Serves 4
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano (optional)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 bunch kale, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 1 bunch Swiss chard, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 1 pound grilled skinless, boneless chicken breast, sliced
• 1 (6 ounce) container crumbled feta cheese, or more to taste
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/3 cup chopped, toasted walnuts
Whisk the vinegar, honey, salt, pepper, and oregano in a bowl until the honey has dissolved. Whisk in the olive oil until evenly blended. Place the kale, Swiss chard, chicken, feta cheese, raisins, and walnuts into a bowl. Toss with the dressing to serve.
Source: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Kale-Swiss-Chard-Chicken-and-Feta-Salad/Detail.aspx
Monday, July 5, 2010
Grilled Garlic Scapes
Take your garlic scapes and coat them in olive oil. Throw them on the grill until lightly browned and soft. Remove from grill and enjoy!
Spinach with Raisins and Pine Nuts
Serves 2
1/4 cup raisins
1 slice crusty bread
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/6 cup pine nuts
3/4 pound young spinach, stalks removed
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt and black pepper
Put the raisins in a small bowl with boiling water and let soak for ten minutes. Drain
Cut the bread into cubes and discard the crusts. Heat 1 tablespoon oil and saute the bread until golden. Drain.
Heat remaining oil in the pan. Saute the pine nuts until they begin to color. Add the spinach and garlic and cook quickly, turning the spinach until just wilted.
Toss in the raisins and season with salted pepper. Sprinkle croutons on top and serve hot.
1/4 cup raisins
1 slice crusty bread
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/6 cup pine nuts
3/4 pound young spinach, stalks removed
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt and black pepper
Put the raisins in a small bowl with boiling water and let soak for ten minutes. Drain
Cut the bread into cubes and discard the crusts. Heat 1 tablespoon oil and saute the bread until golden. Drain.
Heat remaining oil in the pan. Saute the pine nuts until they begin to color. Add the spinach and garlic and cook quickly, turning the spinach until just wilted.
Toss in the raisins and season with salted pepper. Sprinkle croutons on top and serve hot.
Sesame Kale Salad
Serves 4 to 6.
1 pound fresh kale or other greens
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons honey
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
dash of black pepper and/or ground red pepper
Separate kale leaves from stems. Chop stems and greens. Steam stems a couple of minutes, then add the greens and steam until just tender. Drain, and let kale cool enough to handle it. Squeese out as much water as possible. Place in a serving bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients in another bowl. Add to greens. Mix, chill, and serve.
From: From Asparagus to Zucchini, adapted from Extending the Table: A World Community Cookbook
1 pound fresh kale or other greens
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons honey
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
dash of black pepper and/or ground red pepper
Separate kale leaves from stems. Chop stems and greens. Steam stems a couple of minutes, then add the greens and steam until just tender. Drain, and let kale cool enough to handle it. Squeese out as much water as possible. Place in a serving bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients in another bowl. Add to greens. Mix, chill, and serve.
From: From Asparagus to Zucchini, adapted from Extending the Table: A World Community Cookbook
Farmer Biographies: Meet Nina!
Hi Shareholders!
In case we haven’t met yet, I am one of the co-managers of the CSA. I moved to Philadelphia a little over two years ago with the purpose of learning more about urban agriculture. I grew up in Vermont and always loved working and playing outside and had a love for being in nature. It wasn’t until college while getting my undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies that I decided I wanted to learn more about growing food. When I was younger, I knew I wanted a career that kept me active and outside, but gardening and growing food had previously been something I considered a hobby or a temporary summer job. After graduating from McGill University I stumbled across a program in British Columbia called the Linnaea Ecological Garden Programme. Linnaea Farm is on rural Cortes Island and the people that live there invite students to come and live on the farm and study agriculture for an entire season. For eight months farming was my life and it struck a chord deep inside me. I left the program realizing that farming was the perfect mix of my interests: working outside, taking care of the earth and being self-sufficient. I also realized that after living in such an isolated area for 8 months, I didn’t want to farm in the country but wanted to try urban farming instead. I also wanted to teach others about the importance of growing food. I returned home to Vermont and began searching for an urban farming position. After some quality time on the internet, I discovered that Philadelphia had more urban farming opportunities than most cities on the east coast. I applied for an apprenticeship at Weavers Way in 2008 and haven’t left since.
When I’m not farming, I put my energy towards various activities and crafts. I’m currently trying to learn more about sewing as well as fixing bikes. I have a bit of a one-track mind and don’t stray far from farming even when I’m doing these other activities. I am currently daydreaming about sewing a farm banner and building a bike-powered salad spinner! In the winter when the farming season slows down I try to spend as much time as possible in the snow back in Vermont.
