In Kim's Kitchen

Greenhouse cucumbers surged into production on the farm this week. Once upon a time, we grew normal outdoor cucumbers, but we were so infatuated with the greenhouse type that the outdoor cukes simply got left in the field. Indoors, we grow a gynoecious, parthenocarpic cucumber with a very thin skin. Normal cucumber plants, like most everything in the melon family (cucumbers, squash, zucchini, melons, watermelons), have both male and female flowers, and require pollination to set fruit. Our variety has been bred to produce only female flowers, and has the ability to set fruit without pollination, meaning we never have seedy cucumbers. And, because we grow them inside, they don’t need the thick protective skin normally found on cucumbers, so you can just slice them and use them with no preparation at all. Unlike the kind you usually see plastic-wrapped in the grocery store, we grow our cucumbers in the soil, which gives them a fantastic flavor. Sliced and served sprinkled with sea salt (we’ve been using a red Hawaiian salt for dramatic color), it is hard to beat these cucumbers for summer time simplicity and flavor.

Cilantro consumption is recommended in the Ayurvedic tradition for coping with hot weather. We enjoy its pungency in fresh salsa and as a pesto, blended with olive oil and lime juice.

Cucumber Cilantro Salsa

1 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 cups cubed cucumber
1 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup cilantro
Combine feta cheese, lemon juice and pepper; partially smash with a fork. Add cucumber, onion, and cilantro. Serve with pita bread and lemon wedges.

Bunched Mini Red Onions are basically what the name implies, small red onions that you can use just like a large red onion. In general onion terms, these have a milder flavor than a standard yellow onion. The greens have a nice flavor as well, although they lack the tenderness of a scallion.

Pouring over seed catalogs in the winter, Green Leaf Lettuce never seems like something to get excited about, but seeing a crop of these dark green beautiful heads filling a field and tasting the sweet, succulent leaves, I realize that the basics do really have something going for them.

With a licorice sent and a fleshy white bulb, Fennel features prominently in Mediterranean cooking. My favorite treatments are the simplest: quarter the bulb, coat with olive oil, and grill; or shave thinly and serve with prosciutto ham. Sliced thinly, the stems also make a nice addition to salads and sandwiches.

Greens and Fennel Salad

1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp stone-ground mustard
1 mini-onion, minced
Salt and pepper
Leaf lettuce
1 fennel bulb, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
In a large bowl, mix 1/4 cup of the oil with the lemon juice, mustard, and onion. Season with salt and pepper, toss with the lettuce and fennel slices, and serve.

The ancient Greeks told the story of how Hades, god of the Underworld, fell in love with the water nymph Minthe, for even the charms of his wife, Persephone—whom we have to thank for the changing of the seasons—could keep him fully occupied. In what seems to be an all-too-familiar theme in the Greek pantheon, Hades succumbed to temptation but failed to keep it hidden from his wife, who, upon learning of the illicit activities, decided to take revenge on her husband’s mistress, and began stomping, kicking, and trampling all over the poor water nymph. Hades, in a rather sorry attempt to stick up for his lover, gave Minthe a wonderful sweet fragrance that was released each time Persephone gave her the boot. What a gentleman.

So, it is thanks to the rather ungallant actions of the god of the Underworld, we have the delightful smell and flavor of a whole variety of mints, all of which grow quite nicely even if you walk on them a lot. Please don’t walk on the Peppermint in your box. Peppermint leaves have a greenish-purple hue, and a vaguely pointy shape, while spearmint leaves are rounder and have a little more grey in their coloration. We prefer peppermint in sweeter settings, reserving spearmint for more savory uses.

Refreshing Fennel Strawberry Salad with Peppermint

1 fennel bulb, sliced thin
1/8 cup fresh onion, chopped
1 Pint Strawberries, cut in half
1 Tablespoon peppermint, chopped
salt
Toss all ingredients together in a bowl. Add just a titch of salt to bring out the sweetness of the berries and mint. Chill for half hour, and serve.

In this season between the last of the garlic greens and the first of the fresh garlic bulbs, Garlic Scapes, the immature flower stalk of the garlic crop, provide a fresh source of garlic flavor. Some stalks will be tender enough to use raw, but we generally use them in cooked dishes.

Sauté of Garlic Scapes

1 bunch garlic scapes
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Trim the scapes and remove the seed pods. Cut into two-inch lengths. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the scapes and the onions and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, until the scapes are crisp-tender. Uncover and season with salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar.

Two-Wheeled Ferrari

We got a new Ferrari this week. Except it’s blue and only has two wheels, and the nameplate says BCS. But it did come out of a Ferrari factory.

