Red Wagon Farm

Water-mule cocktail, and Corn Tomato Salad.

Posted on September 4, 2017 by mo

Happy Labor Day. I wanted to share a couple things I made this weekend with the CSA bounty we got last week.

My favorite thing to do with watermelons is to juice them and make cocktails. Last year I posted a watermelon margarita recipe. This year Moscow Mules are all the rage so yesterday we had Water-mules.

I extracted the juice the same way I did when making the watermelon margarita and used the below proportions and directions for the drink;

Ingredients

1/4 cup watermelon juice/pulp
1 1/2 Ounces vodka
squeeze of lime
4 Ounces ginger beer
watermelon wedge and mint leaves (for garnish)
ice cubes

Directions

Place the above in a (preferably a copper mug) glass, mix and enjoy

I also made a nice tomato and corn salad.

I had everything except the basil and parsley from my CSA share, and I had the basil and parsley in my garden.

I cut up two tomatoes and a few cherry tomatoes I had lurking on the counter, a red onion, and an ear of corn. That is raw corn. I just cut it off the cob and added handful of basil and parsley.

I dressed that with some red wine vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper and tossed it. There was so much juice from the tomatoes after I tossed it I thought; I need something to soak that up with. So I threw some croutons in the bottom of the serving bowl I was going to use and dumped the tossed vegetables on top of them. When you scooped up the salad the soaked croutons were an unexpected bonus!

And that was it. I think this could have been really good with some cheese on it, but we were having pizza so I opted out of any more cheese with the meal. You might want to add some mozzarella or feta though.

What’s not to love there?

The croutons were leftover from a tomato and bread salad I posted on last year. I made this night before. One of my favorite salads.

Yum and yay for fresh tomatoes!

Have a great week.

Posted in 2017, Corn, Farm, Melon, Newsletter, Recipes, Salads-Spring-Summer, Tomatoes-Tomatillos | Comments Off

Late Summer CSA Update

Posted on September 3, 2017 by farmerwyatt

Dear CSA Members,

We are 2/3 of the way through the Red Wagon CSA season. Thank you so much for being part of our CSA! It has been a good growing season and it is finally tomato time. We try to get everything ready to plant right before the last spring frost date. We then plant as much as we can as quickly as we can so that we can get crops as early as possible. This way we have more variety in the CSA earlier and the crops can fully mature before the fall frost. Every year we have to make a choice on which crop to plant first after what should be the last spring frost. This spring on May 15 the weather forecast was for no more frost and I decided to start with planting tomatoes. Shortly after the 3,000 tomato plants were planted the forecast changed to probable snow and cold. We row covered our plants but it snowed on them. Many tomato plants died and then after the storm we transplanted some leftover plants out to replace the dead plants. The snow set the tomatoes back quite a bit and they are a little later this season than last season. I am amazed that any plants survived the cold and coat of snow. It could have been the snow or just a cooler summer but we only have half as many tomatoes per plant as we had last season. Don’t worry we still have almost too many.

The planning of when to plant what is challenging and then accomplishing getting everything planted is another challenge with weather not cooperating and other issues such as broken equipment. We normally try to plant a little bit every week so that we can get each planting weeded before the weeds get too large and become more expensive and difficult to control. In the spring after the last frost we have a tremendous amount to plant in a short time. We have to wait until after the last frost to plant all the summer crops that cannot take a freeze. This includes beans, melons, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, winter squash, pumpkins, eggplant and basil. This is about 10 acres needing to be planted in 10 days.

The fall crops are looking good. We have a great winter squash crop and should give you one squash each week for the last 6 weeks of CSA. We usually start with a spaghetti squash which I usually eat the first one of the season like spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce made from barely heated fresh tomatoes. The winter squash are a storage food. I stored a spaghetti squash for a year and 5 days once before eating it just to see how long it would store. Don’t worry if you are not eating each squash each week–they will reliably store well into the new year so put them in a cool dark-ish place and eat them after CSA is over. They can also be baked and the pulp frozen for later use.

