|
|
From Field to Table
What's Happening Now at Magicland Farms
|
Issue Number Ten
|
Monday - September 21, 2009
|
|
|
|
|
Magicland
Farms
|
Everything We Sell We Grow Ourselves
|
Greetings!
Welcome to the Magicland Farms' newsletter for the week beginning September 21st. We hope to keep you up to date with the happenings at our farm, along with providing you with some of our favorite recipes and other information we think you might find of interest. If you know of someone who might be interested in receiving our newsletter, you can forward it to them by using the forward link at the end of this newsletter
|
|
|
|
This Week at Magicland Farms - September 21st to September 26th
We will still have sweet corn picked fresh off our farm everyday except Sunday! Also, tender green beans, tomatoes (including heirlooms), peppers, beets, watermelon, sand-grown potatoes, many types of winter squash including acorn, butternut, buttercup and hubbard, freshly pulled jumbo red and yellow sweet onions and cut sunflowers.
Our fall apple harvest has started! We started picking McIntosh, Gala and Jonamac apples! Other
varieties available from our own orchard right now include Zestar,
Paulared, Tydeman's and Earliblaze. Many more varieties after October
2nd.
|
From The Kitchen
We eat a lot of apples around our house, both out of hand and cooked. Below are two recipes that make a great side dish, especially for pork and ham or even bacon at breakfast. As a bonus, they both are extremely simple to make.
Michigan Fried Apples
4 tablespoons butter
6 medium tart apples, unpeeled, cored and sliced
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Melt butter in a medium heavy skillet over medium heat. Add apples, sugar and cinnamon to
skillet; saute for 15-20 minutes, or until apples are tender.
Serve hot as a side dish to a ham or
pork meal, or with breakfast.
Serves 6.
Oven Roasted Apple Slices
1/2 cup water
6 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3 pounds small assorted apples, peeled, cored and sliced
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine water, sugar, lemon juice, and salt in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Scatter butter pieces over mixture and place pan in oven. When butter is melted, take out pan and place apple slices in it. Return to oven and roast until apples are very soft, 30 to 40 minutes, basting apple slices with water/sugar mixture. Serve warm. |
Specials In The Spotlight
ACORN SQUASH
$4.OO for a half bushel
UTILITY GRADE APPLES (MIXED VARIETIES):
$3.00 for a half bushel
Perfect for pies or applesauce
YELLOW OR RED JUMBO SWEET SPANISH ONIONS:
$3.00 for a half peck
YELLOW JUMBO SWEET ONIONS:
$10.00 for a half bushel
|
Questions Our Customers Are Asking
Q: How much longer will you have sweet corn?
A: Until a few days after a killing frost.
Q: When do you close?
A: Usually we try to stay open until November 1 despite the
weather. If the fall is mild (which is
what I expect) we will be open until Thanksgiving. NOTE: IF ROADS IN THE MORNING ARE ICY OR
SLUSHY WE WILL BE CLOSED FOR THE WHOLE DAY.
More about winter roads.
Did you ever notice that it seems that in the south thata few inches of snow shuts things down? Many blame the southern drivers since they
have little experience with snowy roads.
While there may be a touch of truth to this belief, I have discovered
the hard way it is the temperature of the road is what causes most of the
problems.. If the road surface is above
freezing and an inch of snow falls, there will be a time you have water
underneath and snow on top and the road becomes exceedingly slippery and stays
slippery while there is any snow at all on the road. Of course, once the snow all melts the road is
no more slippery than when rain is falling.
What does this mean? Well, if the
pavement is warm and it starts snowing enough so the snow starts sticking, you
will see many cars off the road if you are fortunate enough not to have already
joined them. Conversely, if it has been bitter cold for some time and a little
snow falls the roads won't be so bad.
(Of course, if the road crews have added a bit of salt so the snow melts
a bit, the road again will be in bad shape, especially if the surface of the
road is around 15F.)
Q: Will you have ½ bushels of red potatoes?
A: Yes, we hope to have them around September 30.
Q: How does your pumpkin crop look?
A: Really nice. The
best in many years, if not ever!
