Distribution No. 3, Week of June 10, 2024

The News from Windflower Farm

As most of you know, we are having an open house at the farm at the end of the month, and you are invited. A farm tour, potluck dinner, bonfire and camping (or lodging at a nearby B&B) are on tap. The open house will take place on the weekend of June 29th and 30th. Details can be found Windflower Farm’s Open House Registration (wufoo.com). A reservation is required for our planning purposes (meals, etc.). The deadline for that is June 16th. We hope you can join us.

What’s in the share?

  • Summer squash or zucchini or cucumbers
  • Kohlrabi
  • Green frilly cutting lettuce
  • Swiss Chard
  • Redleaf kale
  • Onions
  • Garlic scapes

The fruit share will be strawberries from Yonder Farm

What’s new on the farm?

Cold weather has slowed our squashes and cucumbers, but they are coming along. I think they’ll really begin to produce fruit in week #4, following the heat that is expected later this week.

Progress report: Last week, we planted 24,000 sweet potato slips, four 350’ beds of eggplants, our tenth sweet pepper tunnel, and chiles. We hilled potatoes, cultivated cabbage and broccoli, and trellised cucumbers and tomatoes growing in greenhouses. And, because it had become dry, we irrigated virtually the entire farm (just in time for a good rain).

Our goal for this week is to finish transplanting winter squashes – the acorns, butternuts, delicatas and pie pumpkins that will arrive in your fall shares. We also want to plant a third succession of sweet corn, a second round of cabbage, and more lettuce, radicchio, kale and other greens. And we want to figure out how to use a new tool – a weeder for mulched crops called a “trim cone” that a man from Wisconsin made for us.

The biggest project on the horizon, and one we won’t get to until next week, is hand weeding onions. We have perhaps an acre of them, or some twenty-four 350’ beds, on bare ground. We are not fans of agricultural plastic, although we make use of it where necessary, and have opted to avoid it in the case of our fall onion crop. The downside is that, if we cannot keep up with tractor cultivation, as has become the case this year, the weeds will get away from us. It has become an all-hands situation. 

The upside of a weeding chore like this one is that it provides the conditions for good conversation. “Getting into the weeds” has its origins in the garden. The work is easy, if sometimes hot and buggy. And it’s gratifying – progress is gauged by looking back down the beds, and because we work in a pack, progress is rapid. All that’s left is for someone to begin talking. When a former employee returns for a visit, we are invariably taken back to a crop in desperate need of weeding, the group of us who took it on, and what we talked about.

Have a great week, Ted

Distribution No. 2, Week of June 3, 2024

The News from Windflower Farm

A few announcements from the Windflower team: Our open house will take place at the end of the month (June 29th and 30th). Details can be found at Windflower Farm’s Open House Registration (wufoo.com). A reservation is required for our planning purposes, and the deadline is June 16th.

Also, Nate has designed two different Windflower Farm hats. Orders must be in by June 9th. They can be ordered at Windflower Farm’s Hat Order Form (wufoo.com). Finally, something you may not be aware of: Nate has put together a 20-minute film about the farm, and it can be found at Windflower Farm CSA (youtube.com).

What’s in the share?

  • Two lettuces – a green Romaine and a frilly leafed red cutting lettuce.
  • Bok choy
  • Kale – Red Russian
  • Salad turnips, the tops of which can also be eaten
  • Green bunching onions
  • Potted Genovese basil 

The fruit share will be strawberries from Yonder Farm

What’s new on the farm?

We’ve been trellising cucumbers this weekend. It has been many years since we last grew greenhouse cucumbers and were happy to learn whenbrushing up on best cultural practices that many new varieties and techniques have been developed in the meantime. The system we’ve decided to use is new to us. It involves overhead wires, a gizmo that resembles a croquet wicket, although one with a few additional bends, a ball of string, compostable clips, scissors, and a step ladder.

The process has three steps. First, we wrap about 15’ of trellising string around the wicket and then climb the ladder to attach it to the overhead wire, some 10’ above the ground, letting a tail of string reach down to a plant. One wicket for each plant, one heavy overhead wire for each of the six 130-foot rows of cucumbers in the greenhouse. In the next step, we attach the cucumber plant to the string with one or two clips, and in this waythe cucumber begins to climb the trellis. We’ll add clips every week as the vines grow. In the final step, we prune the plant to a single vine or leader,removing suckers and any baby cucumbers until the plant has grown large enough to support fruit. Once the cucumber vine has grown tall enough to reach the overhead wire, we will unspool several feet of string from the wicket, effectively lowering the fruiting portion of the cucumber vine to a workable, harvesting height. We expect to do this three times over the life of the plant. You should see these cucumbers in your CSA shares in a couple of weeks.

The tunnel contains more than 700 plants, so we’ll be at it for a while. I am alone this morning. To make the time pass, I’m listening to The Hunter, the second of Tana French’s novels set in Ireland. In one scene, a group of sheep farmers are talking about selling out to an Englishman who wantsthe gold they have been told lies under their farms. “What would you do with all that money?” they are asked.  One would buy a prize ram. All would fix up their farmhouses, mend fences, repair barns, perhaps take a little more time for themselves. But none would sell their flocks or leave. Which sounds about right. If it were me, I wouldn’t sell either, although, on this very hot morning in the greenhouse, and only for a moment, I could be tempted. Images of a small yacht tucked in a scenic harbor on the cool and breezy coast of Maine come to mind.

