What’s growing on the farm this week?

Community!!

Part of the Carlson’s land is dedicated to building a community farm. The vision for the community farm is much like that of a CSA, but with more involvement on the part of the shareholders. Unlike a community garden, which is separated into individual family plots, the community farm is a cooperative project. Everyone plants, weeds and harvests the same rows of vegetables. This system not only brings community members together on the farm, but it also facilitates healthy crop rotation.

Last night almost all of the community farmers (about 8 families) and three fellow Leaders for Social Change came out for a work night. After taking a peak at the newly reorganized tool shed, we split into two groups and tackled several different projects. Katie showed one group how to add new layers to the compost pile and taught them how to prune tomatoes. Natasha and Chelsea prioritized weeding for the community farmers and explained how to harvest head lettuce, kale and arugula.

Everyone was excited for this first successful harvest. Kale is a beautiful plant, but sometimes people have a hard time figuring out what to do with this nutritious green. Here’s an adaption of a recipe from the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition‘s cookbook From Asparagus to Zucchini that we prepared for supper last night.

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Healthy Community Kale & Potato Fry-Up

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon chili oil (or substitute vegetable oil with some crushed red pepper)

3 small red potatoes (boiled in salted water until nearly tender and thin-sliced)

1 small onion (finely chopped)

salt and pepper

1 big bunch of kale (or other greens; washed and chopped)

1/2 teaspoon dried ground thyme

3/4 cup cooked sweet corn

1 tablespoon dried oregano (or a few sprigs of fresh oregano)

1/2 teaspoon paprika

grated Parmesan

Heat butter and chili oil in large skillet over medium flame. Add potatoes and onions, then season well with salt and pepper. Let potatoes brown in the pan on one side for several minutes. Toss the potatoes and let them brown lightly again. When potatoes are almost tender, toss in greens and thyme then add 1/4 cup water, cover the pan, and raise to high heat. Let steam until greens are nearly done (1-2 minutes). Uncover, add corn, oregano, and paprika, and allow potatoes to finish cooking and browning. Top with Parmesan and serve!

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Today we’re finally making steady progress on the irrigation front. Hopefully by this afternoon we’ll be measuring out drip tape along the tomato rows so that we can start mulching and trellising the plants tomorrow.

A busy week on (and off!) the farm

Field trips have been the highlight of this week’s work. Tuesday was our first big adventure up to Jordan Seeds in Woodbury, Minnesota. Jordan Seeds is a great local seed and gardening supply distributor that is known throughout the midwest. Katie and I were interested to learn that Jordan Seeds does business with both the farms that we’d worked on previously – Abbe Hills Farm in Mount Vernon, Iowa and Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in East Troy, Wisconsin.

Our mission on Tuesday was irrigation. Even though it has been so rainy lately, we’re worried that we might face drought conditions later in the season. Dan at Jordan Seeds talked with us for two hours on Tuesday morning about implementing a drip irrigation system. After a lot of scheming, we purchased everything we need to water our crops before drought becomes an issue.

After our long conversation with Dan, we headed over to Common Roots Cafe for a delicious lunch in Uptown. Common Roots is a great place to find delicious food made from scratch, using high-quality, local, organic, and fair-trade ingredients. Common Roots is surrounded by beautiful natural landscaping rife with vegetables and flowers.

Our next stop was EggPlant Urban Farm Supply in St. Paul. We met St. Olaf sociology/anthropology professor Tom Williamson and his two adorable daughters at their home and then walked a couple of blocks to EggPlant. EggPlant Urban Farm Supply is not your typical nursery. The store focuses on backyard homesteading on a small, city-friendly scale – they sell everything from seeds, plants, soil and tools to chicks, feed, and even supplies to make homemade cheese! To wrap up our fantastic farmer day-on-the-town, Tom took us out for ice cream at Izzy’s ice cream shop.

Both today and Wednesday we spent at the farm building our new compost pile and mulching with hay in between rows of vegetables to keep the weeds at bay. Katie taught us how to build compost piles using weeds, hay and manure. STOGROW helped us to start our first pile last week, and we’ve been working on it since. The pile we started last week is about four feet tall, so it is almost time to start a new one.

