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Stirrings of Spring

So far on this brisk March day, even with snow all over the ground and rumors of more, it feels the closest it's ever been to spring.  At least to me, that is.  After basking and reveling in the wonderful heaps of snow we've received (and that we sorely missed last winter!), the feeling in the air smacks more and more of real springtime.  So much for the wise old groundhog; six more weeks of winter is what we've been getting, this last week and the next few days are going to be sleet and snow enough to put that little rodent's prognostications to shame....but today it feels a bit different. The snow melt is rushing down our driveway, slipping into our creeks and waterways.  Large groups of robins have been hopping about, investigating our fields.  I've been seeing canada and snow geese heading northward again, and today I heard the first kildeer "kill-deer"-ing overhead, a sure sign that the birds are coming back.  Spring is truly here when the sound of "kill-deer!  kill-deer!" is practically non-stop, and those little sand-birds are scuttling around all over the place, laying their eggs in our vegetables.  Within a week, the silence of winter is gone!  We might be expecting more snow and winter-like weather for a bit, but springs feels like it's pretty close around the corner.

The signs of spring haven't only been coming from the fields, the forests and the skies.  Our first round of 2013 seed starting has officially begun, and sprouts are already pushing themselves up from their flats! Lettuce, spinach, brassicas (kale, choi, asian greens), peppers, and alliums (leeks, onions, shallots, scallions) will be our first-born vegetables of the year!  We're also sowing a lot more herbs this year, with higher hopes of success: our parsley sprouts are ahead of the game, with cilantro, rosemary, thyme, fennel, dill, and oregano not too far behind.  Much more is on the way, not to mention our sleeping spinach and green garlic and asparagus that is soon to sprout, ready for harvest.

If spring is on the way....that can only mean that our Spring CSA 2013 season will soon be upon us!  Yep, we promised you all more information when we had it, so without further adieu....

Spring CSA 2013 is set tentatively to run from mid-April through May, up until the beginning of Summer CSA.  6 weeks of delicious organic, local produce!  Veggies we think we'll definitely have:  asparagus, bulb garlic, green garlic, turnips, daikon radishes, potatoes, spinach; Veggies we think we'll most likely have (we've sown them in flats, and they should be ready by then):  head lettuce, bok choy, braising mix, salad mix, microgreens/sprouts (baby mizuna, arugula, collards, red choi, asian greens), cilantro, fennel fronds, kale; Tentative yes veggies: arugula, beets, napa cabbage, radishes, rosemary, dill.  There is the possibility of a special, additional oyster-mushroom CSA arrangement, or oyster-mushrooms may be part of the main CSA!  If you are interested, please let us know; email echocsa@gmail.com or echofarmers879@gmail.com and we'll put you on our Spring CSA list.  Official sign-up to open later!  We will release more information and updates as they come.

Besides getting ready to be your farmers once again this year, we've been staying quite busy with early spring activities!  Our shiitake mushroom endeavors have got us over 100 logs inoculated already and hauled off to the oak forest to fully colonize through the summer with mycelia, and pop out shiitakes as soon as July, but most likely later in fall.  We are also happy to be hosting a little shiitake-inoculation workshop tomorrow for the University of Iowa gardeners to take part in!  They will be helping us in exchange for invaluable shiitake mushroom-growing knowledge, and a log for each visitor to take home.  We are also more-than-stoked for the soon-arrival of our spring intern, Danielle Hollis from the greater Chicago area!  She's planning on staying with us the entire season and learning all she can, and we're excited for a new face eager to learn organic farming alongside with us!  We look forward to her arrival here Sunday!

As we all know, Spring is indeed all about the "out with the old, in with the new" theme...after enjoying a winter's fill "pigging-out" on our farm-raised pork, our hog-farmer Will is soon going to be on the lookout for this year's new piglets pretty soon.  We raised two last year but this year we're looking to expand the output, as well as those we can share the spoils with, through Will's Pork Trade CSA!  Inquire with us soon if you would like to take part in the Pork-Trade!  The basics have changed a bit since out last newsletter, but go basically as follows:

  • $35 plus work(pork)-trade, or $55 buy-only if you do not want to work.  Money goes toward cost of purchasing extra piglet(s), hog panels, and water needs.  3rd pig (or 4th, if more than 6 people sign up) are split between CSA members (last year's pig was 120 lbs, so members will get at least 20 lbs pork per share).
  • Pigs are rotationally-grazed, ethically raised, naturally-fed without GMO feed, and have lots of room to play!  Work-traders work once every couple of months helping set up paddock fencing for a few hours alongside Will.  You will get to interact with the pigs and learn a lot about raising them!
To sign up for Pork Trade, Shoot Will an email or call him: wlorentzen@hotmail.com/563-321-2829!

