Week Three

Hi everyone,
So, we're wrapping up a very wet Week Three. Hopefully this stretch of weather will let up soon- we really don't want this to become a repeat of last summer... I'm going to try and remember to bring the camera to the farm tomorrow or the next day and post some pictures of the farm here on the blog. It's lovely this time of year when everything's sending out tons of new growth.

In your bags this week, you received a bag of spinach, a bag of mixed salad greens, radishes and Swiss chard. Kelli Johnson has been giving me some great recipes that I can't wait to try. Here's one that uses the chard and spinach that looks like it would make a tasty dish:

Baked Swiss Chard an Spinach w/ Chickpeas and Feta Cheese
4-6 servings

4 Tbsp olive oil
10 oz Swiss Chard, heavy stems removed
1 Lb Spinach, heavy stems removed
One 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained
4 scallions (white and green) chopped
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped dill
salt and pepper to taste
3 oz feta cheese, crumbled

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees, spread 1 Tbsp oil around a 12x9x2- inch casserole dish
2) In a steamer pot, steam Swiss chard until it wilts, about 4 mins. Add the spinach to the steamed chard and steam another 4 minutes until the spinach wilts, too. Remove both greens and drain, squeezing out excess water once they are cool enough to handle.
3) Chop greens and toss with remaining 3 Tbsp of oil, chickpeas, scallions, garlic, dill and season w/ salt and pepper.
4) Transfer to the casserole dish Push the feta cheese down into the mixture and bake until it's sizzling, about 35 mins. Serve hot.

Hope you all are doing well and are enjoying these first weeks of summer.
All the best!
Sarah

Week 2!

Hello everyone-
Just wanted to give you a heads up about what vegetables we're planning on harvesting this week.
Spinach
Mixed Greens
Basil
Asian Greens
Radishes

Also wanted to let you all know that strawberry season is just kicking off, and a favorite place of mine to go picking around here is Tre-G Farms, just off Route 20. They've opened earlier than usual, so get out there while the picking is good!
Here's the info they list:

Tre-G Farms
8183 US Route 20, Manlius, NY 13104.
Phone: 315-682 9315.
Directions: Route 20, 1/2 mile west of Pompey Center,
between the crossroads of Pompey Center Road and Watervale Rd.

Also, I wanted to share this link with you if you like to pick fruit in the summer (this has been one of my favorite things to do ever since I was a kid). Take a look at http://www.pickyourown.org/nycentral.htm and it will tell you by county where you can pick all sorts of things. It's a handy website.

Oh, and here are some more recipes that people have sent me:

Spinach Salad w/ Strawberries and Pecans
8-oz Spinach
1 c. strawberry halves
1 c. pecan halves (or walnuts, or almonds)

Dressing:
1/2 c. cider vinegar
1/3 c. oil
1/4 c. sugar
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 small onion
2 tsp poppy seeds

In a large bowl, combine spinach, strawberries and pecans.
Dressing: mix cider vinegar, oil, sugar, dijon mustard, salt pepper and onion in a food processor until smooth. Add poppy seeds and mix.


Sauteed Spinach w/ Roasted Garlic, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Feta
~10 oz spinach
3 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 c. onions, chopped
1/2 c. sun-dried (or roasted) tomatoes
1/4 c. sherry (optional)
1/4 c. lemon juice
5 T. butter
1/2 c. feta
salt & pepper to taste

Over medium heat, saute garlic and onions in olive oil until golden brown ( ~ 2 min). Add tomates, add sherry and lemon juice and reduce by a third ( ~3 min) Add butter and toss until it melts. Add spinach. Cover and stir occasionally until the spinach is slightly wilted and warm (~ 3 min). Add feta and cook briefly until slightly melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.
NOTE: this is a great to toss with your favorite pasta!


