There are no tomatoes hiding under that snow, and even our cold-hardy crops like kale and collards have succumbed to the fiercest of winter’s frosts and geese.  But — after a gloriously warm and lazy trip to the Gulf Coast — we’re keeping pretty busy around here nonetheless!

For us, winter means seed orders and crop plans.  It’s a really creative time in our year: what crops are our stand-bys, reliable in production and taste?  What didn’t grow well?  What have we always wanted to try?  What varieties do our farming friends recommend?  Should we grow more melons this year?  Fewer turnip greens?  A new kind of tomato?

Winter means repairs and maintenance.  Our hoop house collapsed in that first big snow in December, and we’ll need to repair it before the season begins, since that’s where we put our vegetable seedlings to harden off before transplanting them into the fields.  We started construction on a small tool and repair shed last year, but found ourselves sidetracked by our busy CSA schedule and unexpected irrigation difficulties.  We’re hoping to get that built early in the season this year, before things get too busy.  We wrote a bit about those irrigation issues last year; that’s another big job to finish before the vegetables start growing.

Winter means doing our books, making sure we understand well how the business did last year, and using those lessons to make smart decisions about what directions to go this year.

Winter means finding the new season’s work crew.  Reading applications always fills us with excitement and hope.  Who will we spend our days with this year?  How will the farm change with their energy?  And ain’t it grand, that there are folks out there who want to do what we do, grow delicious food and get to know the people who eat it?

Winter means lots of planning and preparation for market and for our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscription program.  Spots are filling up; have you sent in your registration form yet?

Winter also means lots of hot chocolate, lots of snuggles with Arlo, and lots of time by the wood stove.

We hope these last months have been good to you all, and we can’t wait to see you again.

There’s your intrepid Farmer Ali, and there’s our greens field all covered in snow.  It’s really something to behold!  We took a walk through the fields yesterday and crossed our fingers that it would begin to melt in time for this week’s CSA harvest.

But when Ali headed out to the fields early this morning, he discovered that this foot of snow makes for nigh-impossible picking.  Root vegetables like rutabagas and turnips are stuck firmly in the ground under compacted snow, and our greens and cabbages are almost completely invisible.

We’ve made the decision to postpone this final pick-up by one week, until next Wednesday, December 30.  So that means there will be no vegetable delivery this week at all, and we’ll bring everything next week instead — same place, same time.

We hope this will work out for everyone, and we really appreciate your understanding and patience.

]]> http://frogbottomfarm.com/2009/12/22/daily-farm-photo-snowbound/feed/ 1 http://frogbottomfarm.com/2009/12/02/daily-farm-photo-eat-yer-greens/ http://frogbottomfarm.com/2009/12/02/daily-farm-photo-eat-yer-greens/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:38:09 +0000 Lisa http://frogbottomfarm.com/?p=1009

People, we have been remiss.

We’ve been sending you home with bags full to bursting with collards, kale, mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, rape, and more every week for ages now … but when it comes to helping you scale those mountains of green — when it comes to telling you what you can do with them — our advice has been meager.

And that’s really too bad; we’re actually quite fanatical about the stuff, and it would be a shame to reach the end of a CSA season knowing we might have converted many a greens skeptic if only we’d provided recipes!

Greens are as good for you as you’ve always heard, chock full of iron and calcium and vitamin C and beta carotene.  They’re a great boost for your immune system as it fights everything from the common cold to, studies suggest, cancer.

But don’t force them down just because you should!  Greens are delicious and quite easy to prepare.  Although they span the flavor spectrum, from mustard’s potent spiciness to Red Russian kale’s surprising sweetness, they all take to the same basic preparation with ease.

We eat greens several nights a week this time of year.  Most of the time we chop them coarsely (with or without the stems, depending on our mood and our patience) and sauté them in olive oil with onion and garlic.  We usually eat them like that, or sometimes we add a couple glugs of balsamic vinegar or soy sauce, or a squeeze of lemon.  You can add almost any other vegetables to the sauté as well — in the early autumn, we thought two or three diced tomatoes added to the mix was particularly good.  Canned tomatoes would work just fine this time of year.

If you’ve got Red Russian kale (that’s the stuff with the purple veins and ruffled edges, at the very right edge of the photo above) here is what you must do: melt some butter in a wide skillet or a pot, and toss in a couple diced apples and a hearty amount of that kale.  A pound is not too much.   Cook until tender, stirring occasionally.  That’s it!  Unbelievably good.

Another idea is kale chips!  These win over lots of skeptics, but you’ll find yourself making them time and time again because they’re so fast and wonderful.  Arrange kale on a baking sheet in a single (or so) layer, toss with a little olive oil and salt, and bake at 375° for 10 minutes or so, giving the cookie sheet a shake or two if you remember, until the edges get crispy.  We usually do a double batch.

Two other greens recipes we love, both from the wonderful food blog Orangette:

Braised Winter Greens with Chickpeas, Onions, and Garlic Fast, and great with any greens.  Especially good with a poached or fried egg on top.

