Author: bloomingglenfarm

20 Sep UFO… or Lightning Strike?!

A mysterious circle was found in our field of fall kale. There is a perfect circle of about 30 feet diameter where the small plants have died- the stems look black and burnt, the entire plant “cooked”, dry and brittle. After examining the evidence, and doing a bit of internet research, we concluded it came from a lightning strike from last Thursday’s thunderstorm. A loud crash around 7 pm startled us in the house- that must have been it. Crop damage from lightning is definitely a first here at Blooming Glen!

What I learned online was that the most severe damage to plants by lightning may be caused by the extreme heat and shock waves generated by the electrical current, although other damaging effects probably occur. The current produces temperatures greater than 50,000 degrees Farenheit in millionths of a second. The heat turns plant fluids into steam and burns plant cells and tissues, leading to a wilting symptom and blackened, scorched tissues, including roots, stems, branches, and fruits. Yikes! More reason than ever to keep out of the fields when storms are approaching!

CSA share, week 17, 9/17/13

The first winter squash was in the share this week- a choice between sweet dumplings and spaghetti squash.  Both are a new addition to the farm this season. We’ve been getting lots of positive feedback about another new crop, the dandelion greens. If you’re still not sure what to do with them, check out Mikaela’s latest blog post, 10 Uses for Dandelion Greens.

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner. Share photo by Meghan Clymer.

06 Sep Two more weeks of summer, please!

Don’t say the “F” word. The one that starts with “fr” and rhymes with lost. Yes, that one! Don’t say it! It was cold this morning but not that cold! Despite the summer squash, eggplant and cucumbers coming to an end, we still have a field of tomatoes just starting to ripen, so a little more heat would be great! Keep your fingers crossed!

CSA share, week 15, 9/3/13

The falling leaves, cooler nights and back to school energy did however have us thinking of fall, so we switched it up a bit in the CSA share and brought out the sweet potatoes. Like we said, all the rain had them ready earlier them usual, so after a few weeks curing in the greenhouse they are ready to be turned into a tasty fall dish. It also won’t be long before you see the first of the winter squash. Six pallet bins later, our annual game of toss-the-butternut is complete!

And the delicata squash is piling up.

Kids back in school? Have a few free hours on your hand? Volunteers wanted next Wednesday, September 11 from 9am-11pm and 11am-1pm. Pick a shift, or both, and join us for a few hours of sit down work trimming garlic off their stems. Bring clippers if you have them, if not, we do. Please RSVP to the farm via email, and include the time you are coming.

There’s lots of fun in store for the Blooming Glen Farm Harvest Festival, Saturday October 12th! We have two amazing community art projects in store for the afternoon. Help puppetiers from the Spiral Q puppet theater in Philadelphia make a giant paper mache tomato! Or lend a hand in creating a weaving out of natural materials using an Earth Loom! Local bluegrass band Goose Creek Pioneers will be performing again this year. Sign-up sheets for the Pie Bake-off are at the farm in the distribution room, or send us an email!  

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner.

30 Aug Cooler nights bring abundant greens

The cooler nights might be slowing down the ripening of the heat loving tomatoes and signaling the last of a long run of summer squash, but it does mean gorgeous end-of-the-summer greens. Leafy greens love the nights in the low 50s (and upper 40s!). This week in the CSA share we have beautiful arugula with a spicy kick, sweet potato greens, and batavian crisp lettuce. Next week, the kale is finally back!

CSA share, week 14, 8/27/13

The farm is focusing on getting ready to dig lots and lots and lots of potatoes, to carry us through the rest of the CSA and our winter farmers markets. The burlap sacks are ready, and the yields are looking epic. We’re not quite sure yet where we’ll store them all- a root cellar is one thing our farm is sorely lacking- but we are wanting to get them out of the ground before any major rainfalls, or other crazy acts of nature (who knows what can happen!).

Washing Purple Sun potatoes in the root washer.

The crew spent the afternoon practicing some old fashioned pest control: plucking harlequin bugs off of the brussel sprouts and into cups of soapy water. The brussel sprouts, along with crops like leeks and cauliflower, are a late fall harvest. We are hoping the brussels are ready before the CSA ends, but for now the goal is to keep the bugs from devouring them.

