Harmony Valley Farm: Harmony Valley Farm

This is it, the 30th vegetable box of the 2021 CSA Season! Can you believe it?! We’ve gone all the way from ramps and asparagus to fresh sweet corn and tomatoes and now we’re wrapping up the season with a box full of storage vegetables to carry you into a new year! Thank you for journeying through another CSA season. I truly hope you’ve enjoyed the meals you’ve created and perhaps you’ve gathered some new recipes to add to your collection of favorites!

We’re going to wrap up this season with a bold feature vegetable—horseradish! My top suggestion is the same every year we put this item in the box. I think the easiest thing to do is make Prepared Horseradish (See Below) that you can keep in your refrigerator and use as needed. But this week I challenged myself to find some other interesting recipes and included this Fresh Horseradish Roasted Potato Salad (See Below) and Norwegian-Style Cod (See Below).

Root vegetables is the name of the game for the next few months, so here’s a few recipes I wanted to share with you. First, if you don’t know what to do with celeriac, check out this article entitled 26 of the Best Celeriac Recipes. Make a big pot of Classic Beef Borscht and put those red beets to use! I think it’s time to switch from cold sandwiches for lunch to these Cornish Pasties (Meat Hand Pies). They are easy to make and you can put nearly any root you have in them!

Photo from allthatjas.com

I also wanted to highlight a few recipes that were shared in the Facebook Group lately. I can’t wait to try this recipe for Palestinian Style Stuffed Savoy Cabbage Rolls. I’m also looking forward to trying this Polish Kohlrabi Soup. Thank you to everyone who participates in the group. I love seeing what you’re cooking and it’s exciting to find new recipe resources!

Finally, as I sign off for the winter, I want to wish you a winter full of rejuvenation, rest and good health. Keep eating your vegetables, every day. They are our nourishment, but they are also our daily medicine. If you feel like you need a little extra immune boost, maybe garlic is what your body needs. I have this recipe for Raw Honey Garlic Lemon Shot and also this

Garlic-Honey Toddy for Cold & Flu Season tucked away and plan to pull them out with the first sniffle!

Ok, that’s a wrap! We look forward to growing for you again in 2022, so don’t delay. Take care of that 2022 CSA Sign up in January or February and you’ll earn our Early Bird Coupon to use for a future HVF purchase! Have a great winter and I’ll see you back her in 4 short months!

--Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Horseradish

by Andrea Yoder

Description: Horseradish is a bold, pungent vegetable that has the power to make you cry, take your breath away and open every nasal passage you have—that is if you work with and/or eat it in large quantities. The powerful plant compounds in horseradish that make you do all those things are also the compounds that give horseradish its peppery flavor, have the ability to attack cancer cells and boost our immune systems.

Harvesting Horseradish

Growing Information: Horseradish is a perennial that we plant in the fall from seed pieces that are taken from cuttings when the previous crop is harvested. A nice seed piece is a straight piece usually about 8-10 inches long with the diameter of a fat pencil or a thin marker. Seed pieces grow off the main horseradish root which is the most saleable portion of the plant on the wholesale market. Any pieces that are smaller than is needed for wholesale or seed are called whips. Whips are usually thrown away, but this is actually the part of the root I prefer to work with for several reasons. First of all, I think the skin is thin and tender enough on these pieces that you don’t need to peel it. The less you have to handle horseradish, the better! I also think the whips are a more manageable size to deal with instead of a big root. This week your box contains a 4 ounce bundle of horseradish whips.

Richard in the Horseradish field

Preparation & Use: Horseradish is intended to be used in small quantities, as a condiment or an accompaniment to enhance foods. It may be freshly grated or chopped and added to foods, however once you start cutting, grating or chopping horseradish you release the volatile oils that give horseradish its bite. This is when you need to make sure you have adequate ventilation to decrease the chances of your eyes tearing up. Also, make sure you wash your hands after handling horseradish so you don’t accidently get these peppery oils in your eyes. While many recipes tell you to grate the horseradish on a box grater, this is difficult to do with the smaller whips. My recommendation is to just cut the whips into 1-2 inch pieces and chop them finely in a food processor. You could also use a blender, a hand chopper or a basic chef’s knife.

When using fresh horseradish, it’s important to chop or grate it as close to when you’re going to eat it as the volatile oils will dissipate into the air and disappear. Once it’s chopped, you either need to eat it right away or stabilize the oils so the flavor and spice remains. Often times you’ll see a recipe that calls for “Prepared Horseradish.” This refers to horseradish that is pre-chopped/grated and stabilized in a vinegar solution which sets the flavor and prevents it from dissipating. This week I’ve included a recipe for prepared horseradish. You can keep prepared horseradish in the refrigerator for several weeks in a sealed jar before it will start to lose its pungency. This can be super handy to have as you can just take a teaspoon or two as needed for different recipes without having to chop it fresh every time.

