I know there are plenty of you who LOVE kale, but this recipe is for those of you who don’t.  Or for your kids.  Combined with raw carrots and snap peas, this is a healthy snack.  If you are a hard-core raw kale eater, skip the step where you cook it   This recipe is from www.wholeliving.com.

Wash 1 bunch of kale and remove the tough stems.  Chop roughly.

Mince green garlic to make 1 T.  Saute the garlic in 1 T. olive oil until tender, then add the kale and raise the heat.  Cook for 3-4 minutes, add salt to taste.

Transfer the kale to a food processor and add 1 C. cottage cheese (for a little tangier flavor, use 1/2 C. each cottage cheese and goat chevre.) plus 1 T. lemon juice and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Puree until smooth.

Serve with sliced carrots and summer squash, and trimmed snap peas.

Cut the tops off 1 bunch of beets.  Soak the leaves in a bowl of water while you slice the roots in rounds about 1/4″ thick.

Toss the sliced beets with 2 t. olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Arrange on a baking sheet and bake at 350.  When they are lightly browned on the bottom — which will take 15-20 minutes — flip them.  The other side will brown much more quickly.

Meanwhile, drain the beet leaves, cut the stems off and then chop roughly.  Chop 1 spring onion, whites and greens.  Cook the onions in 1 T. olive oil until soft and beginning to brown, then add the beet greens and cook until tender, about 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.

Slice 1 lb. of zucchini  or sunburst squash thinly.  Cut the squash slices into ribbons.  Toss in a bowl with the hot beet greens and allow to sit for 5 minutes.  Dress with 1 T. balsamic vinegar or fresh squeezed orange juice, 1 T. olive oil, salt and pepper.

Serve the salad topped with crumbled goat chevre or feta cheese and the roasted beet slices.

Organic gardening books for years have recommended planting garlic in and around your garden to help repel pests.  Unfortunately, there isn’t much evidence showing this to be effective, other than as a way to utilize small amounts of garden space to grow another crop.  Instead, it is garlic oil, sprayed on crops, that turns out to be one of nature’s most effective pesticides.

Oils in general are effective pesticides — they coat and cover plant leaves, smothering a number of insect pests.  Not every oil can be sprayed on plants though, without damaging the leaves or leaving undesirable residues.  Meanwhile, certain natural oils — clove, rosemary and neem trees — are especially effective at killing pests.  So is garlic.

But garlic has something that these other oils don’t have:  natural sulfur compounds.  These are part of what give garlic its unique flavor as well as its tendency to produce gas when eaten.  Sulfur is also a natural fungicide, and the particular sulfur molecules in garlic are especially effective at killing several of the most destructive fungi that infect many crops.  So garlic oil is not just an insecticide, it is also a fungicide.

We spray garlic oil on our table grapes.  Not only does it eliminate powdery mildew, it also kills leafhoppers — a destructive pest that feeds on the leaves and can defoliate the vines.  We also spray it on our onions, where it again does double duty:  fighting downy mildew and killing a pest called thrips.

Sometimes we even spray garlic on, well, garlic.  It turns out that the sulfur compounds in garlic cloves do not exist in the rest of the plant while it is growing. (This is why planting garlic in your garden does not do much to prevent pests)  So the leaves are susceptible in wet years to a fungus called “rust” which, if left to spread unchecked, can kill the plants before they even have a chance to form bulbs.  But garlic oil kills it.

The best thing about spraying garlic on our crops is how safe it is to use.  While drinking a quart of garlic oil would give you pretty nasty heartburn, it is technically a food and the EPA does not even consider it a pesticide.  Yet it works so well that some conventional growers have begun using it instead of much more toxic chemicals.

So on any given day of the year at Terra Firma, the smell of garlic may be wafting across the field, even if we have no garlic growing at the time.  Oh yeah, and it also helps keep the vampires away.

Thanks,

Pablito

In a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, grind 1 tsp. fennel seeds, 1/4 t. coriander seeds, and 1/2 t. cumin seeds.  Add to a food processor with 1 chopped spring onion, 3 T. minced green garlic, 1 C. packed cilantro leaves, and 1 minced green chile (optional).  Puree.

Heat 2 T. canola oil in a large skillet.  When it is hot, add the pureed mixture.  Cook for 10 minutes, then add 1 C. diced canned tomatoes, 1/2 t. each garam masala and turmeric powder.  Season with salt and additional hot pepper if you like.

Shell 1/2 lb. English peas.  Trim 1 C. snap peas and cut in 2 or 3 pieces.  Trim 2-3 summer squash and cut into thin half rounds (You can slice them thicker but they will need to cook longer).

Wash spinach leaves and chop 2 C.

Add the squash to the pan and stir to combine.  Add both types of peas and cook until they are just tender.  Add the spinach, stir into the curry and turn off the heat.   If you want to thicken the sauce, add a few tablespoons of cream, coconut milk or almond milk.

