Flood Relief for Weather Stricken Organic Farmers

In the organic farming world, we all work together. Many of the farms that were severely damaged in the recent storms are our direct competitors for CSA customers and business with the food coops in the Twin Cities. However, they are also our partners in this whole organic farming business, pulling together to make the organic and local food scene work.

The Wedge Food Coop, Eastside Co-op, Just Foods Co-op (Northfield) and Outpost Natural Foods (Milwaukee) have teamed up with the Institute for Ag and Trade Policy's Sow the Seeds Fund to provide flood relief for the affected organic local foods producers. You can find more information and an online donation form here. Rock Spring Farm is pledging $100. Donations in any amount will provide a significant amount of relief.

Weather Report

Don’t pray for the rain to stop. Pray for good luck fishing when the river floods. – Wendell Berry

The good news, for us, is that Rock Spring Farm truly dodged the bullet when it came to this week’s extreme rainfall events. The bad news is that many farmers in the community of local vegetable producers were devastatingly in the way of the storms that rolled through the area Saturday and Sunday, and which continue to threaten as I write this.

When I arrived home from deliveries early Friday evening, the ground was still saturated from two weeks of consistent rainfall. On Saturday morning, it began raining again. I took a small crew out to the field to pick up the very last of the onion crop before the weather really let loose at noon. It rained all night Saturday, including the sort of shake-the-house thunderstorm that non-native Midwesterners fear. The rains continued heavy on Sunday morning, and by Sunday afternoon we began to become aware of the devastation around us.

On our farm, we had about six inches of rain over the weekend, compared with reports of seventeen inches in Rushford, Minnesota, just 20 miles away. Two small fields that already sat partially under water were more so by the end of the weekend, and we experienced some pretty severe erosion due to the sheer amount of water moving over the landscape. We’ve lost about half of our fall storage carrots to flooding – they’ve been under water for over a week – and some of our turnips. Walking in the fields is almost impossible, and every footstep leaves a puddle behind as water flows from supersaturated soil into the empty pockets, so harvest, or any other field work, is much harder than it is under normal circumstances. We can’t drive any of our harvest vans to the fields, so everything has to be removed by hand or four-wheel drive tractor and wagon.

Area market farmers who serve Rochester and the Twin Cities had it much worse, some suffering complete crop loss and infrastructure damage, and erosion that makes our few gullies pale by comparison. We will continue to hold them in our hearts as they try to find a way forward.

Neighbors who have lived here all their lives say they have never seen weather quite like this. They’ve seen rainfall events with this much rain, but never without a drying spell. We’ve been three weeks with no significant drying, so every drop of rain just runs off the field. Springs have sprung up everywhere, and water flows that are usually occasional have been running for a full week. Three inches of rain on Tuesday night resulted in the worst flooding we have ever seen, with the seasonal flow that runs through the middle of the farm jumping its banks and running through the our transplant greenhouse – no damage done, but lots of mud left behind.

As farmers, water rules our world. A lack is a drought, too much is a flood. We are fortunate on this farm to have a mixture of ridge and valley fields, so that we can split our crops to accommodate multiple rainfall scenarios. We’ve laid out our fields with frequent grass strips, which helps us to mitigate the overland water flow that results in erosion. Also, being located at near the top of the Middle Bear Creek watershed means that even with a severe rainfall event, our fields are not as susceptible to flooding as those further downstream, where the water has had a chance to gather volume and speed.

Still, we will take this weather as a warning shot across the bow, and take even more steps now to mitigate potential future damage. On Tuesday, we had a visit from specialists from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS, a part of the USDA) to discuss field drainage and water diversion on the farm, and, after this weather, we certainly have a hefty incentive to follow up on that.

In Kim's Kitchen

Chinese Cabbage comes in many forms – heading and non-heading, thick leaved and thin leaved, and all sorts of shapes – but our favorite is the crinkly, light green heads of Napa Cabbage. A staple in Korean Kim Chee – a fermented vegetable dish ubiquitous in Korea – Chinese Cabbage tastes great raw or cooked.

Napa Cabbage Carrot Slaw with Toasted Sesame Seeds

3 carrots, shredded
1 small head Napa cabbage or Chinese cabbage shredded
1/4 cup onion,
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon Tabasco
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup toasted sesame seed

In a large bowl, combine the carrot, cabbage, onion, garlic and cilantro. Combine the remaining ingredients, except the sesame seed, until blended and toss with the cabbage mixture. Sprinkle with sesame seed.

Candy Sweet Onions look a lot like regular Yellow Onions, but they lack the high sulfur content of the regular onion. They make a great raw addition to sandwiches and hamburgers, or you can use them as you would a regular onion.