Horseradish Whips

Horseradish goes well with rich and fattier foods such as salmon, beef, sausage and ham. It also goes well with more acidic foods such as tomatoes, apples, lemons and other citrus. It’s a good accompaniment to bland foods that give it a base, but make horseradish look and taste good—foods such as sour cream, cream, butter, seafood, potatoes and root vegetables.

Lastly, if you don’t like spicy things or don’t think you’ll like horseradish, just start small. Stir a little bit of freshly chopped horseradish into mayonnaise and spread it on a sandwich or make horseradish cream and drizzle it lightly over roasted root vegetables.

Storage: On the internet you’ll see references that say horseradish should be eaten within 1-2 weeks…..my friends, I think that’s wrong. Your horseradish whips will store much, much longer than 1-2 weeks if you keep them in a bag in the refrigerator. To give you a frame of reference, we harvest horseradish the latter part of October. In many years, we’ve held horseradish in cold storage for months and sell it all throughout the winter! Don’t be afraid of a little fuzzy white mold on the surface either. It’s not uncommon to see this after extended time in the refrigerator. If you see that happening, but the integrity of the root is still good, just wash it off.

Prepared Horseradish

Yield: 1—half pint jar

3 oz fresh horseradish whips

4 Tbsp distilled white vinegar

¼ tsp salt

Sugar, pinch

Cut the horseradish whips into chunks and place them in the food processor. Pulse to grind. It will be a bit dry, something like coconut. Add the vinegar, salt and sugar.
Have a clean and sterilized jar with a lid and canning ring available nearby.
Add the vinegar, salt and sugar. Blend to combine well.
Pack the horseradish into the jar and refrigerate.

Recipe adapted from The Kitchen Ecosystem by Eugenia Bone.

Norwegian-Style Cod with Horseradish

Yield: 2-4 servings

2 Tbsp butter

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 pound cod fillet

1 tsp salt

½ cup freshly grated horseradish

Heat the butter and oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until the butter begins to brown. Throw down ½ tsp of salt into the hot pan and immediately place the fish over it. Sprinkle the top of the fish with the remaining ½ tsp of salt. Cover the skillet (if your skillet does not have a lid, use a lid from another pot or just a piece of aluminum foil) and cook over medium-high heat until the fish begins to look opaque, about 4 minutes.
Remove the lid, and with a spatula as long as the fillet, carefully flip the fish. Sprinkle the horseradish over the fish and lower the heat to medium. To be sure the fish doesn’t burn, it’s a good idea to check that there is enough fat remaining in the pan; add a bit more butter if necessary. Re-cover the pan and continue to cook 3 to 4 minutes more, until the fish is flaky but still moist. Using the large spatula, carefully transfer the fish to a platter. Serve immediately.

This recipe comes from Darra Goldstein’s book, Fire & Ice: Classic Nordic Cooking.

Fresh Horseradish Roasted Potato Salad

Yield: 4 servings

1 pound potatoes, cut into ¾” cubes

1 pound sweet potatoes, cut into ¾” cubes

1 tsp salt, plus more to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

3 Tbsp sour cream or crème fraiche, plus more if needed

1-2 Tbsp freshly grated horseradish

1 handful fresh dill, chopped or 2 Tbsp dried dill

Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a large bowl, combine both kinds of potatoes, 1 tsp salt, freshly ground black pepper, and olive oil. Stir or toss to coat well. Pour onto a sheet pan and spread out into a single layer. Roast on the middle rack, turning every so often until nicely caramelized, about 30-40 minutes.
When the potatoes are done, remove them from the oven and let cool for about five minutes. In the meantime, grate the horseradish into the sour cream and stir. Pour over the potatoes and combine well. Adjust for salt and pepper and dill. Serve immediately at room temperature or eat it chilled.

Recipe borrowed from food52.com.

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Wrapping Up the Season….The Bounty & The Blessings

By Andrea Yoder

Aerial view looking down our valley

It is simply amazing just how much food can be produced off of our 110 acres of land tucked away in a valley. In comparison to some of the large produce farms out west, 110 acres is just a little drop in a bucket, and yet we can produce tons (literally) of food! It doesn’t matter how many seasons I go through, I think it will always amaze me to see how the seeds that we store in one small room can, over the course of the season, be turned into tons of produce that at times comes close to exceeding our storage facilities! This week we wanted to give you a little glimpse of what’s been happening on the farm this fall.

