Stone Soup
The Newsletter of Stearns Farm CSA
July 3, 2010 Volume 11, Number 5
In This Issue:
| NEW THIS WEEK: beets, mini bunching onions, cilantro, dill. COMING UP: early potatoes, onions. |
From the Field: Musings on the Pick Your Own at Stearns Farm/Kathy Huckins
I was walking in the fields on Tuesday afternoon when I looked up and stopped. The peas, the braising greens, the blueberries, the raspberries were dotted with colorful people, all bending over looking for their tasty morsels. It was a heartwarming sight, seeing so many of us getting close and intimate with our food. It's a perfect way to introduce snack food to our children or to taste the unique flavor of a freshly picked fruit.I wondered how the plants feel about all this activity in their usually quiet lives. They can't move if it gets too noisy or if we accidentally step on them with our larger-than-life feet. They begin as a tiny seed, grow up through their adolescence with care from us when needed and then mature into the crops we are picking. Some stay around longer than others. The berries have a short window, the leafy crops are with us the entire season. Most, after they have given us all they have, go to seed and then die, in the company of a wide variety of what we call weeds. It happens every year at our farm, orchestrated by human farm planners and tenders. What a wonderful gift this whole process is.
This is where gratitude comes in. When you are picking your share, take a moment to become conscious of the plant you are picking from. Look at it, see its color. Notice its leaves and its growing habit. Then with the gentleness of a friend, pick it's offering to you with gratitude for the abundance of it all. The pick your own component of our farm need not be yet another chore to cross off your list for the day. It can be an exchange, a give and take, a communication with our crops here at Stearns.
To do this you have to create some time in your life. If you come in rushed, the plants can sense that, notice your rough treatment of them and respond accordingly. If you pull out a pea plant while harvesting a sugar snap pea because your mind is elsewhere discussing the economic status of our country (with another or in your head), that plant is gone. No more peas there. If you send your children to pick unsupervised and untrained, crops can be damaged.
Berries are easy to pick, but what about the flowers and herbs and the braising greens? They take a bit of knowing. We just opened up the flower garden for picking because most of the flowers need to be pinched back, just like the basil does, so they can bunch out producing more stems and therefore more flowers. So, cut them half way down, right before a leaf bud. It will be a shorted stem, but will allow many more flowers to grow in the next months on that plant. If you cut it at the bottom, that plant is finished. The same is true for the herbs: they need leaves to reach the sun in order to continue all season long. And the braising greens, they need special care. You must take the bottommost leaf first. If you don't want it, leave it by the plant and take the next. Also remember that plants want to be picked further down the row. Walk a bit and give them attention as well. It saves hours of labor time for us to have you harvest these crops correctly.
There are a few reasons why we allow our sharers to be in the fields picking the crops as well as working with them. Many farms do not allow their sharers this opportunity. It gives you an chance to get to know the crops in a more intimate way and appreciate their offerings to us. It also helps cut down on our labor costs, which is reflected in the share price. The farm with its numerous shades of green, splashes of brilliant colors, millions of insects, thousands of bees and a respectful collection of animals, is our learning playground. It not only feeds us for a week or so, it also gives us the opportunity to experience the goodness, the tranquility, underlining the positive benefits in our lives. It makes us feel whole and grateful. Not bad for a tiny farm.
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Garden Showcase: Kohlrabi/Donna Savastio
Kohlrabi is a vegetable that has fallen off of most people’s vegetable radar. I remember my mother cooking it when it was given to her by friends who had gardens, but I personally had never prepared it. While kohlrabi has been in common use throughout Italy, France and Germany, we Americans have never given it much notice. For those who are not familiar with kohlrabi its appearance is odd, with a sort of Sputnik-shaped globe with multiple stems sprouting out from the round part. Kohlrabi is often mistakenly referred to as a root vegetable, but in fact it grows just above ground, forming a unique, turnip-shaped swelling at the base of the stem. Both this round globe and its leaves can be eaten. It is a member of the cabbage family but is not a cross between cabbage and turnips as some think. This incorrect assumption has been perpetuated by the German name, "kohl" meaning cabbage and "rabi" meaning turnip.Kohlrabi is very low in saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol. The bulb of the kohlrabi contains lots of vitamin C, while eating the leaves will give you a good amount of vitamin A. It’s also a good source for dietary fiber, magnesium, phosphorus and B6. It is low in calories too, with one cup of cooked diced kohlrabi containing about 40 calories.