Chard, Onion, and Gruyère Panade This isn’t complicated but it does take some time to come together — not a quick weeknight supper, but a great simple meal for a chilly weekend lunch or supper.  This is comfort food of the highest order, rendered from the simplest ingredients: greens, onions, garlic, bread, cheese, and broth.

We’ve got another favorite recipe on deck for tomorrow the first moment we can stop gazing at the baby.  In the meantime, what are your favorite ways to prepare greens?

Nearly everywhere we look these days, we see that the earth is preparing to rest.  Our frost-hardy crops are green and gorgeous still, but bare trees sway sleepily against a crisp early December sky.  The summer crops are all gone, either already plowed under or standing shriveled and forlorn after so many cold nights.  The chickens are molting and their egg production has dropped to almost nothing.  The goat is still giving lots of milk, but her coat is thick now, and every morning she gives a loud “MAAAAA!” as if to say, “Hey now!  What’s with all this rain and mud?  Give me August!”  Saddest of all, our crew have all gone home, to Rhode Island and DC and Oklahoma, where they’ve traded their rainboots for fireside slippers and are planning their next adventures.

But we know it’s all part of the cycle of a farm year.  We know it because the garlic told us so.

Remember this?

Now it looks like the picture above.  We’ll let it do its work underground all winter and early spring, while we huddle close by the wood stove with seed catalogs and hot cocoa and tax forms and our gorgeous, gorgeous new baby.

This is Arlo, and he’s been filling our days with wonder since his arrival on November 5.  At 12 days old he’s already checking the fields for crop growth and deer damage with his dad, and milking the goat twice a day with his mama.  We think he likes it here.

We apologize if you’ve had trouble reaching us in the last couple of weeks.  We’ll do our very best to get back to you as soon as we can.  If you need to get in touch quickly, giving us a call is probably your best bet until we settle into our new routine!

Our days are full and lovely, and we cannot thank y’all enough for making this life possible for us.

Autumn’s temperatures bring with them a host of cool-weather crops we look forward to all summer long: kabocha squash, broccoli, Red Russian kale, Honeycrisp apples…

(Speaking of apples, this mama-to-be is seriously craving some pie.)

You might not think of lettuce as a fall crop, but here in Virginia, it is way too hot to grow the stuff during the summer.  So it’s always such a delight when the temperatures turn and we can grow our lettuce mix again.  It’s sweet, tender, and gorgeous as all get-out — and it’s in your CSA shares this week.  Enjoy!

Yes, indeedy!  Garlic is one of our very favorite things to grow and to eat, but we didn’t grow it this year — we were still farming full-time up at our old place in Northern Virginia during garlic-planting time last year.

But Claire and Shannon spent the better part of this gorgeous, gorgeous autumn day putting 150 pounds of beautiful seed garlic in the ground.  We’ve tried out a few varieties over the years, and our very favorite is a hardneck variety called Music.  It’s the only kind we grow now.  It has beautiful purple-white cloves and a strong perfect garlic flavor, and keeps very well.

We’ll have lots more to share about garlic next spring and summer!  And it will start appearing in CSA shares sometime in July — if all goes well, it will be a weekly staple till the end of the season.

As someone who would sooner give up the air she breathes than give up garlic, this is a very good thing.

]]> http://frogbottomfarm.com/2009/10/22/daily-farm-photo-time-to-plant-garlic/feed/ 4 http://frogbottomfarm.com/2009/10/20/daily-farm-photo-best-crew-ever/ http://frogbottomfarm.com/2009/10/20/daily-farm-photo-best-crew-ever/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:19:27 +0000 Lisa http://frogbottomfarm.com/?p=972

Seriously.  I do not know where we’d be without these two.  Shannon and Claire both arrived at Frog Bottom this spring, from locales and lifestyles far more cosmopolitan and sane, and took to life and work here at the farm like ducks to water.  They arrive every morning full of vim and vigor.  Their sweet humor and incredible work ethic make this a joyful place to live and work — and, quite concretely, make it possible for us to farm.

It’s impossible to imagine our first year here at Frog Bottom without these two wonderful women, and if it’s okay with everyone, I’m just going to stay in denial a bit longer that they’re leaving us in a few weeks.

It’s with gratitude that we’ve been enjoying some fine roast chicken on these recent chilly nights.  We eat this chicken and think of the good weather, the uninterested predators, our kind neighbors, our rockin’ farm crew, and this lifestyle which allows us to produce so much of the good food that nourishes us.

If you feel up for it, follow a bit of the journey these chickens made by clicking here.

Are you looking for some good folks to buy good meat from?  For now we’re only raising enough meat for our own little family and workers, but here in Pamplin we’re lucky to live near two great families who raise pastured animals on a small-scale commercial level.  Check out Ault’s Family Farm & Apiary and Consider the Lilies Farm.