“A little extra info from the farms
to the folks”
website: www.farmtofolk.com
A La Carte orders - Please notice that we're beginning to have a few more options in fresh produce!
When you order, please give me the name of the producer as well as the item as some items are offered
by multiple producers. We have many new offerings. Check them out at
http://www.farmtofolk.com/What%27s%20available%20this%20week.html
Full Circle Farm will begin weekly deliveries of their
grass fed beef.
Cindy Madsen of Audubon Co Farms will deliver her poultry, pork and honey.
Please pre
order directly to her by
June Greetings from Picket Fence Creamery!
We hope you are all getting a great start to your summer now that school is out!
Our "ladies" are happily basking in the sun in pastures that these spring rains are keeping very
green and lush (thus making for beautiful cream and butter!). We are, however, hoping for a good
week of sunshine so that we can plant our silage corn, and perhaps bale some hay.
We now have 17 bottle calves in the huts for the kids
to see; be sure to say hello to "Toffee," a beautiful chocolate colored heifer!
And, just in time for some summer fun, we invite you to our...
3-Farm Tour and SAMPLE SUNDAY June 8
Admission is FREE!
(Event held in conjunction with our great neighbors to the north, Prairieland Herbs
and Northern Prairie Chevre.)
Berry Patch is skipping this week and hopes to
begin fruit share
deliveries on June 17. Strawberries need sunshine
to ripen.
Grains of Wisdom bread available. Please pre order to
marilyn@farmtofolk.com
(a change for this week’s orders)
reserve what you'd like.
Hello Everyone,
Deliveries
We will again have lettuce, onions and either asparagus or rhubarb. In addition,
we will have some 'Cherry Bell' red
radishes.
Eggs
The demand for our eggs has gone way past our chickens ability to lay them. We've tried to develop a way
to most fairly distribute them, but ultimately some people will be egg less. We can deliver 10 dozen per week.
I believe Marilyn has
guaranteed nine dozen to people who have committed to picking them up
every week.
We will increase our price slightly to $3.50/dz. We felt it was time to since our feed costs have doubled
since last fall. This
will cover part of the increase and we will absorb the remainder.
Happenings
The recent rains have really made planting, weeding and harvest difficult. Our ground is pretty saturated,
so the forecast leaves us little optimism for a drying period. Taking a step back and looking at our situation
in context of the whole state, the situation could be worse. As
I type, a tornado is moving through
county and some areas have accumulated six inches so
far.
Instead of tractor powered cultivation, or even hand tools, we are crawling through the mud and weeding our
largest weeds. Our poor hired hand must think this is a crazy way to grow crops. Our summer squash crop seems
a loss and a few spots have a little standing water. The carrots, beets and potatoes seem to be thriving, however.
When it dries
I'll replant the squash (and cucumber and melon).
We've also been mulching our trees and asparagus. On Saturday we went to Adel, baby and trailer in tow.
Our load was a little large for our equipment and I ruined a tire about two miles from our loading site.
Since we'd made arrangements to pick up beams and a jack for barn fixing
in
trailer and kept our other appointments. I was back at the trailer about five hours later with two tool boxes and a
bucket of wrenches (sans the two correct wrenches I needed) and the tree man that loaded our mulch came driving by. His first question was,
"Have you been here this entire time?". Other activities have included mowing, putting hoses away shoveling out our
persistent perennial nemesis - the dock plant.
The last event of note was our mold inspection today. Stacy's highly suggestible mother got in her mind the baby
might be at risk of health problems related to household mold. Although our 90 year old house has an incredible
amount of airflow and none of us have experienced any deleterious health effects, we relented to her repeated fear
(at her expense). You'll be
glad to know we have no mold problems (only in-law problems).