Though the flavor of kohlrabi is not terribly assertive, delicate hints of cabbage and broccoli come to the foreground, a bit accented with radish flavor. Tender, young kohlrabi is delicious eaten raw. Peel the outer skin with a paring knife and slice, dice, or grate into salads, use raw on vegetable platters, serve with a creamy dip or add it to your slaw recipes. Another way to think of it is as a substitute for recipes that call for radishes. Kohlrabi can also be cooked, and you can steam or boil it until bulbs are tender. It can be sautéed, stuffed and baked, and seem to pair very well with apples, celeriac, squash and fennel. If the leaves are attached to the kohlrabi they can also be enjoyed as a cooked green. Just wash the leaves and remove the ribs, then blanch in boiling water until just wilted, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain and squeeze excess water from leaves and chop, saute in a little olive oil or butter and season with salt and pepper, and don’t forget to add a splash of vinegar or some fresh lemon juice to bring out their great flavor. I am looking forward to preparing and enjoying our fresh kohlrabi, and am going to do my best to get it back on my vegetable radar!
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Herb Garden Showcase: German Chamomile/Nadine Salisch
photo by Nadine Salisch
In contrast to its perennial sister in the Asteraceae family, Roman chamomile (Anthemis nobilis, which we’ve been growing for the past two seasons), German chamomile is an annual plant. As suggested by its common name, German chamomile originates in Southeastern Europe and the Near East, but can be found in all of Northern America, Europe and Australia. Chamomile seeds germinate extremely well in open soil, so it is often found near construction sites, roads and bike paths. In gardening, chamomile is a great indicator of loamy soils.
The name chamomile originates in the Greek words for “on the ground” (kamai) and “apple” (melon), and reflects the plant’s intoxicating, apple-like scent. In monastery gardens chamomile plants were considered the “doctor for plants,” since they appeared to invigorate sick plants. True or not, German chamomile has been widely used as a medicinal herb to treat human conditions since the Middle Ages.
The part of the plant used for pharmaceutical purposes is the flower head, which contains high amounts of the many essential oils that make chamomile such a widely used medicinal plant. Alpha-bisabolol, matricine and its chemical derivative chamazulene are the most important of these essential oils, and they are often found in over-the-counter drugs and ointments. Chamazulene is a deep blue color, which is why German chamomile is sometimes called “blue” chamomile.
Used internally as a tea, German chamomile has a mildly sedative effect, making it a tasty alcohol-free nightcap for frazzled nerves. Its calming effect, however, is by far surpassed by its anti-inflammatory and carminative effects, meaning: Chamomile tea helps with all kinds of digestive problems, soothing inflammations and reducing gassiness. Since it also shows spasmolytic effects, it helps in reducing moderate digestive cramps and menstrual pain. Strong chamomile tea or diluted alcoholic extracts are used externally to treat inflammations and bacterial infections of the skin, mouth, throat and gums. Examples include sore throat, coughs (in which chamomile tea is used in inhalers), acne, ingrown toe- or fingernails, and hemorrhoids (where chamomile extracts are used as a bath supplement).
Members of the Asteraceae family, like Calendula (Calendula officinalis), have been known to induce allergies on occasion, which is why chamomile infusions should not be used to treat infections and inflammations of the eye, and people with known allergies against Asteraceae should avoid chamomile altogether. Roman chamomile, by the way, is mainly used in cosmetics—supplementing hair rinses for blondes and lending its beautiful scent to all kinds of body products.
To prepare German chamomile tea for internal use, infuse 1 teaspoon of whole, dried flower heads in 2 cups of boiling water for 5-10 minutes (the tea might get bitter if infused longer). For external use, use 1 teaspoon per cup of water and infuse longer.
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Volunteers: Thank You!
We would like to extend a warm thank you to all our volunteers who have put in extra time and energy this month. Volunteers work behind the scenes at the farm to help everything run smoothly and contribute to the bountiful harvest we are all receiving. The farm can't do without them!
Brian Huckins has been working on building a transplanter since April, which is now complete. He has trained our farm crew on how to use it and continues to keep all our machines humming. Brian also trains the crew on specific tractor tasks and is presently working on a new system to tie up our greenhouse tomatoes. His creativity and diligence are unending!
Salvatore Lampis does all our lawn mowing each week and keeps our pathways clear and neat. Mark Kelly has been mowing around the Parkland fence and is always ready for any task that needs completing. Diane Kelzer helps manage Saturday groups and sharers and works tirelessly in the fields.
Brian Holland has been building our root washing station, which is a big help during harvesting. Frann Lawrence puts in countless hours in the fields as a volunteer and Tom Yelton continues to oversee the maintenance of our composting toilet. Mike Lipson has been volunteering his time to help in the fields and will soon be an Official Weeder (not an easy status to achieve!)
To everyone who has given of their time and energy to the farm, we value and appreciate your help! We are always open to any energy you have to give to the farm—there is always more work to be done!
