Community Supported Agriculture

In This Issue
Farm Notes
In Your Share
Recipe of the Week

Tuesdays
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Brox Farm Stand
1276 Broadway Road
Dracut, MA
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New Toys  
Auction items
Some of our new toys arriving from the auction  

I'm always trying to figure out how to farm better.  There is never enough time in the day so I want to farm smarter because you can only farm so hard.  Being a smaller farm growing a smaller amount of a wide variety of crops, it is difficult to afford the toys (equipment) that the larger farms have.  With our labor being stretched as much as possible, those machines could quicken our work and allow us to dedicate more time to caring for our plants in other ways.  The new toys must be affordable, usable, and most importantly, not lower the quality of the crops.  Hand-weeded and hand-harvested are always the best quality.  Yet, just as the equipment must be affordable, our CSA must also remain affordable.  Over the last few years we have eased our labor by utilizing potato seed cutters, potato harvesters, a potato hiller, a vegetable washer, and multiple different cultivators to reduce the amount we need to hand weed.

Last week I attended an auction of a farm that was ending its business of growing onions and other crops.  The 200+ acre farm grew 40 acres of onions and had a lot of onion equipment.  I thought about all the hours we spend harvesting onions and cutting off the tops once they have dried.  Hundreds of hours spent on onions encouraged me to travel over 2 hours to the west to see what could be had.  Before the auction, I put a price on different equipment, often a fraction of the  brand new price- unjustifiable prices.  I was very pleased to be the high bidder on an onion lifter and an onion topper.  Now instead of us sitting around the barn snipping the dried stems and skin off of all the onions, the short machine will do it for us.

Knowing how farmers get attached to their fields and crops, it was sad to see this farm with such beautiful stone free soils going out of business.  I was told they were just too small to be able to compete with the much, much larger farms even further west.  As a small farmer I am so grateful for my loyal CSA members.  The direct relationship that I can have with the CSA members is what allows my farm to thrive while others are struggling.

Grateful for new toys and for your support,

Farmer Dave

p.s. Fortunately the auction didn't end like this...

Aspirin Cardio: Auction
Aspirin Cardio: Auction
 
In Your Share: Week 4
Beautiful June Veggies
 The following items may make an appearance in your shares this week.  The actual contents of your share may differ based on harvest conditions.  As always Mother Nature ultimately dictates what is available.
  • Baby Lettuce Mix
  • Baby Asian Greens
  • Potatoes
  • Carrots
  • Radishes
  • Herbs 
  • and possibly more!

Steak Bun 

Adapted by Farmer Dave's from  Eating Well 

(and with meatless inspiration from the Vegan Homemade blog)

 

Ingredients:

 

  • 1 Tablespoon canola oil* 
  • 1 pound sirloin steak or strip steak (1-1 1/4 inches thick), trimmed*   
  • 6 ounces wide rice noodles 
  • 1/2 cup rice vinegar 
  • 2 Tablespoons fish sauce* 
  • 2 Tablespoons sugar or to taste 
  • 4 cups shredded napa cabbage & baby asian greens like bok choy or tatsoi 
  • 1 1/2 cup shredded carrot 
  • 1 cup thinly sliced radishes 
  • 1 cup slivered fresh basil and/or mint 
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped unsalted, lightly roasted peanuts  
 

Preparation:

  1. Heat oil in a large skillet, preferably cast-iron, over medium-high heat until shimmering. Reduce heat to medium, add steak and cook, turning once, until cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Let rest on a clean cutting board for 5 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook rice noodles until just tender, 6 to 8 minutes or according to the package directions. Drain the noodles and rinse under cold water.
  3. Whisk vinegar, fish sauce and sugar to taste in a large bowl until the sugar is dissolved. Slice the steak into thin matchsticks. Add the steak and any accumulated juice to the bowl along with the noodles, cabbage, carrot, radishes, basil and/or mint and peanuts; toss to combine. Serve immediately.
* Ginger substituted olive oil, tempeh, and vegetarian fish sauce in this recipe.

Tempeh marinade  

from the Vegan Homemade blog.

 

 

  • 1 cup vegetable broth
  • 2 Tbs sherry
  • 2 Tbs soy sauce
  • 1 tsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 Tbs tomato paste
  • 1/4 tsp ginger powder
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt 
  1. Slice tempeh into thin strips. 
  2. Whisk together marinade ingredients, submerge tempeh and marinate for 30 minutes.
  3. Pan fry strips according to Steak Bun recipe. 
Groundwork Share-a-Share Update
 
Thanks to generous donations by you (CSA members) to the Groundwork Share-A-Share™ fund, we were able to subsidize the cost of shares in 2012 for over thirty individuals and families, as well as shares for local food pantries.

Please consider helping us in our efforts to make the CSA accessible to more families by donating to Groundwork Share-A-Share.

 

To learn more about the program,  click here.

 

Thank you all for helping us keep this program going in 2013!  

 

Contact Us:

Farmer Dave's CSA
437 Parker Road
Dracut, MA 01826

(978) 349-1952