In case we haven’t met yet, I am one of the co-managers of the CSA. I moved to Philadelphia a little over two years ago with the purpose of learning more about urban agriculture. I grew up in Vermont and always loved working and playing outside and had a love for being in nature. It wasn’t until college while getting my undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies that I decided I wanted to learn more about growing food. When I was younger, I knew I wanted a career that kept me active and outside, but gardening and growing food had previously been something I considered a hobby or a temporary summer job. After graduating from McGill University I stumbled across a program in British Columbia called the Linnaea Ecological Garden Programme. Linnaea Farm is on rural Cortes Island and the people that live there invite students to come and live on the farm and study agriculture for an entire season. For eight months farming was my life and it struck a chord deep inside me. I left the program realizing that farming was the perfect mix of my interests: working outside, taking care of the earth and being self-sufficient. I also realized that after living in such an isolated area for 8 months, I didn’t want to farm in the country but wanted to try urban farming instead. I also wanted to teach others about the importance of growing food. I returned home to Vermont and began searching for an urban farming position. After some quality time on the internet, I discovered that Philadelphia had more urban farming opportunities than most cities on the east coast. I applied for an apprenticeship at Weavers Way in 2008 and haven’t left since.
When I’m not farming, I put my energy towards various activities and crafts. I’m currently trying to learn more about sewing as well as fixing bikes. I have a bit of a one-track mind and don’t stray far from farming even when I’m doing these other activities. I am currently daydreaming about sewing a farm banner and building a bike-powered salad spinner! In the winter when the farming season slows down I try to spend as much time as possible in the snow back in Vermont.
What do Farmers do on their day off? …FARM!
By Nina Berryman
Ok, so we are not THAT boring every weekend, but this weekend we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to partake in a rare and exciting farming event…on our day off! This Sunday was the first wheat harvest at Fernbrook Farm in Bordentown, NJ. Small scale, local grains are sadly even more difficult to come by than local vegetables. Most of the tools, terms and methods for growing grains on a small scale have quietly slipped into museums, outdated books and the memory banks of retired farmers. Because of this, the invitation to help with the harvest of about an 1/8 of an acre of wheat this weekend was something I couldn’t pass up.
Fernbrook Farm is about an hour away and is a 375 person CSA. Tucked away in one of the fields is an experimental patch of wheat that was planted last October. The field was first disced with a tractor, then the seed was broadcast (meaning not planted in rows but spread out all over). A winter-hardy variety was planted so it grew a few inches in the fall, stayed alive during the winter, then shot up in the spring, putting on a few feet of growth. According to the farmer who planted this wheat, you want to harvest the wheat when the wheat berries feel harder than stiff dough, but are still soft enough that you can indent them with your fingernail. If you harvest the wheat before this time, the wheat berries on the stalk will not have much gluten in them and if you make bread with flour from the wheat it won’t rise properly. If you wait to harvest the wheat beyond this point, you run the risk of the wheat berries sprouting after a rain.
With a crew of about 13 people, we cut the wheat down with scythes, picked the wheat stalks up off the ground, placed them in piles, and tied baling twine around them. We filled the back of a pickup truck twice on Sunday and once on Saturday. Then we stacked the bundles in a barn to let them dry and allow the wheat berries to fully harden. While taking my turn cutting the wheat, I was reminded of what a lost art scything is. I thought about the fact that the dimensions of an acre are based on the amount of land a person is supposed to be able to mow with a scythe in one day. Anyone who can scythe that much land in one day has my respect!
Now the wheat will sit in the barn for a few weeks until it is ready for threshing, then winnowing, and then grinding to turn it into flour. All of these tasks are also great large group projects so if we go back to lend a hand we’ll keep you updated on the process!
Ok, so we are not THAT boring every weekend, but this weekend we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to partake in a rare and exciting farming event…on our day off! This Sunday was the first wheat harvest at Fernbrook Farm in Bordentown, NJ. Small scale, local grains are sadly even more difficult to come by than local vegetables. Most of the tools, terms and methods for growing grains on a small scale have quietly slipped into museums, outdated books and the memory banks of retired farmers. Because of this, the invitation to help with the harvest of about an 1/8 of an acre of wheat this weekend was something I couldn’t pass up.
