Hello OT blog readers!  Did you stay warm today?  It was down right cold this morning, beautiful and clear, but cold.  As you can see from the photo above when I went to check the rain gauge and pour it out, 1.25 inches of rain fell out rather than poured out.  Even at 10 a.m. the ground around the carrots was still frozen and there were little patches of frost dotting the parsley bed.  Some larger parsley leaves were shading out the smaller leaves and weren't letting the frost thaw in the sun, but Josh's method of harvesting the sun-blockers first and allowing the next leaves to thaw out in a kind of chain reaction worked quite well for him.  It also helps that the variety of parsley we grow, "Einfache Schnitt", is supposed to be a bit more frost tolerant than others.  Other than that, with the chicories still nice and cozy under their Remay covers all we had to do was wait a little while for the carrot bed to thaw out and we were back in the barn to wash and pack in no time. 

While washing today, I've never been so thankful for waterproof gloves.  Dunking and spraying produce gets you wet almost no matter what, but with a quality pair of rubber gloves the level of how much you actually care about it drops dramatically.  Dry, and hopefully warm, hands (and feet) are key to happy working.  That's why our wash table has an awesome splash guard too that doesn't allow any water to end up down your boots.  But, even with all that, numb fingers seemed to be inevitable today.  I tried to keep moving as much as possible and that seemed to work well.  While Karen and Forrest finished packing and washing up, Josh and I moved all of our greenhouse tables from the greenhouse into the barn so the greenhouse can be disassembled and moved across the farm sometime in the near future.  I founding myself stripping off my outermost layer after moving table number 2 out of 11.  It was worth it to get out of the barn and warm up, and now with the tables gone it looks like there are two gardens in the greenhouse: Paul's, and one enitrely made of weeds where the tables had been and they were able to take over.  It looked kind of funny to see the well manicured garden neatly separated from the weed sprawl by the bare ground where we would walk.  It feels like we just put those tables in there and worked so hard to get them nice and level.  I guess we'll just have to do it again. 

Not too much else to report on, we sold a bunch of our delicata squash to Green Zebra Grocery on North Lombard this week.  We plan to have an ongoing relationship with them so you should go check 'em out if you're ever in that area, they're doing cool stuff.  I also took this bonus photo of something in the field that Forrest discovered, Josh explained, and I looked up further.  It's called "needle ice" or "frost pillars" and they're created when the ground temperature is above freezing and the air temperature is below freezing.  Moisture is pulled up to the surface through capillary action, and as the water slowly oozes out of the soil it freezes and grows into needle-like structures that push up soil particles.  Pretty neat eh?!

Have a hot chocolate on me.
Til' next time,

Louis

A simple share today with a few herbs, perfect for Thanksgiving preparations, if they last that long. Also in the share are carrots, a few of which are truly giant, and a big head of frisee. 

The herbs in the share this week are thyme and parsley. Thyme is a great addition to any kind of stuffing, gravy, root roast or stew. I use parsley, chopped, when sautéing pretty much any vegetable to add flavor. It also goes well in stuffings and stews. 

Frisee is another in our selection of chicories. It makes a great salad by itself or with other greens, and like the other chicories it holds up well to heat and is frequently cooked in one way or another. The slight bitter pairs well with strong dressings, typically lemony, salty, or fatty. One trick with using any of the chicories in a raw salad is to chop the leaves after cleaning them and then soak them in very cold, or ice water for 5-30 minutes (depending on how patient you are). This crisps them up emphasizing the sweet crunchiness, and reducing any bitter flavors.

Today's carrot is once again the Juane du Doubs which is an open pollenated variety from France. We get the seed from an Italian seed company which typically has excellent quality seed. This is the first time I've seen so many pale, nearly white carrots in this variety. I'm not sure if it's our soil or something to do with the seed lot we got. The flavor has been excellent though so I'm not complaining. Some of the carrots we pulled today were enormous, as big as I've ever seen. I think they'll still be very good eating, the size simply coming from a bit of extra fertility we added to the beds combined with good spacing between the roots. As shown below Karen and Louis were inspired by the carrots today and got a bit silly in the packing shed.

