Farm News From Apprentice Ashley-
Hope everyone had a wonderful fourth of July weekend!
What's new on the farm?
After I did my secret weather dance last weekend, mother earth brought us rain on Tuesday night, and a break from the scorching heat. Both kept us from having to irrigate this week, however the two inches we recieved also slowed down our planting schedule. We are planning on making up for this, by doing some mega-planting next week of melons, squash, cucumbers, summer greens, and more southern beans.
The farm saw some big transformations towards the end of last
week. We harvested three beds of winter squash, which are now curing in the green house, tilled the beds in and cover cropped in sunflowers. We also harvested 6 more beds of potatoes, and tilled the beds in. The back field recieved a much needed make over. Early in the week we harvesting multiple beds of carrots and beets, as well as the rest of the kale. All of this harvesting emptied up some bed space, which we will be planting more summer crops in next week, and cover cropping the rest. Lastly, the flowers in the flower patch were given more room to grow, after we mega-weeded all the crab crass and other imposters; the flowers were all very thankful.
While some of the farm is getting its soil turned over, the rest is growing like crazy. Our eggplant and peppers are starting to produce more than we can keep up with. While our many successions of tomatoes are all coming in strong, keeping our tomato trays constantly full. The four beds of okra in field one I swear are growing by the second, we are expecting to begin haresting as early as next week.
The baby chicks are now growing out of their teenage years and into young women. We have recently discovered we have two roosters invading the ladies hoop house. One morning while harvesting, we heard a crow coming from the chickens, which we knew was not big Roosti. Upon further investigation we realized there was not just one Roosti Jr but two with the baby chicks. Now every morning the two Roosti Jr's have a crowing contest with big Roosti. Personally I dont think they will ever stand a chance against sexy big Roosti!
Roosti Jr vs. Big Roosti |
Edamame
Everyone will be recieving edamame in their share this week. Some of you might not know exactly what to do with this, so I thought I would provide some insight.
Edamame is also known as vegetable soybean and translates into "beans on branches." It is an ancient asian vegetable that has been grown for more than 2200 years, making its first appearance in the U.S in 1902. It is often served as a salted snack in Japan. Most cook the pods in boiling water with salt for about 2-5 minutes or until tender, drain them and enjoy. Put the pod in your mouth and suck out the tasty beans. Another way to eat would be to push out beans from pods and saute them, put them in soup or stir-fry. Keep in mind when looking up recipes, most are for frozen and not fresh edamame, also note to cook pods you most first remove them from the stem/stalk.
Some FAQ's About Soybeans
Soybeans and how they are grown have been quite a world wide controversy for the past few decades, especially now with genentically modified seeds, and Monsanto's round-up ready varieties. The great thing about our edamame seed is that it is not gmo, and has not been doused with tons of herbicides like round-up. Unfortunatley, for most of the soybeans grown in the U.S this is not the case. In 1997, 8% of all soybeans grown in the U.S for the commerical market were genetically modifed, by 2008 92% of soybeans grown are gmo. Companies like Monsanto genetically modify seeds to be more disease and pest resistant as well as to tolerate herbicides. Monsanto has cornered a large part of the soybean seed market in recent years thanks to its round-up ready seed, which is more tolerant to being doused with large amounts of round-up. Round-up has been the best selling herbicide worldwide since 1980. However now many weed varieties are becoming round-up resistant, not to mention round-up is not at all env. friendly and degrades soil.
On the plus side non-gmo soybeans are now on the rise, accounting for 10% of soybeans grown. And is going for a dollar more on average in commodity prices, than gmo soysbeans. As a result of the higher price being paid for non-gmo soybeans, many people are switching from gmo soybean production to non-gmo production. Becasue of this, since last year it has been very hard to purchase non-gmo seed, and lack of supply and high demand has pushed the price upward. Not to mention we are not the only oness growing soybeans anymore; in the 1960's the U.S produced 90% of the worlds soybeans, by 2005 the worlds soybean producers were Brazil (39%), United States (37%), and Argentina (16%).
There are also some health benefits to soybeans. Dry soybeans consist of 40% protein, are rich in calcium, phosphorous and are a good source of vitamin A. They are high phytoestrogens, a natural plant estrogen as well as isoflavens, considered by some to be good in the prevention of cancer.
Perpetual Spinach
Some of you will also be recieving perpetual Spinach in your share this week, which some may not be familar with. Paige and Justin have been trying to figure out what greens will grow well in the summer on the farm, and this is one of them. Hopefully this will help supplement the lack of greens in the upcoming shares.
Perpetual spinach is a kind of like a cross between traditional spinach and swiss chard. It is heartier than most greens, but a little less hearty than swiss chard. It is most often cooked like chard, but some people eat it raw as well.
My suggestion, would be to rip off a piece a try it. Do you like it raw? If so, make a salad. If not cook it up; saute it however you like to cook greens, put it in lasagna, or make a quiche. Happy experimenting!
I am crossing my fingers for clouds and 80's this week. See you at CSA pick-up.
Ashley