The past seven weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind of activities. Up until about the last week of October we continued to harvest some herbs, greens and other fresh vegetables. Thankfully we had a pretty mild fall and some of our late planted gamble crops of cilantro, red radishes, baby bok choi and mustard had enough time to mature so we could harvest them. While we continued those harvests, we also had to prioritize harvesting our crops to put into storage! First it was a push to get all the sweet potatoes in, totaling around 30,000 pounds. Next it was burdock root. This is a high dollar value crop that is very important to our farm. We can store it for almost an entire year and there are only a few growers in this country who produce burdock root so we have many customers who depend on us! It also has very long roots so it’s best to dig it when conditions are dry. We started harvesting some in mid-September, but really did a push to get it all out by the end of the first week of October. Thankfully we managed to get it all dug before we had rain and our harvest came in at well over 60 bins or about 25,000-30,000 pounds! That’s a lot of burdock root and to think it came from only about 8 pounds of seed!

Rows and rows of
Beauty Heart Radishes!

Beauty heart radishes were also a priority and with the warm fall we had, they were growing rapidly pushing them close to the edge of being too big. But we know they are best after some cold weather so we tried to hold off until we got a few frosty nights. Thankfully we did get that little bit of cold and we started the harvest. The other tricky part of harvesting beauty heart radishes is they can be very brittle. If we machine harvest them we often lose a lot that crack in the process. So we made the decision to maximize our yields and harvest them all by hand this year. Overall we harvested well over 20,000 pounds and we still have about 14,000 pounds remaining in the cooler that we’ll continue to wash for orders and CSA boxes we’ll be delivering through the end of the year.

Brussels Sprouts on the stalk,
going into storage

As our main cooler started to fill up, I knew it was almost time to transition our warm temperature cooler to a cold storage area. No problem, except at that time we were storing about 30 bins of potatoes in that cooler! I held off as long as possible, but then Richard declared it time to harvest Brussels sprouts. In late October we saw the first forecasts for temperatures dipping into the low 20’s. While Brussels sprouts can withstand multiple frosty nights, dangerously low temperatures in the 20’s can cause damage. In Richard’s 30 plus years of living in this valley, he also knows that a forecasted temperature of 25 degrees can mean an actual temperature of up to 10 degrees colder in the valley. Brussels sprouts are too important of a crop to lose, so we started loading up wagon after wagon with bins to bring them in on the stalk. It takes a lot more storage space, but it’s a much faster harvest and on frosty mornings we can snap them off the stalks. Just before the first load came in, we emptied the potato storage cooler and moved all the potato bins to a refrigerated trailer that we use once a year in the fall. I decreased the temperature in our previously warm cooler to 34 degrees and it was ready to store Brussels sprouts. I lost track of how many bins we harvested overall, but it was around 40 or maybe a little more. We still have about 20 bins in the cooler and overall we’ll yield about 5,000-6,000 pounds of sprouts!

As we closed out the month of October, we’d fill up our already full coolers at the beginning of the week as we prepared to pack CSA boxes on Wednesday and ship wholesale orders for the first part of the week. We had to get creative, we had to remain very organized. Everything had to have a place and there were some days when there was one way into a cooler and one way out. On a few occasions, we had 20-30 bins of root vegetables stacked outside at the end of a busy harvest day. But after the crews unloaded we always managed to find more space to get everything into the appropriate storage environment. At the end of the day on Wednesday after we had loaded all the trucks, we’d breathe a sigh of relief only to wake up the next morning and do it all again for the end of the week! While our rutabaga crop was mostly a loss and this year’s carrot crop was a disappointment with very low production, we have still had a very bountiful fall harvest and year overall! So facing the challenge of exceeding storage capacities is actually a good problem to have!

The majority of our crops are in now. We still have a little tat soi in the field along with our little planting of specialty crosnes. Aside from that, our mission now is to trim, wash, pack and deliver all these vegetables! This week we’ll be delivering about 52,000 pounds of vegetables total including all of our CSA deliveries as well as orders we’re sending to our wholesale and retail partners. That’s a lot of vegetables!! Our crew has been working very hard all season, but especially over the past few weeks to help us get everything harvested as well as working diligently so we can fill our orders, pack CSA boxes and meet all of our deadlines. We’ve already said goodbye to 11 of our H2A crew members who returned to Mexico at the end of October. This week we’ll be sending 14 crew members back to their families who are very anxious to welcome them home! We’ll be taking a little break next week to celebrate Thanksgiving, but we’ll be back at it the next week washing and trimming more vegetables, finishing the last of our field work and some of the other outside missions still remaining on the list. It’s been a busy, yet very rewarding fall.

2021 HVF Crew Photo (brief moment without masks)

Thus is the nature of our business, the push and the pull, the cycles and the seasons. As we move into winter we look forward to a little bit of rest and rejuvenation. We also pause to reflect on the many blessings we’ve received this year, the bountiful harvests we’ve brought in and the thousands of people who have received nourishment from the food that has come off our land. As we celebrate Thanksgiving next week, it’s an understatement to say we have a lot to be thankful for this year.