Hello Our Table supporters!!  It was a big planning day on the farm today, the Ouija Board was consulted and the future of Our Table has been decided...if only it were that easy, right?  Unfortunately, no spirits were actually called upon today (except maybe the spirits of "let's stay on track here" and "enough chit chat"), but we did spend all morning talking about the specifics of next year's operations and what we need to accomplish in order to make it a smooth and successful year.  Everybody enthusiastically took on new projects to begin working on ASAP, and though it seems like we may have our hands full, it's like having our hands full of big delicious blueberries that we're going to gobble up before we go and take another handful.  The whole Our Table crew really rallies around the work we do and the food we grow, so adding on more responsibilities only gets us excited about being able to bring more good stuff to your community!!  Here's to 2014!!

As for harvest it was a pretty straightforward day.  The temperature seemed to drop between the time we started the morning meeting and when we finished and went out to the field.  But, that might just be because we were pampered by the newly finished HEATED office where we held the meeting.  Anyways, I've really been enjoying the fall veggies so far.  I used to be a chicory skeptic, but I have just been devouring the stuff, especially the Cornet escarole from last week.  Simply sauteed in oil with a little salt, maybe a chopped leek, and you can't go wrong.  I'm excited to try my hand with the Sugarloaf from this weeks share. Josh's way of roasting the halves sounds like a winner to me. 

We made good time packing up the shares today too, so good in fact that we ate our homemade lunches in the barn and then went off into downtown Sherwood for a second lunch at the restaurant Da Mimmo on SW Railroad St.  We're planning on supplying them with a bunch of our goodies through the 2014 season so we figured we'd check 'em out and have a chat to see what they'd like us to grow for them.  First of all, the food was incredible: authentic Italian cooked by an authentic Italian.  Mimmo and his wife came and sat with us for a bit to talk produce ("Mama mia!"'s and flying expressive hand gestures included), but we also got to see them as a family dedicated to the same principles as Our Table: great food, and a community standing (eating) together.  Most, if not all of the produce and meat that they cook with is local, or at least regional, and the passion they cultivate for their cuisine and for feeding their neighbors is almost enough on it's own to fill your stomach...That is until they put a meatball and provolone sandwich in front of you and then you suddenly have room.  But, it's places like Da Mimmo and Our Table that really rely on that direct community support in order to thrive.  Things like keeping resources within the community are a big part of what Our Table is all about, and finding partners like Da Mimmo to join with in the cause makes fighting for it a little less daunting.

'Til next time.

Lou

Some exciting new items in this week's shares: sugarloaf and leek. Collards and sage round out the share, but those have been in the bags earlier in the season so I'm not quite as excited about them.

Sugarloaf is in the larger chicory family. It's a nice tight head of blonde leaves, which are very sweet when the cold weather kicks in. The leaves make good fresh salads, but they can also be cooked. One of my favorite preparations is to slice the head in half length wise, drizzle with olive oil and then roast the halves until the core is tender. A sprinkle of coarse salt to finish and you have a quick to prepare, warming vegetable side.

Leeks are, or at least should be a fall and winter kitchen staple. They are tasty as an onion substitute, and they can be prepared on their own exactly as I describe roasting the chicory. I also really like leeks in baked goods like bread or biscuits. Soil tends to make its way between the leaves so make sure to clean them well. It is easiest to first cut them in half length wise and then gently separate the leaves while running them under a stream of water. This also makes flat sides that facilitates chopping after they've been cleaned.

We should have more of all of these vegetables over the next few months so you'll see them in the rotation later this fall and winter.

