Henry Got Crops Education Team Creates Own Urban Bike Tour

After missing the official Weavers Way urban farm bike tour, Henry Got Crops Education Coordinator Clare Hyre and apprentices Molly Devinny and Ariel Drooner created their own tour , attempting to hit all the farm education hot spots in the city. The ladies began their tour at Mill Creek Farm in West Philadelphia where Jade Walker (farm educator) was hard at working preparing for a Tuesday farmers market. After exploring the community garden adjacent to Mill Creek we learned about the history and progression of the farm while harvesting summer squash. Our takeaway piece from Mill Creek - Henry Got Crops! has just gotta have a cob oven!
Next we quickly rode up the street to the Urban Tree Connection where we saw three different sites. We loved learning how UTC takes vacant lots and unused backyards and turns them into teaching environments for the neighborhood youth. UTC had beautiful mulched pathways and well labeled beds!

Truly inspired and ready for more, Clare led the way to the UNI (Urban Nutrition Initiative) garden at University City High School. During lunch we admired the beautiful pavilion, the well labeled signs, the wash station, and the variety crops grown at this quarter acre site. Everyone got very excited about the idea of bringing more art into our work at HGC. We also got excited by the possibility of building an outdoor classroom and kitchen where students could harvest food and create meals without ever leaving the farm.
Having never biked through the city this next section of the journey really pilled on the miles and proved that the HGC ladies are full of stamina! We moved onward for a quick stop at Heritage Farms at the Methodist Family Homes and then finished at MLK Seeds For Learning Farm in Mt. Airy. Sarah Garton at Heritage Farms was kind enough to take us on a tour of their facilities and although we missed Chris Bowden-Newsom's class we were able to see the Seeds for Learning garden and greenhouse. We also got to our very own education site at the Stenton Family Manor!
Exhausted and happy, the crew congratulated themselves on their 30 plus miles bike trip by stopping at the Weavers Way Mt. Airy store where they gorged themselves with delicious co-op products. We were all excited to take what we saw and learned back to the farm and begin the process of enhancing the HGC/Saul farm education program.
Email: clarehyre@gmail.com if you have any skills in carpentry and would like to volunteer some time to HGC education program building efforts. We are hoping to construct picnic tables at the farm for an outdoor kitchen and possibly a pavilion.
Also if you have excess pots, pans, bowls, cups, silverware, or a gas cook stove that you want to donate to our kitchen please let me know! Having an outdoor kitchen would dramatically increase the amount of food that goes into Saul students’ mouths and encourage their participation with the CSA and Weavers Way!

Sweet Pepper French Dressing

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
2 ½ tsp salt
2 ½ tsp ground mustard
2 2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 2/3 cup cider vinegar
2 finely chopped green peppers
2 jars pimentos, chopped
21/2 tsp grated onion
In a large bowl combine sugar, salt, mustard, oil and vinegar. Stir in green peppers, pimentos and onions.
Allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-pepper-french-dressing

Green Tomato Relish

Ingredients:
24 large green tomatoes
2 red bell peppers, halved and seeded
3 green bell peppers, halved and seeded
12 large onions
3 tbps celery seed
3 tbsp mustard seed
1 tbsp salt
5cups white sugar
2 cups cider vinegar
Directions:
In a grinder or food processor, coarsely grind tomatoes, pepper and onions. Line a large colander with cheesecloth place mixture and allow to drain for about an hour. In a large, non aluminum stock pat, combine tomato mixture, celery seed, mustard seed, salt, sugar, and vinegar. Bing to a boil and simmer, 5 minutes. Sterilize enough jars to hold relish. Pack relish into jars and screw on lids. Place in a rack in the bottom of the stockpot and fill halfway with boiling water. Lower jars into pot, the jars should be covered by 2 inches of water. Bring to boil and process for 30 min. Remove jars, cool and check seal.
Source: allrecipes.com/recipe/green-tomato-relish

