Green Thumb Farm Huntington CSA

Happy Summer!

This month’s CSA meeting has been cancelled so the next CSA meeting will be on Saturday, August 24th from 10:30am to noon. Stay tuned for what the video topic will be (or feel free to make suggestions!).

MYSTERY OF THE WEEK!!! Did anyone (or anyone who picked up for anyone) take more than one bag of Snap Beans last week? There were 3 kinds to choose from…Green, Purple and Romano. So, did anyone mistakenly take more than one. One bag was missing at the end of the night. Please let me know if you can solve this! And as you’ve heard before…PLEASE READ THE WALL CHART, DON’T ASSUME YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE ONE OF EVERYTHING THAT LOOKS DIFFERENT AND PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS!!! And if someone is picking up food who’s never done it before, please school them in what they’re supposed to do (and make sure they bring bags with them) or make sure they at least tell the person at the sign-in desk that they’ve never done this before so we can walk them through it. Thanks!

We’re getting close…to our second 5 lb batch of Mushrooms to be able to start our next group of Mushroom Share folks! See #2 for details!

Request…please keep the Veg Info Sheets on TOP of the food and not on the table (especially if there’s water on the tables which there often is). They are getting waterlogged and being thrown out which is not so “green”. This is happening on a weekly basis and it’s something that’s never happened in the past 16 years. Go figure. Thanks! 

Any gardeners? You can order certified organic herb and vegetable plants for your garden from our farm by calling Green Thumb Farm at 631-726-1900, 7 days a week, from 9:30 to 4pm, place your order with a credit card, and your plants will be delivered to the CSA.

This email includes…

1. HELP!!! Your CSA needs you this week! We’re looking for ONE (1) person from 3:30pm to 5:30pm and ONE (1) person from 5:30pm to 7:30pm!!!
2. It’s time to weigh!!!
3. We could sure use some more CSA members!
4. Notes from the farm
5. You can still get in on the Flower Shares, Herb Shares and Mushroom Shares!
6. This week’s list (subject to change without notice…farming is like that!)
7. Save $100 on NOFA Summer Conference (must be sent by July 30th)!
8. Local activism
9. Event Listings
10. What you actually got last week
11. And now for something completely different…
12. As promised…Carrot Top Pesto!


1. HELP!!! Your CSA needs you this week! We’re looking for ONE (1) person to help out from 3:30pm to 5:30pm, and ONE (1) person to help out from 5:30pm to 7:30pm!!!

If you can work this week from 3:30pm to 5:30pm, or 5:30 to 7:30pm, or even from 3:30 to 7:30pm, please…

A. respond to this email before 1pm today
B. call 631-421-4864 before 1pm today
C. call 631-385-1079 after 3pm today
D. show up a little before 3:30pm or 5:30pm today

You can ALWAYS stop by the CSA a little before 3:30 or 5:30 to offer to help in case someone doesn’t show up (or is late) without letting anyone know…life happens! 

If you didn’t get a confirmation email from Judi (occasionally it’s me), you’re not scheduled to work this week. And if you got an email from Judi asking you to confirm that you’re working…you need to respond to that in the time frame stated in the email otherwise she’s going to try and find someone else to take your place.



2. It’s time to weigh…

our CSA food!!! Which is why we need 2 more folks to be at the CSA this week (see above).

A. Check the wall chart before taking any food so you know what you’re taking and how much to take…assume nothing and ask questions! 

B. Bring your reading glasses or ask someone to help if you can’t see the numbers on the scale clearly.

C. PLEASE DO NOT GO OVER THE AMOUNT STATED on the Wall Chart. Please err on the under side of the weight posted…NEVER over. It may not seem like much to you but we have 47 members and if every person is off by ONE OUNCE (for crying out loud! It’s only an ounce!!!) …that means we’ll be short almost THREE POUNDS of produce and 3 CSA members won’t get the food they paid for. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want it to be you.

