Ahoy!

Today was my last delivery to St. Luke’s for the season. It feels crazy to think that the season is winding down, but here we are.

In that frantic race to the end, I forgot a very important e-mail: Meagan’s post about her delicious, beautiful tomato tarts! So if you salvaged your tomatoes before this past weekend’s frost, there is a phenomenal use for them at the end of this post.

In other news, WE ARE HAVING A SHOVELING PARTY! Who’s excited? Anyone?! Well, I am. Crooked Row and some delightful supporters from Northampton Community College, plus any of you folks who read this and are feeling motivated, are teaming up this Sunday to dig some permanent raised beds!

Help us save some microbiology from tractoring! Help us control weed pressure and grow higher yields in the forthcoming seasons! Come get dirty and eat some farm food with us! See below for details, and share with your team.

Remember, BYOS – Bring Your Own Shovel (if you can). And gloves, if you want to protect your hands!

Contact me at liz.m.wagner@gmail.com if you have any questions, or want to get involved! I’m thinking pumpkin soup and frittata. Get excited.

And now, what you are waiting for – RECIPES!

Meagan’s Tomato Tart!

I have a confession: I’m a bit of a mess in the summer time. I get so wholly consumed with almost anything and everything. I make the best, most well-intentioned plans only to have them slip my mind and go unfulfilled. I did notice something recently about myself, though. Something I live for during the summertime, more than anything else: The moment I can turn on my oven without it adding to the deadening heat outside (which is also inside), to fill my home with the aromas of intense, flavorful foods without skirting away from actually having to eat hot food. In short, I live for the moment the seasons begin to change, especially the coming of fall. I love the colder nights during late summer, as well. I think it gives us a chance to relish in the flavors and aromas of summer– for instance, this tomato tart, my final ode to summer with a celebration of quite possibly one of the best parts of late summer and early fall: root vegetables. This is a traditional tomato pie, like the ones I grew up with in Tennessee, not an Italian-inspired tomato pie.I hope you enjoy it–I think its blend of nuts, root vegetables, and the last of summer’s tomatoes will be irresistible in the low 60s of September.

For the filling:
2 carrots, cleaned
2 cloves dry-roasted garlic
2 large starchy yellow potatoes (peeled)
½ cup walnuts or pecans, soaked for at least 3 hours
2 tsp salt
⅓ cup or more vegetable broth, for blending
1 tbsp olive oil Choose a low-sodium broth or make your own!
optional ¼ nutritional yeast

For the dough:
1 ½ cup all purpose flour
¼ +2tbsp olive oil
a big glass of iced water
1 tsp salt
optional: fresh herbs (recommended: sage, rosemary, thyme, or dill), no more than 2-3 tsp
You will also need 2 large, amazingly ripe tomatoes. Try to choose varieties with lots of flavors and colors!

Preheat oven to 350F
If making crust, sift the flour and salt into a bowl, make a well and drizzle in the oil and herbs. Mix until it looks sandy or clumpy.

Slowly add water and mix until it starts to ball up. This won’t be as delicate as a fruit pie dough, but don’t over-mix it!

Once it is balled up, turn out onto a floured surface and knead very gently until it looks cohesive. Cover, refrigerate and let rest about 10 mintutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling:

Chop potatoes and carrots into even pieces, place into a pot of water and boil until tender. Strain potatoes/carrots, then strain the nuts. Place everything in a blender and blend until creamy. Set aside.

Roll out dough to fit tart pan or pie dish. This should be enough for one crust. Cover the surface of the crust with a piece of wax paper and either beans or pie weights, and blind bake for about 10 minutes. If you’re using phyllo dough for this, you can skip ahead.

After the crust is ready, fill with the filling and top with large ⅓-½ inch pieces of tomatoes. Sprinkle with olive oil and salt if you wish, but that’s not necessary. You could alternatively crush up fresh nuts and place them between the filling and the tomatoes. Slightly press the tomatoes into the filling, bake until tomatoes are nice and roasted, about 25-35 minutes.

Allow to rest at least 30 minutes before eating.

If you would like to make a gluten free crust, I suggest mixing coconut flour, crushed walnuts or pecans, buckwheat or rice flour (1:1 with coconut flour), salt, and olive oil to make a cohesive crust similar to a graham cracker crust. I’ve not worked much with gluten free crusts, but I think these ingredients would make a great one!

Hugs and Kale,

Liz

This is one of those moments that just floors me.

Almost half a year ago my friend Gina and I were talking about writing, and I was expressing some frustration at wanting to write again, but not being sure what to write about. She recommended that I write about farming (and she has, for her efforts, been pushing me in this direction for well over a year now). I was hesitant – I’m not experienced enough,  I still don’t really know what I’m doing, there are a gazillion other farmers, solo ladies or otherwise, who should be writing this book instead of me.