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Behind the Scenes at the Farm: Anatomy of a Pound of Carrots/Nomi Sofer
Eating locally grown food means eating seasonally. That is something we hear a lot, and as members of a CSA, we truly understand the meaning of “seasonal”: most of the produce we get throughout our twenty week summer share is only available for a few weeks, and the season usually has a distinct bell curve shape: the first week you get two or three zucchini, then for a couple more weeks you get a LOT of it, and after that you’re back down to two or three zucchini. After a few weeks, the season for that vegetable is over.
This seasonality is true for most of the vegetables we grow at Stearns, but lettuce and carrots seems to have a much longer season. Indeed, we have lettuce on the stand every week of the season (weather permitting), and we have carrots beginning in the third week of the season and continuing right through the winter share (with mother nature’s cooperation, of course). Have you ever wondered why this is so? Do carrots and lettuce have an unusually long season? They don’t. The fact that we get lettuce every week, and carrots almost every week has a little to do with nature and a lot to do with careful planning.
Everyone loves carrots, and they grow well in Stearns’ sandy soil. They are also very tolerant of cold, unlike zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and the other hot weather vegetables we can only grow between Memorial Day and Labor Day. But carrots are a root vegetable, so unlike a tomato plant, which may yield dozens of fruits over a number of weeks, each carrot plant produces just one carrot. And this is where the planning comes in: each 100 foot row of carrots yields about 100 pounds, or one pound per share per week (each bed has three rows). By planning carefully, and planting a succession of three different varieties of carrots that are suited to the different weather conditions of spring, summer and fall, Kathy ensures that there are carrots ready to be harvested almost every week of the season. Not only are there carrots, but there is almost always a minimum of one pound/share, which is enough to feed a family for a week.
Because they don't have much of a leaf canopy to shade out weeds, carrots require a lot of labor and vigilance to keep the weeds at bay. Carrots can’t be transplanted, so they have to be sown directly in the soil as soon as it is warm and dry enough to work—usually in April. Before the seeds germinate, which takes about ten days, someone goes over the bed with a hand-held blow torch and singes away any weeds that have already emerged. Once the carrots have emerged the blow torch can’t be used. So the crew switches to cultivating by machine between the rows and hand-weeding between the plants. This must be done very carefully, so as not to disturb the root of the carrot. If you keep on top of the weeds, you’ve got one bed of carrots that will yield enough for two or three pickups.
In order to have carrots on the stand every week, you have to keep sowing them at regular intervals. And as the growing season gets into high gear and all the crops are demanding attention, it gets harder to keep up with weeding the carrots. But you have to, because if you miss even one week of cultivation, the entire bed will be lost. When we lose a bed to weeds, it means that there will be a couple of weeks without carrots on the stand. But soon the next bed will be ready to harvest and our beloved sweet carrots will be back on the stand.
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On Working at Stearns Farm/Amanda McClure
I joined Stearns Farm 5 years ago, when my youngest child was almost 1. I wasn't a gardener and every week I had to look up at least one vegetable online to try to figure out how to eat it (just sauté it with garlic and you'll be fine!). We composted a fair amount of produce until I figured out how to plan meals around the vegetables' shelf life. Over time, Stearns' became an important part of my life and helped define my kids' notion of what food is. So that's a big deal. Now that we are moving far away and leaving Stearns Farm I immediately signed up with another CSA in our new town. I'm excited to see what they are growing; there's just one disappointment: it's a "pick up your box" kind of place. This got me to thinking about the work component at Stearns and how it helped me to connect to the farm, to the plants and to the community.
It's not easy to work at the farm. It's hot, or cold, or both. When they were little, my children needed my attention while I was working. In the middle of the summer heat, picking the green beans was daunting. And if you're new, it's embarrassing to have to ask for directions to the plants, especially when you're standing next to them! Despite these difficulties, working at the farm became something I looked forward to.
Sharers harvesting garlic, July 2009
When I think of my years working at the farm I certainly think of what I've learned about growing food, and the wonderful meals we've eaten. But I remember most clearly the community of sharers. I think of those who drive the tractors and those who carefully tap out seeds beneath the apple trees. I think about the extra effort it takes to include the children, and how that makes every kind of sense. And who knew soup could taste so good after a few hours of mulching? The clearest way to explain why working at the farm has been such a gift is that it has allowed me to learn and struggle and rejoice. I'll miss that when I go pick up my box.
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Upcoming Events
| July 15 | Date by which half your work hours must be completed or paid |
| July 17 | Garlic Harvest |
| August 13-15 | NOFA Northeast Organic Farming Association Summer Conference |
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Our Mission
To preserve the historic Stearns farm as a sustainable all-natural garden, providing locally grown food in partnership between the land, the farmer, and the community
- by using the CSA model
- by providing fair compensation, adequate working conditions, and support to the farmer
- by practicing good stewardship
- by donating excess food to the needy
- by encouraging the community to actively participate in the farming process
- by providing learning opportunities
- by fostering relationships between the CSA and the wider community and
- by providing a beautiful place that is nourishing to body and soul.