Smaller than onions, Shallots have a milder flavor that is distinct from onions. Some folks say it’s a mix between garlic and onion, but we think it’s something different entirely. Great for raw uses, shallots also work nicely to add a classy touch where you might otherwise choose to use an onion.

The Golden Zucchini have slowed down considerably out in the field. The first of our two successions is almost finished, and the cooler grey weather has not helped the second crop make up for the decline.

We harvested the first of our Edamame crop this week. These edible green soybeans are a staple bar food in Japan, where they boil them in the shells, then pop the little beans out of the shells right into their mouths.

Classic Edamame

1 lb Edamame, in their pods
Water
Coarse salt (sea salt is preferable)

Rinse the pods and drop them into a large quantity of boiling water. Return to a boil and cook until beans are just tender, and pods are bright green, about 3 to 5 minutes. Drain and sprinkle generously with coarse salt. Serve warm or at room temperature. To enjoy, slurp or squeeze the beans from the pods right into your mouth, and discard the pods.

Harvesting Green Top Beets in the mud was not an easy undertaking on Wednesday afternoon, but we got it done. Although many of the beets from this weeks harvest are quite large – we had a thin stand, which left more room for the beets to grow – they retain their sweetness and the tenderness of a good, fresh beet. Quick beets can be made by grating the roots or slicing them into a julienne, then sautéing in butter or olive oil for just a few minutes. Don’t forget that the beet greens, which cook up quite nicely like spinach.

Beets with Onions and Capers

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound red onions, very thinly sliced
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 pound cooked beets, julieened
Salt & pepper
4 tablespoons drained capers

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Sweat the onions until they're very soft but not browning, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the vinegar and the beets and combine until coated. Season with salt and pepper, Toss with the capers and serve.

Broccoli harvest came on with abundance this week. We get a lot of questions about using the stems, and our response is always, yes, do! We like to peel the main stalk, because the outer skin can get quite tough, then slice or dice the stems and cook a little bit longer than you do the florets.

We had to feel somewhat lucky with the Carrot crop this week, because digging carrots would have been well-nigh impossible. Chris got a little carried away with the carrot digger on the one day last week when carrot harvest was even vaguely resonable, and we ended up with a two-week supply stored away in the cooler.

Harvest of our Dutch Greenhouse Cucumbers has been a little on the slim side lately, but what we’ve been getting tastes great, even if it looks a little funny. The damp weather has made it difficult to get the kind of airflow we would like in the greenhouse, and fungal diseases are popping up all over the farm. We hope to keep the cucumbers ahead of the disease pressure for a little while longer.

Harvests of both the Sungold Cherry Tomatoes and Round Red Tomatoes are also down this week due to the goofy weather. Even in the greenhouse we have to work with the outside weather conditions, since we rely on scarce sunshine to dry things out and promote disease-preventing air circulation; without it, we have had a lot of cracked tomatoes that are not suitable for sale.

The Jalapeno Pepper crop seems to be surviving the weather quite nicely, although the Sweet Red Peppers are suffering mightily from blossom end rot, and harvest is really down for that crop. To use the jalapeno peppers, you may want to handle them with gloves, although we don’t. The heat on our variety is pretty middle-of-the-road. We pick with our bare hands, since the inside of the pepper has most of the heat-producing capsaicin. In fact, you can get to a pretty tame pepper if you remove the seeds and the whitish veins that hold them. Kim throws a little fresh jalapeno into lots of dishes when we have them in season. The following recipe plays the heat of the jalapeno off against the cooling effect of the cucumber.

Cucumber Hot Pepper Salad

1 greenhouse cucumber
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely diced
2 Tbsp lime juice
1 Tbsp tamari
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup chopped roasted peanuts or almonds
Julienne or slice thinly the cucumber. Combine cucumber, onion, and hot peppers in a bowl. Combine lime juice, tamari, sugar, and oil separately and mix well. Toss the vegetables with the dressing, add nuts, and salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh chopped mint, basil, or parsley, if desired.

Farm News

Chris’ stepmom, known here as Grandma Mary, came to visit from Fort Collins, Colorado, and helped us slog through the mud picking broccoli and beets. Chris takes her back to the Rochester airport on the way to deliveries on Friday morning.

We took delivery on a new Kubota tractor on Monday, but we haven’t had a chance to use it yet because the weather has been so awful. We traded two gas tractors that worked intermittently (plus a bunch of cash) for this new diesel, which is a little bigger than our other tractor. We set it up with skinny tires to make it more versatile in our narrow rows, and we are looking forward to using it for our fall field work.