In Kim's Kitchen

In a former life, I disdained even Italian Parsley (the curly stuff is an easy target) for being just a little too plebian to add to great food. But now we know that parsley is actually one of the keys to great food – if you use it in everything, in abundance, it is really hard to go wrong. Parsley makes a great, sunny addition to everything from soup to biscuits to salads. In fact, one our favorite dishes is a parsley salad, which make a great small side to just about any meal, but tastes especially good alongside beef or lamb dishes.

Parsley Salad

Plan for about 1/2 cup per person.
2 cups parsley leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice (fresh, if possible)
Salt and pepper
Remove parsley leaves from stems, then wash and dry well. Toss with the garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and season generously with salt and pepper.

Fresh Garlic has a higher moisture content than cured garlic, but it can be used in much the same way. We do find that it sticks in a sauté pan a little more than the normal garlic. Store this in a bag in the refrigerator, since it is a fresh, “uncured” item.

On Wednesday, Kim made this very delicious chilled soup with our Dutch Greenhouse Cucumbers and fresh avocadoes. Unlike many chilled soups, this had a mild, creamy flavor.

Cucumber-Avocado Soup

1 firm-ripe California avocado, diced
1 English cucumbers (about 1 1/2 pounds), cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup plain yogurt
3 tablespoons chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
1/2 cup broth, vegetable or chicken
Peel and pit avocado. Blend all ingredients in a blender until very smooth, about 1 minute. Chill the soup and serve.
Purple Scallions, again, make a great substitute for regular onions until the onions come in, which will really start up next week. We harvested the last of our spring Broccoli crop this week, so now we’ll have a gap in that crop until mid-August or so. This will also be the last week for Sugar Snap Peas – don’t forget to string them!
Small-leaved Thyme makes a nice addition to salad dressings, soups, and stews. We also like it chopped and sprinkled over tomatoes or beets.
We harvested the first of our Rainbow Swiss Chard this week. You can cook this just like you would spinach – in fact, some gardeners know it as “Perpetual Spinach.” At our house, the colorful stems are prized as much as the leaves, and we normally chop them and start them cooking about two minutes before the leaves.
Stuffed Chard Leaves
1 onion, chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup feta cheese
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup chopped parsley or basil
2 Tbsp chopped thyme leaves
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 tsp salt
8 large leaves Swiss Chard
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry chard leaves and remove stems. Chop the stems coarsely. Sauté onion and chard stems in oil, and mix all ingredients except chard leaves. Place 2 Tbsp filling on underside of each leaf, 1/3 of the way from the bottom. Fold over the sides and roll into a square packet. Place seam-side down in an oiled casserole, cover, and bake for 30 minutes. Bake any extra filling and serve with the stuffed leaves.

We experimented with some Sunflower Greens this week, and enjoyed their nutty flavor and crisp texture. We didn’t have enough to put in the CSA boxes because it was just an experiment, but we did include them in our Salad Shares and will have them at Saturday’s farmers market, as well.

Happenings on the Farm

This week’s weather was all over the map, from hot and humid to dry and cool and back again, with a couple of well-timed perfectly gentle rains thrown into the mix.

We transplanted a crop of beets this week that we couldn’t get seeded directly in the field because of weather issues a couple of weeks back, and seeded our fall crops of beets and carrots as well. The rutabagas are coming along nicely. We also set out more fall broccoli and cabbage plants as we race towards the end of the intense planting season. Chris spent all day Saturday and Sunday killing weeds with the tractor-mounted cultivators. Zane mowed down more cover crops this week that we’ll till in as soon as we get a chance, controlling future weed populations and building up the soil. We hand hoed two crops of carrots, the celeriac, the parsley, and a weedy crop of beans this week, and picked, washed and packed a whole bunch of really great things to eat! We even took Wednesday afternoon off to celebrate the fourth – Chris and Kim took a nap in honor of our nation’s founders!

We are having a great frog and toad year on the farm, and finding them everywhere – even in the ridge-top fields.

The guy that cut his finger really badly last Monday is doing much better, and looks to be on his way to a full recovery. In the meantime, he’s helping us get some long overdue, important-but-not-urgent computer work done.

Coming up next week we are looking for more cucumbers, maybe some Sungold tomatoes, beets again, radicchio, romaine lettuce, and lots of other great eats.

Why Organic Certification Matters

This week, we put the finishing touches on our application for organic certification. Organic certification is the process whereby a state or private certification agency verifies compliance with the USDA’s organic standards, which provide for an organic production system that responds to site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Producers must document inputs, field and production activities, harvests, and sales to verify compliance with the standards.

