(CSA Newsletter: Week 29)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
Those of you who have been through one or more winter CSAs know that a big part of our off-season enjoyment comes from visiting with other farmers — attending conferences and making trips to other farms. While we cherish our winter farming community, we always feel a little sad to see our friends’ farms ‘bare.’ Even farms where produce is grown all winter (as on ours) still don’t look their absolute best in January.
So, each summer we try to make time to visit at least one or two farms during their peak season. Not surprisingly, these visits are more difficult to coordinate — we’re busier and so are other farmers. Therefore, usually we make work related excuses for visits: buying a used implement, picking up chickens, etc. Those sorts of trips are worth it but hardly as leisurely as winter occasions.
Since we have interns this year, we decided that this summer we should really make time for real farm visits. We wanted Daniel and Erika to see many different farm operations in full swing so that they could have a broader picture of summer farming in Oregon (both have worked on farms elsewhere before, but each region — and each farm — has a distinctive identity and set of systems).
Over the last week and a half, we visited four other farms in the area. Of course, because it is still busy August, some of those visits were self-guided tours while other farmers made time to share a quick meal with us amidst their work days.
We began our visits two Fridays ago at Ayers Creek Farm in Gaston. Some of you will remember Carol and Anthony Boutard from the McMinnville Market, which they attended for several weeks last summer. Casey and I had been there before in late September, but August was a great time to see their operation.
Much of what they grow are delicious organic fruits. Their thornless blackberries were in full delicious production … we had to sample a few of the amazingly large fruit as we walked around the field. Ayers Creek is a market and wholesale oriented farm, and it was interesting to see how not doing a CSA dramatically changes the selection of vegetable crops growing in the field. Anthony and Carol have clearly figured out which crops work best for their site and their markets and don’t try to grow all the basic crops at once the way many CSA growers do. Instead, they experiment a lot with niche and specialty crops: beans, grains and more obscure vegetables. We enjoyed viewing their okra trials as well as the nearby cane sorghum trials. Sorghum is a plant related to corn that is used to make syrup — the plants however are giant! These plants were easily twice our height! All in all, a fascinating farm tour.
Next we visited Gaining Ground Farm in Yamhill, where farmer Mike Paine gave us a guided tour of their mid-season operation. Some of you will know Mike from this year’s McMinnville Farmers’ Market, where he is a weekly vendor. In addition to market, Gaining Ground also has a good-sized CSA operation.
We’ve known Mike and Jill since we arrived in the county in 2006 and have visited their farm every season since. It was neat to see some new ground they’ve planted this year, including a large section on some of their upper ground for growing potatoes and fall crops. They also had a new pole building near their lower fields for providing shelter over their wash area. I also showed Daniel and Erika some elements from Gaining Ground’s operation that inspired some of our own infrastructure improvements: namely their cooler, which is built using the same technique as ours (wood frame construction with a window air conditioner controlled with a “CoolBot” thermostat). Of course, Mike’s cooler has the added advantage of having a beer tap built into the side, which connects to a keg inside. Two thumbs up, Mike!
On our way back to our place, we made one last quick stop in Carlton at Figment Farm. Again, some of you may remember Leslie Blanding, who sold for the previous three seasons at market. Similar to us, Leslie chose to focus her farm’s production on her small CSA. Unfortunately, this year Leslie has had some unexpected water difficulties that have made this a challenging summer (oh, how we feel her pain!!!!!! We’ve been in that position before too!).
Knowing this, we were amazed at how many crops she has managed to coax through a dry summer. Even though she’s essentially been dry farming much of the season, she’s filled her CSA baskets every week. The squashes looked especially lush. Admittedly, we’ve visited Figment Farm many times in the summer before, since we’re good friends with Leslie (and even lived there temporarily while building our house in 2007).
However, I especially wanted Daniel and Erika to see her operation because of its difference in scale and style. Leslie grows in the ‘permaculture’ tradition, and her beds are the product of years of work: piling layers of organic matter together and patiently waiting for nature to do its work of turning manure and straw into soil. The results are amazing fertile and beautifully organic plantings. Walking through her very large gardens is always a treat: she plants in aesthetically pleasing arrangements and allows reseeded crops to flourish in surprising places.
Last week on Wednesday’s hot afternoon, we made one more farm visit, to Persephone Farm in Lebanon. Farmers Jeff Falen and Elanor O’Brien have also chosen to focus their farm’s production on market and wholesale (no CSA). Once again, we’ve been to Persephone several times, but never during the height of the season. What can I say? … their crops all looked fantastic. Their farm is gorgeous in general too: it’s bordered by a treed hillside on one edge and the Santiam River on the other. I think the best word to describe the setting is ‘verdant’ — leafy trees growing all around vibrant fields filled with vegetables. We were especially impressed by their cole crops, which Jeff says have been spared their usual flea beetle attacks this year. The plants looked so perfect that we were all tempted to try biting into a broccoli leaf (we didn’t though).
And, of course, in case we weren’t smitten yet, the farmers and crew let us join them for their delicious evening meal. We feasted on a sweet corn and bean succotash, curried deviled eggs, melons from our farm, pasta salad, and peach pie. There’s nothing quite like good conversation and fresh farm food eaten outside to end a perfect hot August day.
So, yes, we’ve been living large here at Oakhill Organics lately. But don’t worry — we’re not letting August’s delicious abundance of food and friends go to our heads and make us lazy. We’ve been doing plenty of work too: weeding, harvesting, sowing fall cover crops, and irrigating irrigating irrigating. You can taste more of the fruits of our labors in this week’s exceptional summer share: the first of the sweet corn and sweet peppers! Woo hoo! Enjoy the vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
Want more tomatoes?
We have lots of tomatoes ripening in the fields right now, so this is a perfect opportunity to can, freeze or dry some for winter’s enjoyment. We’re selling extras for $2/lb. If you’d like to buy some, please place an order via email (farm(at)oakhillorganics(dot)org) by Sunday evening (to be picked up at next Tuesday’s CSA pick-up). In your email, please specify whether you prefer sauce/roma tomatoes (these are very flavorful and have a sweet dry flesh that is perfect for sauces), standard red slicer tomatoes, or mixed heirloom tomatoes.
If you’ve never ‘put up’ tomatoes before and want to start off easy, we recommend freezing them whole in freezer bags. For easiest use in the winter, you can core the top to remove the stem (but this isn’t necessary). Whenever you want to add tomatoes to a stew, soup or sauce, just pull a few and let them thaw enough so that you can chop! We do this every summer — even when we’re very busy — and we always appreciate the extra flavor tomatoes bring to our winter stews.
