Farm News, September 21, 2021
BRING YOUR MASK! Due to the everchanging pandemic conditions, we are requiring masks for all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, while visiting in the barn. Masks are not required outside the barn. Thank you!
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We’re starting to see a tinge of yellow in the trees on Guarding Mountain, which is the hill that rises from the flat fields of Fort Hill. That has us thinking about the leaves that will soon be showing up at the farm, in the backs of trucks which have collected them from people’s back yards around town. We love to make and use compost, and the main material we can use is leaves. In the next couple of weeks, you will see us piling up our finished compost to make room for this year’s “crop” of leaves. They generally just sit around for a year, and we use a lot of them to mulch our garlic, onion, melon, and pepper crops. A year later, whatever we don’t use as mulch, we run through a manure spreader to make long piles called windrows. We roll these around with a bucket loader for another year and then pile up the finished compost to complete the process.
Emma captures this autumn farm moment- it’s a beauty.
The heavy rains from the hurricanes have set back growth a bit, but we’re still harvesting tomatoes, kale, chard, broccoli and lots of peppers, even as the fall crops of Brussels sprout greens, collards, and winter squash come in. We’ve got the full variety of potatoes on display at the farm and our markets, and soon we’ll have yummy butternut squash as well. This week’s big project is the sweet potato harvest. They were a bit slow in sizing up this year, and they need a couple of weeks in a warm greenhouse to sweeten up, but we’ve waited as long as we can. Sweet potatoes are a tropical crop and even a touch of frost will cause damage, so we need to get them out of the ground while the weather is still warm.
It’s Collards Time! Shell makes the first fall bunch.
It’s a bit of a tough harvest because we start to get tired on the farm this time of year. It’s still pretty hot out in the fields, and the heavy rains have generated an amazing crop of mosquitos. Our crew is a bit tired at this point, and yanking sweet potato vines and picking up 2 tons of tubers is a big job. One thing that helps is some camaraderie and shared purpose. Working with people you enjoy being around makes hard jobs a lot easier!
We hope you enjoy the farm and the harvest,
Paul and Rebecca for the Fort Hill Farm Crew
Liv laughs at the chard haters among us. Get busy sautéing them slowly on low heat with some melt-in-your-mouth leeks!
Featured this week:
Pumpkins! (Jacks and Pie) Jack - O'- Lantern Pumpkins: What a joy the sight of these brings, and it’s never too early to decorate your doorstep. You can get your Jack-o for Halloween directly from the farm and not the big box stores. We have all sizes with tons of personality. Roast the seeds and let’s get this ephemeral autumn ritual underway. Pie Pumpkins: great for pumpkin breads, muffins, and pies, or see the naughty below. Prepare pumpkin puree by cutting pumpkin in half, scoop out seeds, bake at 375F in a greased pan cut side down in about ½ inch of water until a fork slides in easily. Puree or mash the flesh, this will freeze well for future use.
Collard greens: perhaps one of the most unassuming, overlooked greens that, conversely, has quite the cult following. We love them. Stir fry/braise with slow-cooked leeks for a real treat, or try the recipe below, which I can’t help but bring up again after just a few years. You won’t be disappointed! We have the delicious Senposai Japanese collards as well.
Also available:
Salad mix, arugula, limited head lettuce this week(-try the salad mix!), pea shoots, radishes, limited salad turnips, Red cabbage, Chinese cabbage, savoy cabbage, red, Chioggia, and gold beets, curly and lacinato kale, rainbow chard, parsley, chives, oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, radicchio, red and yellow onions (at the Farmstand only), Dark Red Norland, Satina, Blue, and Red Gold potatoes, Kennebec and Fingerling potatoes, German Extra Hardy garlic, Heirloom, beefsteak, and plum tomatoes (still on sale!), Sungold and red cherry tomatoes, escarole, fennel, green bell peppers, sweet peppers, mixed Italian and Asian eggplant, hot peppers, leeks, fresh young ginger, Carnival squash, limited apples from our certified organic, no-spray orchard
Coming Soon:
Sweet potatoes, butternut squash
Pick Your Own:
Flowers: * please get a flower ring from the barn for bouquet size.