I have become a master of excuses over time. I could go on like this for days.

But when I sat down at my computer and started to outline what such a guidebook would look like, everything started to flow. I was astounded. Even though most of me felt like I’ve been spearheading this big hoax where my world thinks I’ve gone on to run this badass farm, the small part of me that knows this is actually true reared up and took over. Things that have been floating around in my brain since 2012 made their way onto the pages, and suddenly I was spending my spring mornings up at 5am, typing away at the desk in Little House and still fielding that half-surprise that I had something to say.

One day, sometime in June, I finished. And then I hid it.

I was embarrassed, for all the aforementioned reasons. I was self conscious. Liz the writer girl in high school and Liz the journalism girl in college wasn’t Liz the farm girl as a pseudo-adult, right? That ship, which may have been sinking before it even set sail to begin with, was way out to sea. It was good to get this writing bug out of my system, but that was as far as it was worth taking it.

And so I went into the farm season, where everything is swallowed by the mad dash. There were a couple of moments where I mentioned writing a little field manual to some friends, a couple of e-mails shot off here and there, but that was all.

And then, sometime in the last month, I started to think that maybe this wasn’t all. That maybe, if someone out there was interested in starting a farm and had no idea where to begin, that this could help. Or, at the very least, they could learn from my haphazard experiences and see that you don’t have to have a totally orchestrated plan to jump into this and do well. It helps – I know a dozen farm friends off the top of my head who are more organized than I am, and who have beautiful, fruitful spreads that make me look a mess – but everyone’s path is their own, and yours can be as messy (or messier?) than mine. Certainly less messy, if you’re looking for less stress.

So I started to edit. I coerced my dear darling Liv Biagi, who was my editor co-pilot for our college paper back in the day, to give me a thorough look. I started to tell the people around me I was working on a book. I slapped together a cover. I held my breath, crossed my fingers, stopped trying to read it AGAIN for spelling errors and used the advice from my friend Kayla, an amazing woman from Francesca Lia Block‘s spring writing class, to publish it as an eBook.

So here it is. Solo Lady Farming: A Dozen Considerations for the Would-Be Farmer. Book One of the Solo Lady Series may be a little facetious, but I liked the top line saying that – and who knows? I have really cool solo lady friends who are designing and building their own houses and traveling for months in other countries. Maybe they’ll be the next to contribute to this collaboration of strong women doing cool things. I hope so. It feels right.

Back to being floored. I wrote a book!

It has taken me the better part of six months to stop feeling self conscious and a little embarrassed when I say that. Who am I to have written anything? A girl who started a farm, that’s who. In getting past the hangups of self worth, really feeling that has been a big step. One that I’m proud of. And one that leaves me reeling with gratitude for my CSAers,who believe in all of this enough to share their trust and financial resources with me each season, and for my family and friends who didn’t laugh when I said, “I’m writing a little manual for people who might want to do what I did,” and for everyone who reminds me when I’m floundering or down that I’m awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Yours in Word Docs, Fall Chills and Field Planning,

Liz

This post has been hanging out in the queue for a few weeks now, and my negligent, distracted farm self has been failing to publish.

A special thanks, as always, to my food bloggers, and especially to Sarah, Nico, Joe, Alecia and all the other CSAers and Crooked Row friends who have continually sent me uplifting and empowering food notes while I run around panicking and praying for rain. I don’t know if you know how amazing you are, or how truly touched I am by all of your support and sentiment. Thank you, thank you. I’m off to weed and rain dance some more. On to the main event! – FL

Guest Post by Sarah Merusi Danyau

I recently received a large bunch of cabbage from Liz in the food share and cabbage can be overwhelming. I think back to the days where I hated anything to do with cabbage and now realize that was a crazy idea. Cabbage is awesome and so is cole-slaw when done right.

The first time I ever had incredible cole-slaw was in a tea-house in Nepal. Secluded in the Himalayas along a trail was this guest house called the High Plains Inn. It was owned by a Dutch mountaineer and his Nepali wife – they made all of their food from scratch. After trekking for weeks eating only Dal Bhat and other native Nepali foods, to see homemade cole slaw and freshly baked bread on a menu was mind-blowing and it tasted that way too. I have been meaning to recreate this recipe for years and as you can imagine, was all too excited to see cabbage arrive in my CSA.

Hanging out in the Himalayan Tea House, waiting for cole slaw and espresso.

This is not your typical cole-slaw, but it’s delicious so give it a try!

