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Hi Everyone,
The Weekly Leek got off to a less than weekly start, so sorry about that. Our intention was to give you weekly updates of farm challenges and successes: a chance to look up from the vegetables filling our bags and baskets - to step back from those weeds we are all so busy pulling - for a broader view of our CSA. We hope to do that more often from now on . . .
We would love to hear from you, too, with your questions, recipes, and subjects you'd like to write about. |
| GROWING CONCERNS Every year is different: two years ago, late blight wiped out much of our tomato crop, along with that of many farmers throughout the northeast. Last year, with weather conditions favoring us, Down to Earth enjoyed a bumper crop of many vegetables. This year's weather has been all over the map, as we have surely noticed, and crop success has been uneven. Weather began provoking us early: the greenhouse we used for starting our seedlings collapsed in this winter's Snowpocalypse. Jo Judd and Caroline averted crisis by finding a greenhouse, at Chestnut Hill Nursery, to work with. With our seedlings started, feet of snow melt and heavy spring rains made the fields impossibly wet. Here is more from Caroline: |
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There have been enormous difficulties growing stuff this year! It was so soaking wet through almost all of the spring that we could not get the beds prepared and could not get plants or seeds in the ground. Not only does equipment sink into the wet ground, but soil is damaged if worked when it is too wet. Having to wait until the soil was dry enough to work meant that everything was more than just a little late gettingin, so it is not that surprising that crops are late and not that strong. Tomatoes were reaching for the sky by the time we got them out of the hoophouse and into the ground! This makes for tall, weak plants that don't transplant well--many died after |
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setting out. We have been beset by extraordinary levels of weeds, also largely the result of early wet conditions that made it impossible to get equipment in there to deal with them in a timely way. If they are not addressed when they are still small, they become an almost impossible task to keep up with. With the ground too wet to use the Williams in the fields early on, weeds got way ahead of us, and too big to manage. We are left with hand control, which is fine up to a point, but with all the space we have, it has really been impossible to keep up with |
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it all! Erosion (severe!) and leaching of nutrients from the soil in spring also contributed to the problems, including some unusually severe insect invasions (cucumber beetle, squash bug, flea beetle), no doubt the result of less than healthy plants. |
Suddenly, it turned into summer, with hot, dry conditions (which protected us from another invasion of late blight at least) for most of July. Eggplants have been loving it, so hopefully everyone is finding uses for all of them! The heat pushed tomatoes and peppers to ripen and complete their crops uncommonly early. |
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They are pretty much done for for this season. Peppers do not enjoy temperature extremes, and will readily drop blossoms in 90 degree temps like we had in July. Fall cabbages and broccoli are looking much better than the early spring crops, so I am hopeful for them, and leeks look good.
Now we are back into rainy season again! Very frustrating! Trying hard to salvage as much as possible for this season. I am sorry it is so disappointing--it is discouraging for me and the rest of the staff as well.
--Caroline |
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BAKED EGGPLANT MOUSSAKA
1 large eggplant
salt
1/2 cup oil
1/4 pound butter or margarine
FILLING:
1 pund ground lamb (or beef)
2 onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup wine
1 cup water
TOPPING:
1 cup grated cheese, Kefaloteri or Parmesan
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Wash eggplant. Cut into 1/2" thick slices. Sprinkle with salt and let stand in a bowl for 10 minutes. Rinse with cold water. Dry with a towel. Place slices close together, side by side, on an oiled cookie sheet. Melt oil and butter together and brush tops lightly with some of it. Bake in pre-heated oven at 350º F. for 10 minutes. Remove from oven.
Prepare filling: Heat a tablespoon of butter-oil mixture in a frying pan and cook the meat, onions, and remaining ingredients for 7 minutes.
Oil the bottom and sides of a square or rectangular cake pan. Lay one layer of eggplant. Spread with meat filling. Add the remaining eggplant on top. Brush with some butter-oil mixture. Prepare white sauce. Pour over top of eggplant. Sprinkle with cheese, cinnamon and any remaining butter-oil. Bake
at 325º F. for 45 minutes. Cut into squares like a cake and serve immediately. |
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WHITE SAUCE:
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 egg, well beaten
Dilute cornstarch in cold water and set aside. Bring milk, butter, and salt to a boil over medium heat. Add diluted cornstarch, stirring as it thickens. Remove from heat. Add some sauce to beaten egg, then add egg to sauce, mixing it in well.
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