Garnish with more cilantro, chopped.

The strong wind has made it pointless to spray crops — illegal, actually.  Even a slight breeze can cause drift away from the target crop and onto another one, but the wind we’ve been having would blow the spray for a mile.  Unfortunately, it also blows in pests and diseases from other farms.  So on the few days that the wind has stopped, we and every other farmer in the area have been out spraying.  Of course all of our sprays are organically approved.

Strong wind makes even the simplest task more difficult, as anyone who has ever driven across the Bay Bridge on a blustery night knows.  There are many tasks that we simply can’t do on the farm if the wind is blowing hard enough knock a hat off your head.  Spinach and arugula leaves blow away as you cut them.  Tender transplants wilt and dry just minutes after being planting.

Irrigation water from sprinklers simply blows away, most of it evaporating into the dry air without ever reaching the plants that so desperately need it.  We are watering as much of the farm as possible right now with drip and furrow irrigation, neither of which sprays the water into the air.

Tillage — preparing the soil for planting — is one of the biggest tasks in the spring, for us and most other farms in the state.  We don’t like to till if it’s windy enough to blow soil into the air and off the farm.  But it’s been unavoidable this year; there’s simply too much work to get done.  Yesterday winds gusting to 45 mph blew so much dust into Sacramento that it obscured visibility on the interstate.

Luckily for the TFF crew, much of the day’s work right now is in the two places probably best protected from the wind on our farm:  the strawberry field and the cherry orchard.  Even so, you might need to rinse a light coating of dust off those items, which we don’t wash here on the farm, when you get them home.

Thanks,

Pablito

Trim 2-3 spring onions.  Cut the tops off and reserve.  Cut the rest of the onion (stalk and bulb) in half lengthwise and then slice the halves up.

Melt 2 T. butter in a large pan and add the onion.  Cook on medium-low heat for 15 minutes, until very soft and beginning to brown.  Add 1 T. flour and stir to combine, then add 1 1/4 C. water and 1/2 t. thyme leaves plus salt and pepper.

Cut 4-6 carrots in half lengthwise, then slice crosswise.  You want about two cups.  Add them to the pot and cook until just tender, 6-8 minutes.

Meanwhile, shell 1/2 lb. of Shelling Peas.  Trim and pull the strings off 1 C. of snap peas and then cut in 2 or 3 pieces.  Add to the pot and cook another 3-5 minutes, until the peas are tender but not mushy.

Season with more salt and pepper.

Twenty years ago, when I started farming, we were governed by a list of products maintained by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI).  OMRI was a farmer-created thinktank specifically developed for this purpose.  All the organic certification agencies at the time were private, and they all had slightly different standards for what they required farmers to do.  But all the reputable ones used the OMRI list to determine which fertilizers and pesticides were allowed.

Now, these decisions are made by the federally overseen National Organic Standards Board , as outlined in the federal legislation that created it.   They weigh factors including consumer health, environmental protection, and economic viability for farmers.

Organic farming has always attempted to balance pragmatism and philosophy.  The use of antibiotics is a good example.  Antibiotics — whether natural or synthetic — have never been approved for use in livestock, because they eventually make their way into meat or milk that is eaten by consumers.  But since the beginning of certification, organic farmers have been allowed to a naturally occurring antibiotic called Tetracycline to fight a devastating disease of apples and pears known as Fire Blight.  Because Fire Blight destroys new shoots and flowers, a one-time infection can wipe out two year’s worth of fruit.  If it hits two or three years in a row, it kills whole trees and entire orchards.  The antibiotic is sprayed on trees during bloom, before fruit has even formed, and biodegrades in sunlight after a few days.  There is no risk of exposure to consumers.

Last week the NOSB addressed the question of whether or not disallow the use of antibiotics against Fire Blight in fruit orchards.  In response, several consumer groups mounted a campaign to generate opposition through mistruths and fearmongering.  One TFF subscriber sent me an email from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) that made the shocking and completely false claim that every time your child bites into an organic apple they are eating antibiotics.  Doctors who spoke at the NOSB hearing connected organic apple production to the general development of antibiotic resistance.

In the face of this full frontal assault, the NOSB voted to prohibit the use of antibiotics.  While they noted that organic apples will likely become more expensive and less available, and that some growers will have to tear out their orchards, they pointed to “promising alternatives on the horizon”.

Fire Blight thrives in warm, wet storms.  It is fairly rare here, where spring weather is most often either warm and dry or cold and wet.  It is more common in the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and East Coast where most organic apple production is located.  We have only sprayed antibiotics on our apples and pears a few times in the last ten years.  So while I was unhappy about the campaign against them, it wasn’t on the top of my list of things to worry about.