Josh

Hello blog readers!  Remember when I said our pepper plants have turned into black mushy piles?  Well, our cucumbers and tomatoes, unfortunately, are no exception (save for the bit of twine supporting their rotten stems).  We were lucky enough to have the sun come out for a little while after lunch and warm us up so we could start to take down their trellising bit by bit (see above for a Karen and Forrest action shot).

Harvest was cold, wet, and windy this morning, though.  But that didn't stop us from getting all your tasty, muddy vegetables out of the ground and to your drop sites on time, without the mud of course.  Josh even said on his bike ride to the farm today (yes, he still rides when the weather turns ugly) that the head wind was so bad that when he went to pedal again after stopping at a light he couldn't even move forward against it.  What a trooper!  I'm hoping that that was the worst of it for him today and he had a nice tail wind on his way home instead. 

We've got each others' backs here at Our Table when it comes to inclement weather.  Gianna was nice enough to require our presence at an INDOOR meeting today between lunching and de-trellising to talk logistics.  We were able to keep her talking just long enough to warm up before we had to get back to work outside.  I think she figured out our ulterior motives, though, halfway through, but chose to play along.  Thanks Gianna!  She also set Karen and I up with a nice warm (and also indoor) booth at an Intel wellness fair this past Tuesday for all the Aloha Intel employees.  Everyone was so nice and welcoming, and it was a lot of fun educating people about all the things going on at Our Table, and about CSA's in general.  People seemed very receptive and supportive, and hopefully the OT word will keep spreading around the world! 

But, as for my words...I think I'm just about out, so I'll keep this post short and leave you with this little beacon of summer:

Can you believe that's the same trellising?  Why can't it be summer forever? 
Talk to you next week!

Louis

Hello everyone, this post works well as a follow up for the post that Josh made earlier this week about the Fall preps we applied to the fields on Monday.  It made for quite a fun and funny time for all of us as Josh hinted at, especially because we're pretty sure a mapping helicopter was flying over and taking pictures at the time...The picture above gives you a better look at how we spaced ourselves when we walked across the fields flinging our boughs of Cedar.  Only 4 gallons of mixed prep was applied per acre, and within that only about 1/3 of a cup of actual stuff/prep/magic per acre was added to the water.  So, 8 of us each with a 1/2 gallon of prep could cover an acre in just a couple passes of flinging. 

The picture below shows how the prep material (basically compost) was mixed with the water as it was oxygenated.  The apparatus we used is made to simulate the action of a brook or a stream because those are the forces of nature that can oxygenate water like nobody's business, but this thing comes in at a close second.  Where Narendra is pointing is the spot at which two vortices created by the shape of the tub collide, mix the air and water together, and then fall through to the next level.  We let this baby work it's magic for an hour before we brought it all out to the fields and applied it.  Like the great Willy Wonka once said, "The chocolate has to be mixed by waterfall."  But, in this case, the chocolate is manure that's been composting underground for a year.

As for the purpose of this application/ritual, I'm sure that within that little bit of compost there were billions of tasty bacteria and microorganisms just waiting to be given a nice bath and some oxygen to eat.  And, now that they're in the fields they'll work as an awesome inoculant for the soil where they'll continue to grow and act as our plants' immune system.  They'll fight against the bad microorganisms so we don't have to with chemicals and other nasty methods.  But, along with this great physical benefit, it also made us come together as a group and slowly walk our brand new fields, look down at the soil, see all the great weeds and cover crop coming up, look up at Mt. Hood...If that's not good for the fields and for ourselves individually and as a group, then I don't know what is. It made for a great group activity to cap off another beautiful day. 

Well, that was Monday, as for today not much to tell except it was beautiful, harvest was a foggy breeze, and Josh busted out his old mix tapes to play on the boombox while we washed veggies in the barn.  Let's just say washing lettuce to The DOC and Dr. Dre is way better than listening to whatever is on OPB.  That's it for now, enjoy the last few days of second summer.  Talk to you next week!

Louis