Freshly mulched paths made our veggies look more colorful

Katie and Julia heaping weeds onto our growing compost pile

On Thursday we went on our first farm visit together to Dream Acres farm in Spring Valley, Minnesota. Dream Acres is a picaresque farm south of Rochester that might remind visitors of a 19th century homestead. The farm is completely off the grid – all of their power is either solar, human or animal; much of their water comes from a rainwater catchment system or is hauled out of the nearby river. They even have a handmade icebox that keeps produce cool through the summer! The couple who owns Dream Acres built all of the structures on the farm including a barn, two houses, a meeting house, a theater, and their greenhouse. Needless to say, we were impressed by their commitment to  their values. At the end of their gracious tour, we put in a half hour of weeding with Evie in their lush lower garden.

Next week we hope to go on another farm tour, work out the kinks in our irrigation system, work with the community farm members, and stake the tomato plants. Might not seem like much, but I’m sure it will keep us busy

Muffins for Social Change

We have been baking muffins for breakfast the last two days in the Leaders for Social Change house. The recipe we have fallen in love with is an adaptation of the “Company Muffin” recipe from the cookbook Simply in Season. The recipes in Simply in Season are arranged by the time year so cooks can use local, seasonal produce more effectively in their dishes. The cookbook emphasizes the value of fresh foods from CSA subscriptions, farmers’ markets, your own garden and other local sources — foods that nurture not only the mind, body and spirit, but also the world around us. Enjoy!!

Signe and Julie devouring Muffins for Social Change

Muffins for Social Change

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large tart apples (peeled, cored, and shredded)

1 1/2 cups carrots (finely shredded)

1 cup flax seed meal

1/2 cup raisins

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/4 oil

Preheat oven to 375F

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and stir well. Next add the shredded apples, carrots, flax seed meal and raisins. Stir to coat. In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, milk and oil. Pour into flour mixture and stir until just moistened. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full and bake 18 – 20 minutes.

Nothing like warm muffins to get you out of bed for a day on the farm!

First week on the farm

Chelsea and I have returned to Northfield after finishing up with finals and then taking a brief summer hiatus at at our respective homes (Chelsea in Wayzeta, MN and Natasha in West Branch, IA). A week ago we moved into the Leaders for Social Change house along with 7 other St. Olaf students. The other members of the house have internships with community organizations in Northfield and Fairibault. It’s exciting to share our experiences on the farm with the with our dedicated Ole housemates.

Natasha & Chelsea one of their first full days on the farm

In fact, one of our housemates, Julia, has been farming with us for the last week. Her internship with Summer Plus (a summer program for ESL, low income and at-risk youth) doesn’t start until Wednesday, so we are lucky enough to have her willing hands during the busy planting season.

Natasha & Julia watering tomato transplants

Julia’s extra help came in handy last week when we were racing to get all of our plants in the ground. The seeds we planted in the greenhouse in mid-April have grown considerably. We planted almost all of these healthy green starts in the garden on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers were the most important summer crops that we transplanted, but we also got some onions, leeks, lettuce and chard trasplants in the ground. We also direct seeded basil, cilantro and cucurbits like summer squash, zucchini, musk melon and watermelon.

Tomato & pepper transplants from our greenhouse in the bed of the pickup truck

We were happy to get so much accomplished, but we were slowed down by the weather. It’s been unusually soggy lately which means that we haven’t been able to work in garden as much as we had expected. Walking on muddy ground compacts the soil and makes it harder to plant later, so we’ve been holding out for drier weather.

This week doesn’t look promising. We’re keeping busy planning the rest of the garden (including winter squash plantings and future crop successions), shopping for the tools that we need later this summer (like harvesting knives, bins to pick into, wheelbarrows, and a nice garden cart), and collecting milk jugs. Once we gather enough milk jugs we’ll cut the bottoms off and burry them over our tomato transplants to protect them and provide them with a warm, humid little microclimate.

Looking ahead, we’re hoping for at least one dry day next week so we can invite the St. Olaf student farmers from STOGROW for a farm visit. If it isn’t too wet, we can put them to work making beds for our root crops. It will also be our advisor, Katie Godfrey’s, last week. Having her around to guide us in this learning process has contributed to the future success of the SEEDS farm.

Katie raking a bed before planting