AT THE COMMON TABLE

WANTED: Volunteers 

Hilary Leff, who chairs the At the Common Table dinner, is looking for volunteers for this year's outdoor orchard dinner on Saturday, August 28 to benefit Quail Hill Farm. Help is needed with the silent auction, invitations, décor, lighting, set up, etc.  No experience necessary -- only enthusiasm and lots of muscle!

Contact Hilary by email

AVAILABLE AT THE FARM SHOP

• QHF Eggs (but not until after the farm breakfast)

• Ronnybrook Milk, Butter, and Ice Cream

• Bees Need Honey

• Garlic Scape Pesto, Taste of the North Fork

OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS

Digital Photography for Tweens and Teens

On Saturday, June 19 from 10 to 11:30 AM, "Plein Air Peconic" photographer Ellen Watson leads a workshop for young adults, ages 11-17 years.  Bring your digital camera and learn the basics of how to capture the natural beauty of the farm, using the golden light of the East End, to create perspective and mood in your photographs.  $15/person, limited to 12 attendees, registration is required.  Call: 631 283 3195.  Rain cancels.  Sponsored by Peconic Land Trust.  Info: visit the website

FOLLOW THE FIDDLER

On Saturday, June 19 from 1 to 2 PM, kids join fiddler Sara Gordon and farmer Scott Chaskey for a musical romp through Quail Hill Farm's orchard and fields.  For children 2 to 5 years of age, with parent or caregiver.  $5/child. Rain cancels.  Sponsored by Peconic Land Trust.  Info: visit the website

YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ARE WELCOME

Please send recipes, anecdotes, news, photos, poems, etc. to e-news writer/editor Jane Weissman to her email or call her at 631.267.6923 or 212.989.3006.

Producing over 500 varieties of organically grown vegetables, flowers, fruit, and herbs, QUAIL HILL COMMUNITY FARM is located on 220 acres of land donated by Deborah Ann Light to Peconic Land Trust.  For membership information, call Robin Harris at Peconic Land Trust at 631.283.3195 or email her.

A Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) project, Quail Hill Farm helps to ensure the survival of agriculture on Long Island's East End by bringing together community members, farmers, and agricultural land in a relationship of mutual support. Quail Hill Farm is a stewardship project of the Peconic Land Trust.

IN THE FIELDS / AT THE STAND

LATE SPRING CROPS:  Asparagus, Arugula, Broccoli Raab, Garlic Scapes, Hakurei Turnips (for salads and quick cooking), Kale, Lettuce, Radishes, Rhubarb, Tatsoi, Pea Shoots, Peas: Shucking, Spinach.  Herbs: Chives, Bronze Fennel, Anise Hyssop, Lemon Balm, Lovage, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Tarragon, Thyme. Flowers: Zulu Daisies

COMING SOON!

Fava Beans, Peas: Sugar Snap & Snow, Scallions, String Beans, Swiss Chard. More Herbs: Parsley, Dill, Coriander.  More Flowers: Bachelor Buttons, Calendula

CROPS NEW TO QUAIL HILL FARM!

Among the radishes on the Hill, look for Cincinnati Market.  Purplish red in color and shaped like a carrot, it has a nice sharp taste.  A winner!

At the Farm Stand, look for Rainbow Lacinato Kale with its curly edges, red veins, and purple and blue-green leaves.  Its taste equals its great looks!

WEATHER REPORT

A Conversation with Scott

While many of us groused about the long hard winter and, since March, too much lion and not enough lamb, Scott viewed the past few months as "a beautiful spring."  It was "very kind for planting with well timed rains.  We only had to water a couple of times - at least until early June when nearly a month elapsed without any precipitation.  It got pretty dry."  But last week's long and gentle rain was very helpful and if there is the rain predicted for the next day or so, there will be no irrigation concerns for at least another week.

Some early hot weather contributed to many crops coming in earlier than usual.  Garlic scapes were an unexpected treat for the first day of the 2010 harvesting season, and Jeri Woodhouse of A Taste of the North Fork is transforming bushels of them into pesto for sale to members at the Farm Shop and at the Sag Harbor Market.  Those anticipated "stinking roses" may well get harvested earlier than usual, the first week of July if not the end of June.  And in the farm's 21 seasons, this may be the first when shucking peas were ready for picking the second week of harvest.

Farm members were greeted with new planting fields behind the sturdy deer fence on the hill west of Deep Lane.  After 20 years of constant production, the lower five acres known as Hurricane Hill have been retired and planted in buckwheat to help replenish the soil.  The new fields known as Birch Hill total 14 acres, with 4.5 acres in production this year.  There are 3 large growing areas with rows running 250 feet - about what members are willing to walk.  Peas, radishes and potatoes fill the front field, more potatoes cover the middle field, and lettuce, fennel, peppers, and cukes are growing in the rear.

