Work-Share shifts

Hey everyone,

It’s already mid-August (!) and the field is full of beautiful and colorful veggies! If you haven’t put in an hours, now is the time to step up and lend a hand in the field. With the heat, the weeds tend to grow at an astonishing rate, and extra help with garden maintenance become key.

So far, we’ve found that committing to a certain time period for a couple weeks, say every friday from 3-5 for four weeks, is one of best strategies for work-share help. It helps Catherine and Matt know who’s coming and plan around that, as well as train folks for certain tasks.

We’d like to send out a call for folks to sign up for a block of time for 2-4 weeks at a time. Morning, aftenroon, evening – figure out when you can committ and let us know!

More important shifts to fill are:

Wednesday morning harvest help

Wednesday afternoon CSA set-up

Mowing – friday is a good day for this

And don’t forget to put you hours on the spreadsheet, a link to which can be found in the top left hand corner of the blog.

Please email Hannah at hannahmellion@gmail.com with the times and dates you can come out to the farm for a couple hours.

And if you’d like to post a story, a picture, or recipe to the blog, here’s how:

Go to wordpress.com

Enter in redplanetvegetables, password: csa2009

Thanks!

Hannah

Vegan zucchini bread

With all the excess zucchini, I just made some amazing (AMAZING!!) vegan zucchini bread. Here it is and you can use 3 eggs instead of the egg replacer and banana.

*2 eggs worth of egg replacer (I used Ener G, but there are lots of different ways to do it
*1 banana
*1 cup vegetable oil
*1 1/2 cups sugar
*2 tsp vanilla extract
*2 cups of chopped zucchini (I like to shred some of it and leave the rest as chunks)
*3 cups all-purpose flour
*1 tsp baking soda
*1/4 tsp baking powder
*3 tsp cinnamon
*1/2 tsp ground cardamon (optional)
*1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (optional)
*1 tsp salt
*3/4 cup nuts (walnuts or pecans – I like to mix both of them)

Preheat oven to 325.
Beat the egg replacer and banana (or eggs) til fluffy, then add sugar and oil and beat some more.
Then mix in zucchini and vanilla.

Mix the rest of the dry ingredients (except nuts) separate and then mix it with the wet and fold in the nuts.

Pour it into two floured loaf pans and bake it for 60-70 minutes at 325.

Its really Good!

- Keith

Down From the Mountain

first we went here and lazed about and wondered about the distant peaks until a Frenchman suggested we climb them

and so we did (and here’s a view from the first peak to the second peak.) they are called East and West Baldpate.

and then we thought we’d better get home and check up on the old farm… The eggplant is behind the breadfruit tree:

Okay, we’re back. It’s hot. The summer is approaching it’s peak. Those right-wing healthcare-hating birth certificate-obsessed whackjobs are amazing! We’ve got a nice list of rewarding agricultural activities to embrace in the coming days, so if any members want to spend their leisure hours on any of them, please come out and get down with us. An ode to the farm in August (Keats I think):

Some crops are heavy with fruit that needs pickin’

Some have bugs that need lickin’

The rate of weed growth has quickened

And I wish I had a few chickens

The tomatoes are crazy

Their future is hazy.

The cabbages are lazy

and the pathways, tho’ green, have mullets longer than Swayze’s.

We can use a whole pile of help this week. Any day any hour. For those interested, if you come out and work you can take home some of the surplus stuff which has grown in our absence. We’ve got tons of cukes zukes and beans for pickling or preserving what have you. Put in some hours, get yer can on.

And for those who haven’t been out to the farm at all, the rumors of vicious wild pigs are just that, rumors. You are not in danger. I repeat, just rumors unless you consider groundhogs to be both vicious and wild.

While Matt and Catherine are gone

For folks helping with farm maintenance while Matt and Catherine are gone…

Delia and I headed out to the farm today around five.  We picked many beans and squash.  We didn’t get to the cucumbers or the wax beans (furthest back in the row).  We didn’t get to any weeding either.

If you go in the late afternoon/early evening hours, I DEFINITELY recommend bug spray.  We stopped and picked up some calamine lotion on the way home!

- Sarah