The NOSB decision was released last week, just a few days after the very unusual spring storm that dumped rain and hail on our farm.  We were admittedly so busy checking for hail damage that we didn’t think to worry about the apple and pear orchard, and it was too wet to get the tractor in to spray it anyway.  This is what a healthy pear tree looks like after blooming.  Note the abundance of leaves.  If you look closely you can see tons of tiny fruit clusters:

For contrast, here’s a tree infected with Fire Blight.  The photos were taken in our orchard yesterday:

Thankfully, apple and pears together are just a small part of our farm’s income.  Unfortunately, the storm that brought the Fire Blight in also hit our neighbors at Coco Ranch, who grow most of the apples for your boxes.  They lost most of their crop too.  If our primary crop was apples or pears, I would be seriously considering whether or not organic farming was still possible for us in light of the NOSB’s action.

In my mind, the decision did not give adequate weight to farmers’ economic viability.  Tetracycline is a naturally occurring material that does not harm the environment.   Spraying it on apple and pear flowers does not expose consumers to residue.  And while resistance to antibiotics is an important problem, prohibiting organic farmers from using them will make no difference given their vast overuse in our society.  It is a purely symbolic gesture with no practical outcome other than to hurt farmers.  And I think that organic farmers of all stripes, large and small, are now wondering “what’s next”.

Thanks,

Pablito

Coat 1 large or two small baking sheets lightly with olive oil.

Trim 1 bunch of asparagus and cut into half-inch pieces.

Scrub 3 beets and cut into small dice about the same size.

Trim 2-3 spring onions and chop.

Lay the vegetables out in a single layer on the sheet(s).  Keep the beets separate, as they might take longer to cook and tend to bleed.
Sprinkle salt and pepper over all.

Bake at 400 degrees, until the asparagus is light browned, the onions are nicely browned, and the beets are tender but not soft.  Deglaze the pan with the juice of 1 lemon or orange.

Meanwhile, cook 2 C. quinoa, bulgar wheat, or couscous according to the directions, using salted water.

Combine the vegetables and cooked grains in a large ovenproof bowl or pot, and drizzle with the lemon (orange) juice.  Cover it and return to the warm oven (now turned off) for 10 minutes.

With our Leek season officially over and the first Spring Onions of 2013 in your boxes, it seems like a good time to talk about growing the pungent orbs that provide the underpinning for so many great recipes from so many different cuisines. All over the world wherever there is winter, fresh onions in some form have been one of the first new vegetables of spring, savored by humans for thousands of years.

As ubiquitous as onions are in farm fields, markets, and kitchens around the world, it might be difficult to imagine that they are one of the trickiest vegetables to grow.  Why?  First and foremost, they grow slowly and have few leaves.  This means they must be carefully tended and kept free of weeds for most of their life, which can be as long as 9 months.  Unlike most vegetable plants, which have large leaves that shade the ground around them, onions have tall, thin leaves that grow almost straight up.

Second, there are several different types of onions adapted to specific growing areas and seasons.  “Short-day” onions are grown in areas closer to the equator where there is little variation between the length of day or temperature over the course of the year.  Further north or south, growers must be careful to choose the right variety for the time of year and their specific geographic location, from among hundreds.

Here at Terra Firma, we plant onions in the fall that grow through the winter, bulb up as the days start to get longer in the spring, and are ready for harvest in June.  These are commonly called “overwintering” onions, and are the ones we harvest fresh this time of year for your boxes.  But we are also planting onions now that will grow through the heat of the summer for harvest in September — so called “Long Day” varieties.

Unless you farm in a place like Walla Walla Washington, or Vidalia, Georgia, no one can tell you exactly what variety of onion to plant or what day you should plant it.  And yet these two critical details make the difference between getting a nice crop of big bulbs or a field of tiny ones.  Onions can fail in other ways to: an entire planting can go to seed without making a single onion, or the plants may just grow straight like leeks without ever making a bulb.

We’ve learned from experience that getting it right with onions one year doesn’t ensure success the next year, so we always hedge our bets.  We plant different varieties at different times, spreading out the risk that any one combination will fail — but also lowering the chance that we will ever have a great crop.

The third factor that makes growing onions so difficult is properly curing and storing them.  Onions need warm, dry weather to develop the skins that preserve them after harvest.  Too much humidity during this time will cause them to get moldy, which is why most onions in tropical areas are eaten fresh.  And direct sun or excessive heat at this time will actually cook the onions.

Once harvested, onions will keep nicely if stored at the proper temperature and humidity with enough airflow.  But if any one of these factors gets out of whack, the onions will quickly rot into mush.  More than once, we’ve harvested a beautiful crop of big, pretty bulbs only to lose a large percentage in storage.

The field of onions we are harvesting for your boxes today had a rough time in January during the extended freeze.  Many of the leaves were burned and eventually died, but the plants grew back nicely and are doing well.  But there’s still over a month until they will be ready for harvest as bulbs, and we never know how they are going to turn out.  In the meantime, we are happy to get some of them harvested and into your kitchens so you can enjoy them.

Thanks,

Pablito