Have a great week, Ted

Distribution No. 1, Week of May 27, 2024

The News from Windflower Farm

Greetings from all of us at Windflower Farm! Thank you for joining us for the 2024 farm season. We hope you enjoy your CSA experience. Your first shares will be arriving this week.

What’s in the share?

  • Toscano kale
  • Spring salad mix, bunched
  • Radishes
  • Baby green onions
  • Purple basil pot

Fruit share members: 1 pint of strawberries

What’s new on the farm?

What!? This is all? I spent all that money for this? No, there will be more, I promise. This week marks just the first of what will be 22 deliveries of produce. It’s early days as the harvest season goes, so the share is light. We’ll start with what we always start with: a couple of kinds of salad greens, radishes, green onions, and herb pots. Next week, we’ll add lettuce to the lineup. By week three or four, we’ll add such items as cucumbers, zucchinis, and sweet Japanese turnips to the mix. Not long after that, you can expect to see your first broccoli, cabbage and bunched beets. And by week seven or eight, you’ll start getting tomatoes, sweet corn and green beans. Our goal is to send eight or nine items per week once the season is truly underway.

If you’ve ordered an egg share, look for it to start in this first week. Fruit shares are starting this week for Thursday sites with one pint of our strawberries. 

We had about of inch of rain on Monday, which was greatly needed. Anticipating wet conditions, we prepared a couple of acres for this week’s planting. We disced our rye cover crop, turned it under, applied compost, and then formed the beds into which we’ll do some planting a little later in the week. Every week, we plant lettuce, corn, radishes, and salad greens, in addition to other things. Tomorrow, because of the rain, we plan to transplant sweet pepper plants into beds in our field greenhouses. They have names such as Carmen, Escamillo, Brocanto, Milana, and Flavorburst. 

In our main seedling house, we’ll sow winter squash seeds, including butternut, acorn, Delicata, and pie pumpkins, to be planted out in the field some 14 days from now. Later in the week, once the fields dry out, we’ll plant cantaloupes and watermelons. Getting the farm started each spring makes for a busy pace!

Have a great week, Ted

PS. Here is a brief note from Andrea, our membership coordinator. 

If you sent us a payment recently, thank you very much. I’m a little behind on sending confirmations of payment, but hope to email them to you within the next week or two. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have a payment question. Thank you!

Winter Distribution #3, January 6th, 2024

The News from Windflower Farm

Your third and final box of the season will arrive this Saturday, January 6th. Please see below for the distribution timeframe for your pickup site.

What you’ll get this month

  • Rosa Di Milano (red) and Talon (yellow) onions
  • Ed’s Red Dutch shallots
  • Peter Wilcox (purple) potatoes and Natascha (yellow) potatoes
  • Covington sweet potatoes
  • Boro beets
  • Tendersweet cabbage
  • Lacinato or Red Russian kale
  • Space spinach
  • Bolero carrots and Brilliant celeriac, both from the Denison Farm
  • Honey Crisp and Jonagold apples from the Borden Farm
  • And a jar of jelly from the kitchen of our neighbor Deb

Jan noted that the beds we harvested your kale from were a little dry, and that the kale itself was slightly wilted. She suggests that you give it a quick dip in cold water prior to tucking it away in the fridge.

The Jonagold apples can be distinguished from the Honey Crisps by their brighter colors (bright reds and yellows without the greenish background), their naturally waxy skin, their softer mouth feel and their slightly less sweet flavor.

Celeriac can be grated over any salad to make it more interesting. But my favorite way to have celeriac is to fry it. Cut it into French fry shaped pieces, coat with olive oil and a blend of salt, pepper, and paprika, and fry until fork soft Recipes can be found online. A dip consisting of mayonnaise and mustard really completes the dish.

Now that our barn has been emptied of its bins of Alliums and root vegetables, it’s time to pull tractors and the many pieces of farm equipment in need of repair into that space. These months in the workshop have become a favorite part of the farm year for me. It’s unrushed and quiet. There are no deadlines. Our seasonal farm staff is absent (they are in school or visiting family or working on their own projects). The wood stove might be going. There might be music playing. If I’m fortunate, there will be neighboring farmers dropping in to visit and to compare notes. It’s also planning time. And tax prep time. And, in some years, it’s time to get away. Or at least to play. A storm is expected this weekend. Let it snow!

The Windflower Farm Team and I wish you a happy and healthy New Year!

Cheers, Ted

Central Brooklyn CSA (1251 Dean St., 4:30 to 6:00)

Please note:

1.       A friend, family member or neighbor can pick up your share for you if you are not able to make it to distribution. Please ask this person to sign-in under your name.

2.       Site hosts are not obliged to save shares for members who miss the distribution window. Any shares leftover after distribution will be donated to community fridges or food pantries and will help other community members in need.