 We look forward to much food and a plentiful harvest this year...whether it be delicious organic vegetables, mushrooms or pork, we are excited for another year of being your farmers!

 Deepest regards,
The Echollective
2013 Spring CSA Sign-Up farming interns Pork-Trade CSA
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FarmHack IOWA and IRenew

Hi everyone! 

We're doing rather well out here, what with all the recent rain!  Hopefully it keeps coming.  We have less watering work to do, and less worry about keeping our plants alive.  Good news for both you and ourselves!  We've also had the chance to transplant more plants into the ground.  What better time to do it than when mother nature takes care of the rest.  I had the opportunity to have my mom come out and visit and do some farm work!  We transplanted a good deal of broccoli together, and quite conveniently, the sky opened up for some rain right afterward to give it a good watering!  It was great to see her and have the help.  We've also put in more kale, winterbor and lacinato (dinosaur) varieties, as well as plenty of onions!  We have all that to look forward to.

A couple notable events coming up:  

FarmHack IOWA is holding an event Wednesday, June 20th involving creative D.I.Y. strategies for small farmers with low resources.  Electric tractors, farmer-built machinery, WVO/biodiesel, micro-wind, micro-hydro, wood gas/producer gas fuels, and out-of-the-box farmer hacks will be among the event's topics.  The post-event social will be hosted out here at Echollective!  New Belgium brewery will be sponsoring with much beer...we think it'll be a good time!  Check it out at their website: http://www.farmhack.net/forums/farm-hackiowa-schedule-events.

The UrbFarm stand will be at the Iowa Renewable Energy Exposition!  Run by Derek Roller, tasty food featuring a lot of produce from Echollective!  For more info on the event: www.irenew.org/expo.html.

Sun Gold tomatoes are tall enough that we have already trellised them, and some are bearing their first fruits!  Cherry tomatoes on the way.  We have more garlic scapes than we know what to do with!  You'll be getting those at CSA and you can always buy more at our Farmer's Market stands, we have bushels upon bushels of them.  Not familiar with garlic scapes?  Well, scapes are just another name for the garlic's flower, which it sends up in late spring.  For garlic to flower, it must redirect its energy from rooting and bulbing up to its uppermost leaves.  We don't want that!  So we pick off the flowers so the plant redirects its energy back into the bulb, producing the best garlic bulbs possible.  I know, it seems a little cruel to ruin a plant's chance of getting some bee action and pollination, but truth be told, garlic flowers are sterile!  So sending energy to the flower would all be a waste anyway.  We'll include some tasty scape recipes in this newsletter!  The interesting thing about scapes is you don't cook them, like garlic bulbs...you eat them raw.  Heat destroys their consistency and flavor.  So we'll include a raw recipe for you, as well as one that involves some mild baking!

Your CSA box will also feature some lavender blossoms.  Lavender can be cooked with, and also has many beneficial medicinal effects...it is a cleansing astringent, great for skin and hair, with a soothing effect on the nerves...and a wonderful smell, of course!

Another interesting pick we had this week were pea shoots, or tendrils!  We have the honor of providing produce to the Lincoln Cafe in Mt. Vernon, and these were featured in their order today (by they way I recommend eating at Lincoln Cafe, I've eaten there!  I bit pricy but most of their meals are local and organically sourced, and totally delicious).  The top four or five inches of a maturing pea plant, along with its tiny little feelers it sends out in order to climb and latch, are tender and tasty...and may I add, quite beautiful.

We also had the first on-the-farm oyster mushroom inoculation last night, which typically happens over at our sister farm, Dirty Face Creek Farm.  Oh yes, we did it in the dark!  With the aid of car headlights and a cheap-o headlamp purchased at Paul's, as well as the blinking lights of several thousand fireflies!  They are really going crazy at this time of year.  It looks like flash photography our in our fields.  We first pasteurized  switch-grass straw on which the mushrooms will grow in a food-safe stainless steel barrel, in order to stifle any chance of competing fungi to get a hold and possibly lessen the chances of a good mushroom flush.  Then we mix the oat-grain mushroom spawn (basically the "root" system of the fungus growing throughout the mushroom grains) throughout the straw when it finally cools.  We then pack the straw tightly into food-safe plastic poly-tubes, and they end up kind of looking like straw sausages!  Holes are poked in them through which the mushroom can fruit out and express themselves, and then be picked....but we must wait a week for the grain spawn to spread throughout the straw in the bag and become fully formed again.  The bags are usually hung up in a cool, dark, humid place.