As we wrap up this growing season, we’re already working towards next year. Our garlic, horseradish and sunchoke crops are planted as is our overwintered spinach. Fields have been composted and planted to cover crops. Irrigation equipment is tucked away in storage and we have a list of supplies that need to be ordered to be ready for next season. Now we’re focusing on cutting and storing firewood, maintenance and repair projects and cleaning up some brush and field perimeters of overgrown trees, etc. We’re also working on the 2022 CSA season and will be sharing more information about that with the next CSA delivery in December.

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving in whatever way you choose to celebrate. We are grateful for your support of our farm and hope you have enjoyed the bounty of the 2021 season. Take care and we’ll see you in December to officially wrap up our 2021 CSA Season!

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Gratitude

The topic for this week’s newsletter started brewing in my mind last week when yet another CSA member took the time to send us a note of thanks. Here are just a few excerpts from notes we’ve received:

The beautiful Diana Radishes

“I am so excited to have the herbs, in addition to the GORGEOUS vegetables of today!!... Your produce gives me so much JOY and ESPECIALLY in such a dark time. I THANK YOU for the work you do.”

“I am so excited with our first share. Thank you so much for all the fresh vegetables. I already had some greens with my eggs this morning. Just letting you know you made my day.”

“We are sure thankful to be connected with HVF again this year, especially at a time when local, sustainable food practices are more important than ever. May your crew have good health and fruitful harvests all season long,”

“I wanted to thank you for all you have done to make our CSA experience safe. I picked up my first box on Saturday and was so happy to see the outside tent set up with clear directions on how to keep us all protected! I left with my beautiful bag of vegetables and a huge smile on my face J”

Storm Clouds in the Valley, June 2, 2020

Gratitude, it’s a powerful medicine for the souls of those who both give and receive it. It’s a trying time for our region, our country and the world. This year is unfolding in unexpected ways and some days it’s hard to make sense of everything happening around us. It would be wonderful if we could hunker down in our quiet little valley and remain immune to the hurt, anger, injustice, fear and inconvenience the events of this year have placed upon us all. But, that’s not an option when you choose to be part of a community. As I write this newsletter, the wind is whipping violently outside the office and as Richard just communicated to Rafael over the radio “We’re going to get slammed.” Dust is swirling, trees are whipping around, and Alejandro, Manuel, Nestor and Jose Antonio are trying to wrangle the field covers that are being ripped off the crops they are meant to protect. We know how to deal with the weather, or rather, we know we can’t control the weather, only our ability to respond to whatever hand Mother Nature chooses to deal us. Sometimes we get a really good hand, and when we do, you reap the benefits too! Ramps in May because of a late, cool spring?! Yes, we’ll take it! A stretch of nice, sunny, warm days that spurs the asparagus to push through and allows us to complete critical cultivating, transplant crops and plant more seeds? That’s a good hand to be dealt and we’ll take it!

Cultivating Celeriac with "The Kult"

We’ve had our fair share of experience managing the extremes of weather. While we can’t control it, we are very adept at working with and around the weather. We have a grasp on the realities of this type of storm. But this year, the weather is not the only “storm” raging around us. Restrictions and procedural changes related to COVID-19 that leave us wondering if our crew from Mexico will be able to join us. Inconvenient changes to how we operate that slow us down, cost money, take away our markets and break down many of the plans we had for the year. These pieces of the pandemic storm are things we could live without, but that’s not a choice right now.

Our crew packing CSA boxes in September, 2009

So we move forward and look for the good things in life. For us, this year, it’s CSA—our community. Think about what it stands for, “Community Supported Agriculture.” We’ve always believed CSA can have a powerful impact on people’s lives, and this year may just be the reminder of that truth. Simply put, we’ve always needed each other, but I think we may all realize this a little more intimately this year. We’ve been trying to build our CSA membership back to where we were before the recession hit in 2009, after which our CSA membership dropped to an all-time low. What’s it going to take to build our membership to a sustainable level so we can continue to do this? We never thought the answer would be a pandemic that caused our corporate, industrial food system to fracture under the weight of its own weaknesses. Or the fact that the pandemic forced us to spend more time at home, planning ahead for less frequent trips to the grocery store, and cooking our own meals! The result of an inconvenient pandemic for our farm has meant a two-fold increase in CSA memberships that has actually pushed us past our record high number of boxes packed in a week from the height of our CSA glory days back around 2009!

Stack of referrals awaiting postage to be sent out.
We've received so many referrals, we went through a whole roll
of stamps and still didn't have enough to send out the first batch!