D. IF you are asked to weigh more than one food item at the same time…please follow the directions given to you and weigh in the order you are asked (you might not think there’s a good reason to be doing this but our farmer does and that should be enough of a reason right there…if you want a further explanation – ask suzanne…there is a method to the madness )



3. We could sure use some more CSA members!

If each of us could get one other person/family to join the CSA, our membership would go from the current 56 members to 110. If at least half of those folks would work at the CSA (more is always better), I bet we could finally have an Exchange Table again. That’s where we start with an entire CSA share on the table and CSA members can exchange one entire food item for another because they want more of something, or are allergic to something, or for whatever the reason. Believe me, once you try it, you’d like it.

However, we don’t have one because we barely have enough working CSA members to do the minimal amount of what needs to be done and as they say…many hands make light work!

Contact me if you need attachments of any CSA info to forward, any CSA brochures to distribute, and I’d be happy to receive any phone numbers to call anyone, email addresses to email, places to go leave CSA brochures, and I’m sure you know I’d go anywhere and talk to anyone about the wonderfulness that is Green Thumb CSA – Huntington (or heck, CSAs in general)! 



4. Notes from the farm

July 12, 2013

After so much rain in early June, we’re now going into drought mode. Hot and dry. No rain on eastern Long Island since mid-June!!!

The current crops are still doing relatively well. Our Lettuce heads are getting smaller, and early herbs are going into flower due to the high heat and drought. Beets and Carrots are still doing well. The Tomatoes are growing fast. Beans also are looking good and we’re now picking Green, Yellow/Wax, Purple and Italian Romanos. Peas are done after so much heat and dryness. Onions about done also. We started picking our Garlic but they’ll have small cloves due to Hurricane Sandy’s flooding last fall. We’ll bring some in October after curing. Peppers are growing well but are still several weeks away from being harvested. Summer Squashes and Eggplants have gotten buggy due to heat stress on the plants but we’ll have some later on. The Sweet Potato plants still look good though they won’t be ready until October.

Our cole crops for fall went in this week…Cabbages, Broccolis and Cauliflowers for the fall harvest.

Busy times on the farm!!!

Organically yours,
Farmer Bill (Halsey)

Comments from suzanne…
1. Drought is always better than too much rain as you can always irrigate (at least in the northeast…out west is a different story) but you can’t suck water out of the soil if there’s too much rain. However, plants want 1 inch of rain per week to be happy so with no rain for 6 weeks and having to irrigate…not so great. They have to set out irrigation piping and move it around and if you have 100 acres of land…it’s a lot of work you’d rather not have to do (and do something else as there’s always work to do on the farm) if the rain would only cooperate and rain not too much and not too little but just right!
2. Too much heat forces plants to grow too fast (though we got Sugar Snap Peas and Snow Peas, we didn’t get any basic shelling Peas…that’s the way it is with farming…hopefully we’ll get them again next year). Farming teaches you that you have no control over the weather and you just have to do the best you can with what cards Mother Nature has dealt you.
3. Being a CSA member puts you side by side with our farmer and his co-workers, and you can see every week the results of their hard labor and what the weather is doing to the crops…for better or worse!
4. I don’t know about you but it’s a learning process for me every year to see how the weather effects my food. To think that Hurricane Sandy from the fall of 2012 is what’s going to make the Garlic smaller in the fall of 2013! However, I can’t wait to get it and I’ll be so happy to be eating every little bitty clove!
5. Plants are like people. Stress (in this case heat stress) weakens the plants and makes them more susceptible to attack by bugs (or viruses if it were a person we were talking about) and diseases.



5. You can still get in on the Flower Shares, Herb Shares and Mushroom Shares!

If you’re interested…ask! If the only thing that’s stopping you is that you share with someone and they don’t want what you want…ask! I bet I could find someone for you to share with (or at least I’d try  ). If you have a share and want more than your one share…ask!

We need to find enough people for 2 lbs of Mushrooms for the next batch of folks to be able to start eating Mushrooms! Anybody interested in the Mushroom Share who hasn’t spoken up yet? Let me know! 