Fernbrook Farm is about an hour away and is a 375 person CSA. Tucked away in one of the fields is an experimental patch of wheat that was planted last October. The field was first disced with a tractor, then the seed was broadcast (meaning not planted in rows but spread out all over). A winter-hardy variety was planted so it grew a few inches in the fall, stayed alive during the winter, then shot up in the spring, putting on a few feet of growth. According to the farmer who planted this wheat, you want to harvest the wheat when the wheat berries feel harder than stiff dough, but are still soft enough that you can indent them with your fingernail. If you harvest the wheat before this time, the wheat berries on the stalk will not have much gluten in them and if you make bread with flour from the wheat it won’t rise properly. If you wait to harvest the wheat beyond this point, you run the risk of the wheat berries sprouting after a rain.
With a crew of about 13 people, we cut the wheat down with scythes, picked the wheat stalks up off the ground, placed them in piles, and tied baling twine around them. We filled the back of a pickup truck twice on Sunday and once on Saturday. Then we stacked the bundles in a barn to let them dry and allow the wheat berries to fully harden. While taking my turn cutting the wheat, I was reminded of what a lost art scything is. I thought about the fact that the dimensions of an acre are based on the amount of land a person is supposed to be able to mow with a scythe in one day. Anyone who can scythe that much land in one day has my respect!
Now the wheat will sit in the barn for a few weeks until it is ready for threshing, then winnowing, and then grinding to turn it into flour. All of these tasks are also great large group projects so if we go back to lend a hand we’ll keep you updated on the process!
The Soil in which we Grow
By Nina Berryman
This spring at one of our shareholder orientation meetings a shareholder was asking about the land on which we grow. There are multiple ways to answer this question. There is the micro analysis of what our soil consists of, and there is the historical analysis of how the land has been used. I am more versed in the micro analysis of the soil and would like to learn more about the historical use of the land. If anyone has grandparents who grew up in the area and might know what this land looked like 70 years ago, I’d love to talk with them! What I do know about the history of the land is that since Saul High School has been leasing the land from Fairmount Park it has either been maintained as turf grass, planted in flowers, or planted in peach trees. At one point there were also bee hives in the area where our lower hoop house is. I can write in more detail about the land in which your vegetables grow on the micro level. The first year we tested for heavy metals to make sure the soil was not contaminated. Soil is considered safe if it has less than 150 parts per million. The soil in our field is 38.37 ppm. Because we know no contaminants have been added to the field since we started farming here a year ago, we only needed to test for heavy metals once. Every year, as soon as the ground thaws we take a soil sample to determine what and how much amendments we want to add. We sample in the main vegetable field, our hoop houses, and the corn/potato field across the street. To do this we dig about twelve holes, randomly scattered around the farm and take a soil sample from each hole. We then mix the samples together in a bucket, spread that composite out on newspapers to dry for twenty-four hours, and then take a one cup sample from that sample. This sample we send to Penn State Extension Soil Lab. This year the pH was 6.8. pH is measured from 0 to 14, with 1 being very acidic and 14 being very basic. For vegetable production slightly acidic soil is ideal, so we are right on target. Some plants prefer more acidic soils such as blueberries and potatoes. Having soil that is slightly acidic increases plants’ ability to take up nutrients that are available in the soil and reduces the plants ability to take up toxins that might be in the soil. Also, when the pH is right, beneficial organisms are most active. If you have soil that is too acidic, adding limestone is the most common way to raise the pH to a more desirable level. If you have soil that is too basic, you can add sulfur to lower the pH.
Cation exchange capacity (CEC) is another important part of the soil analysis which is another measurement of the soil’s capability of retaining and supplying nutrients. CEC can be thought of as the micro-level transfer of nutrients in the soil to the plants roots. Organic matter provides most of a soil’s CEC capability. Clay, also provides a portion of a soil’s CEC capacity. If you have very sandy soil with low organic matter the CEC will be low. We add compost to our vegetable beds to increase the organic matter content. According to UMass-Amherst Department of Plant and Soil, a “balanced” soil has a 70% Calcium saturation (ours is 76.7), a 12% Magnesium saturation (ours is 18.0), and a 4% Potassium saturation (ours is 5.3).
NPK is a key part of the soil test as well. N, P, and K are the periodic table of contents abbreviations for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium. In essence, this is the food for our plants. Plants also need a lot of other nutrients, like calcium and magnesium, but NPK are the nutrients which plants need the most of. Nitrogen is very variable in the soil and very little remains in the soil after the growing season. It is necessary for almost every aspect of plant growth. For these reasons we apply a fertilizer with a relatively high percentage of nitrogen (5%).
Phosphorus enables plants to use the energy that they create from photosynthesis. According to or soil test our field exceeds the plants’ needs for Phosphorus, so we use a fertilizer with only 1% Phosphorus content.