Q: Grow anything new this year?
A: Yes, giant decorative gourds, rutabagas, parsnips and a
test planting of sweet potatoes. More on
sweet potatoes next week.
|
The Boss's Corner
Hi,
Well, tonight and tomorrow we
might actually get a taste of rain. Way
back in late August I commented that it would be nice if we had at least two
weeks of sun and dry weather-well I sure got my wish! We had only a couple drops all September so
far! A light to moderate rain will be
very welcome.
While we started picking
apples shortly after 4th of July weekend, (our first "quality" apple
to ripen is Quinte), our fall apple season starts with McIntosh. Well, we started picking that on September 9
and we have many more to pick. As many
of you know, we have over a hundred varieties of apples planted and this number
has actually increased the past few years to over 110. The exact number is hard to list because it
depends if you think of Red Delicious as one variety or separate it to
different strains-we have Red Prince Delicious (basically the old fashioned
Delicious), Red Chief, Imperial, Starkrimson and others. We even have three different types of
Jonathan-Jonnee (dark red), Double Red (not so red) and a couple other
ones.
Before I even purchased the
north half of "Magicland Farms" back in the late fall of 1970, I had planted
three rare and/or heirloom semi-dwarf apple trees: Calville Blanc D'Hiver,
Cox's Orange Pippin and Granny Smith. While Granny Smith is a common apple today,
back then they were mainly grown in Australia and shipped to Great Britain and were unknown in this country. After I purchased
the farm and started the orchard, I moved the apple trees to the new
orchard. A few years later mice killed
the Cox's Orange Pippin tree. However,
the Calville and Granny Smith are still growing well and although they are
around 40 years old they aren't big trees because they are on semi-dwarf
rootstock. Why did I purchase the
Calville Blanc tree? Well, its
description in the catalogs had something to do with it. A typical nursery catalog description goes
something like this:
"This is the gourmet culinary apple of France,
excellent for tarts. Uniquely shaped medium to large size fruit, yellow skin
with light red flush. Flesh is tender, sweet, spicy, flavorful, with a
banana-like aroma more vitamin C than an orange. Grown by Le Lectier, procureur
for Louis XIII; continues to be served in fine Parisian restaurants."
I was so enthralled by the description I decided I wanted
some more but didn't want to pay the huge price for these rare trees. Since I already had one tree I used the
scionwood from it to graft onto a dwarf rootstock. I used the traditional whip and tongue graft
and now have 6 Calvilles Blanc trees all of which have a nice crop this
year.
We have been enjoying pies, apple crisps, apple coffee cakes
and other delectables made from Calvilles for many years. I now have some comments of my own about
Calvilles: first, it's really, really
hard to get a good looking Calville.
They are really scab prone and have other appearance problems. Only one Calville in 50 I would bother taking
photo of. They aren't the best eating
fresh picked right off the tree but by Thanksgiving they are quite tasty and
perhaps deserve their gourmet reputation.
While there may be a hint of banana aroma, this is hard to detect. They obviously are loaded with Vitamin C, if
you have a good palate and tried to taste a Vitamin C tablet you can easily
"taste" the apples Vitamin C. They are
the best fall/winter apple for pies.
They are even better than Northern Spy which is generally regarded as the
best common apple for pies. By the way,
it seems that the Northern Spy is a seedling of Calville-they look a bit alike
and they also are loaded with Vitamin C, although about half as much as
Calville. Northern Spy though are easier
to grow and are generally more attractive.
Last fall I got an email from a chef at some big-time restaurant in New
York City wondering if I could ship him (or was it
her?) Calvilles. He apparently visited www.magiclandfarms.com and saw it
mentioned. Well last year we had a
terrible crop and I told him there was no way.
Besides, he probably wanted more apples than I even have on the trees
this year! When do the Calvilles
ripen? Not before October 20 and usually
around Halloween. They do keep well.
