Farm News May 30, 2023
Our Farmstand is in full swing:
Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday: 2 - 6:30 PM
Saturday: 8 am - 12:30 pm
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Hello veggie lovers, and welcome back to Fort Hill Farm. It’s been a very eventful spring with everything from a string of near 90-degree days in early May to a very impressive freeze in late May with a low of 27F in our field. We’ve got a lot of new faces on the farm to help us plant, tend, and harvest the crops, along with some folks who have been with us for many years. Our hard-working crew (much more about them in upcoming newsletters!) has spent the spring sowing tens of thousands of plants in the greenhouse, trellising up the early greenhouse tomatoes, and getting the fields prepared and planted: spreading compost, planting cover crops, spading in old crops and covers. We’ve covered many beds with row covers which creates a “mini greenhouse” and really scoots those early greens and lettuce plantings along
Our May plant sales went well, and thanks to Rebecca and Kathy we have a great assortment of high quality, organically grown plants. If you are contemplating a garden, now is a great time to plant, and we still have plenty of plants left. We grow the same varieties that perform well for us in our fields, hardened off and ready to plant.
Elliott headed the large undertaking of getting Greenhouse 6 up and covered this spring. Nice work!
Matt, Paul, and the gang planting the onions.
The big question we get this time of year is “when are the strawberries ready?”. Before we get into that, bear with me for some background. My first full-time farming job was with my friends, Paul and Chris Burkhouse, back in the 90’s on an old farm in eastern Minnesota along the St. Croix River valley. In our first few months of business, we learned an important lesson in marketing produce. Paul and Chris built a farm stand on skids that they would haul to the roadside each year, and every day in spring we would stock it with lettuce, scallions, spinach, kale, and chard. Problem was, nobody stopped until we had something “red” on the stand. That year, it was tomatoes, which meant it was a long wait. For us, strawberries have been the “red” crop that draws people to the farm and our farmers’ market stands in June, and we have been fortunate to have mostly good luck with this often-fickle crop. This year our strawberries are struggling for reasons which are currently hidden from us. We do have berries, but they are smaller and fewer in number.
What we do have is lots of greens—lettuce, spinach, arugula, chard, and kale in abundance. And lots of kohlrabi! We are hoping the mid- and late- season berries stage a comeback, but for now the early crop is very light. We will have them available for pick your own at the farm, likely with some limits. We are hoping folks will still come out to get their salad fixings even if the star attraction has a bit of stage fright.
CJ uses the new and improved “Flatbed Schlepper” to move oodles of plants from the greenhouse to the cold frame to harden off.
This year’s crop was planted in ground we have continuously cultivated for 21 years and is in need of a rest. The good news is that the previous two year’s record-breaking crops were in the new fields that we have transitioned to organic production over the last 5 years. Each year, we have been seeding a portion our old field to perennial hay crops, which is why there are so many blocks of solid green vegetation at the farm. Perennial hay crops like alfalfa and orchard grass restore the soil, deny pathogens and pests the hosts they need to build to damaging levels, and reduce weed populations. These cover crops need tending and take up a fair bit of space, but the long-term benefits to soil are so great that it’s worth the effort.
We hope you enjoy the harvest,
Paul, for Rebecca and the Fort Hill Farm crew
Featured veg:
Spinach: We have some of the nicest spring spinach we have ever grown! See the recipe below.
Carrots: one of our most popular veggies. These are our baby spring bunching carrots, sown in February, and sweetened by old man winter. We grow these early carrots in the greenhouse, which means we have to hand dig them and they are more costly to produce. We’ll have further successions as we transition to the field carrots in the next week or two. To store 2 days up to two weeks, tear off the tops and place in a plastic bag in the fridge crisper.
Also available:
Head lettuce, salad mix, arugula, pea shoots, fresh carrots, red and French Breakfast radishes (limited), spinach, curly and lacinato kale, rainbow chard, fennel (just coming in), beets (just coming in), escarole, classic sweet potatoes, scallions, kohlrabi, cilantro, parsley
Pick Your Own:
It will be hit or miss for the strawberries. We’ll open and close the patch as the berries allow, and we’ll have limits on picking. Fingers crossed for the next few weeks to improve!
Recipes
Suggested by Rebecca Batchie
For more recipes, check out the Fort Hill Farm Recipe Database
Cream of Spinach Soup
By Mark Bittman
I love the simplicity of this soup during the busy spring. It can be served hot, cold, or at room temperature, and infinitely altered to fit your mood (such as subbing the dairy for cooked, cubed potatoes or coconut milk, or finishing with lemon juice and parsley).
INGREDIENTS
Yield: 4 servings
1pound spinach, well washed, thick stems trimmed
3spring onions or 3 bunches scallions, trimmed and roughly chopped
3cups chicken or vegetable stock
Small grating of nutmeg
Salt and pepper
1cup heavy or light cream, half-and-half or milk
PREPARATION
Step 1
Combine spinach, onions and stock in a saucepan, and turn heat to medium high. Bring to a boil, and lower heat so mixture barely bubbles. Cook, stirring occasionally, until spinach is very tender, about 10 minutes. Turn off heat, add nutmeg and a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and let cool at least a few minutes.
Step 2
Pour soup into a blender, in batches if necessary, and carefully purée. Return to pan, add cream, and, over medium-low heat, reheat gently, stirring occasionally. When soup is hot, adjust seasoning, and serve.