Enrollment Update

Thank you to all of the Roxbury Farm members who have re-enrolled for the 2009 season. We have a record number of 815 shares reserved for the 2009 season. One site, the Eileen Street site in Albany, is already full.

If you are presently a Roxbury Farm member and still want to sign-up for the 2009 season please send your form in as soon as possible. You only have a few more days to reserve your share before we open up membership to the general public. With only about 200 shares still available we are sure the spots will fill up quickly.

If you are not presently a member and are interested in signing up for the 2009 season, the 2009 enrollment forms will be available on our website, www.roxburyfarm.com , on February 1st. Download the form, fill it out, and send it to the farm to reserve your share.

2009 Enrollments

Roxbury Farm members have until January 6th to reserve their share for the 2009 season. Starting Febuary 1st the general public can begin to enroll. We have a long waiting list so make sure you send in your enrollment form and deposit this week. After January 6th we can no longer guarentee that you will have a share for the 2009 season. Last year we had to turn away long time members because they did not enroll in time. Please don't let this happen to you! Contact the farm if you need an enrollment form or have questions about a payment plan.

If you are not already member our enrollment forms will be on our website at www.roxburyfarm.com on Feb. 1. Download the form, fill it out, and send it in.

Letter from a Farmer

What are you doing now that it is winter? Are you still harvesting vegetables? You must just be resting now that it is cold. These are questions and comments we hear from people nearby who know we are farmers but aren’t exactly sure what it is we do in the fall. The fall is time for cleaning up, putting the fields to rest, bringing things under cover to protect them from the winter weather, and drawing things to a close. It is also time for new beginnings.

Last week we took advantage of the mild weather to harvest the celeriac, rutabaga, and cabbages. They were the last of the storage crops to bring in from the fields. All of the root crops are now stored in 20-bushel bins in the barn and the cooler. The bins are stacked six high to the ceiling in the barn and are quite imposing to look at. We will have plenty of root vegetables and winter squash to deliver for the last two weeks. In the field we can still harvest the curly “Winterboer” kale and Brussels sprouts. Unfortunately, the Brussels sprouts are diseased due to the wet summer weather, so we won’t find enough for all of you. If the cold this weekend doesn’t damage the broccoli and cauliflower, we may still be able to harvest those, too.

The crew is busy in the barn packing and washing root crops. It is a lengthy process to clean and pack thousands of pounds of root and storage crops. It does provide us with work that is under cover and out of the cold wind, but we get a little antsy for some outdoor work. We have two washers for root crops so that we can deliver them clean and sorted. We bag some of the washed produce, such as the carrots and parsnips, so that they will stay crisp and flavorful. We don’t wash other crops, like the sweet potatoes and potatoes, so that they will store better in your cupboards. The sweet potatoes are cured in the greenhouse right after harvesting. We keep them at 85 degrees for a week. The curing process makes the sweet potatoes sweet and heals over any cuts that the roots received during harvesting. Once the sweet potatoes are cured, we have to handle them like eggs because any new cuts or damage to the skin will cause the roots to rot quickly. The sweet potato crop is storing much better this year because we harvested them before the weather turned cold.

All of the cover crops are planted and some have grown quite a bit for a thick winter cover.
The later-planted rye is up about 6 inches, just enough to protect the soil over the winter, and will begin to grow again in the early spring. By June the rye will be about five feet tall and ready to cut for straw mulch. John spent a couple of weeks spreading compost in early September so that we won’t have to in the spring. Then he seeded oats in the fields for our early crops like lettuce, potatoes, parsnips, and the plasti-culture crops. The oats will die over the winter. In late March and early April we can lightly till the soil and it will be ready for planting. The rye fields will be ready for the fall crops in July and August. Other fields are in clover and grass to build soil fertility and for hay. But, for now the fields are done with growing things and are at rest for the winter.

In the animal realm of the farm, the ram is in with the ewes and the boar is in with the sows. As the day length shortens, the ewes go into estrus. We want the ewes to lamb in late March and early April, so we put the ram in the ewe pasture on November 1st. Right now, we have 45 ewes, one ram, and one whether (the ram’s sidekick when he isn’t in with the ewes, so he won’t get lonely). That means we should have about 60 to 70 lambs in the spring. We have two sows in with our Tamworth boar. We should have about 20 to 25 piglets in early March. We purchased a Tamworth boar as they are traditionally a pasture-raised breed and are able to get some nutrients from grazing. The boar made this very clear as he found ways to constantly escape the greenhouse barn last spring to get on the sheep pasture to graze. We had no idea that a pig could jump four feet high! The sheep and pigs have access to the greenhouse barn and pasture all winter. This keeps them healthier and the barn cleaner.

The 2009 seed catalogs are beginning to arrive in the mail. Over the next couple of weeks we will talk with the crew about what crops did well, what varieties we really liked, and what varieties we would like to change. We will read up on new varieties and take recommendations from other farmers and our Cornell Cooperative Extension Agent, Chuck Bornt. We will then choose our varieties for the 2009 season and place our seed orders before the new year begins. As this season draws to a close we are planning and looking forward to another. We hope you will join us as we journey through a new growing season. ~ Jody

Week 24 Notes & Recipes

PORK, LAMB, and BEEF AVAILABLE: We have many cuts of lamb and pork (including smoked pork) available. We have a few cuts of beef left: soup bones, porterhouse steak, and ground beef. All the forms are at your pickup site and online. Your orders will be delivered the week of Dec. 1.

