Showing posts with label mushroom inoculation. Show all posts

FarmHack and Upcoming 1st Garlic Party

Hello folks!  Yet another productive week out here at the Echollective.  A couple days of nourishing rain have put our crops where they need to be.  Garlic will soon be pulled and last weekend's rain gave our bulbs just enough water for the home-stretch.  Yep that's right everyone...the weekend after next (June 30th-July 1st) ushers in the first Echollective garlic party!!!  Everyone's invited.  Come out and join us!  Garlic will be pulled by all and then cleaned right there in the field.  It is relaxing, laid back work.  And boy, we are glad that we've been running around putting sprinklers on all our mulched garlic beds, because it seems that a lot of garlic farmers in Iowa are experiencing some bizarre garlic behavior...wrinkly, lumpy bulbs!  Fortunately we haven't seen much of this in our bulbs, only barely a touch of it here and there.  We think this must be due to the intense dryness in between these rains, warping garlic cloves into strange shapes.  It sure was a hassle to get our garlic a drink of water, but we think it will pay off....in fact we may, as a result, have some of the best garlic around in Iowa!

The watering hustle has paid off for our other crops, too.  Our broccoli is simply huge now!  Their leaves form a cooling canopy for their beds.  Their stems are certainly thick enough that we'll be expecting crowns anytime soon.  In the hot, hot heat, however, sometimes broccoli flowers get kinda wonky and gross, so we'll see.  At least we've planted another plot of broccoli not too far behind our other one, full of Gypsy broccoli, a hot variety that is famed for enduring the sun's intensity a lot better.  We hope for good crowns from those, and those broccoli transplants are coming along quite well.  And if all else fails, well....broccoli leaves are pretty tasty and beautiful in a braising mix!  Broccoli in any form is incredibly healthy for you, full of vitamins, iron, and antioxidants.

We have new produce on the way, while some of our current vegetables are on their way to kicking the bucket....either they're flowering or simply cannot pump out more veggies.  This is the reality of things as the heat of summer starts to turn the thermostat up a notch.  Sugar snap peas are about done with what they can produce, and we are reaching the tail end of some of our tasty salad mix constituents like bok choy and mizuna (japanese mustard).  Arugula has long since flowered.  No more spinach!  Although we were able to procure a few bunches at market this past weekend.  Our kale though, even the remnants of our winter varieties, continue to grow bigger and bigger.  Our new hot crops are kicking in...we picked our first few zucchinis yesterday!  We are pleased with the size and health of our current squash plants, they are really pumping out flowers and there are quite a few little zukes on the way.  Along with those were our first Sun Gold cherry tomato harvests.  We managed to get a few pints!  Mmmm, they are juicy and sweet, it is pretty hard not to eat them as you pick them.  As you may know, we are now picking bunches from our already robust basil plants!  You probably received a bunch or two in your CSA.  More bunches will be on the table this week.  We have plans to get ground prepared today for more basil starts, which will be inter-planted with our first cucumber crop, the seeds of which were just sown today.  Last but not least, our potato plants are at the point that we will be pulling up our first harvest of New Orleans red fingerlings in just a couple weeks!  Our farm seems at its most bountiful.

Aside from the typical green vegetables, work is being done today to set up a mushroom fruiting shed by our mushroom farmer Will and a handful of others.  Colonized mushroom bags will be hung in a high-tunnel/hoop-house structure covered with white tarping to minimalize the effects of light and heat, and to trap moisture pivotal for the fungus to fruit, or send out mushrooms.  Soon we will have oyster mushrooms by the pound growing right here at Echollective.  Come check it out sometime, or feel free to contact us to stand in on an inoculation, the process by which mushrooms are "planted" and "grown."  Will has the hopes of providing affordable workshops someday, which we will let you know about, if and when they happen.  It is fascinating, informative and fun!

FarmHack IOWA after-party will be held here on the property tomorrow, June 20th!  Be there or be square.  New Belgium beer will flow!  A delicious farm dinner, featuring Echollective produce will be prepared on-site.  Awesome electric tractors, biodiesel farm vehicles, and other machinery will be shown off by their respective owners.  And when the sun goes down, mother nature's light show...the fireflies out here are pretty breathtaking.

Hope you have all had an excellent week.  See you all at market!

CSA Box this week:
  • Braising Mix
  • Salad Mix
  • Beets
  • Turnips
  • Nettles
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Mint
  • Bok Choy
  • Head Lettuce
  • Basil

Recipes

Lemon Basil Shrimp and Pasta (www.myrecipes.com)

Ingredients
  • 3 quarts water
  • 8 ounces uncooked spaghetti
  • 1 pound peeled and deveined large shrimp
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
  • 3 tablespoons drained capers
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups baby spinach
 Preparation
  1. Bring 3 quarts water to a boil in a Dutch oven. Add pasta; cook 8 minutes. Add shrimp to pan; cook 3 minutes or until shrimp are done and pasta is al dente. Drain. Place pasta mixture in a large bowl. Stir in basil and next 4 ingredients (through salt). Place 1/2 cup spinach on each of 4 plates; top each serving with 1 1/2 cups pasta mixture.