For several years now, we have listened to other growers say things like, “We follow the organic standards but choose not to certify,” or, “Organic certification requires too much paperwork for a small farm,” while they continue to advertise their products as organic. We have chosen to stick to our guns and apply for certification every year, because we believe in the power of having somebody looking over your shoulder – just like having a coach to make certain you are following the details of a training plan (and not sneaking donuts on the side!), or a referee in a ball game to parse out the rules of just when a runner is safe at second. Although we may think that an input is allowed (or should be allowed), certification reminds us to double check our judgment with that of the larger organic community before making a decision.

To qualify for organic certification, prohibited materials—including chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as well as genetically-modified organisms such as those found in seeds and many biological controls—must not have been applied to organic crops or the soil in which the crops are grown for a minimum of 36 months prior to harvest. Certified organic farmers have to follow strict standards for applying manure or manure products, such as compost: unless the compost is fully mature, organic farmers have to apply the compost at least 90 days before harvesting a crop for human consumption, and 120 days if the edible portion of the crop touches the ground.

In addition, certified organic farmers have to use certified organic seed whenever it is available, and always have to use certified organic transplants. Inputs for organic production have to meet certain standards as well, such as not being produced from genetically modified organisms (as many bacterial seed inoculants and biological insecticides and fungicides are). Some of the insect and disease controls, as well as mineral fertilizers, are regulated regarding under what circumstances and how often they can be applied, guaranteeing that least-toxic approaches are used first; for example, if we use a copper-based fungus control, we have to demonstrate that we have used other methods of disease control first, such as proper spacing for air circulation and selection of resistant varieties—and, we have to document our usage to show that we don’t use copper repeatedly in the same field, so that we don’t have a toxic buildup.

Certified organic farmers are also required by law to work to enhance biodiversity, conserve soil and water, and not deplete natural resources. To qualify for organic certification, a farmer must demonstrate the maintenance or improvement not only of their soil, but of their surrounding environment, as well.

Each year, certified organic farmers develop an Organic Farm Plan that lays out how they plan to comply with the organic rules. Then, they complete an application for organic certification, and submit their farm to an inspection by an independent, third-party inspector. These inspectors are trained not only to verify the information in the organic farm plan, but also to look for signs that the plan is actually being implemented. An inspector might look for cover crop residues in the soil, examine crops for signs of residual herbicide damage, and check that farmers actually have labels from the bags of seed they claim to have used.

Because real organic farming is much more about what you actually do, rather than what you don’t do, the certification process requires a farmer to go through the process, every year, of thinking their way through their organic farm plan and how they will actively enhance biodiversity, conserve natural resources, and produce healthy, clean food, rather than simply avoiding certain products and practices. In our busy schedule, it is always a challenge to find time to do this, but it is always a worthwhile exercise.

Considering Other Claims

For as long as we’ve been involved in farmers markets, we’ve listened to customers say things like, “All of the vendors at the farmers market are organic,” or, “The produce at the market is great, and most of it’s organic!” At a book reading in Minneapolis last year, even Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan is reported to have claimed that, although they might not be organic, the vendors at the Minneapolis farmers market are diversified enough that they don’t need pesticides. He didn’t know that one market vendor had recently been fined $5,000 for improper use of pesticides on his food crops!

Labels like “No Spray” mean just what they say, and don’t address the more complex issues of what it means to produce clean, safe food, such as using seeds that haven’t been treated with insecticides that are absorbed by the plant and still end up in your food, or providing habitat for beneficial insects that actually help control pests.

“Produced with Organic Methods” probably means only that no obviously-prohibited materials, such as Roundup (although I know some “organic” producers who do use Roundup under electric fences near fields) have been used in the current year. It seems doubtful that non-certified organic growers take the time to check the list of approved brands of organic inputs to be certain that the biological insecticide they are using doesn’t contain genetically-engineered bacteria, or under what circumstances they are allowed to use a restricted input. Remember also that organic production must be free of prohibited inputs for three years prior to harvest – “Produced with Organic Methods” should mean that, but often doesn’t.

Using the organic label is an activity that is regulated by law. All growers who use the word “organic” in their labeling are required to follow all of the organic regulations spelled out by the USDA’s National Organic Program, including the recordkeeping requirements that track a crop back to the field in which it was grown, and all activities conducted in that field for the production of the crop. Growers producing less than $5,000 each year of organic product – that would be about a quarter acre of vegetables – are allowed to forego certification, but must still comply with all of the rules.

Organic certification provides an assurance of organic integrity from seed to shelf, as well as checking to make certain that growers (and processors) are following some very basic food safety guidelines. And, while I have a few quibbles about some bits and pieces of the USDA’s organic rule, and concerns about its lack of real enforcement, I still think certification provides real value to growers and eaters alike.