I'd love to hear some more recipe ideas, if you think of any.
Email me at luckymoonfm@gmail.com
Thanks!
Sarah

The First Week

Hi-

So the first week of the CSA is quickly approaching. I've been working a bunch on the farm with Sue and Claude trying to get everything planted, keep the weeds at bay and watering to try and combat the hot, dry weather. A good rain will do a world of good for a lot of the plants; some of them are just waiting for some water to really get going. But regardless, we've got lots of great greens for you all to sink your teeth into next week!

Andrew (my husband) and I had our first big salad from the garden last night for dinner. Salad might sound like a light supper, but we packed it full with spinach, mixed lettuce and scallions from my garden, along with some lovely kale that Sue gave me, added some walnuts, some seeds (sunflower and pumpkin) we had in the pantry, sharp cheddar, some dried raisins and other fruit and some crutons and drizzeled my oil/vinegar/maple syrup dressing over the whole thing and dug in. It was heavenly! All those fresh, crisp greens tasted so good after working out in the sun the whole day- it was a perfect dinner for a summer evening when I couldn't bear to turn the stove on and make our kitchen any hotter than it already was (it becomes somewhat of a furnace in the summer). Salads don't have to be boring, and they don't have to be a side dish or something you eat before the meal: they really can be the meal. Honestly, I was very hungry after working outside all day and it was a very satisfying meal. Andrew and I together ate the whole bowl of salad...

Also, I wanted to mention that I'd love it if people would either post a comment or send me an email with any ideas you might have for preparing the vegetables that you'll be getting in the CSA. I didn't grow up eating lots of fresh vegetables, so I've been trying hard to find lots of great ways to cook up all this wonderful food. I thought it would be a nice use for this blog if people would make meal suggestions that I could then post to share with everyone. Last year I didn't know what to do with beets, or kale or swiss chard, but since I've discovered some methods, I can't get enough of them. I hope some of you have a similar experience with a vegetable that's new to you this year. If you'd like to share a recipe or an idea, email me at luckymoonfm@gmail.com or just post it as a comment. Looking forward to trying them out!

To get us started, here's my salad dressing idea. It's not revolutionary, but it's very tasty: Mix olive oil (or whatever oil you care to try), vinegar (I like cider vinegar, but white or wine will work too) and maple syrup. You could probably also try honey. I start by mixing a small amount of each and tasting it frequently to get it to the sweetness/pungency that I like. Drizzle a little of that over a big bed of greens, and dig in!

All the best,

Sarah

Off to a Good Start

Hello everyone,

Sorry for not posting in a while- there's a lot going on at the farm, and I haven't been spending much time inside on the computer, which all in all I'm pretty happy about. :>)

But I wanted to update you all on what's happening at Lucky Moon.

Yesterday we got the trellising in the greenhouse set up so we can try planting a bunch of the tomatoes in there. I think we'll be able to fit about 120 tomato plants with room for a bunch of romaine and basil around the edges. The greenhouse is probably what I'm most excited about for this season. After last year's disastrous conditions for tomatoes, the greenhouse will ensure a practically perfect environment for them to grow in. They'll be safe from cold temperatures, high winds, too much rain, bugs, disease, hail storms, snow... all the conditions that can (and often do) make farming in upstate NY a somewhat tricky business. We should be planting the tomatoes anytime now, and then let them do their thing!

Outside in the elements the carrots, beets, swiss chard, arugula, asian greens and lettuce are coming up pretty well, and the onions, scallions and garlic seemed to have survived the rough patch of weather, which involved a really heavy hail storm, a snow storm and then a hard frost. Hopefully we'll start getting some warmer weather soon that will help everything take off.

About a week ago we planted the potatoes in the new ground that Claude tilled up on the hillside. The drainage should be a lot better up there. We planted ten 100 foot rows with seed potatoes about 12'' apart, so there are at least 1000 plants expected. Based on the pounds of seed potatoes we planted, there should be something like a 1/2 ton harvest. Now that's something to get you through the winter!

So things are going well and are looking good for the first week of the CSA. I hope you're all looking forward to your fresh veggies! I love the first greens of the seaon- the flavors are so crisp and clean. Especially after a winter of eating root vegetables and stuff frozen from last summer. It's good, but nothing like when it's picked fresh from the field!