FALL DELIVERY SCHEDULE:
Capital District: Nov. 18 & Dec. 2
Westchester: Nov. 19 & Dec. 3
NYC: Nov. 20 & Dec. 4
Columbia County: Nov. 21 & Dec. 5

There will be the optional storage box delivery on your regular pick-up day the week of Dec. 15th. Check the sign-in sheet at your pickup site to see if you purchased a storage vegetable box. It is the last column on the sign-in sheet. (If you ordered a box recently, your name is not on the list yet.)

2009 ENROLLMENT FORMS: Make sure to find your enrollment form at your pickup site. Please return the form and your deposit by January 6, 2009, to reserve your share. If you send it in after January 6 we can not guarantee we will still have shares available. We have a long list of people on the waiting, so make sure you don’t miss out.

RECIPES:
HERBED RUTABAGA COUSCOUS SALAD
Salad
1 medium rutabaga1
½ c.couscous
salt
½ c. freshly grated parmesan or asagio cheese

Vinaigrette
¼ c. white wine vinegar
1 ½ t. honey
1 t. dried thyme
1 t. dried oregano
1 t. dried dill
½ t. cayenne pepper
1 t. coarse salt
½ t. freshly ground black peper
¾ c. extra virgin olive oil

Peel and dice the rutabaga into ½ inch cubes. Place the cubed rutabaga into a medium pot and fill with enough cool water to cover by about an inch. Add a pinch of salt and place the pot over medium high heat to bring it to a gentle boil. Cook rutabaga just until tender enough to be pieced easily by a fork, about 10-15 minutes. Dump into a strainer and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking process. Place in a large bowl.
Cook coucous according to package directions. Rinse with cool water to stop the cooking process and remove excess starch so couscous doesn’t stick together. Put on top of cooked rutabaga in the large bowl.
To make the herb vinaigrette, place all of the ingredients in a jar or a blender. Give them a good long shake or a whirl and then taste to adjust seasonings. It should be somewhat salty. Pour vinaigrette over bowl of rutabaga and couscous and then toss gentle to coat evenly.
Just before serving, add the grated cheese. Taste and adjust salt as desired. Serve warm or cold. Makes a great leftover lunch.

Herb-Mixed Carrots and Rutabagas
2 large carrots, peeled
1 large rutabaga, peeled
2 T. butter
1 T. chopped parsley
1 t. chopped thyme
1 t. chopped rosemary
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1 large garlic clove, minced
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 c. fresh panko or bread crumbs, browned in a teaspoon of butter

Quarter carrots and rutabaga. Cook carrots and rutabaga separately in salted boiling water until they are al dente; approximately 10 minutes for carrots and 15 for rutabaga. Drain.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat and melt butter. Add the turnip and rutabaga; cook over medium-high heat until golden brown. Add herbs, garlic, salt and pepper. Toss to coat and remove from stove. Serve immediately topped with breadcrumbs.
From Straight from the Farm http://straightfromthefarm.wordpress.com

Letter from a Farmer

The leaf peeping season has come to a close this week. The rain on Saturday removed the last of the brilliant colors of the woods. When the colors appear, the tree is telling us it is preparing for winter. As if the tree follows the calendar, it stops producing food by halting photosynthesis and starts pulling the remaining sugars out of its leaves. Actually the tree already prepared for this in the spring as at the base of the leaf a special layer of cells (the abscission layer) is formed that allows the leaf to later separate and fall off. And it is a good thing they do; how many of you remember the October storm of 1987? We lost many trees due to an early snow storm. The wet snow stuck to the leaves breaking off many branches. We remember it well as we were out of power for more than a week as the broken branches fell on the power-lines.

Chlorophyll gives leaves their bright green color and is very dominant. Once the green fades, the other colors in the leaf become visible to us. With oak trees all we get is a plain brown, while the sugar maples can turn a magnificent red which is due from the sugars that get trapped behind the abscission layer. The glucose turns red from the presence of anthocyanin, an anti-oxidant that we find in all red and purple fruits and vegetables like berries, tomatoes, beets, apples and grapes. The orange in the leaves comes from carotenes and the yellow from xanthophyll, which we find plentiful in carrots, squash, and sweet potatoes. Apparently the cool nights and abundant sunshine we experienced during October of this year made for a better than average fall color show.

Fall is a time of transformation and a very similar process takes place with our annual, biannual, or perennial crops. The annuals include salad greens, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, and also the many garden weeds. Annuals survive the winter by completing the cycle of reproduction in one year with the production of an abundant seed supply. Pigweed, a common garden-weed, produces hundreds of thousands of seeds per plant. Every weed left in the field represents another generation of future weeds. Seeds can be tough and many survive the stomachs of our farm animals, wet soil conditions, and freezing temperatures. We use many annuals in the garden and their flexibility and vigor is an important trait as each year we can improve their qualities as new varieties become available.