So even though this has all been very hard and this was not the plan we had in mind, we remain grateful for you, our community of eaters who have chosen to partner with us to grow food to nourish your families and enrich your lives. This is our privilege and we want you to know we are grateful for your support. We sense your support in so many ways. Of course when you take the time to send us an email or write a little note to enclose with your payment, we experience your expressions of support in your own words. Yes, we do read those notes, hang them on the wall, share them with each other and our crew members. Your words of gratitude and support are our fuel and reminder to keep pushing on through the hard times. With every referral you make, every conversation about CSA that you have with people in your circles, or every time you purchase our products at your local food co-op, we feel it. Sometimes it’s subtle, anonymous, or delayed, but we feel it, and we are grateful.

Habitat for native plants and animals near our fields

We have devoted our life’s work to feeding the most people possible with healthy, nutrient rich foods through every season of the year and every season of their lives. But farming is not just about growing food. We also have a responsibility to restore and care for our land, protect our native plants and animals, and do our best to be a positive force in our community. We have a responsibility to nourish body and soul. Can vegetables change lives? We absolutely believe they can and we hope right now you may be experiencing the little ways they do so by infiltrating our daily, sometimes mundane and sometimes tumultuous lives with vitality, beauty, nourishment and connection. So in all the ways you support us, we hope you too feel supported right now.

Learning about celtuce from a member's mother
visiting from China!

Our hearts break when we see what’s happening in Minneapolis as well as many other cities in our region and across the country as the storms of injustice are raging. Injustice is hard to watch, hard to experience, and hard to understand why it keeps happening. It just doesn’t make sense. Human lives are precious, all human lives. When you sign up with our farm, we don’t care what color your skin is or where you come from. We’re grateful to have you as part of our community. Well, let me correct that last statement a bit. We do care where you come from, because everyone has a story and a journey to share and we celebrate the diversity within our membership! We have opportunities to learn from people from all over the world right here within our own community! I learned more about the vegetable celtuce from a member's mother who was visiting from China when he brought her to a farm party than I ever learned from researching on the internet! I recently learned we have a published author in our membership who was kind enough to share his memoir which I look forward to reading so I can know the journey he’s walked in this life. We feed community leaders, teachers, healthcare workers, scientists, artists, students, and the list goes on. We are blessed by you and the diversity each of you adds to our community.

Our hardworking crew harvesting winter radishes
in late October

No conversation about gratitude related to farming would be complete without mentioning our crew members. We do our best to offer respect to the hardworking crew members that work alongside us, no matter how challenging the task or situation. They trudge through mud, shield their necks from the hot sun, bend over to harvest vegetables growing from the ground, and that’s only those who work in the field! Others do tedious work of sorting salad greens in the packing shed to make those pretty little bags of baby arugula and salad mix we pack in your boxes. They trim thousands of pounds of onions, and wash probably thousands of pounds of dirt off your vegetables so they are glistening and beautiful when you receive them. Lets not forget about the office work, which is another piece to making this all possible. Answering phone calls, responding to emails, processing orders, and keeping this whole beast organized and running smoothly…..that’s no small task! We are so very blessed and grateful for all the people working on this farm, and when we’re all covered in mud, our skin is all the same color!

Sometimes storms lead to rainbows,
reminding us there is beauty after the storm

I’ve almost reached the end of this article, and the storm continues to rage outside. The sky is full of dark clouds, the rain is pouring down, and I continue to hear intermittent rumbles in the distance. Just like this storm, the storms of life will pass through. When we’re in the midst of the storm, it may be hard to see what’s on the other side, but we still have a choice as to what we want to be when the storm is over. Sometimes you need a little breather, a bit of a break to catch your breath, but once you have….it’s time to get back up, push forward and keep going. When I’m tempted to quit, I see your faces, I hear your voices, I know you’re depending on us. And I get up. We have a responsibility to show up for each other. Not just when it’s easy, but especially when it’s hard. So in closing, I thank all of you for the acts and words of gratitude you’ve shared with us simply based on your experiences of choosing to be part of our CSA. But I also want to encourage you to continue sharing gratitude with those around you. I stumbled across this quote from Melody Beattie where she says, “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

As the storms of life continue to rage around us, I certainly don’t have the answers to make them fade away. But I can offer you encouragement to use gratitude as one of the many tools available in our toolbox of change. Come on, just a simple “Thank you” to someone around you is all it takes to start the transformations. I hope the week ahead of you is filled with Harmony, both on your table and in your heart.

Farmer/Chef Andrea along with Richard and Rafael

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Harvest Party 2018—What a Fun Day!