Anyone who HAS a Mushroom Share…want to upgrade your share to get more Mushrooms? Just a thought! 



6. This week’s list (subject to change without notice…farming is like that!)

Week #13
July 25, 2013

1. Lettuce
2. Radicchio: Chiogga*
3. Squash, Summer
4. Cucumbers
5. Beets
6. Mint OR Rosemary
7. Radish Pods **

Total Items: 7 (?)

*
Radicchio info…
Besides putting it in a salad…
Grill it…
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/grilled_radicchio_salad/
Saute it (I’d spritz some fresh Lemon juice on this before serving)…
http://localfoods.about.com/od/strifysaute/r/Sauteed-Radicchio.htm
And more…
http://italianfood.about.com/library/rec/blr0094.htm

**
Radish Pod info (file under…you learn something new every day…whether you want to or not!!!)
According to Farmer Bill…use in stir fries
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/radish-seed-pods-zm0z12jjzwar.aspx#axzz2ZwlKwoVH
Written by one of the great horticulture writers, Barbara Damrosch (companion of organic farming superstar Eliot Coleman)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080900474.html
http://kgi.org/rat-tailed-radish
http://blogs.ajc.com/food-and-more/2013/05/02/edible-radish-pods-showing-up-around-town/ (I’m convinced that there’s a farmer’s collective consciousness at work…this article is from Atlanta Georgia in May of this year and I know our farmer hasn’t gone to any conferences last winter and somehow many farmers end up growing the same new crops without any articles being published about the crops, or having had any discussions about these crops with any other farmers…and ours doesn’t use a computer so it’s not like he’s on the internet finding this stuff out and chatting with other farmers!!!)
http://www.gardenbetty.com/2013/04/radish-seed-pods-and-some-pickles/

Flower Share
Week #6
Zinnias

Herb Share
July 2B
Basil, Lemon AND Basil, Thai



7. Save $100 on NOFA Summer Conference (must be sent by July 30th)!

The NOFA Summer Conference is awesome and everyone interested in organic food/gardening/farming and healthy/green living should really give themselves a treat and go at least once (once you go…there’s a good chance you’ll want to go every year). You don’t have to be a farmer or even a gardener to have a good time as there’s so many workshops on so many topics. Plus, you can just tour local farms and CSAs and eat healthy (and tasty) and party all weekend long. AND if you have kids, there’s workshops for ages 5 to teenagers that are all pretty cool…even by kid standards!

New this year: Group discounts of $100 per person are available to groups of 5+ adults with an organization! So, we’re going to hook up with the Holistic Moms Network to see if we can reach this number and find 2 other adults to attend between the two groups. Anybody interested? Talk to me or CSA member Vickie Muller (whose daughter Charley met a NOFA summer buddy from Vermont that she hangs with at the conference).

Camping (Vickie & Charley camp) and dorm housing (suzanne dorms it) are available, as are creative financing options like work exchange (I’ve done the work exchange in the past…another way to bring the cost of going down) and the Farming Education Fund.

In addition to hundreds of practical skills and farming workshops, the conference features live entertainment, children's and teen conferences, a country fair, organic meals, 100 exhibitors and much more. The conference will take place August 9-11 on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus.

There will be eight specialized workshop tracks:
Beginning Farmer, Community Supported Agriculture, Grazing, Nutrient Density, Organic Land Care Track, Permaculture, Cooperatives, Winter Growing and Season Extension

Five half-day preconferences on Friday, August 9:
"Farming Smarter, Not Harder" with Richard Wiswall
"Honeybee Hive Products" with Ross Conrad
"Growing with the Biological System" with Dan Kittredge
"Homestead Poultry Flock" with Jim Adkins
"Growing and Marketing Cut Flowers" with Diana Doll

What’s NOFA? For one thing, our farm is certified organic by NOFA-NY…
https://www.nofany.org/



8. Local activism…

Bonnie Sagar (sharing with CSA member Joe Wetherell), has a passion and a cause! It’s to ban leafblowers in Huntington.

