Got Veg? We do!

Geese aren’t the only critters who’ve been busy at Moraine this spring. Your farmers have been planting, planting, planting! And the crops have been growing! Strawberries (that’s Astrid tucking in the s’berries below), sweet corn (3 looong beds in the middle pic), tomatoes, carrots, more carrots, even more carrots, arugula, lettuce, beans, celery root, beets, parsley and more! Sugar snap peas are doing well and need trellising, and you can see the fava beans (third pic below) looking healthy.

 

 
Our first ever Spring CSA began last week. Above are pictures of Megan and Liz bringing in the first harvest of 2013 and our apprentices, Megan, Ben and Astrid picking up their first share.

Goslings

Every year a pair of Canadian geese nest at the farm. We’ve counted six babies this season! So cute!

Yummy Weeds!?

We are surrounded by a wealth of yummy, nutritious and/or medicinal wild plants, otherwise known as weeds. They grow everywhere and are mostly ignored, no longer valued for their nutrients and medicine, or simply overlooked. Some of these marvelous plants are native to this country or this hemisphere; many came with European settlers and other immigrants and became garden escapees and then disappeared from popular consciousness.

An Edible and Medicinal Weed Walk will be held at Moraine Farm on Monday, May 27, from 2:00 – 3:30. Iris Weaver, a local herbalist, will introduce us to these wonderful plants that provide such bounty just for the picking. Iris will focus on the plants that grow in New England, that are often literally in our backyards. These are usually the plants that have the most to offer us here in this part of the world, and they are the plants that we can most easily access and use. Some of the “weeds” that we will see and discuss include, dandelion, burdock, chickweed, queen Anne’s lace, milkweed, evening primrose, purslane and goldenrod.

This farm walk is a fundraiser for Moraine Farm’s Food Access Work.  The cost of this guided tour is $20 for adults and $10 for young people under 18. Fees will be collected before the walk begins. Visit Edible & Medicinal Weeds to register. Confirmation and directions will be e-mailed a few days before the event.

Extras! Extras! Fruit, Cheese and Yogurt Shares!

I’ve been busy meeting with farmers and producers to create a line-up of locally produced items for your eating pleasure this year! Moraine Farm CSA is a community committed to supporting local agriculture and local producers: We want to know where our food comes from and we want as much of it to be locally and sustainably produced as possible. I think you will be pleased with the Extras line-up this season.

This year, Moraine Farm CSA has partnered with area farmers to offer you local Fruit, Cheese and Yogurt Shares. Just like your veggie farm share, you will sign up and pre-pay for these single-item CSA shares. The shares will be ready for pick up when you come to the farm to get your veggie share.

We are also offering one-time distributions of some special items: Just Add Fruit pie crusts made locally with locally-sourced ingredients, Blue Sky wild blueberries from Maine and Maitland Mountain pickles produced in Salem.  Local honey, dried beans, flowers and a few other local goodies as we find them, will be available in the Farm Shop.

Here are details about each single-item share as well as the other local extras that need to be pre-ordered. Shareholders  will receive an e-mail with an order form early next week. Order deadline is May 25.

Valley View Farm Cheese Sampler Share, $100 for 10 weeks of cheese
Goat cheese from our neighboring farmers, Liz and Peter Mulholland in Topsfield. This sampler includes chevre, feta, aged tomme and Camembert styles of cheese. Each distribution contains about one-half pound of cheese. Absolutely the best goat cheese you will ever taste! Two 10 weeks shares are offered: June 3 through August 9 (10 weeks) and August 12 through October 18 (10 weeks)

Cider Hill Farm Fruit Share, $75 for 10 weeks of fruit
Fruit from farmer Glenn Cook in Amesbury. This fruit share contains three pounds of fruit each week. Farmer Glenn will send us his best fruit – plums, nectarines, peaches early in August, and apples in September and October. One 10 week share is offered: August 5 through October 11

Appleton Farms Plain Yogurt, $50 for 10 weeks
Appleton Farms yogurt starts with fresh milk from a pasture-raised and -grazed herd of Jersey cows. A mix of yogurt cultures is added and that’s it – no additives, stabilizers or sugars. One quart of plain yogurt each week, for 10 weeks. Yum! Two 10 week shares are offered:  June 3 through August 9 (10 weeks) and August 12 through October 18 (10 weeks)

Just Add Fruit [and Vegetables!]  Pie Crust, $9 for one crust
These  pie crusts are made from all-local and all-natural ingredients – simply flour, butter, and honey. Just Add Fruit supports Massachusetts and New England farms by using their local products to mix our crusts and by encouraging people to use local fruits and vegetables to fill them. Just Add Fruit pie crusts are great for sweet fruit pies and tarts, as well as savory pot pies and quiches. One crust will cover the bottom of a 9 inch pie plate. Available the week of June 17. If there’s interest, we will offer this item again in August and September.