The fall planting of greens like arugula will be back soon. We have a good crop of Brussels Sprouts this year. The parsnips are looking incredible with thigh high greens and roots already over a foot long. Parsnips can be difficult to germinate and need to be kept damp for about 2 weeks in April to get them to emerge. This year the germination was good. We did not plant a fall cauliflower crop at the right time. I planted a little earlier to make sure that they would be ready before CSA ended and they are ripening now about a month before I wanted. Two weeks difference in planting can change harvest dates by over a month sometimes. We keep getting better at dates and varieties but are constantly learning to be better.

We have a great crew this season and they have really worked to grow you some incredible food. The crew has consisted of 12 people who have worked to grow 23 acres of food. This is a small number of people to care for and harvest that much produce.

It might be apparent to some of you how large some of our crops grow and how good they taste. I have been working on using cover crop for fertility for the last few years and last fall planted over 20 acres to cover crop. The cover crop is a crop that is grown to improve soil quality but that is not harvested. The cover crops reduce erosion and fix nitrogen or capture existing nitrogen and prevent it from leaching. They also increase soil organic matter. At different times of year we grow different cover crops but some of what we grow is: winter peas, rye, vetch, oats, clovers and sorghum-sudan grass. Buying seed, planting acres and acres and then watering those acres is a lot of work. In the spring, the cover crops need to be managed so they don’t go to seed and need to be mowed and or plowed in. Getting used to the additional work and the timing of it has been really difficult but is now becoming part of what we do. The reduction in weeds and the increase in fertility make the work worthwhile. As we continue to cover crop we expect to see greater and greater benefits. The cover crop increases fertility and allows the crops to reach their full potential. Check out some of the peppers that have grown to their full potential (because they were planted in a field that was cover cropped). They are enormous.

I am working on some reduced tillage which is not easy in organic production with perennial weeds. I am also working on increasing pollinator habitat. Did you know Boulder has 350 native pollinators? I am planting some flower seeds in the cover crop. I planted clover and Birds Foot Trefoil into some of the farm roads where it grows and flowers without us having to do anything. We leave our arugula from the fall in the ground over winter and it is one of the first things to bloom in the spring. There are millions of flowers in a bed of arugula. Managing flowers so they don’t spread and become weeds in our crops is challenging and having something in bloom at all times is something I have not worked out yet. We do see wasps eating caterpillars and we know the pollinators help control pests but we don’t quite know what flowers are attracting the right beneficial insects and if the system is working and how to improve. These are all projects that we work on behind the scenes and you don’t necessarily see when you come to pick up your veggies each week. Please make sure to attend our farm tour next week if you want to learn more about cover crop, pollinators, reducing tillage, and lots more.

Thanks for being part of our CSA. I hope to see you at our Fall tour and our end of season pot luck.

Wyatt

Posted in 2017, Farm, Newsletter | 3 Comments

Freeze the Summers Bounty

Posted on August 31, 2017 by mo

I hear lots of great comments at CSA pickup about how much food you are getting every week. Some people say they can barely get through one weeks share before they get the next.

It’s a great problem to have! But, I do understand sometimes it is overwhelming. In fact this morning my refrigerator was looking full to bursting so I took a few minutes to take the time to steam and freeze some beans and cauliflower and cut up a melon.

Freezing food doesn’t have to be a big production. I probably had two pounds of beans and a head of cauliflower and half a melon. I steamed the vegetables and ran cool water over them and drained them really well in a colander and portioned them into zip-lock bags. I usually salt them a little after I cool them down and sometimes I add a little olive oil or butter to the back so when I warm them up I don’t have to season them. I think salting them really helps the flavor.

Make sure you label the bags. These are sandwich zip-locks, enough for two servings. In the winter I grab these when I am making soup, or to round out a meal when I need a little something else.

I freeze cantaloupe for smoothies.

I keep all my odds-and-ends vegetables in one area in the freezer so I remember to use them up and they don’t get lost.

Most vegetables need to be blanched before freezing. The exceptions that I can think of off the top of my head are onions and peppers. I LOVE having peppers and onions in the freezer in the winter. I grab a handful to add to eggs, or to saute for a sauce. Fruit can be frozen raw or cooked.

Here is lots of information you can trust for freezing food for the best results of safety and best taste.