A jungle of leeks.

The fall radishes (watermelon, black, green meat and daikon) are growing wonderfully but present another big task on our horizon. Like fall beets and carrots, these radishes need to be thinned, so each individual seedling has plenty of elbow room. These fall radishes grow to be more like the size of a turnip, very different then your bunched spring radishes.

Newly emerged radish seedlings; radishes under row cover awaiting thinning.

Looking ahead, we will be sending out an SOS for CSA volunteers to help us trim down our garlic and onions. They have been drying on racks (the onions), or in bundles hanging in the barn (the garlic), and are ready to be pruned to a presentable shape. We will email more details of this volunteer opportunity soon.

Sign-up sheets for our harvest festival on October 12th will be in the distribution room next week. We hope you’ll sign-up to bake a pie for our pie bake-off contest, or at least join us to taste and vote! This year we won’t just be giving out the trophy for the popular vote, but we’ll also have a panel of judges casting their vote for the Best Pie. We are also collecting children’s size clothing for scarecrow making. As you clean out your youngsters closets for back to school, keep us in mind. (Long sleeves and long pants preferred, the better to keep the straw in). Thanks!

Post and photos by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner.

22 Aug New skills and a new crop: Sweet Potato Greens

There are a lot of great things about being a farmer, not the least of which is learning something new every single season. There is just no room for boredom if you are actively engaged with the earth. We ask our first year apprentices to keep a monthly list of skills learned. My list continues to grow, even after 14 seasons of farming under my belt.

New farm skills learned, 2013:
– Confidently drive The Big Tractors (including mowing with the bush-hog).
– Change tractor implements with the Jiffy-Hitch system.
– Back up the 14 foot box truck with precision.
– Maneuver and manage a weed-wacker for multiple hours (Not sure that’s a skill I want to own up to very often).
– Trellis field tomatoes on the weave (And I’m not quite sure how I avoided that one all these years!).

A few new managerial and organizational skills learned:
– Two harvest teams with team leaders are the way to go. Goofy team names can’t hurt either.
– Don’t do the next morning’s pick sheets in bed, but do them before dinner, even if that means dinner is at 8:30 pm.
– No matter how much needs to get done, set aside one day a week in summer to have an adventure with my daughter, like take the train to the art museum, sketch books in hand.

Other lessons:
– The value of the work I do is not just in growing food that nourishes bodies, but growing flowers that nourish souls.
– Some of the most fulfilling work for me is not harvesting carefully tended crops (though it is), but providing meaningful work to motivated hard-working high school kids- seeing them grow with us over the years, become part of our farm family, and head off into the world, our lives and theirs richer for the experience.

For the next 14 years there are still skills I strive to achieve:
– Learn to fix the antique Farmall CUB tractors myself.
– Rise early enough to meditate, and not judge when I don’t.
– Find more ways to farm alongside my husband, like we did for the first half of this adventure.
– Remember to say good morning to each person who works here, every single day, and not just say it, but look the person in the eye, and really see them.

But one skill that I find especially exciting is discovering a new crop to harvest from an old favorite. So that brings me to this week’s CSA share, and a new addition- sweet potato greens.

Like the garlic scape that comes from the top of the garlic bulb, by harvesting sweet potato greens we use almost the entire plant- how cool is that? The roots are familiar to all of us, and if you’ve ever seen them growing you know that each plant creates a massive carpet of vining greens on the surface. Tender, bright green, and tasty, the vines are typically turned back into the soil, feeding the earth, not us. Yet, we had heard rumor of other farms harvesting the greens for their CSA members, so we thought we’d give it a try.

We certainly weren’t the first to think of it. The young leaves and vine tips of sweet potatoes are widely consumed as a vegetable in both Africa and Asia. Nutritious with a lovely sweet flavor, they work well cooked quickly, like other tender greens. A simple traditional Filipino sweet potato leaves (or kamote) recipe calls for a 30 second blanch in boiling water. Pour a mixture of lemon juice, ginger, olive oil and soy sauce on the cooked greens and top with diced tomatoes and onions. Serve with white rice.

Let us know what you think, and share your recipes on facebook as you explore this new crop with us!

Post by Tricia Borneman, Blooming Glen farmer and co-owner. Photos by Megan Clymer.