There are still a lot of flowers out there, despite the deluge of rain. Don’t miss the Dahlias, some of which are short and hiding behind the other flower rows.
Perennial Herbs: * please get an herb ring from the barn for bunch size.
Chives, Oregano, Thyme, and Sage for all of those fall recipes
PYO Hours: 1:30 - 7PM. (PYO begins 30 minutes before and goes 30 minutes beyond barn hours.)
Recipes
Suggested by Rebecca Batchie
For more recipes, check out the Fort Hill Farm Recipe Database
Salted Pumpkin Caramel Bars
By Yotam Ottolenghi, via the Guardian
For the speculoos biscuit (gingerbread cookie) base
6.4 oz. (180g) speculoos biscuits– I like Lotus Biscoff
1½ tbsp plain flour
⅛ tsp salt
2.1 oz. (60g) unsalted butter, melted
For the pumpkin caramel
4.4 oz. (125g) whipping cream
2.8 oz. (80g) pumpkin puree (or mashed pumpkin or sweet potato)
4 tsp fresh or 1 tsp ground ginger
5.3 oz. (150g) caster sugar
2.1 oz. (60g) golden syrup
1 oz. (30g) butter, cut into 1cm cubes
½ tsp cider vinegar
1 tsp flaked sea salt
For the toasted pumpkin seed salt
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds, toasted
⅛ tsp flaked sea salt
3.5 oz. (100g) 85%-cocoa dark chocolate, melted
Heat the oven to 400 F/ 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Line the base and sides of a 2” high by 8” square tin with greaseproof paper – you’ll use the paper to help lift the biscuit mix from the tin once set, so you want to create a sort of sling that hangs over the sides.
Put the biscuits, flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and blitz to fine crumbs. Add the melted butter, pulse until just combined, then tip out all over the base of the lined tin, and press down with the back of a spoon to flatten and compress the mix. Bake for eight to 10 minutes, then remove and leave to cool while you make the caramel.
Whisk the cream, pumpkin puree and ginger in a small saucepan, then set the pan over a low heat to warm gently.
In a medium saucepan, mix the sugar, syrup and two tablespoons of water and set over a medium-high heat. Once the syrup mix comes to a boil, swirl the pan gently (do not stir it), then turn down the heat to medium and cook for five minutes, until the mix is just starting to caramelise. Stir in the warmed cream and pumpkin mixture, and cook, stirring every now and then to stop it catching, for nine or 10 minutes more, until thickened and darkened in colour. Turn off the heat, whisk in the butter, vinegar and salt, then pour all over the now cooled and set biscuit base in the tin. Use a spatula to smooth out the caramel and get it into the corners, then refrigerate for about an hour, until set.
Roughly bash the pumpkin seeds and salt in a mortar. Carefully lift out the set mix from the tin, using the sides of the paper to help you, and transfer to a tray. Spread evenly with the melted chocolate, sprinkle over the pumpkin seed salt and leave to set for about five minutes. Cut into 24 bars and store in a sealed container in the fridge until ready to serve. Makes 24 bars.
Caldo Verde (Portuguese Green Soup)
From Allrecipes
This is fabulous without the sausage. For a special presentation, cut the collards in half then into thin strips and leave them unblended. I like this soup on the thinner side, but you can simply adjust this by adding water.
Ingredients
4 tablespoons
olive oil, divided
1 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
6 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 quarts cold water
6 ounces linguica sausage, thinly sliced
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
ground black pepper to taste
1 pound kale (or collards), rinsed and julienned
Directions
In a large saucepan over medium heat, cook onion and garlic in 3 tablespoons olive oil for 3 minutes.
Stir in potatoes and cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes more.
Pour in water, bring to a boil, and let boil gently for 20 minutes, until potatoes are mushy.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium-low heat, cook sausage until it has released most of its fat, 10 minutes. Drain.
Mash potatoes or puree the potato mixture with a blender or food processor. Stir the sausage, salt and pepper into the soup and return to medium heat. Cover and simmer 5 minutes.
Just before serving, stir kale/collards into soup and simmer, 5 minutes, until greens are tender and jade green. Stir in the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and serve at once.