Happy Spring, everyone-

Spring has totally sprung

Hi everyone,

Not too much to report, but the unusually warm weather (this is the first week of April, right?) has sent everything into a growing frenzy. I think I can actually watch the leaves of my rhubarb plants unfurl. I was over at the farm today helping Sue prune and clean out the raspberry beds before the plants leaf out completely (they're still supposed to be somewhat dormant). She has a lot of plants; enough to usually give out quarts of raspberries in the CSA, so it took a while and my arms look like war zones, but the plants look great this year. With the weather last summer (wet, cold and crummy) and marauding bands of hungry rabbits during the previous winter, there wasn't much of a crop last year. But we managed to keep the bunnies out this winter and with some decent weather, there should be lots of lovely raspberries to give out (and plenty to eat while picking :>)

Sue showed me what she's been able to do with the greenhouses so far; there's plenty of great-looking lettuce, some spinach (but it's actually gotten too warm and a lot of it has bolted), kale, turnips, and carrots. This is really exciting, because even though this spring has been awfully warm so far, we often can't start planting anything outside in Central New York until late April, and even then it's a gamble. But with all these hoop-houses, next year we might even be able to start the CSA in April or May!

At home, I've been getting all my flower beds ready and Andrew helped me get some super deer fencing put up around the vegetable garden. It's actually more of a fortress: I have 8' T-poles, heavy duty 7 1/2' netting, and a (mild) electric fence around the whole thing. Andrew thinks if this doesn't work, our last resort will have to be either a dog or a moat with crocodiles. His vote is for the crocodiles. My garlic is up, the rhubarb is rapidly expanding, and now I'm anxiously waiting to see the first asparagus shoots to emerge.

Well, that's the news. Hope all of you are doing well, eating good food, and are planning on growing something in your yard this year. You don't have to be able to eat it, but I think it makes it more fun. I won't say that gardening is always easy, but it is incredibly rewarding.

All the best,
Sarah VanNorstrand

CSA Time!

Hi Everyone-

I just wanted to remind you all that it's time to sign up for Lucky Moon's CSA if you were thinking about subscribing to the farm this year. We're really hoping to have some new people join us as well as people from previous seasons. So let your friends and neighbors know about some of the great benefits to supporting a local CSA: the excellent quality and freshness of the produce, the chance to support a small, local farm that doesn't use any chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides, and the assurance of knowing exactly where your food came from and how it was grown. Who actually knows how they grow food in Brazil? Are the farmers and workers treated well? What about E-coli? And how much gasoline and refrigeration does it take to get food from California to Central New York? Good things to think about when there is such great produce to be had right in your own backyard (relative to Brazil and California, anyways), where you can see first hand how the food was grown.

The list of produce Sue and Claude are planning on growing this season include: tomatoes (cherry, sauce, salad and sandwich), potatoes, onions, peppers, beans (yellow and green), peas (sugar and snow), lettuce of all kinds, spinach, kale, swiss chard, beets (red and golden) cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, herbs, carrots, shallots, garlic, rhubarb, cucumbers, summer and winter squash, asian greens, bok choy, and more.

The options are either a full or a half share, and you can have it delivered or pick it up yourself. We will be having a pickup location at my house (right in the middle of Manlius) this year, in addition to at the farm in Cazenovia, and the pickup option offers a discount.
The price breakdown is as follows:
Full Share, delivered: $525
Full Share, pickup: $445
Half Share, delivered: $390
Half Share, pickup: $315

These can all be paid in two separate installments, but an initial payment is due pretty soon, by March 31st, if possible.

If you or someone you know is interested, please contact Sue and Claude by calling them at 655-2283, or by emailing me (Sarah VanNorstrand) at luckymoonfm@gmail.com.

We really hope you decide to give subscription farming and Lucky Moon a try- I'm pretty sure you'll find it's a really wonderful way, for multiple reasons, to get food on your table.