By Farmers Richard & Andrea

Fall is one of our favorite times of the year and we were happy to have been able to share a beautiful fall day with some of our CSA members last Sunday at our Harvest Party. Saturday night and Sunday morning were on the cool side, but the sun came out and shone bright all day giving us just enough warmth to make for a comfortable, beautiful day for the festivities! For all of us, this is a special last party of the season. No, we are not done harvesting for the year, we actually have quite a lot of vegetables still to harvest and we’re still working on our storm clean-up projects. Nonetheless, it’s always nice to take a pause in the midst of the fall harvest to spend a special day with you, our members. The energy and encouragement we gain from spending time with you will keep us strong as we finish out the season.

"Jack the Dog" waiting for someone to play "stick" with him.

We want to thank all of the members who took time to attend the party. It was great to meet new members who were visiting the farm for the first time and we were happy to see some of our longtime members who make an effort to visit the farm every year. It’s the people that make this party special to us and in many ways it’s like having a homecoming! Their excitement is contagious as they eagerly ask questions such as, “Where are the pumpkins this year?” and “Can we dig sweet potatoes?” One of our younger members (2 years old) was at our Strawberry Day event back in June and came back for another visit this fall. She came camping with her mother and they arrived at the farm late Saturday afternoon. When her mother took her out of the car, she took a look around and it was super-cool for Andrea to see the excitement wash over her face. Her eyes were twinkling and a smile quickly formed on her face followed by excited chatter when she realized where she was. She squealed “Farm” and “Jack the Dog.” We went up to the office where Jack was still taking his afternoon nap. He woke up quickly and greeted our sweet, young member with kisses while she gave him lots of pets.

We kicked off our party on Sunday with our annual potluck. Angel, one of our longtime crew members, is responsible for preparing the delicious roasted pork we enjoyed in tacos. The pork was raised on our pastures and Angel slow-roasted it in our underground brick oven which he lined with cactus leaves. On Saturday afternoon he prepared the pork by seasoning the pieces with salt, pepper, garlic and onion and then slathering it with a mild guajillo sauce he made. The pork was then wrapped in packets and lowered into the oven which was tightly covered for the night. The next morning Angel, with the help of his visiting cousin Francisco, opened up the oven and pulled the packets out. When we opened them up we were pleased to see tender, juicy meat! We served the meat with a simple cabbage slaw on tortillas with a choice of three different sauces featuring our tomatillos and Korean peppers (that was the hot one). The table was filled with so many delicious dishes members brought including some very interesting things like gorgeous raw butternut salad! It truly was a “Feast for Kings.” While we ate we enjoyed the gentle, mellow music of Sonic Love Child. Dave, Shirley & Nicole have been with us for several years, sharing their musical talents with us which really changes the ambiance of the party and has become a signature part of our fall event. We appreciate their willingness to make the journey to the farm every year to be part of this special day.

Farmer Richard and Manuel M teaching children how to dig
sweet potatoes.

Once our bellies were full, we were off to the fields! Sweet potatoes were our first stop. As much as we love seeing our adult friends, the sweet potato field is where the kids take center stage. They take turns helping us dig clusters of sweet potatoes, which we refer to as “Wisconsin Bananas.” They love pulling the clusters out of the soil, grasping the moist sweet potatoes and shaking away the dirt to see just how big it really is! Each potato is different, each finding a welcome hand to pull them from the moist earth. It looks like a very, very nice crop which we finished harvesting on Monday afternoon. They are in the greenhouse, also known as the “Sweet Potato Sauna House,” where we’ll “cure” them for the next 7-10 days at 85°F and high humidity. This helps set their skins and develop the starches into sugar.

Vicente helping some children cut their pumpkins from the vine

Before we left the sweet potato field area we pulled a few celeriac, cut a celery and harvested a little bit of kale. Then we loaded up the wagons and headed to the carrot and chard fields. “Dig this one for me!” “Wow, this carrot is big!” “This one is crooked!” “This one is purple!” “How do you pick chard? It is so pretty!” Wait, let us show you how to twist off one stem at a time, don’t pull up the whole plant! It was so awesome to hear all the questions, see the excitement and watch everyone enjoy being in the fields and being able to harvest things for themselves. We also had some very observant members who found a few artifacts in the field. “What is this rock?” “Farmer Richard says it is a ‘chip’ from a stone tool maker who lived here a thousand years ago!” This area is now our pumpkin field which was filled with some very nice pumpkins! There were big Jack-O-Lanterns with fat handles, many warty “Knucklehead” pumpkins and the silky “Winter Luxury” pie pumpkins that many sought out with visions of pie in their heads. There were plenty for all and we still have a lot remaining!

