Kretschmann Farm Oct 17, 2006
don@kretschmannfarm.com www.kretschmannfarm.com
Greetings from the Kretschmanns,
Last Thursday,
Becky cut the last two roses and arranged them on the dinner table to enjoy—one
was fully open and the biggest rose we had ever grown, the other a perfect bud.
These Double Delights, white with a red
fringe, are
wonderfully scented even among roses—an extra treat. This completed a nearly perfect last day
before the killing frost. It’s rare that
we get everything picked and covered which needs to be, but we had done a last
cruise through the tomatoes, squash, and peppers, picked the last thai basil for the boxes, picked all the green beans worth
picking, picked two pallets of Swiss Chard, and put row covers on all the baby mesclun, fennel, and lettuce. We brought all the houseplants inside for the
winter and started a roaring fire in the fireplace.
Friday and
Saturday we started pulling the thousands of tomato stakes and pulling all the
drip irrigation lines in the tomatoes, peppers and basil. By Monday afternoon
everything was seeded with the rye cover crop for the winter. The threshold has been crossed.
Apologies for
the last few week’s of sometimes substandard items in your box. Here are a few explanations. Most of the shortcomings were related in one
way or other to the wetness we’ve experienced this season. Tomatoes were nearly wiped out in June with
nearly perfect conditions for late blight—moist and very warm. We used an organic approved copper based
spray, which got us through, but the crop showed signs of blight all
season. We feel we were extremely lucky
to even have had a crop at all. We were
culling “baddies” at every stage—picking, washing,
packing. Hopefully you got a few good
meals out of the cauliflower. It was
hard to find a “window” to plant it, but once in the ground it had more water
than its north facing field could use.
This stunted plants in several areas of the field and many subsequently
developed a fungal disease common in the brassicas. The huge rainfalls of three weeks ago
occurred just after we had tied up the cauliflower (to blanch the heads
white)—having the undesired effect of creating the perfect environment for
development of those little black specks you likely saw. We tried to keep an eye out for the heads
which were totally unusable and at least give you one with some good eating
available. Broccoli had similar
problems, though not so severe. The romaine
lettuce, particularly, but others as well, suffered from what is becoming a
national infestation of virus. Hopefully
breeding new varieties will improve this in the future.
We’ve got a
lot of great eating to come from the garden despite the demise of the tender
summer vegetables. Last Monday, we dug
the late field of potatoes, harvested the field of fall beets, and Tuesday we
dug three more rows of carrots. So we’ve
got a barn full of winter squash, beets and potatoes; the cooler is stacked so
full of greens, cabbage, peppers, broccoli, carrots, etc. that we can hardly
walk in; and there’s lots of kale, spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes, herbs,
and apples in the field. Just keep
eating.
Several folks
have written us that Sunday there was a very interesting Op Ed piece by Michael
Pollan in the New
York Times, Sunday 10/15. It eloquently says what we have known-local
eating is safer and more enjoyable.
Hope you enjoy
everything. Sincerely, ---Don, Becky, & The Kretschmann Crew
We’ve included a number of
hot peppers (anything which isn’t a green bell pepper is likely hot). We always enjoy these on all sorts of things
from sandwiches to tuna casserole.
Here’s the pared down recipe.
Pickled
Hot Peppers: Slice half
a dozen or so hot peppers into rings about ¼” thick. Put in jar, bowl or small pot and sprinkle 2 tbs salt on top and let sit overnight. Rinse three times with cold water and place
in mason jar or similar small bowl. Bring to boil 1/8 c. oil, ¼ c. water, ¼ c.
vinegar, small clove cut up garlic, and ¼ tsp oregano and pour over peppers so
they are covered. Let marinate for a few
days and enjoy!
Swiss Chard
Ideas: This
green is so versatile. Chop the leafy
portion and use it like cooked spinach. Saute with a little onion, garlic, add crumbled feta
cheese, lemon juice, and stuff in pita bread--ala spinach pies/pizza. Or do
much the same preparation, add sour cream and stuff a baked potato. (Remember swiss chard takes a little more time to cook than
spinach.) The chard stems can be used
where one would use celery--in mixed sautes, stuffings etc. Chard, as well as other dark green leafy vegetables are rich
in folic acid--essential to health, and shown to reduce the risk of cancer and
cardiovascular disease. It also plays a such critical role in the early development of the human
fetus that the government mandates certain foods be fortified with it to
prevent birth defects.
Stir Fried Spicy Carrots
with Peanuts:
Preheat the oven to 350 deg. Put ¼ c peanuts in a shallow pan, and bake for 10 minutes . Cool and chop coarsely. Coarsely grate 1 pound
medium carrots and stir fry in 2 tbs butter or peanut
oil about 5 min. Stir in peanuts, ¼ tsp
hot pepper flakes grate a little fresh jalepeno or
Hungarian Wax pepper. Season
with salt pepper and a dash of lime juice. Serve hot.
Special Order Items: Green Cabbage—bu.
box $15. Potatoes: ½ bu.
$20. Butternut squash--$20/bu. These
will keep half the winter. Cider from Sally’s Cider Press (the
custom cider mill where we get ours pressed) It’s not organic, but it is fresh
pressed and UV pasteurized the same as ours.
4 Gal.--$20