Red Curry Bison Short Ribs with Baby Bok Choy (www.eatingwell.com)

Ingredients
  • 1 1/2-2 teaspoons red curry paste, (see Note), or more to taste
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 3 1/8-inch-thick slices peeled fresh ginger
  • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro stems plus 1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves, divided
  • 6 scallions, coarsely chopped
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 teaspoons canola oil
  • 3 pounds bone-in bison short ribs, or 2 pounds boneless (see Note), trimmed
  • 2 cups thinly sliced red onion
  • 1 1/2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • 3 tablespoons fish sauce, (see Note)
  • 2 tablespoons lime juice, or more to taste
  • 3 ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced
  • 1 cup “lite” coconut milk, (optional)
  • 6 baby bok choy, cut in half, or 3 regular bok choy, cut into quarters
  • Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preparation
  1. Place curry paste to taste, garlic, ginger, cilantro stems, scallions and water in a blender or food processor. Blend or process to form a loose paste. Add more water if the mixture is too dense to blend.
  2. Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add ribs and brown on all sides, 6 to 8 minutes total. Stir in the curry mixture, onion, broth, fish sauce and 2 tablespoons lime juice. Bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat to maintain a simmer, and cook, turning the ribs every 30 minutes, until the meat is very tender when pierced with a fork, 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
  3. Transfer the ribs to a plate; cover and keep warm. Add tomatoes and coconut milk (if using) to the broth; bring to a simmer. Add bok choy; cover and cook until the bok choy bases can be pierced with a fork, 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the size. Season with pepper and more lime juice, if desired. Serve topped with cilantro leaves.
Creamed Turnips (www.simplyrecipes.com)

Ingredients
  • 3 pounds turnips
  • 6 black peppercorns
  • 6 whole cloves
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus 1 teaspoon
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 teaspoon white pepper
  • Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Preparation

1 Peel and cut the turnips into large chunks. In a large saucepan of boiling water, add the tablespoon of salt, the peppercorns, cloves and bay leaves. You may want to tie the spices into a sachet or cheesecloth bag — this makes it easier to remove them later. Boil turnips until tender, 15 to 20 minutes, then drain and remove the spices.
2 Return the turnips to the pot they boiled in and add the cream. Turn the burner to medium-low. Bring this to a gentle simmer and mash the turnips with a potato masher. Add the white pepper, the teaspoon of salt and freshly grated nutmeg to taste and serve at once.

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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!

 
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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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Peas, Asparagus, Potatoes!

Hello everyone, the season is rolling up quickly to speed! Everything is happening in a rush and way earlier than any of us could have predicted. The air is filled with bird song, the weather is warm, and we welcome the intermittent rainstorms and thunder that signifies that Spring is here.

Asparagus shoots are poking out of the ground, our planted sugar snap peas are climbing up toward the sky, and our babies we planted (it seemed only yesterday!) are large and harvestable any day now! Fresh pac choi, lettuce, and cilantro is on the way to Spring CSA shares and Grant Wood Farmer's Market. We walk through our fields of garlic and remove mulch so their green spears can reach the sun. Sizeable crops of beets and kale are on the way, and our new spinach seeds are sprouting for yet another round of delicious greens. Our tomatoes have been re-potted, they are getting large! Peppers and parsley have sprouted from their flats. Broccoli, basil, and eggplant have been recently seeded. Just today, we got an entire field of potatoes planted! We have a lot on the way!

Spring CSA begins soon! We will have that up and running on our Small Farm Central page. It will be announced in an upcoming newsletter when that happens, which will be soon. For now, visit our CSA Info page for details on that. We do have some CSA boxes available right now. Contact Derek Roller for a share!

Summer CSA season is still open for sign-up as well! Visit our CSA Sign-Up page.

Along with our veggie products, we have a few other projects well on the way. One small chicken tractor has been mostly completed, and a larger one for higher egg production on it's way to be done soon (hopefully! The frame is coming along.) Tomorrow, our future hog farmer Will is heading in to buy the hog panels we'll be using to keep our pigs. A first round of mushrooms has been inoculated! You can look forward to getting your hands on some of those!

We've had a lot of people out to visit, work, and volunteer! This week we have had Stella from Cornell College stay and help us work, she is staying with us until this Friday. She is an exchange student from China who is wanting to major in Environmental Studies. We're glad she wants to dig her hands in the soil with us! We hope she's having fun, and learning a lot. We have also had Lisa over from the quaint hamlet of Cedar Bluff along the river join our team to help us out on our big order days! We surely appreciate her help too!

Oh, and by the way....barn cat Macy is pregnant again. We can look forward to more kittens!

Hope you are all doing well! We've got a lot of juicy food to look forward to: fresh veggies, gourmet mushrooms, farm fresh chicken eggs....and pork! (Um, actually, we meat eating farmers here will be enjoying it...no meat CSA's. Sorry!)

Keep enjoying Spring while it's here!
foreign exchange students visiting farms mushroom inoculation pregnant cats
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