Beet Burgers

Courtesy of Beth Essex, via Pinewoods Camp, Inc. kitchen.
Shareholder Sandy Rotenberg sent this recipe to me, along with a sample! I shared it with the farming team on Friday and everyone agreed that it was delicious!
Ingredients:
2 cups grated beets
2 cups grated carrots
½ cup grated onions
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup cooked sunflower seeds
2 eggs
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup grated cheddar
3 tbsp flour
¼ cup oil
Minced garlic, cayenne pepper, parsley, salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Roughly grate veggies and put in colander to drain.
Mix everything
Make patties, squeezing out liquid as you go.
Bake at 350 about 10-12 minutes per side.
Note: they may be oddly shaped, but they freeze well after cooking!

Harvest on Henry Farm Fundraiser, Oct. 1st

Henry Got Crops is pleased to present Harvest on Henry, its first fall fundraiser, Saturday Oct.1 st. from 1-4 pm. This free event will feature live music, hayrides, harvest craft activities, face painting, pumpkin painting, fun kid’s games, samples of farm products, a 50/50 raffle, and a pie bake-off (anyone is welcome to submit pies for the competition). There will also be farm products for sale and food from local vendors. It all takes place right at the farm. The Pie Bake Off is sure to be a highlight of the event, featuring two categories, Fruit and Other, with winners chosen by local Celebrity Judges! 1st prize is a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Pies must arrive not later than 2 pm on. The cost to enter is $15. Multiple submissions will gladly be accepted at $5 for each. The contest is free for Saul Students. Each baker must submit two pies: one for the contest and one for sale at the fundraiser.
Proceeds from the event will help support Henry Got Crops, and will reduce the price of a vegetable share for families in need.
We welcome volunteers and others willing to help out. Those interested in volunteering, or willing to lend tents for the event please contat Nancy Dearden: nancy.dearden@verizon.net.
The musical lineup is still being finalized, so musicians interested in playing at the event should contact: Harvestonhenry@gmail.com. For more information, check out our Facebook page, facebook.com/HenryGotCrops
Hope to see you there!

Wish list Thank You's

A few weeks ago, we put out the farm wish list and so far we’ve gotten a great response! For those of you who have contacted me but we haven’t connected yet, thank you in advance and we’ll be in touch about when I can either come pick up your donation or you can drop it off at the farm.
Thank you Clare Maher for the weed cutter.
Thank you Anna Hoover for offering to help with record keeping.
Thank you Ed Zanciewski for the printer offer.
Thank you Georgis Kirkpatrick for offering to help with CAD crop rotation mapping.
Thank you Troy Fisher for the lawn mower offer.
And thank you to everyone who has donated books to our farm library. It is growing fast and about a dozen people have checked out books! I am very excited to open the library up to the students at Saul this week when school starts.

Update on Share Size

If anyone walked down into the field last week you would have seen the void of tomatoes. Where two weeks ago there were 8 rows, now there is nothing but black plastic mulch. Like I mentioned last week, our tomato disease hit hard and we had to rip out (almost) all of our heirloom tomatoes in an effort to save the remaining cherry tomatoes and paste tomatoes which have been slower to get the disease. Now with the tomatoes out of the ground we can start bulking up our future plantings to compensate for their loss. We have acted as quickly as possible! Right away on Friday we doubled our daikon radish planting, and our baby greens planting. Next week, I will make our radish and turnip plantings larger. I just got word from someone at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society that they have some extra kale, collards, cabbage, mustards, kohlrabi and tatsoi transplants which we can add to our plantings to make them a little larger. This is great news because it is too late in the season to reseed those plants in the greenhouse. I am particularly excite about their cabbage transplants since I was originally not planning on planting them this year due to lack of room (we expanded the broccoli planting this year instead). At this point though, I’m not sure exactly how many transplants they have, it is doubtful that they have 130, which is the number of shareholders we have! Every bit will help thought. Thank you for your understanding and support. This is exactly the reason CSAs exist, to help farmers mitigate the unpredictability of a growing season by sharing the risks of the ups and downs of agriculture with an extended community!