The biennials have a different way to survive the winter. Some of the biennials are frost hardy greens like kale and collards. They have their own way to survive the cold temperatures. Due to the frost, their leaves turn sweet and lose some of their bitterness and the increased
glucose acts like antifreeze. Whenever someone tells me they don’t like Brussels sprouts I wonder if it is because they have never tasted a good one. Most of the cole crops available in the store come from the balmy West Coast. Cole crops and other greens harvested in October or November in the Northeast not only have superior taste and flavor, they are an important source of vitamin K, anti-oxidants, folate, magnesium, and even omega 3 fatty acids. So, eat those vegetables if you plan to be around for a while as these are compounds that keep us young!

With other biennials the leaves die back, allowing the underground parts and/or thick stems to remain alive. Carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, potatoes, beets, rutabaga, onions, and even cabbage and broccoli are all biennials that create an abundance of food to survive the winter and store it in their tubers, roots or stems. Instead of leaving them in the field we bring them inside our barn, and store them under optimum conditions.

There is another way we store the summer into the winter; the grasses and clovers of the pasture became beef and lamb. Even the butcher hogs and turkeys consumed high amounts of green plants and other culled vegetables from the packing barn. Animals raised on green plants, ripe fruits, and other colored vegetables are superior in health to animals raised on a grain only diet. If vegetables are good for us, we shouldn’t deprive the animals from it. What would your health be like if you would live on a diet of rice and beans only? Studies have shown that meat from pastured animals contains more anti-oxidants than meat from grain fed animals and a diet of grass prevents lipid oxidation (a major cause of deterioration of meat affecting flavor, color, texture, and nutritive value). But, besides that, to us it is simply intuitive that there is something fundamentally wrong with putting an animal in a barn deprived of sunlight, green plants, and colorful fruits. So we don’t keep as many animals over the winter as in the summer which is the reason we only provide you with meat in the fall.

So while it is getting colder, summer is not really over. Summer lives on in the crops that have been brought in to the barn like potatoes, winter-squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onions, and beets. The summer lives on in the many hay bales stored in the barn that will slowly be fed to the animals. Summer lives on in the field in the frost-hardy greens and lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and in the root crops like the celeriac and rutabaga that will soon be harvested. And summer lives on in the meat from our animals.

With the exception of cool weather loving crops like spinach, cauliflower and broccoli, most crops have stopped growing. These days the fields are like a giant walk in cooler. In the morning we put on an extra layer, wear neoprene gloves to keep our hands from freezing and harvest what is left. Let the warmth of the summer’s sun, preserved in our food, shine in our bellies.

~ Jean-Paul

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower”. ~Albert Camus

Photos from the Farm

This week we are bunching kale and broccoli rabe. We are also harvesting a bumper crop of caulilfower.

Notes for Members and Recipes

FALL DELIVERY SCHEDULE:
Capital District: Oct. 28, Nov. 4 & 18, Dec. 2
Westchester: Oct. 29, Nov. 5 & 19, Dec. 3
NYC: Oct. 30, Nov. 6 & 20, Dec. 4
Columbia County: Oct. 31, Nov. 7, 14, & 21, Dec. 5

There will be the optional storage box delivery on your regular pickup day the week of Dec. 15th.

2009 ENROLLMENT FORMS:
Look for your 2009 enrollment form at your pickup site this week. YOU HAVE UNTIL JANUARY 6 TO RESERVE YOUR MEMBERSHIP. We have a long waiting list so please send your form in on time so that your share is reserved for the 2009 season. Please post-date your deposit check for January 1, 2009.

MEAT ORDERS:
We will have more pork available in a couple of weeks. The lamb will be available in two weeks. We still have some beef cuts available: chuck roast (boneless), rib steak, porterhouse steak, t-bone steak, short ribs, and soup bones.

RECIPES:

ONTARIO GREENS
1 – 1-1/2 pounds fresh greens, washed, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic
Salt & pepper
1/2 cup sour cream
Steam the greens about 5-10 minutes or until nearly cooked but still bright-colored. Meanwhile, melt butter in large skillet on MEDIUM HIGH. Add onion and garlic, sauté until soft, stirring occasionally. Stir in the greens. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in the sour cream, let warm briefly. Serve immediately.

KARELIAN BORSCHT
2 tablespoons butter
4 medium beets, peeled, grated (about 4 cups)
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 small red cabbage, shredded (about 3 cups)
2 carrots, peeled, grated (about 1 cup)
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon sugar
8 cups meat or vegetable broth
1/4 pound spicy sausage (such as andouille), optional
4 tablespoons sour cream, optional

Heat butter in four-quart kettle. Add beets. Cook until soft and almost brown. Add salt, flour and vinegar. Add cabbage, carrots, bay leaf, garlic, sugar and broth. Simmer at least 2 hours. Add water if too much liquid evaporates. Close to serving time, cook sausage in boiling water until fully cooked. Drain and slice. Place soup in bowls and top with sausage and sour cream.