I am always so happy to have a little bit of the Farm in my freezer during those long winter months when I am longing for some kale or beans or chard.

Put some of your bounty in the freezer, I know you will be glad you did.

Have a great week.

Posted in 2017, Farm, Newsletter, Recipes, Storage and Preparation | Comments Off

Worms and Organic Corn

Posted on August 14, 2017 by mo

Oh my gosh. We grew corn! This is the first year Wyatt has grown corn and look at how beautiful it is!

And it is delicious. I ran home and cooked two ears and that was my dinner tonight.

Eating corn isn’t what I wanted to talk about though. I want to talk about this;

The little worm (corn borer) that probably hitchhiked in on each ear of corn. There is almost always only one little borer per ear but still. I get it. It’s a little gross. But honestly if you want sweet, tender, organic, healthy corn you are probably going to have to deal with one little borer per ear of corn.They don’t eat much and they are only in the tip of the ear of corn, they don’t travel farther than the tip.

If you see a bin of corn at the store without any borers I promise, it was sprayed and sprayed with insecticides and probably shouldn’t eat it.

If you go through and partially shuck each ear of corn until you find one that doesn’t have a borer you will probably go through a dozen ears before you find the ONE without. Two things are wrong with doing this; you waste a TON of corn and the one you find without the borer is probably a little under ripe and won’t be as sweet. Bugs and animals know when fruit and vegetables are ripe.

So, what to do?

Here is how I deal with this little borer problem. I cut the tip off if all the ears before I cook and shuck them.

Problem solved with no ick factor. You don’t have to find the borer, assume it is there. Cut off the tip and throw it away, cook, shuck, eat.

Enjoy this weeks bounty. I’ll see some of you at Thursday pick up at the Farm.

Posted in 2017, Corn, Recipes | 1 Comment

Peaches-Storing and Keeping

Posted on August 5, 2017 by mo

This week the CSA members who have Fruit Shares will be getting peaches from our friends the Western Slope this week. We will probably have several more weeks of peaches in the Fruit Share so I wanted to have a little chat about the peaches you get and how to handle, and keep them at their best.

The peaches we get are picked ripe off the tree. They are hand picked and handled very gingerly and packed in padded boxes so they won’t be bruised.

We weigh them and very carefully put them in paper bags for distribution to you. Usually Lauren is the only one who will handle and weigh peaches. Sometimes I might, and if Lauren is busy she will carefully train one person to do this job. We treat the peaches like we would eggs. We don’t bang them or crowd them, or stack them more than two high. We only move one box of peaches at a time and don’t shove or throw the boxes in the truck.

I don’t think there is any other fruit or vegetable on the farm that is as coddled like the peaches you get from us. A little piece of our heart breaks off and dies when we see CSA members shove a bag of peaches in a tote bag and then put the CSA vegetables on top of the peaches…it happens every now and then and we are very sad when it does. :(

OK. So, now you have your peaches. If they are still a little firm for your liking they might benefit from spending a night or two on your counter. You want set them on the counter, or in a paper bag with their shoulders down like this. Preferably not touching if you have room.

See the little bump on the top of the peach in front? That is the blossom end, the stem end is where the shoulders are and fruit (i.e.peaches and tomatoes) ripen best with their shoulders down. Here is another picture of a peach showing the stem end, the second peach. The front peach is blossom end up and how you want to store yours.

The peaches are picked ripe, but peaches continue to ripen after they are picked so you need to decide if you want yours ripened more. If I am grilling peaches I might leave them a little firm. If I am eating them fresh I like them a little softer and leave them out for a day or two.

To determine ripeness I hold my peach in the palm of my hand and gently close my hand around the peach. Don’t press your finger into the peach or you will bruise it. You can feel with your whole hand if the peach flesh gives a little, or not.

You can keep peaches in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days, not long I know. Put them in a plastic bag and store them on their shoulders if you have enough room.

If you can’t use your peaches in the 3 to 5 days you can freeze them. They freeze beautifully.

I’ll try to add a few peach recipe ideas in the next week or so to help you use up your bounty.

Happy Summer!

Posted in 2017, Peaches, Recipes, Storage and Preparation | Comments Off

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