Contact Us
Stearns Farm CSA862 Edmands Road
Framingham, MA 01701
(508) 371-4310
| Name | Position | Contact Information | |
| Stearns Farm | Main phone | contact stearnsfarmcsa.org | 508-371-4310 |
| Trish Stefanko | Farm Manager | t8588hotmail.com | 508-887-5649 |
| Rachael Potts | Assistant Farm Manager | vintage.greens.farmgmail.com | |
| Cathy Briasco | Administration | stearnsfarmbriasco.org | 508-358-4167 |
| Sara Abramovitz | Volunteer Coord. | saralarryverizon.net | 978-443-9747 |
| Aliya Ewing | Children's Garden | aliya.ewinggmail.com | |
| Tom Yelton | Webmaster | webmasterstearnsfarmcsa.org | 978-443-5138 |
See Also Public/Staff and Public/Volunteers to contact a specific person.
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Recipes: Everything's Coming Up Kohlrabi
Many people were stymied by the kohlrabi on the stand last week! Because it came in a week early I hadn’t had a chance to highlight it and provide recipes for you, so I am making up for it this week! Here are some recipes to try that are all different ways to use your kohlrabi.
We also have a new basil this year called red rubin basil, which is a delightful purple-red color! I used it this week in a few of my recipes and discovered that its flavor is lighter than the green basil varieties. I sauteed my fresh zucchini, patty pan and garlic scapes with it and it was not only delicious but very, very pretty. Be sure to try some! While we are on the topic of herbs, we also have thyme and lemon thyme added to our herb selection this week. Enjoy!
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Roasted Kohlrabi
Adapted from Allrecipes.comServes 4 approximately
4 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Cut the kohlrabi into ¼ inch thick slices, then cut each of the slices in half. Combine olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Toss kohlrabi slices in olive oil mixture to coat. Spread kohlrabi in a single layer on a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven until browned, 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally in order to brown evenly. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the parmesan. Return to the oven to allow the cheese to brown, about 5 minutes. Serve immediately.
printable version
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Kohlrabi with Celery and Mustard Vinaigrette
Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah MadisonMake the mustard vinaigrette:
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar or fresh lemon juice
2 shallots, finely diced
1 garlic clove, minced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons creme fraiche or sour cream
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons snipped chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
3 tablespoons capers, rinsed (optional)
Combine the vinegar, shallots, garlic and ¼ teaspoon salt in a small bowl. Let stand for 15 minutes, then vigorously whisk in the mustard, crème fraiche and oil until thick and smooth. Grind in a little pepper, then stir in the herbs and capers. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
Make the salad:
About 12 ounces kohlrabi
4 ribs celery
Thickly peel the kohlrabi and cut into fine julienne strips. Thinly slice the celery. Toss together with enough mustard vinaigrette to moisten and serve.
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Kohlrabi Cakes
Adapted from New Basics Cookbook by Rosso and LukinsTry these cakes instead of potato pancakes for a different side dish. You can serve these cakes with the yogurt sauce, but you could also serve them with salsa or just plain sour cream.
Minted Yogurt sauce
1-1/4 cups plain yogurt
¼ cups chopped fresh mint leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper
Stir all of the above ingredients together until smooth. Refrigerate until ready.
4 kohlrabi bulbs
¼ cup chopped scallions
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons dried breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes, crushed
Freshly ground pepper
¼ cup olive oil
1-1/3 cups Minted Yogurt Sauce
Peel and shred the kohlrabi bulbs. Squeeze out any excess moisture. Combine the kohlrabi, scallions, eggs, bread crumbs, salt, ginger, red pepper flakes and black pepper in a mixing bowl. Stir well until blended.
Heat the oil in a large skillet and drop the mixture into it by large spoonfuls. Saute the cakes until golden, 3 to 4 minutes, per side. Drain on paper towels. Serve with the yogurt sauce.
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The purpose of this recipe page is to share ideas for enjoying Stearns Farm produce. This year we are going to focus on combinations that use as much as possible of the current week’s ingredients. The arrival of each vegetable, fruit or herb adds to our options for fresh, truly seasonal meals. One of the pleasures of this kind of eating is the chance to flex our creativity and combine our discoveries to keep things interesting and have fun as we prepare and preserve the harvest.
What do you do with your Stearns Farm produce? Please share your recipes, vegetarian and vegan options, family favorites and seasonal menu ideas. Send recipes, questions, tips on storage and food preservation, and other suggestions to dsavastio
verizon.net. Thanks!back to top content of the new page.
Revision 1. Last edited Sat 3 Jul 2010 10:05am by NaomiSofer