For years now, we have relied on our BCS two-wheeled tractors (like your average backyard tiller, but with the ability to power more than just a tiller) for tillage in the greenhouses and to mow the mile or so of electric fenceline we maintain on the farm to keep sheep in and deer out, but the two gasoline-powered tractors we’ve been running (one purchased new in 2003, the other picked up in a sweetheart deal when friends moved to Hawaii) have probably resulted in more cussing than productivity. Still, the size and mobility were right, and we could do jobs with these two-wheeled tractors that we simply couldn’t do with our four-wheeled model.

Finally fed up, on Monday Chris and Kim left work early to drive to Hanson Mower in Redwing to trade in the two troublemakers for a new diesel version. We left the kids at home so it was almost like a romantic outing. We returned home with a working tractor and a wagon to hitch to it, to boot. We promptly put the new unit to work with some much needed desperation mowing, and by noon on Tuesday some of the ragged corners of the farm were looking much better.

When we traveled to Italy in the fall of 2004, we saw entire farms run on no more horsepower than we hauled home in the back of our Sprinter delivery van on Monday. Matching equipment to our scale is truly one of the biggest challenges on our farm. With about twenty acres under the plow, we have too much land to manage with something like a walking tractor, but not enough to use the kind of machinery our row crop neighbors have. Add to that our greenhouses—too small for a four-wheeled tractor—and our short row bed system, and we have to work hard to find appropriate machinery to make our work as productive as possible. The Europeans, with a more recent history of small farms and local agriculture, put out some great tools, and we piece the rest together.

At the beginning of Rock Spring Farm, we would drive our minivan to town to fill up a dozen or so plastic gas cans with gasoline. Kim called it our mobile Molotov cocktail. Two years later, we bought a fuel barrel to store gas on the farm. When we bought a diesel tractor, we added another barrel, and since then we’ve been managing a dual fuel farm. Now, with the increased addition of ethanol to our gasoline supply, plus the addition of a sweet diesel cultivating tractor in 2005, we are working towards transitioning the farm to a diesel-only operation. We’ve got dreams of maybe doing some vegetable oil biodiesel in the future, but that’s a ways off right now; mostly, right now, we have gotten tired of keeping two kinds of fuel in inventory, and most newer farm equipment only comes in diesel, so that’s where we’re heading.

Diesel prices leapt up when everything else did right after Katrina in 2005, but the price has remained pretty steady over the last eight months or so. Although it’s cheaper than gasoline now, it was higher through much of the winter. From a price perspective, I’m willing to bet that, in the long run, it’s a crap shoot whether diesel stays lower than gasoline or not.

We don’t ever anticipate owning a four-wheeled Ferrari. The neighbors would talk. But as we grow older we sure do appreciate having equipment that works reliably and well. It makes the job a lot more fun when we can make hay while the sun shines instead of turning wrenches.

Farm Update

Wow, what a beautiful week. The weather was cooler than last week, still a bit warm, but we had a nice breeze most days.Monday afternoon blew in a timely light rain that didn’t keep us out of the fields for more than a day. The longest day of the year started with lots of noise just before dawn as hail went east and west of us, and thunder rumbled us awake, but the rain was nice.
We had a productive week. Kim seeded salad mix and Chris seeded carrots, rutabagas, carrots, cilantro, dill, and beans.The seeding will go on until mid August or so. We transplanted tomatoes, winter squash and peppers. Neighbor Eric baled up our crop of clean rye straw, and Zane moved all 27 of the straw round bales out of the field between stints of mowing cover crop, water ways, and grass filter strips. Chris spent the better part of the day repairing the mower, which kept shaking bolts loose. We use a flail mower (similar to what the DOT uses along roadways) for chopping down cover crops, since it chunks things up nicely and they decompose more quickly. We’ve lost some blades due to hitting rocks and things, and now the mower is unbalanced and vibrating quite a bit, so we’ve got a new set of blades on order now. Chris cultivated the beans and the squash between rains. Nathan baited the deer fence. Lucas and Jessica have been busy building many things to make life and farming easier, including a storage rack for the rolls of row covers, a lumber storage rack, and a great greenhouse tray enclosure behind the transplant house—no longer will we spend hours picking up wind blown trays out of field 6. Katie seeded 60 trays of cress in the greenhouse. The crew weeded and harvested.
The family went for a quick canoe ride down the Iowa River on Tuesday after work. We sited 4 green herons, a flock of geese, a wood duck, one snapping turtle, and a very large bald eagle nest. with eagles, both adults and babies.
Kim sited the first of the Sungoldcherry tomatoes, so now we know that summer is here.
Next week look for: cucumber, dill, salad mix, peas, broccoli, and more.
Employee of the Week:Katie Wiltgen, who always has something to say, which will almost always make you laugh. She usually gets what needs to be done before we finish explaining it, but never stops listening before we’re done. Katie is a huge asset to the crew, not afraid call somebody out if they are slacking or not meeting standards, not afraid to ask questions, and not afraid to shut Isabel’s music off. We love her great attitude and hard work.