Why you may ask (or you may not need any convincing)?

I didn’t realize Dr. Andrew Weil wasn’t a fan…
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/ART02059

And I found this NY Times article which says the Mt Sinai School of Medicine’s Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit provided a letter of support for a ban of gas leaf blowers…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/20blowerwe.html?_r=0

And all the dust kicked up makes solar panels less efficient (and/or you’d have to get up there and clean them up more often…or pay to have them cleaned off)

If you’re in agreement, please sign her petition at the CSA Sign-in Desk today! 

And of course, there’s a Facebook page for it too…
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ban-Leaf-Blowers/127067643995637

And a website in Arizona…
http://banleafblowers.webs.com/



9. Event Listings

Thursday, May 2nd to Sunday, December 8th

8:30am to 5:30pm

Green Thumb Organic Farm
829 Montauk Hwy (east of the windmill)
Water Mill

Our CSA farm’s farm stand is open for the season! If you’re passing by, stop in and say hi and tell them you’re a CSA member and you’re sure to get a smile! There are plants for your garden, flowers for your home and/or friends you might be visiting in the area, and food…lots of food! 


Saturday, May 25th to Monday, Sept 2nd

Swedish Culinary Summer
East Hampton
For more info:
www.swedishculinarysummer.com

Swedish cuisine, and worldwide interest in it, has grown exponentially over the last 20 years. Zagat just placed Swedish restaurants in the number two and number three positions in the top ten restaurants in the world and there are three Swedish restaurants on Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants list. Swedish food is now the darling of media worldwide and especially in the U.S. Swedish Culinary Summer uses food as the universal ambassador to "open the doors" at key charity events in the Hamptons during the summer season: a full summer of top Swedish chefs, food, beverages and consumer goods, plus there will be cooking classes and special dinners available at the Maidstone Hotel.


Wednesday, July 31st

2pm

Recipe Lab
www.nytimes.com/dining

Join Julia Moskin, and Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (authors of the cookbook Jerusalem) discussing the recipe from their book…Jerusalem Chicken with carmelized Onions and Cardamon Rice in a live video chat. To REALLY participate, make the dish and share your results, comments and questions online. The recipe is on the website.


Saturday, August 3rd

9am to noon

Shed the Meds
Huntington Fire Dept
1 Leverich Pl
Huntington

Improperly disposed of medication (flushed down the toilet, poured down the drain, etc) can end up polluting our drinking water and local waterways! So, drop off unwanted/expired medication and dispose of them properly! Supervised by the Suffolk County Police Department.


Friday, August 9th to Sunday, August 11th

NOFA Summer Conference
U Mass
Amherst, MA
For more info and to register (early bird pricing till July 9th):
http://www.nofasummerconference.org/registration.php
What is NOFA (in particular NOFA-NY)?
https://www.nofany.org/about

CSA members Vickie Muller (along with her daughter) and suzanne j zoubeck attended last year and may be going again this year. If you have any questions, ask one of them. If you’re at all interested in organic gardening, food, food politics, the environment, green living, green housing, renewable energy, alternative health, etc. this is an AMAZING event to attend (over 200 workshops to choose from)! The food is local and organic and there are enough choices whether your diet is gluten-free, raw, vegan or paleo. There are farm tours and parties at night. Also, there are workshops and activities for children from ages 2 to 17 so it’s fun for the whole family…or for singles…or seniors…or anyone!


Friday, August 9th

6pm to 7pm

The Healthy Planet Radio Show
WUSB-FM (90.1 FM)
To listen live or on the archives…
http://wusb.fm/station/schedule/week
For more info:
http://www.healthy-planet.org/


Saturday, August 24th

10:30am

Monthly Green Thumb CSA – Huntington Meeting
Cinema Arts Centre
423 Park Ave
Huntington
For more info:
631-421-4864
Email: dskolnick@pb.net

Stay tuned for more details. Snacks as always!


