Community Supported Agriculture

In This Issue
Tuesdays

Choice Style
3:00pm - 6:30pm

Pre-Boxed
3:00pm - 7:00pm

Farmer Dave's Farm
437 Parker Road
Dracut, MA

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Farm Notes     
Onion drying racks
Onion Drying Racks in the barn
  
Onions are a difficult crop to grow organically. Most crops put out leaves which will eventually grow large enough to shade out the weeds. Onion and garlic leaves are not large and wide to shade out weeds. Hence, our onion fields tend to look a little weedy by this time of year. The conventional onion field has no weeds because an herbicide magically prevents any weed seeds from emerging. We grow our onions differently. We cultivate and mulch our onions to keep the weeds at bay initially, then we hand the whole field at least twice. This is a great expense for the farm, and this is why organic onions are hard to find. Once the onions near maturity, we allow the weeds to be while we concentrate on weeding other crops. Once we harvest the onions we will plough in the weeds as a green manure.

Some onions we harvest while the tops are green and then leave the rest to harvest as dried onions.  The onions know that the days are getting shorter and so they are all now naturally drying down. We must wait until the green tops dry in the field and then pull them from their well rooted home in our fertile soils.  While the onion tops are drying in the field any rain can make its way down into the onion bulb and disrupt the drying process.  It is best to wait about three days after a rain to pull the onions from the field. The last two weeks we have harvested a lot of onions.

Once harvested, they are placed on our drying racks until a rainy day when we try not to spend more time outside than necessary. With last weekend's rains many of the onions made their way into the onion topper machine we acquired from an old onion farm a couple of years ago. Before we had an onion topper machine we cut and cleaned each onion by hand (which we still do with our garlic). Onion and garlic cleaning seems to be an endless rainy day job on the farm at this time of year. With the dried tops off the bulbs we lay the onions back out on drying racks to try to extract the rest of the rainy season's moisture. 

Previous season's surveys have told us we need to provide more onions in our shares.  An organic onion is difficult to find in the supermarket and after all the work we do for them, I can see why they are a rarity.  I love onions and I love the challenge of providing healthy onions in difficult growing conditions.

Happily growing,
Farmer Dave  
 
In Your Share: Week 12           
Eggplant

This is what we are planning and hoping to harvest this week.  Ultimately Mother Nature has the last word so the actual contents of your share will vary.
  • Yellow or green beans
  • Beets
  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • Corn
  • Cucumbers
  • Eggplant
  • Kale or swiss chard
  • Sweet peppers
  • Cubanelle Peppers
  • Radishes
  • Summer Squash
  • Tomatoes
  • Fresh Onion
  • and more!

Fruit Share

  • Peaches
  • Donut Peaches (this is the last week)
  • Cantaloupe
  • Watermelon
  • Apples
  • and possibly more if we're lucky!

*Farmer Dave's does not spray fungicides on our berries. This provides what we believe to be a safer product for our members and farmers but means that we can only harvest in optimal (dry) conditions. If there is rain in the forecast we will not be able to harvest berries for our fruit shares because they would mold quickly once harvested. We also recommend that our members plan to use their berries within 48 hours of pickup. They will not last as long as store bought berries.  

Recipe of the Week     
Cheesy Zucchini Pizza Casserole
 
Adapted by Marcia Dumaresq from Cooking.com

Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 pounds zucchini, cut into 1/4 inch coins, then halved
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 Tablespoons minced fresh basil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 3 tomatoes, diced
  • Prosciutto
  • 2 cups grated havarti cheese, divided
     
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl, stir together zucchini, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, basil, onion, tomato, half of the prosciutto and 1/2 cup cheese.
  3. Pour into a medium sized casserole dish, then top with remaining prosciutto, then remaining cheese.
  4. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes, then remove foil and continue baking for another 15 to 20 minutes. When cheese is bubbling and zucchini has softened, the casserole is done.
  5. Sprinkle with extra basil if desired and serve.
     
Have a great tip or recipe to share?  Email Ginger to have it included in our newsletter and recipe blog!

Employment Opportunities with Farmer Daves:

 
The seasons are about to change! Fall will soon be upon us. The apples are ripening up on the trees. And for us, that means two things. 
 
  1. Many of our staff will be going back to school. 
  2. The pick your own apple orchard in Westford will soon be opening up! (Details to be determined; more information to come). 
Therefore, we are hiring! We are accepting applications for the following seasonal positions:
  • Farmers Market and Pick Your Own Staff
  • Packing Area Staff
  • Field/Harvest Crew Members

We also have a couple volunteer positions open at the following CSA pick ups:
 
  • Lawrence on Tuesday afternoons from 1:00pm-4:30pm
  • Reading on Friday afternoons from 1:00pm-4:30pm.
For more details, including how to apply, visit our   Employment Opportunities page. If you know anyone who would like to apply, please spread the word!

 
Groundwork Share-a-Share:
 
Please consider helping us in our efforts to make the CSA accessible to more families by  donating to Groundwork Share-A-Share. With the help of CSA members like you, Groundwork has been able to help subsidize the cost of CSA shares for families who would otherwise be unable to afford participation.

 

To learn more about the program,  click here.

 

Thank you all for helping us keep this program going in 2015!  

 

Contact Us:

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

(978) 349-1952