early, cool season crops. Keep your wok and salad spinner handy.

We have several types of greens this week: lettuce, kale, Asian greens, and turnip tops. The leaf and head lettuce is at its tender best, making this a great time to make a “big salad.” Get your biggest salad bowl, clean and spin a whole head of lettuce, and top with some onions, turnips, radishes, green garlic, nuts, seeds, cheese, etc. The real homemade local touch is to then make your own salad dressing. We recommend our Garlic Scape and Strawberry Dressing. Simply substitute green garlic for the scapes.

Wednesday harvest

The Asian greens this week are also good fresh in a salad, the tat soi and yukina savoy have the deep color and body of spinach. You can use these greens to make a fresh and delicious stir-fry too. Or go one better and make a savory stir fry soup. Serve it over rice noodles and you will think you are at a Vietnamese restaurant. Either way, consider stocking up on your Asian cooking supplies to get the best out of the next few week’s offerings.

We suggest that you keep at lease some of the following ingredients on hand to compliment the vegetables in your share.

Fresh ginger
Rice and/or rice noodles
Sesame oil
Soy or tamari sauce
Hot sauce
Fish or shrimp sauce
Oyster/hosien or other prepared sauce
Peanut butter
Limes
Corn starch

With them you can make your own stir fry sauces. A peanut sauce recipe is in our August 23, 2011 blog. You can also buy prepared sauces. Just check the ingredients on the label.

The herb choice this week is full of fresh, Spring flavor. Cilantro, also known as Chinese parsley, is an excellent garnish for your stir fry (a little lime juice is nice too). Dill goes well in salads, homemade salad dressing, and is great with potatoes. The oregano is a savory herb that compliments most cooked meats and vegetables. When dried it is the seasoning that gives pizza sauce its traditional flavor.



Pickin’ berries with the members

Getting ready to spend the day at the Kansas City Food Circle Expo at Penn Valley College tomorrow. From 9:30am to 2:30am we will be selling a few Spring items and encouraging people to fill the 25 openings remaining this year.

See you there or tell a friend. All you need to know is at www.kcfoodcircle.org.

The rain is headed our way, so we will not be working on the high tunnel construction project today. Check back soon for photos of yesterday’s progress.

It was 10 years ago that Rebecca and I made our home here on her family’s land in rural Clay County and began Fair Share Farm. Having moved here in November of 2002, we began working on building the farm’s infrastructure in late January, while remodeling our 1930’s farmhouse.

The house in 2002

While we lost some photos due to a bad disk drive, we do have pictures of those early days and plan on sharing some with you as the year proceeds. This round documents the building of the greenhouse, our initial infrastructure project.

The passive solar design was taken from a similar structure at the MU Mount Vernon Experimental Station. With the help of Rebecca’s father John, family, and some hired hands we commenced to clear the site of an old chicken coop and build this most important structure.

Through all types of weather the greenhouse has stood tall and nurtured our late-Winter and early-Spring transplants. It has also served to dry herbs, cure sweet potatoes, overwinter potted plants, dry our clothes, and otherwise warm us.

John clearing the site for the greenhouse

Greenhouse back wall

Rebecca laying out the foundation

Building the greenhouse

Taking shape

Rebecca hoisting the plastic

Insulating and finishing the interior

The finished greenhouse

For all of you interested in participating in the construction of a high tunnel, this is your chance. On March 10th and 11th we are soliciting your help. (See the post below for an update on the project status.)

Work is scheduled to begin Saturday morning at 9am and Sunday at 10am. We will start with a safety talk and a rundown of tasks to accomplish, so if you plan on helping we encourage you to be there at the start. We want to make sure that it is a safe, interesting and fun day for all participants.

It is expected that we will work until 5pm both days. If you can stay the whole day, great, but we understand if folks have to leave early or can only work a half day.

Hoop houses are put together with a combination of carriage bolts, tek screws and other fasteners. Some assembly work is done on the ground and does not require a lot of upper body strength. Other tasks require lifting relatively heavy steel, some while on ladders. So there are lots of places to plug into the process and all are welcome.

If you plan on attending please RSVP so that we can plan enough food for lunch. We will prepare a large pot of stew and some other veggies and goodies.

We recommend all workers bring the following:

• water
• snacks
• work boots
• layered clothing appropriate for the weather
• work gloves

In addition, if you have the following tools we recommend tossing them in your car in case we need extras:

• cordless drill and batteries
• bits for driving screws and other fasteners
• socket set and wrenches

We could also use a sturdy 8 foot A-frame ladder to supplement the couple we have.

If you received an email concerning this, please reply to that email if you plan on coming. If you did not, reply via or website comment page. Thanks in advance for your help and consideration.

On Thursday we received some mail from the University of Missouri Extension. We regularly work with Extension, attend or help out at workshops and classes, and otherwise take advantage of the help and services they provide to the local farming community.

When we opened this correspondence we were touched to learn that it was to inform us we have been selected to receive the University of Missouri Extension Leader’s Honor Roll Award. We are appreciative of this gesture of our contributions and want to thank the Clay County Extension for this honor. We look forward to accepting the award at their annual meeting on February 28th.

Click on the photo below to see the notification letter.

The Final Share, 2011
This week’s share has many items that you can keep if there is more than you can handle. The cabbage, kohlrabi, beets, and other roots will keep in the crisper drawer for over a month. The lettuce, herbs and other greens will need more immediate attention.

Fish and Fennel
We bought some fish the other day so that we could cook it in the manner of a recipe we saw Lidia Bastianich prepare on her show Lidia’s Italy. I believe she used veal for her recipe, and you could also use de-boned chicken, or pork.

Cut dark green top part away from leek. Cut the leeks lengthwise, wash all sand and grit from between the layers. Then cut crosswise into narrow slices.

Cut most of the top off of the fennel, then cut in half from top to bottom. Cut out the root core. Cut into slices.

Add stock/wine/juice, bring to a boil. Add fish and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve hot.

LETTUCE (F/P) 2 heads for the full shares, 1 for the partial shares.

SWEET POTATOES (F/P) More of the bumper crop of sweets. This week more white O’Henrys

SWEET PEPPERS (F/P) We picked them all and will hand out ripe and green in the next 2 weeks.

TOMATOES (F/P) More of the late flush of ‘maters.

EGGPLANT, POTATOES OR BROCCOLI (F)

CAULIFLOWER (P) We’re hoping for enough for the partials this week and the full shares in Liberty that missed out last week.

MIXED ROOTS (F) A couple of beets, a couple of radishes and a turnip. This makes the best roasted root vegetable dish. The watermelon radishes lose their bite if you slice them and peel off their outer shell.
GARLIC (F/P)

HERBS (F) Cilantro, dill or parsley

ALSO THIS WEEK: Bread of Life Bakery shares

NEXT WEEK: Our last week of the CSA season. More lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Green peppers and bulb fennel.

FARM REPORT

The farm is a buzz of activity preparing for the first freeze of the fall forecasted for tomorrow morning. We spent the last several days covering crops out in the field and harvesting everything else. Monday we focused on the tender summer fruits: peppers, eggplant and tomatoes. Today we pulled beets, turnips and radishes. Overall we brought in over a thousand pounds of produce in two days.

Before we became over-run with green tomatoes and dirty beets, Tom and I got a good visit in with some of our family. On Saturday my niece Nina, my sister Sally and my mom Sharon came for a visit to the farm followed by a performance of the Tom Sawyer Ballet at the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The ballet was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the beautiful new building. Before we left for the big event Farmer Tom took our photo in front of the newly renovated Fair Share Farm Barn for the Storing of Crops.