Friday, September 13th

6pm to 7pm

The Healthy Planet Radio Show
WUSB-FM (90.1 FM)
To listen live or on the archives…
http://wusb.fm/station/schedule/week
For more info:
http://www.healthy-planet.org/


Friday, October 18th

6pm to 7pm

The Healthy Planet Radio Show
WUSB-FM (90.1 FM)
To listen live or on the archives…
http://wusb.fm/station/schedule/week
For more info:
http://www.healthy-planet.org/


Friday, November 15th

6pm to 7pm

The Healthy Planet Radio Show
WUSB-FM (90.1 FM)
To listen live or on the archives…
http://wusb.fm/station/schedule/week
For more info:
http://www.healthy-planet.org/


Friday, December 6th

6pm to 7pm

The Healthy Planet Radio Show
WUSB-FM (90.1 FM)
To listen live or on the archives…
http://wusb.fm/station/schedule/week
For more info:
http://www.healthy-planet.org/


Saturday, March 1st, 2014

10am to 5pm

TEDx Manhattan Viewing Party
Cinema Arts Centre
423 Park Ave
Huntington
FREE

Check out a sample of last year’s speakers such as chef Michel Nischan, LaDonna Redmond, Anna Lappe, White House chef Bill Yosses, Annemarie Colbin, etc, here…
http://www.youtube.com/tedxman

Details TBA



10. What you actually got last week

Week #12
July 18, 2013

1. Lettuce: Oak Leaf, Green – 1 head - $2.50
2. Radicchio: Traviso** - 1 head - $3.00
3. Carrots – 1 bunch - $3.75
4. Beans, Snap: Green OR Romano – 1 bag - $3.50
5. Beans, Shell: Fava * - 1 bag - $2.50
6. Cabbage: Green – 1 head - $3.00

Total Items: 6
Total Amount: $18.25 (we pay $17.50 for our weekly CSA share and this week we’ve gotten an extra $.75 so the total extra value we’ve gotten so far this season…is $10.75)

*
Fava Bean info…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicia_faba
Only thing with this recipe is DON’T cook the pods…the fuzz is poisonous…just shell and proceed…
http://blogs.kcrw.com/goodfood/2013/04/vegetarian-recipe-fresh-spring-fava-beans/
http://localfoods.about.com/od/preparationtips/ss/ShellingFavas_8.htm
http://www.thekitchn.com/5-fantastic-ways-to-cook-fava-beans-190674
http://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2013/05/16/fresh_fava_beans_offer_an_instant_hit_of_spring_fresh_bites.html
http://www.molliekatzen.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipe=julias_favas
http://www.delallo.com/articles/fava-beans-green-protein

**
Radicchio info…
Besides putting it in a salad…
Grill it…
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/grilled_radicchio_salad/
Saute it (I’d spritz some fresh Lemon juice on this before serving)…
http://localfoods.about.com/od/strifysaute/r/Sauteed-Radicchio.htm
And more…
http://italianfood.about.com/library/rec/blr0094.htm


Flower Share
Week #5
Snapdragons



11. And now for something completely different…

Most amazing Latte artwork…EVER!!!

http://www.boredpanda.com/3d-latte-art-kazuki-yamamoto/

https://twitter.com/george_10g/media/grid



12. As promised…Carrot Top Pesto!

Sorry if I don’t remember who, but I promised someone I’d get them a Carrot Top Pesto recipe.

And here’s TWO of them…
http://www.culinate.com/books/collections/all_books/roots/carrot_top_pesto

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/07/roasted-carrots-with-carrot-top-pesto

And Carrot Top Soup…
http://allrecipes.com/personalrecipe/63115197/carrot-top-soup/detail.aspx

But with all new things to eat…start small and see how you react…
http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/the-toxic-salad/

Though man of food science, Harold McGee, thinks they’re fine to eat…
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/harold-mcgee-responds-part-1/

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