Butternut Squash Cupcakes with Chai Buttercream frosting
from Bloom Bakeshop

We made our way back to the farm, the kids now tired from lugging their pumpkins out of the fields, pulling sweet potatoes, stomping in mud puddles and running through the soft, muddy parts of the fields. There’s something special about playing in the mud and the farm is one place it’s ok to do that! Back at the farm we enjoyed more music while we ate our afternoon treat which was Butternut Squash Cupcakes topped with Chai Buttercream frosting. These were made special for our party by our friend Annemarie and her crew at Bloom Bakeshop in Madison. They even used our own HVF butterscotch butternut squash to make them! We washed them down with iced maple latte featuring Kickapoo Coffee. We also enjoyed kombucha made with HVF Sweet Sarah melons. The kids spent more time with Captain Jack playing his favorite game of “stick.” Some members meandered around the farm, picking Concord grapes, checking out the pile of sweet potatoes in the greenhouse, walking through the bins of winter squash and admiring the gorgeous green cover crop now growing in the cold frame greenhouse.

We also played a little game of “Guess the weight of the Vegetables.” We made a beautiful display of some of the vegetables we’re harvesting now, but carefully selected either really big ones or really small ones. We told you we’d announce the winner of the game in this week’s newsletter, so here you go. Briana Burton from Madison, Wisconsin was the member who got the most answers correct without going over. For those of you who are wondering, here are the actual weights and counts of the vegetables we had on display:

Listada Eggplant: 2.38#

Red Savoy Cabbage: 5#

Kabocha Squash: 5.92#

Butternut Squash: 5.26#

Burgundy Sweet Potato: 3.6#

There were 183 red grape tomatoes in the one pound jar.

There were 41 Mexican heirloom tomatillos in the one pound jar.

Briana nailed the tomatillo count with an exact match! Nice job Briana! Watch the mail for your $10 HVF Gift Certificate!

Richard & Andrea chatting with members in the pumpkin field

We truly had a great day and enjoyed spending time with some really awesome people. As we reflected on the day while we ate dinner Sunday evening, we both had to agree that we have some really great members. There were several families who enjoyed our Hammel Lane campsite Saturday night and everyone seemed to have a pretty good night’s rest as they were lulled to sleep by the owls. Of course, we have a special place in our hearts for the children and time and time again we’re blown away by CSA kids. They are intelligent, pleasant to talk with and so very insightful! From the smallest ones exploring the farm and all its wonders for the first time to the older kids who have been coming to the farm for several years, or most of their lives in some cases! They aren’t afraid to try new things, embrace new experiences with zeal, and are very aware of their surroundings as they take it all in. Richard had an opportunity to talk with one of our super-awesome CSA kids who’s been eating our vegetables his whole life. As he reflected on the farm, he made an effort to seek out Richard and share his thoughts. He thanked me (Richard) sincerely for the opportunity to visit and expressed that the day “put him in a zone,” a good zone that he needed. In touch with the fields of vegetables, the sky, the trees, a good “zone” to be in. Healthy, intelligent kids who are alive and aware. We’re grateful for them as well as their parents who have chosen to make organic food a priority in their households and carve out time in their busy schedules to visit the farm and allow us the opportunity to form long lasting connections. We truly believe these kids are going to grow up and do great things in this world to change it for the better. We’re really proud of them and look forward to feeding them and following their journeys for many years to come!

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Growing Onions at Harmony Valley Farm

By Farmer Richard

We have long felt that onions, and the related families of garlic and ramps, are essential to good health and should be eaten daily. Thus, we consider onions to be a staple vegetable and plan to include some type of onion/garlic selection in every box throughout the course of our CSA season. This is quite a feat, but we’ve been able to include some perennial and foraged crops such as chives and ramps that allow us to get our weekly onion selection until our overwintered scallions are ready. We plant onion sets and onion tops in the fall for our Egyptian walking onions and potato onions. These are both multiplier onions that are established in the fall, continue their growth cycle the following spring and are ready for harvest ahead of any spring planted onions. Next are the first spring scallions which are planted into the field in April from transplants we grow from seed in our greenhouses. Once we’ve moved through the scallions, we continue with our seasonal progression and harvest an early fresh purple cipollini onion called Desert Sunrise. This usually brings us to about the end of June when some of our early sweet Spanish onions are big enough to harvest. Due to their high sugar content, they are an excellent choice for eating fresh as they are pretty mild. Unfortunately, they don’t store very well. That’s ok though, because they come in ahead of our storage onions and fill the mid-season slot very nicely. Once we’ve moved through the sweeter Spanish type onions, we turn to our red and yellow storage onions to take us through the latter part of the season and through the winter. Yes, it’s a challenge to pull this off, but if you look back over this year and previous years, you’ll find that we’re able to achieve this lofty goal most of the time!

