Farm News

Welcome (back) to Fort Hill Farm CSA! This spring’s weather has been less erratic than past years and has got the crops off to a good start. We have some really sandy soil here at the farm so the rains of the last 5 weeks were much needed, and a welcome change from the fairly dry and windy month of April.

I guess some introductions are in order. I am your farmer, Paul Bucciaglia. I have been farming or studying farming for most of my life, and for the last eight years have been working on, managing, or starting organic vegetable farms. One of my favorite parts of this is working with like-minded, earthy, dirt-digging folk, and this years farm crew is a stellar bunch. Bringing you your veg this suumer are Tara Stichter, Michael Szikai, and Bob Cornell. Tara is a native of Washington Depot, CT, just recently returned from Oregon. She has been working on the farm since mid April and has helped plant most of the farm. Tara is trying out farming as a career and has really taken to the work. She pretty much knows how to drive every tractor on the place, except for the 54 year old ‘model G’ which I tend to hog. Michael is our most recent crew member, just having completed a degree in Landscape Architecture from UMASS. He is enjoying the outdoor work and we are getting him up to speed on his farming skills. Long time family friend Bob Cornell has become a regular crew member, and except when he’s scolding me for putting ‘perfectly good’ heads of lettuce in the compost heap, he’s great to have around.

We’ve also had some really helpful volunteer workers this spring. My father Joe recently retired and came straight to work at the farm in March, and has become our main “project guy” on the farm. And my Mom Ginny is our ‘go to’ person for greenhouse work. CSA shareholder Heather Phillip has been coming out to weed, plant, and pick, and shareholder Ben Roberts got more than he bargained for when he stopped by to say hello. We put him right to work and got the roof panels hauled to the top of the old cooler we put together. And lastly my college roommate Pat Higgins stopped by on a business trip and we put him right to work moving irrigation pipe.

The CSA is in the middle of another big growth spurt. I started tentatively last spring with 20 shares, packing the boxes by myself. By the end of the year we were up to 45 shares. This year we are at 80 shares, and we hope to be able to serve more members as the season gets going. Right now we have a little over 5 acres planted, on our way to 8 acres total. Your response to the CSA has been tremendous. I’d like to thank each of you for putting your faith in our sweat and soil, and we will do our best to not let you down.

Sincerely,

Paul Bucciaglia

Crop Outlook

Early summer is “greens season” for a CSA. We will have plentiful amounts of cooking and salad greens for the next few weeks, before the the heat loving, fruit bearing crops like cucumbers and summer squash kick in. For those of you new to CSA, we will try to pack your box with a variety of produce, and will do our best not to overwhelm you with too much ‘rabbit food’ in the next few weeks! So far lettuce, salad greens, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, and spuds are showing good growth. The strawberry crop is looking good too. It’s a bit compressed this year so we will only have them around for a few more weeks, savor every bite as they are a ton of work to grow organically.

IMPORTANT notes about boxes: PLEASE unfold the tabs on your box to open it without ripping them. If you wish to collapse the box just unfold the bottom tabs. Please do not rip the box tabs. They are reusable many times with a little care, which helps us keep our costs down and reduces tree destruction. Please bring your box back next week when you pick up your new share.

In the box this week:

Romaine Lettuce Bok Choy

Salad Mix Scallions

Radish “French Breakfast” Strawberries

What do I do with it?

Romaine Lettuce: One of my favorite spring time treats. The classic Caesar salad ingredient.

Bok Choy: Great in stir fry or try the quick sauté recipe below. Bok Choy really cooks down so keep that in mind when determining how much to sauté.

Stawberries: after weeding, watering, and worrying about them for a year, we’ve got some great berries. Conventionallly grown strawberries are one of the most pesticide intensive crops grown, and for all that they often taste like crunchberries on steroids. Organic strawberries production requires a lot of weeding and a much greater picking time, as the fruit are generally smaller. We hope you enjoy this special treat. Store in the fridge.

Next week’s box:

Probably spinach, lettuce, radishes, broccoli raab, strawberries, Chinese cabbage plus whatever else matures earlier than I thought it would….

Recipes:

Greek Greens

Printed from cooks.com

1-2 lb. Greens (bok choy, spinach, chard, etc)

1 tbsp. unrefined olive oil

1/2 c. pine nuts or sesame seeds

1 clove garlic, minced

1 sm. onion, finely chopped

2 tbsp. cider vinegar

Sea salt or tamari soy sauce to taste

Wash and tear the greens, removing heavy stems. Heat a large skillet. Add oil and nuts and saute until golden. Add all the other ingredients. Stir, cover and cook 2 minutes until the greens are barely tender. Serves 4.

(Farmers note: I cooked up some Bok Choy as described but didn’t add pine nuts, onions, or cider vinegar and it came out great, especially with a little tamari).