Ingredients: ( *From Crooked Row Farm)
– *1 Head of Cabbage
– 2 Carrots
– 1 cup Mayonnaise
– 1 Tbs. Balsamic Vinegar
– 1 Pinch of Sea Salt
– *1/4 tsp. dried thyme
– *1 Garlic Scape
– *1 small onion (or 1/4 of a large onion)

Instruction:

– Chop cabbage

– Dice or Julienne Carrots (I prefer mine diced), Chop Onions, Garlic Scapes and mix

– In a separate bowl combine the mayonnaise, balsamic vinegar, thyme, and salt

– Add liquid ingredients to the vegetables and mix

– Pair with Fresh Juice & Tequila and enjoy! ; )

We made it through July!

The silence on the blog always indicates the summer heat, the running around like mad and the onset of some degree of panic. I’m happy to say that panic has been less than in previous years (which hopefully means it dissolves entirely at some point), but the weeds keep growing no matter how I feel and the plants still need their regular TLC.

Crooked Row has had an interesting little summer. Mama Wagner hasn’t been in the field in over a month due to that rolled ankle, though she’s graduated from her big foamy boot to compression socks and hiking boots. She’s been flustered at her lack of field time and her paced recovery, but we’re just happy she’s getting better each day.

In the mean time, I’ve had a revolving cast of characters stop in to help with various projects. My Tuesday market manager from Farm to City spent the day cleaning out beds, two friends I’ve known since pre-school have made semi-regular appearances to weed for a couple hours at a shot, some city friends have been regularly saving this blog with their amazing recipes and photos, and this delightful Kombucha brewer and farmer from Bethlehem has planted dozens of beets and winter squash in the field over the last few weeks, and along with piles of vegetable cooking, intense and sparkly conversations, assorted off-farm adventures and mutual admiration, he’s become a well-loved and much-appreciated presence in my world.

My aunt and cousins, along with a new friend from a nearby work program, stopped  in for a day of garlic harvest. Things that would have taken me a couple of days were wrapped up in a morning, and the boxes and piles of garlic hanging in the back barn are one of the biggest victories of the summer.

Jess Wagner stepped in as MVP last week by delivering CSA shares to my Philly crowd! That saved trip allowed me some time to start some big fall prep. And I got to take her to meet the chickens and piglets at Willow Haven Farm, much to my delight.     

The puppies do what they can to assist, too. Arya has moved in as Mom’s sub, parking herself in the Bobcat and patrolling the fields for afternoons at a shot while I weed and harvest. She’s taken to pretty much every vegetable she’s tried, and can often be found hopping in and out of the hedgerows. 

But there’s always room for adaption and change within a season, and this was a big one for me. I left the Rittenhouse Tuesday market a few weeks ago – I needed more time to not be rushing around the city so manically before and after that market delivering shares, and the extra time and space that afforded me allowed me to consider life without any markets. There’s some nerves associated with that – after all, I left Keith’s sure I wanted to be a city market farmer, and that’s mostly all I’ve known for the last two seasons, but with my growing CSA, the evolving herb business and my growing life, suddenly being closer to home feels like a priority. And, maybe even more importantly, it feels right.

This week I said goodbye to my East Falls market – at least for a few weeks. I don’t have enough of a variety to support a market and my CSA right now – which may have been poor planning on my part, but really I feel is a solid sign that I’m growing in positive directions. Everyone involved has been supportive and empathetic to such growing pains for a new farmer, and I think come fall my return will be well-met once I’ve regrouped.

And this break will allow me to focus on some other avenues of the fields I’ve been thinking about. A local permaculturist came to the farm a few weeks ago and we walked around for an afternoon, thinking about some growing methods I could shift to over time that involve less human direction. Fruit and nut trees, meadows, perennials. I’ve also started to take a hard look at the dried tea blends and herbs, considering how big of a presence I want them to be in the farm, and I sat down with a packaging company out of Kutztown to talk about labels and branding. Ah!

I’m trying to find that farm/life balance some seem to strive for and some seem to totally throw in the towel on once summer hits. It’s a lot of work during the season, sure, but don’t I get to read a book or take a nap once in a while? Do I get a day to travel? An afternoon to go to a meditation? I thought “no” for a few years – others farmers I know scoff at the idea of time off, and my ego seemed to thrive on feeling and looking exhausted every day – but that perspective is changing. I’m learning to work at an even pace and listen to an audio book in the field. I’m learning to walk away, even if just for an hour, when the brain fog sets in. And I’m learning to work smarter, not harder, though this is regularly a skill that takes me some time to absorb.