Some other of our heirlooms includes the oldest known
variety of apple Court Pendu Plat. We jokingly refer to this apple as "The
Garden of Eden " apple since some reports of its history date it back to before
the time of Christ. When fresh, this is
not the best eating apple around. The flesh is very dense, not soft but not
crisp either. Cutting into it with a knife feels a bit like cutting into a hard
cheddar cheese. There seems to be very little juice, and its flavor is fruity
and strong when first picked but mellows later. While we only have one tree of Court, its crop looks nice. This is another very late apple which we pick
just before Halloween.
If you really like something different you might want to
sample one of our rare heirloom apples called Surprise. It even tastes
nice, if you like a bit of tartness, when you bite into it. But its not its flavor that is a surprise, it
is its pink/red flesh color. The
surprise comes because its skin is greenish with almost know red or pink
showing. its main problem is that it's a
small apple. Kids are especially fond of
this apple! This apple ripens in mid
October.
A relatively rare new yellow skinned apple that has quite a
following among several customers is the Hawaii
apple. If you like a pineapple flavor
you might like this apple since well ripened specimens often have a hint of a
pineapple taste. We only have two trees
of Hawaii apple but they both
have lots of apple-perhaps too many.
When a tree has too many apples the apples tend to be small and
sometimes don't ripen to perfection. If
the apples do get large on a heavily loaded tree breakage often occurs. While it is a bit late to thin, I hope to get
to it this week at least it might stop breakage. Next year the thinning will be more timely It looks like the Hawaii
crop will ripen in mid October.
Tolman Sweet is another heirloom that is hard to find
today. We have several customers who
ask us to save our crop of Tolman Sweet for them. Because of this, we usually only have a
sampling of this variety at our market.
If you want to make hard cider, this apple for you. Its 15% sugar ferments to 7% alcohol to make
a delicious cider with a good kick! The one tree of Tolman Sweet we have has a nice crop on it. It ripens in early October.
Right next to our sole Tolman Sweet tree is another really
old apple from England
called Ashmead's Kernel. This apple is
absolutely loaded with flavor, sugar and tartness and Vitamin C! It is really something to eat and is some of the
kids favorite apple. It ripens in mid
October.
We have lots more rare/heirloom apples that I will mention
in upcoming issues of the newsletter. These
include Kindil Sinap, Golden Russet, Roxbury Russet, Stark's Jumbo, Tompkins County King, Splendour, Jonalicious and Jonadel.
Just wanted you to know we will be picking Cortland
and Spartan apples shortly. Cortland
are famous as a salad apple since they brown very slowly when cut. They also are deliciously refreshing eating!
While I am reluctant to mention health benefits of eating
some specific food, studies have shown
that the old adage "An apple a day will keep the doctor away" should actually be changed to "Two apples a
day keep the doctor away." Since the studies which showed that people who ate
apples every day visited doctors less frequently used two apples a day in their
research. The following information is
given with no recommendations from moi just some data that is out there. Keep in mind here that apples are high in
pectin.
- CANCER
- The
American Cancer Society recommends a high-fiber diet to help prevent several
forms of cancer, particularly colon cancer. Pectin binds certain
cancer-causing compounds in the colon, speeding their elimination from the
body, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer
Institute.
- DIABETES
- Physicians also
recommend high-fiber diets to control diabetes. Several studies show that
apple pectin helps control blood sugar (glucose) levels in
diabetics. Traditional Chinese physicians have used
apple bark for centuries to treat diabetes, another use supported by modern
science.
- LEAD
POISONING - European studies suggest apple pectin helps eliminate lead,
mercury, and other toxic heavy metals from the body. Cleansing the body
of these poisons is yet another reason for people who live in polluted cities
to enjoy the proverbial apple a day.
- WOUND
INFECTION - Although the pectin in apple fruit is this herb's major medicinal
component, apple leaves contain an antibiotic (phloretin). If you
cut yourself out in the orchard, crush some apple leaves and press them onto
the wound as first aid until you can wash and bandage it,
Nashle!
Tom
|
|
|
|
|
We appreciate your business and hope to see you this week at Magicland Farms.
Sincerely,
Tom and Annemarie Fox
Magicland Farms
|
4380 S Gordon
Fremont, Michigan 49412
231-652-2368
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