Potassium enables plants to utilize Nitrogen and water. Our field also exceeds the plants’ needs for Potassium so we use a fertilizer with 1% Potassium content.
One major part of our soil analysis that we don’t need a laboratory to test is the soil type; that is, whether it is sand, silt or clay, or a mixture. Sand, silt and clay are different categories of mineral particle sizes, with sand being the largest, then silt, and clay being the smallest. Oh, and there is the category of…extremely rocky! In my opinion, a soil can be considered rocky when it has particles that are large enough to get stuck in your tiller tines! Some parts of our field are rocky, some are very rocky. Between the rocks, our soil is on the sandy side.
This spring at one of our shareholder orientation meetings a shareholder was asking about the land on which we grow. There are multiple ways to answer this question. There is the micro analysis of what our soil consists of, and there is the historical analysis of how the land has been used. I am more versed in the micro analysis of the soil and would like to learn more about the historical use of the land. If anyone has grandparents who grew up in the area and might know what this land looked like 70 years ago, I’d love to talk with them! What I do know about the history of the land is that since Saul High School has been leasing the land from Fairmount Park it has either been maintained as turf grass, planted in flowers, or planted in peach trees. At one point there were also bee hives in the area where our lower hoop house is. I can write in more detail about the land in which your vegetables grow on the micro level. The first year we tested for heavy metals to make sure the soil was not contaminated. Soil is considered safe if it has less than 150 parts per million. The soil in our field is 38.37 ppm. Because we know no contaminants have been added to the field since we started farming here a year ago, we only needed to test for heavy metals once. Every year, as soon as the ground thaws we take a soil sample to determine what and how much amendments we want to add. We sample in the main vegetable field, our hoop houses, and the corn/potato field across the street. To do this we dig about twelve holes, randomly scattered around the farm and take a soil sample from each hole. We then mix the samples together in a bucket, spread that composite out on newspapers to dry for twenty-four hours, and then take a one cup sample from that sample. This sample we send to Penn State Extension Soil Lab. This year the pH was 6.8. pH is measured from 0 to 14, with 1 being very acidic and 14 being very basic. For vegetable production slightly acidic soil is ideal, so we are right on target. Some plants prefer more acidic soils such as blueberries and potatoes. Having soil that is slightly acidic increases plants’ ability to take up nutrients that are available in the soil and reduces the plants ability to take up toxins that might be in the soil. Also, when the pH is right, beneficial organisms are most active. If you have soil that is too acidic, adding limestone is the most common way to raise the pH to a more desirable level. If you have soil that is too basic, you can add sulfur to lower the pH.
Cation exchange capacity (CEC) is another important part of the soil analysis which is another measurement of the soil’s capability of retaining and supplying nutrients. CEC can be thought of as the micro-level transfer of nutrients in the soil to the plants roots. Organic matter provides most of a soil’s CEC capability. Clay, also provides a portion of a soil’s CEC capacity. If you have very sandy soil with low organic matter the CEC will be low. We add compost to our vegetable beds to increase the organic matter content. According to UMass-Amherst Department of Plant and Soil, a “balanced” soil has a 70% Calcium saturation (ours is 76.7), a 12% Magnesium saturation (ours is 18.0), and a 4% Potassium saturation (ours is 5.3).
NPK is a key part of the soil test as well. N, P, and K are the periodic table of contents abbreviations for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium. In essence, this is the food for our plants. Plants also need a lot of other nutrients, like calcium and magnesium, but NPK are the nutrients which plants need the most of. Nitrogen is very variable in the soil and very little remains in the soil after the growing season. It is necessary for almost every aspect of plant growth. For these reasons we apply a fertilizer with a relatively high percentage of nitrogen (5%).
Phosphorus enables plants to use the energy that they create from photosynthesis. According to or soil test our field exceeds the plants’ needs for Phosphorus, so we use a fertilizer with only 1% Phosphorus content.
Potassium enables plants to utilize Nitrogen and water. Our field also exceeds the plants’ needs for Potassium so we use a fertilizer with 1% Potassium content.
One major part of our soil analysis that we don’t need a laboratory to test is the soil type; that is, whether it is sand, silt or clay, or a mixture. Sand, silt and clay are different categories of mineral particle sizes, with sand being the largest, then silt, and clay being the smallest. Oh, and there is the category of…extremely rocky! In my opinion, a soil can be considered rocky when it has particles that are large enough to get stuck in your tiller tines! Some parts of our field are rocky, some are very rocky. Between the rocks, our soil is on the sandy side.
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