Maitland Pickles, $9 for one quart
Andy and Holly, Maitland Mountain farmers, make Holly’s Spicy Pickles in Salem. These pickles are preservative-free, spicy dill pickles. The ingredient list include cucumbers (of course!), garlic, jalapeño pepper, cider vinegar, coriander, all-spice and cinnamon. Available the week of June 17. If there’s interest we will offer this again.

2013 Farm Shares Available!

Enjoy super-fresh and local veggies this season, available for weekly pickup June through December, at Moraine Farm, just five minutes off Route 128 in Beverly. Shares are perfectly sized to give you all the joys of the growing season without overwhelming your table or refrigerator. We’re planning a bumper crop for 2013. You’ll find fresh favorites and funky newcomers – from arugula to zucchini, kohlrabi to tomatillos.

To learn more and to purchase a share, visit Moraine Farm CSA or email ganderson@ttor.org.

Potato Prep

We grow about an acre of potatoes at Moraine Farm. That’s two thousand pounds of seed potatoes that will grow into 20,000 pounds of eating potatoes. Varieties with names like King Harry, Satina, Sangre, Red Maria, Chieftan, Banana, French Fingerling and Elba. We will start harvesting them sometime in August, and then the roasting, baking, boiling, frying begins!

Moving seed potatoes into old greenhouse

Our seed potatoes arrived last week. They have been warming up and growing “eyes” in the soft light of the old greenhouse house. In the next few days we will cut them into 2 ounce pieces and plant them. Below, Liz prepares the field where the potatoes will grow.

Volunteers Wanted!

Here are some fun and helpful volunteer opportunities at Moraine Farm. If any of these volunteer positions is of interest, please contact me for more information at GAnderson@ttor.org.

Seedling Sale Volunteers
Saturday May 18  is our first ever seedling sale.  We will be selling herb, flower and tomato seedlings to members of our CSA.  Proceeds from the seedling sale will help fund our Food Access work. Help us label plants, set up for the sale and sell seedlings. We need volunteers on Friday afternoon on May 17 and Saturday afternoon on May 18.

Flowers for Food Access Volunteers
Harvest flowers and design bouquets to help raise funds for our Food Access Program. Flowers by the stem and bouquets are sold in our retail Farm Store. Proceeds from flower sales support our Food Access work with Beverly Bootstraps and the Cape Ann Food Pantry, making produce available to families with low incomes.  Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday morning flower pickers and bouquet arrangers needed.

Carpentry and Handyman (Handyperson?) Volunteers
A suggestion box, a hand washing table, a few more greenhouse benches, two or three more tables for our Farm Shop, and the endwalls of our new High Tunnel painted – just a few of the spring projects we’d love help with!

Forager
Help keep our shareholders up-to-date about locally-grown and produced food. Tell us about the best sources of local and sustainably produced eggs, cheese, milk, grain, meat, seafood, honey, maple syrup, beans, jam and more. Moraine Farm CSA is a community committed to supporting local producers: We want to know where our food comes from and we want as much of it to be locally and sustainably produced as possible. Work will include identifying locally and sustainably produced food and posting this information in our Farm Shop and on our blog. Opportunities may arise for the Local Forager to transport some local products to the Farm Store.

Veggie Driver
Transport freshly-harvested, organically-grown produce to Beverly and Salem public schools and Beverly Bootstraps in our truck or yours.  Bring the farm to our food access partners and public school cooks – deliver veggies, share news about the farm, swap recipes or just say hello to the folks who help make Moraine Farm veggies available to a wide community of eaters.  Wednesdays, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM.

 

Does it have a horn?

Apprentice Megan Ouellett learning to drive the farm’s Kubota M6040 (Big K for short).

Cows at Moraine Farm?

Smelled like it a bit last week, but no cows on the farm, just their poop. Appleton farmer, Charley Wolcott spread 145,000 pounds of composted manure, food scrapes and yard waste on our farm fields last week. Thank you Charley!

Yes! We have CSA shares available!

You will find a lot of information about our 2013 CSA shares on the Moraine Farm CSA web pages, including an on-line subscription form. We’re growing everything from arugula to red peppers, sweet corn to watermelon – join us for fresh, locally-grown produce this season.