This past weekend we also received a visit from a prospective intern, Lucas, who graduated from Drake University in Des Moines.  He has farmed out in Palestine and plans to do PeaceCorps work out in Senegal, Africa, where he will be doing farming as well.  We all liked him and he seemed very capable and interested in farm work, which is always good, and we really liked his work ethic.  He plans to return and commit to a two-month internship to prepare him for his time in Africa.  We look forward to his help and time here.

Produce tip of the week: What do you do with all this salad mix you get in your CSA box?  What if you don't want to eat it immediately?  How do you make it last while keeping it good?  Well, here's a tip.  Take a paper towel, fold it up and place it inside your salad mix bag!  Lettuces and other leafy veggies in your salad tend to go bad due to excess moisture.  The paper towel will suck that right up.  On the other hand, if somehow your salad mix seems like it's somehow drying up, adding a moist paper towel to your salad bag will help it crisp up.

Thank you for your support and membership.  We hope you have been enjoying CSA so far...and we hope to see you soon!

What to expect this week:
  • Braising Mix
  • Salad Mix
  • Spinach (bag)
  • Beets
  • Turnips
  • Nettles
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Pac Choi (head)
  • Radishes
  • Head Lettuce
  • Sugar Snap Peas
  • Lavender 

Recipes
  
Garlic Scape Tart (www.seriouseats.com)

Ingredients

  • For the Crust
  • 1 cup teff flour
  • 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice
  • 4 to 5 tablespoons ice water

  • For the Filling
  • 1 cup thinly sliced garlic scapes (from 15 to 20 scapes with bud ends removed)
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 cup good quality fresh ricotta cheese (bought or homemade)
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon thyme plus 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest)
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more for sprinkling
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Procedures

  1. Place the flours and the salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade attachment and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the largest pieces are the size of small peas. Sprinkle four tablespoons of the ice water onto the dough. Pulse until the dough begins to hold together. Add the additional tablespoon of water and continue to pulse if the dough is otherwise too dry to hold together. Turn the dough out onto a piece of waxed paper and shape into a disc by pressing quickly and firmly with your hands, repairing any cracks as you go. Wrap the dough in the waxed paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  2. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Roll out the dough into a 12-inch-diameter circle about 1/4-inch thick. Press into the bottom and sides of a fluted 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Roll your rolling pin over the top of the pan to remove any excess dough. Prick the bottom of the dough all over with a fork, then line the dough with parchment paper and fill with dried beans. Place the tart pan on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove the parchment and beans and bake for 7 minutes more.

  3. While the dough bakes, make the filling. Place the scapes, eggs, ricotta, lemon thyme, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Beat with a fork until well combined. Pour the filling into the partially baked tart shell and return the whole thing to the oven for 30 minutes, until the filling is set. Cool to warm or room temperature before slicing and serving.


Garlic Scape Hummus (umamigirl.com)

  • 2 15.5-oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 6 garlic scapes, thinly sliced
  • Juice and zest of 1 1/2 lemons
  • 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika

Combine all ingredients in a blender, with the liquids on the bottom. Blend until completely smooth. (Note: My blender is industrial – I keep it next to my World’s Biggest Geek apron – so I hope this works in a regular blender. If you make it, let me know!)


Lavender Aioli  (www.herbcompanion.com)

Note: Aioli is a sauce typically served on top of cooked fish, such as cod, or with cooked vegetables, or in fish soup.  To use as a delicate sauce for summer vegetables, thin with 1 to 2 additional tablespoons lemon juice.

• 1 cup olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, unpeeled and crushed
• 2 fresh lavender sprigs (leaves and flowers) bruised
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
1. In a small saucepan, gently heat the oil with the garlic and lavender over low heat for about 15 minutes.
2. Remove from heat just before oil starts to bubble. Allow to cool to room temperature.
3. With a sieve over a small bowl, strain the lavender oil, pressing with a spoon to extract soft solids from the garlic and lavender. Discard herbs.
4. In a food processor or blender, process the eggs and lemon juice until well blended. With the motor running, add the lavender oil a few drops at a time, then in a thin, steady stream until all the oil is absorbed and the mixture has thickened.
5. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.
6. Refrigerate for up to 2 days or use immediately. Aioli thickens on chilling.

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Please tell us if you can't identify something on the market table, don't know what to do with a particular item, have a food allergy we should know about, or if you have other questions or comments. We love to hear from you!
FarmHack IOWA farming interns fireflies
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