3.       The farm is not able to send you a make-up share if you miss a distribution. The farm will only send shares to your pick-up site on the scheduled pick-up dates.

4.     We will send you a newsletter a day or two before distribution. Please save these two emails to your preferred contacts list: windflowercsa@gmail.com and tedblomgren@gmail.com and check your SPAM folder if our newsletter does not make it into your inbox.

5.       Watch for updates from site hosts on social media. Many sites post updates about the share on Instagram and Facebook.

Winter Distribution #2, December 16th

The News from Windflower Farm

Your second box of the “winter” season will arrive this Saturday, December 16th. Please see below for the distribution timeframe for your pickup site.

What you’ll get this month

  • Red and yellow onions
  • ‘Ed’s Red’ Dutch shallots
  • Purple (‘Peter Wilcox’) and yellow potatoes
  • Red cabbage
  • Covington sweet potatoes
  • Bolero carrots (from Denison Farm)
  • Lettuces
  • Lacinato or Red Russian kale
  • ‘Honey Crisp’ apples (and a couple of ‘Empires’ or ‘Ruby Frost’) from Borden Farm
  • Honey from Harry’s Honey Shack
  • Plus a small butternut squash from the Denison’s 
  • All the vegetables in your winter share come from Windflower Farm’s certified organic fields except where otherwise noted.

Because we produce your winter share greens in unheated greenhouses, we don’t usually attempt to produce lettuces for the share – they are not especially cold hardy. But this year’s mild fall has meant that several beds have fared just fine. Please note that we don’t wash your greens during the winter – a quick rinse will make any soil particles and bugs disappear.

It’s easy to run out of ideas for dealing with crops like kale in the kitchen. But the Brassicas – and, like broccoli, kale is a Brassica – are superfoods, and finding ways to enjoy them is truly worthwhile. Here are two simple ideas. First, wilt kale into your eggs for breakfast. Or sauté kale with an onion, then add eggs, stir, and cook until they are the way you like them. Second, add kale to soup near the end of the cooking cycle. Kale (and spinach) can be added to virtually any soup. For lunch today, we added chopped kale to a carrot-lentil soup when we were reheating it. Kale adds color, flavor, vitamins, and nutrients, and contributes cancer-fighting compounds.  

Next month’s share will include red and yellow onions, shallots, miscellaneous potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes, greenhouse kale and spinach, celeriac, ‘Tendersweet’ cabbage, the Borden’s apples, and jam from the certified kitchen of our neighbor Deb.

Happy Holidays from the entire Windflower Farm Team!

Best wishes, Ted

PS. Here is a note and recipe from Kristoffer Ross about this month’s grain share. 

Hello Folks,

Kristoffer here from Hickory Wind Farm. For grain share subscribers, your items this week are a bag each of whole grain Rye and Red Fife Wheat flours, please remember to take both bags. I’ve included a recipe for rye bread below, should you wish to try it out, your share should be sufficient to make two batches. It was adapted from Our Beloved Sweden, a cookbook and folklore collection from Swedish-American families in the upper midwest about 30 years ago. The main alteration I’ve made is to replace the white flour with whole wheat, but if you desire a lighter loaf feel free to reverse this choice. Note that if using all whole grains note that the dough may not quite double in the course of either rising.

Regrettably, this month’s share will be the final one to include Red Fife wheat until autumn of 2024, due to a crop failure in the wet summer this year. I’ve saved back enough seed to replant in the spring, and we will hope for a slightly dryer July this time around.

Swedish Rye Bread

Makes 2 rectangular loaves, or one large boule.

  • 1 Cup warm water
  • 1 Cup skim milk
  • 1½ tablespoons yeast
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • ¼ cup molasses
  • ¼ cup white sugar
  • 1½ teaspoons salt
  • ¼ cup vegetable oil
  • 3 ½-4 cups Rye Flour
  • 3 ½-4 cups Whole Wheat Flour (or all-purpose white flour for a lighter loaf)
  • (Optional: rolled oats to sprinkle on top)
  1. Add the warm water, milk, yeast, and a single teaspoon of sugar to a large mixing bowl, stir and let stand 10-15 minutes.
  2. Add the molasses, remaining sugar, salt, oil, 3 ½ cups of rye, and 3 ½ cups of wheat flour.
  3. Begin kneading the dough, add ½-1 cup of flour gradually until the dough is stiff and no longer sticks to the bowl or your hands.
  4. Add to a greased bowl (flipping it to grease the top), cover, and let rise in a warm location for 1 hour.
  5. After an hour (dough may not have fully doubled) place on a floured surface, divide in half form into two loaves, and add to greased pans. Let the two loaves rise for 1 hour.
  6. Add to oven preheated to 375F, and after 10 minutes reduce heat to 350F. Bake a further 35 minutes. The bread is done when the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove and cool on wire racks.

Thanks to the Windflower staff and my family for enthusiastic taste-testing. As Ted has pointed out, it is best served with real organic butter. 

Wishing you warm, peaceful, and merry holidays,

~Kristoffer Ross

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!