The farm's growing fields now encompass Birch Hill, the Valley (where the farm stand is sited) and Town Lane, and the farmers have been busy planting - most recently eggplants, peppers, sweet potatoes and a fourth seeding of lettuce.  Tomatoes and winter squash will be planted soon.

Thanks to the generous contributions of many farm members, Quail Hill is sponsoring farm shares for four local families in an effort to further strengthen our bonds with the neighboring community.

As in past years, the farm is a popular destination for local school groups.  Of the many recent visits, the most significant was two days of planting by 100 students representing the entire fifth grade of the East Hampton School.  Also, six Ross School seniors interned at the farm one day a week for the month of May helping with seeding and planting.

We look forward to seeing old friends in the fields and we welcome the farm's new members.  To become familiar with the rhythms of the farm, feel free to ask questions of the farm stand greeters as well as fellow harvesters.  Field conversations are one of the many pleasures of Quail Hill and the benefits are many - inventive harvesting tips, great recipes and, best of all, new friends.

MEET THE APPRENTICES

This year, field manager Joe O'Grady is joined by a lively, engaging, hard working group of apprentices. Here, in their own words, are brief introductions. Do seek them out for conversation; you'll enjoy getting to know them.

JOSH LEVINE

Josh returns for a second season, as a full time PLT staff member.  As Quail Hill's market manager, he is managing the farm's stand at the Sag Harbor farmer's market, developing new wholesale accounts, and filling requests from local restaurants and markets.  Josh's goal is "to bring the amazing messages of our community farm to the local area and beyond" and he is generating interest in the farm and the sustainable food movement through local press, school group visits and the farm's Facebook page - QHF Facebook.  Check out the daily updates about life in the fields, photos, videos, recipes, and other news.

ELIZABETH MORAN

Originally from Vermont, Liz attended the Green Mountain College for Environmental Studies, concentrating in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Production.  She has worked on various farms around the Northeast, including interning for Heifer International as their Farmer Chef at Overlook Farm and at Peacework Farm in Newark, NY.   Studying abroad in Dorf Tirol, Italy, she focused on agro-archeology at Brunnenburg Castle while working on its vineyard and farm.  For the past four years, she has worked closely with Slow Food and the Real Food Challenge, and recently took an intensive agro-ecology course at UVM.  She hopes that her experience at QHF will continue "to prepare me for a future in food and agriculture fusing my love for culinary art and farming."

ERIKA BRENNER

Following college, Erika traveled in Thailand through a grant from the Freeman Fellowship Foundation, completing a research project documenting the daily lives of the residents of Bankok's Klong Toi slum population. Returning to the US, she continued her work with disenfranchised people, working for two years in NYC subways to help connect chronically homeless individuals with shelter alternatives. Learning much about exploitation, poverty and loss, she realized there "was not a lot I could offer to the people I met every day.  Her desire to be self sufficient and sustainable led to her work with a community garden in South Side Williamsburg, Brooklyn, running a program that taught neighborhood teenagers the basics in vegetable gardening.  This past March, she "knew it was time to make a big change, and fortune would have it I ended up in the most beautiful place.  So far at Quail Hill I have learned many things and hope that in the future I can use my experiences here to continue in the urban agriculture movement."

JAMES STEVER

During his years at Hampshire College and in the graduate program at Brown University, James pursued two interests - one being human rights, international law, foreign policy, and globalization in the second half of the twentieth century; the other the establishment of capitalism, colonialism, and enlightenment thinking from the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century.  After finishing graduate school, he served in the Peace Corps, living in Kyrgyzstan.  In 2008, James spent a month traveling in China and among his many resulting projects he was the project creator of the traveling exhibition Looking East: William Howard Taft and the 1905 Mission to Asia, the Photography of Harry Fowler Woods (website).  Back in the United States, James decided to pursue organic farming and took an internship at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, where he learned both the basics and some of the intricacies about organic farming.  "I have decided that it is time to put down the books, pick up a hoe, and learn from practical experience."

QHF's RECIPE "IRREGULARS"

Please consider becoming a newsletter "recipe irregular " - aname inspired by Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street Irregulars, those the street urchins called upon to ferret out the word on the street.  Before the publication of each e-news, Jane sends out a list of crops that will soon be ready for harvest. Then, by the indicated deadline, send in one or two of your favorite recipes - originals or adapted from cookbooks (which are credited).

To sign up or for more info, contact Jane by email.

For recipes from recent years, visit the archives.