On the website front I've gotten one new recipe up -
Asparagus Soup. Its great. http://www.smallpotatoesfarm.com/CSA_Cooking_Tips_Asparagus.html
What We're Eating (by Stacy)
Here is a recipe I've made occasionally this spring whilst
the asparagus is available:
Garlic Asparagus and Pasta with Lemon
Cream
8 oz dried rotini pasta
1 Tb butter
1 to 2 cups asparagus cut into 2 inch pieces
1 to 2 green onions diced
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup whipping cream 2 ts. finely
shredded lemon peel
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
-Cook pasta, drain and keep warm
-Meanwhile melt butter in skillet and add asparagus, onion, and garlic. Cook about 3 -4 minutes stirring
frequently until veggies are
crisp-tender.
-Remove veggies with slotted spoon and add to pasta.
-Combine cream and lemon in skillet, bring to boiling. Boil 2 to 3 minutes or until reduced to about 1/3 cup.
To serve, pour
cream over pasta and toss to coat.
**Summer squash would be an excellent addition to this as
would a little Parmesan or feta.
Boxes
Deb had asked if we could give people boxes. Yes, we can. We encourage reusable cloth bags, but if a produce
box would work well for you,
send me an email and we'll drop one off to you.
See you Tuesday,
Rick
Hello-
Hopefully by the time Tuesday rolls around we will have been able to enjoy a bit of sunshine- it'll take some
to dry out all the sogginess of late and with threats of more in the near by forecast. Makes me wonder IF
perhaps I shouldn't have added 'Rice' to this year's seed order.
Yesterday ( Wednesday) we finally didn't awake to rain so we did try to do some planting or rather mudding in.
Fortunately not everything got planted- a bit of coaxing and I was able to finally drive the tractor out of soft spot.
When we begin the season of planting nothing is set in stone as to what to plant where, but I do have a basic
idea of what I would like to do and then adjust that according to the weather and soil conditions as the time goes
along. Now we are to a point where some of the lower ground is available and the hilltop ground is at a premium.
I was reserving this for melons as its a lighter sandier soil but with the threats of more rain have re-thought that.
And after the tractor episode some of that lower ground may have to go fallow this year.
We did get the watermelons in or a good share of the red and orange fleshed ones with the yellow ones left for
another day. Then another bout of peppers and eggplants and finally finishing off the day with some herbs.
Last night brought more rains- sometimes coming down so hard that the rain actually just ran over the eave
spouts on the house. This is bound to be another of those unusual " typical " Iowa Summers.
For Tuesday:
Spring mix
Spinach
Rhubarb
Radishes
and for some kohlrabi( I'm sorry about last week. Seems they didn't come on quite as strong as I had anticipated)
Strawberry boxes wanted: If you have any of those green mesh plastic boxes that strawberries come in that you
don't want I would appreciate them. Later on we'll be using those for cherry tomatoes. Thank you!
Bruce
From Cindy
Madsen:
Here are a
couple of easy recipes for pork. Any
leftovers are great for sandwiches.
Crock Pot Pork Roast or Pulled Pork
1 3-4 pound boneless shoulder roast
1 tsp.
McCormick's seasoned salt *
1 tsp.
garlic powder *
1 tsp.
onion powder *
Put the roast in a crock pot with about 1/2 cup of water. Sprinkle the seasoned salt, garlic powder
and
onion powder on top of the roast. Cover
and cook on high about one hour, then low for about 4 to 5 hours.
For pulled
pork - using two forks, pull the pork apart then add BBQ sauce to taste.
* experiment with your favorite seasonings or with your own
fresh herbs
Dutch Oven - put roast in dutch oven on top of stove and add enough water to come up about 1/2 to 3/4 the
way on the roast. Sprinke the seasonings on top of the roast. Put the lid on and bring the water to a boil,
then cook on low for about 3 to 4 hours. Watch the last hour (so that the roast does not cook dry) adding a
little more water if necessary.
Ham in Aluminum Foil
Pour 1/2 cup water in CROCK POT. Wrap smoked and cured 3 to 4 pound ham in foil and seal tight.
Place in crock pot. Cover and
cook on high 1 hour, then low
ham cook l hour on high then 6 to 8 hours on low.
See you
Tuesday!
Marilyn,
Corry and Deb