The field is a beautiful space to learn, grow and share. I hope those of you that have eaten this food and seen the work know how loved you are for supporting this wild endeavor. And for those of you who can’t, or haven’t, know that the good vibes you send in my direction are always appreciated and taken in, and that I’m sending them right back out through the ground every day.

Here’s to August, and these cool mornings and evenings. Here’s to sun, rain and green.

-Liz

There it is again. That lull in the blog that signifies July has approached and arrived.

Our veggies are thriving (even the ones amidst the weeds), and our perennial herb beds are just so, so happy. It’s been so lovely to have such positive feedback from CSA returners and new folks. Lots of positive vibes, lots of indicators that each year is getting better as far as our organization and the growing as a whole. Super. Stoked.

But challenges arise, as they do. Last week Mama Wagner and I were picking berries and she rolled her ankle in a groundhog hole – hairline fracture, in a boot for six weeks. She is taking it like a champ and has become thoroughly adept at using a rolly chair to get around the house (how I wanted to have a photo here, but she adamantly refused), but without my full-time Greenhouse Visionary and Field Co-Pilot, it’s been hard to tackle the harvest and manage the weed pressure. But I’ve had some awesome friends and volunteers stop by over the last couple weeks to help out, and looks like some more are heading out. So thank you for the good energy and all the help, all of you.

There he is, ladies and gent. Mista LaVergne, farmhand, cook and poet extraordinaire.

Even before this added development, I was fortunate to snag some BoyHouse reunion time (circle back to the 2012 segment of this blog, for those of you unfamiliar with that name), and Matthew came up to stay for a couple nights and string tomatoes, weed, dig potatoes, pick for the CSA, cook delicious, amazing food and reminisce about Keith’s Farm. The feeling of having someone in the field who knows what they are doing to this extent was so…relieving. Reassuring. Exciting. For the first time in about ever, I started to consider what it might feel like to not be Solo Lady Farming on the regular.

The pallet garden at the Student Leadership Academy Charter School is growing like wild. We pulled out the bolted spinach and look forward to putting in some ground cherries and more unusual growers for the kids to return to.

And I try out a little transition of my own. I’m trying to steer my weekday market toward the end goal, which is Crooked Row: CSA and Herb Farm. We’re bumping up the teas and herbs at Rittenhouse, and I’m hoping to have a little Herbology flyer to hand out for folks who don’t know exactly how to use fresh herbs.

In most exciting news, my friend and market regular Adam Zolkover (of the Twice Cooked blog, which I highly recommend), has created this really spectacular Scape-based Kimchi Recipe for you to check out. The scapes are big and just about finished, but this may inspire you to grab the last of the lot. It’s here below, and in our Crooked Recipes section!

Kimchi with Garlic Scapes – by Adam D. Zolkover

3 Small heads Napa Cabbage, cut into squares
1 bunch Garlic Scapes, washed and sliced
1 bunch Scallions, washed and chopped
1 inch Ginger, peeled
3 Cloves of Garlic, peeled
1/2 cup Korean Red Pepper Powder
1/2 cup Fish Sauce
1/4 cup Kosher Salt
2 tsp Granulated Sugar

Core the napa cabbage, cut it into squares, and then wash thoroughly.  It tends to collect a fair amount of dirt, and you don’t necessarily want that in your ferment.

To a large bowl, add the cabbage and the salt.  Toss, and then leave it for 1-2 hours.  Over that time, you’ll see that the cabbage gives up a fair amount of water and begins to wilt.  You want this.  It will keep the kimchi crunchy later.

While the cabbage is wilting, add the ginger and garlic to a food processor and chop finely.  Then add the pepper powder, fish sauce and ganulated sugar and blend the whole thing into a paste.

When the cabbage is done, rince off all the salt and add it to a large bowl with the scapes and the scallions.  Add the spice paste and mix the whole thing well, making sure that the vegetables are all thoroughy covered.

Carefully pack the mixture into clean glass jars, cover them loosely (I like plastic tops, screwed on half way), and allow the kimchi to ferment in relative darkness for four to five days (until it has soured to your taste) and then move to the refrigerator.  This recipe should make 1-2 quarts.

When loading the jars, I would recommend packing them tightly but not all the way to the top.  Tight packing will prevent mold, and leaving some headroom will prevent spillage as the kimchi ferments.  I would also recommend stirring and compacting your kimchi at least once a day.

It looks like this recipe calls for an awful lot of pepper powder, but it’s not actually that hot.  I would strongly recommend not reducing it.

And there you have it, folks! One of the rarely-sighted July updates! I’ll try for more soon, but no promises.

Hugs and Rainy Harvests,

Liz