The Farm Kitchen

This will be the last week for Asparagus for farmers market, as it is time to let the patch put up its ferny growth for to gather energy for next spring's production.

We are especially pleased with three Italian additions to our market stand this week: Endive, Escarole, and Broccoli Raab. Endive and Escarole both spring from the same family that brings us lettuce and sunflowers. They have a pleasantly bitter flavor - in the classic, wonderful European sense - and hold up well to bold dressings. Mix with lettuce to cut the bitterness, or try them braised in vinaigrette; especially nice with the fresh taste of garlic greens.

Broccoli Raab actually had less resemblance to broccoli than it does to turnip greens. The sharpness is less sharp than turnip greens, and shares a bitter note with the Endive and Escarole. We especially like it prepared as follows:

Broccoli Raab Pasta
This is also great with Italian sausage pieces added. Cook the meat ahead and toss all together at serving.

1 bunch Broccoli Raab, in 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 small carrots, finely chopped
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 lb pasta (we like Penne)
salt and pepper to taste
Cook the pasta and drain. Heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add garlic and carrots and cook until garlic is golden. Add broccoli raab and cook until the raab is soft, being careful not to overcook (about 3 minutes). Add salt and pepper to taste, and red pepper flakes. Toss with pasta and serve.

Noodles with Peanut and Lime Vinaigrette
1 lb cooked cooled thin spaghetti
2-4 scallions, chopped
Hot red pepper flakes
Roasted peanuts, chopped, save all for garnish
Peanut-Lime Vinaigrette (recipe below)
Toss altogether & garnish with red pepper flakes and peanuts.

Peanut and Lime Vinaigrette
1 T grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped green garlic
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
3 T fresh cilantro
1 1/2 T smooth unsalted peanut butter
3 T fresh lime juice
1 1/2 T rice vinegar
1 1/2 T soy sauce
2/3 cup olive oil
1 T sesame oil
Salt to taste
In a food processor, process everything except the oil. Then slowly drizzle the oil in until emulsified. Scrape into a bowl and wait for half an hour for the flavors to develop.

News from the Farm

Weather: The rain continues, mostly of the Keeps the Farmer Awake All Night variety. We did get a day and a half in the field, seeding sweet corn, beans, carrots, dill, cilantro, and salad greens, mowing the flowering rye, tilling fields for the next dry spot, and laying black plastic to warm the soil under our tomatoes and peppers, which are anxious to go out.

Comings and Goings: Zane’s last day as a freshman in high school came on Tuesday, so he has joined our crew officially for the summer. Isabel is home full time now, since her preschool has finished for the year. Oliver is closing in on finishing his online studies.

Activities on the Farm: We snuck in some field work during a titch of dry weather. The crew pruned the tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse, potted up various herbs in the greenhouse for sale and production, hand-hoed the onions, cut back the flowering chives, and picked and packed good veggies for farmers market and wholesale deliveries.

The Names of Rain

If Eskimos have a hundred names for snow, we farmers have at least that many names for rain. Days without rain are just that – days without rain. They don’t vary a whole lot, so we only reserve a few names for those: Good Drying Weather is our name for sunny, windy conditions after a rain, when we want to get back in the field; Too Dry is how we feel about things when we should be irrigating. Perhaps if dry weather had a greater impact on our lives, we would see it differently, but in dry weather, we generally just go about our business.

But rain is a different creature altogether. Because we plant, weed, and harvest every week from April through October, wet weather runs counter to the rhythms we try to establish on the vegetable farm.

Rain comes in a myriad of different forms, with results from blessed to disastrous. Gully Washers tend to roll in with tornado warnings and high winds, dumping inches of rain in a short time (an inch of rain, falling on an acre, equals about 27,000 gallons of water, or about 800 showers) and generally making a mess of things; the impact of the large, high-velocity drops shatters exposed soil particles, liberating them to flow along with the excess water that doesn’t soak into the soil. Keeps the Farmer Awake All Night Rain usually doesn’t have the violent intensity of a Gully Washer, but provides enough noise and action to create the sort of worry and anxiety that makes a farmer turn to Moby Dick and a booklight to keep the demons down.

A related rain comes in the form of Rain that Blows in the Open Peak Vent. These rains happen during warm weather, normally accompanied by a warm front. Our passively-vented greenhouses have thermostatically controlled vents at the peak, and a heavy rain with wind from the east sends us scurrying from any location on the farm to override the controls and close the peak, thereby keeping things dry, although we typically get soaked on our way to and from the greenhouse.

The worst rain of all comes in the form of Bouncing Rain, when the raindrops turn from liquid to ice. Nothing strikes more terror into the vegetable farmer’s heart.

Then there is the rain that comes when we’ve had too much rain already, and haven’t been able to do our field work. I can’t print That Name here, for fear of offending my readers’ tender ears.

Occasionally rain will settle in gently, misting down around us as we harvest lettuce or salad greens outdoors, not providing enough rain to muck things up, but keeping things moist and out of the sun. We call this a Sunny Day in Seattle.

With a little more moisture, a Sunny Day in Seattle turns into a Soaking Rain, coming slowly enough over a long enough period of time to continuously soak down into the soil, getting deep down but never running off. A Soaking Rain usually inspires us to get some office work done, sipping coffee, catching a nap under a blanket. When it comes after a long spell of dry weather, or when the field work is caught up – the cover crops tilled in, carrots seeded, crops weeded a day before so that the weeds have time to wilt in the sun – a Soaking Rain turns into the Perfect Rain, and the whole farm – people, plants, sheep – all breathe a deep sigh of relief. At night, the Perfect Rain becomes Rain that Lets the Farmer Sleep Deeply, knowing that the good work is done, and that tomorrow brings rest because the fields will be drinking deeply.