We eat a lot of onions in our household, using them at least once a day if not more. They often provide the background flavor base for our meals and we include them in everything from our scrambled eggs in the morning to soup, salads, etc. We do believe onions play an important role in health and value our daily dose of nutrients from this food. Onions contain powerful antioxidants, many of which are sulfur compounds. These antioxidants play a role in overall health and immunity and benefit the body with their anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties. They are also thought to play a role in cancer prevention as well as a whole host of other health benefits. Eating onions raw may be slightly better than cooked, but onions in any form are beneficial.

Onions starting life in the greenhouse this March.

There are some challenges to growing onions, but I’m always up for a good farming challenge! We start onions and shallots from seed in the greenhouse late in February. We plan to take care of them for at least 7-8 weeks before they are transplanted into the field. They are the first crop transplanted in early April. They can survive snow and cold to 20° F! While we don’t have to worry about weed pressure in the greenhouse, we are thinking about how to control weeds in the field. Because of their slim, round stem, onions are poor weed competitors. Plants that have a wide leaf are able to shade the ground and deprive weeds of valuable sunlight. Onions grow upright and their tops don’t provide much shade, thus weed control can be a challenge. They are one of the first crops to need hand weeding and we have found we have to make this job a priority so we have a clean field before we divert our crew time to picking strawberries and peas.

Twenty years ago we planted our spring onion transplants into flat bare ground. If we managed to keep the weeds out, they grew well. However, we faced another challenge presented by a tiny little insect called an onion thrip. This little creature pierced small holes deep in the center growth point of the plant where organic insecticides offered limited control and protection. The onion thrip is very difficult even for conventional growers, so they have gone to using 100% systemic insecticides, mainly neonicotinoids that make every part of the plant toxic. It works well to control the thrips, but do we want to eat a toxic plant?

Our onions grown in the flat ground would look good until we brought them into the greenhouse to dry. After drying and cleaning, we found a soft rot in the neck and top of the onion and often a bad rotting ring somewhere in the onion. We went to the extension service and had the disease identified by plant pathology and asked what we could do. The answer was to grow on raised beds. Heavy rain events on small onions make them vulnerable to getting bacteria inside the center of the onion. The bacteria causes rot on the inside layers of the onion but appears to be fine from the exterior. We only see the damage after some time in storage or when we cut them open to use them! The same is true with another onion disease called neck rot. Bacteria enter the neck and develop during curing, and often go unnoticed until the end user cuts it open! This all points back to thrip damage that created the entry point to allow the bacteria to enter!

Raised beds? How do we do that? This is not a garden. We figured it out. We built equipment to create a 6-8 inch raised bed with a smooth top to plant or transplant all our crops on. Now, most of our crops, onions included, are planted on raised beds. The raised bed allows excess water to run off the bed into the lower wheel track between beds and careful ditching at the lower ends of fields prevents the water saturation that would cause onions to later rot. With this new system, the quality of our onions improved! But we still had the onion thrips piercing holes that allowed disease bacteria to enter the neck.

Onion transplanting crew, putting the little onions in the
raised beds with the reflective plastic mulch.

Next, we found a reflective plastic mulch that we could use to cover the beds. It is shiny like aluminum foil and when the sun shines on it the reflection off the mulch disorients thrips and totally deters them from entering the field and onion plants. We found that this technique also works for other insects on other crops! So we covered our raised bed with reflective plastic and the high and dry onions without the thrip damage were better than ever!

Did I mention that growing onions has some challenges? The raised, plastic covered bed has 2 drip tapes buried under 4 rows of onions. With the help of water sensors we found the onions need lots of water, sometimes we have to irrigate twice per week when it is hot. Each time we water the onions, we can also give them some fertilizer through the drip lines to provide the nutrients and nitrogen they need to produce well.

The sum total of our efforts allows us to prevent thrip damage to produce healthy onions. We do still need to manage the harvest and try to bring them in with some green still remaining in the tops. We put them into our shade covered greenhouses to allow them to dry down, cure and set skins for longterm storage. We are now able to have disease free onions that produce yields comparable to conventional yields but without using systemic poison!

Last year's onions drying in the greenhouse.

Once the onions are dry, we choose to top and clean all our onions and shallots by hand. It takes time, trimming the top off of every onion with a scissors, but we think it is worth it for a pristine appearance. Mechanical means of topping onions can cause injury to the onion which then can limit their ability to store well.

As you can see, onions are very important at Harmony Valley Farm and we have a very good crop this year. We plan to keep you supplied with onions weekly until our CSA delivery season ends. If you get behind and they start building up on your counter, don’t worry. If you store them properly they will keep well for quite awhile. Keep them in a cool, dry location out of direct sunlight. When the season ends, we’ll give you an opportunity to order more onions, shallots and red cipollini onions to supply your pantry through the winter! Display your onions proudly in your kitchen, eat them daily and enjoy being healthy.