It always feels a little crazy around the farm, but with the warmer weather and CSA season in full swing the work days are longer and the never ending to do list keeps on growing. It’s a steady dance between harvesting for the CSA, planting, watering, weeding, seeding and maintaining our crops. One thing that’s for sure this season is we’ve had some added stress from the weather. The overall trend is that things are warming up. It is probably safe to say that this is the new norm and as farmers we will need to adapt our crop plan to account for a hotter climate.
collards with clubroot
On top of the weather, one thing that has been adding extra stress at the farm is we are battling clubroot in our main plot. What is clubroot? It is a soil borne fungus, Plasmodiophora brassicae, that impacts plants in the Brassica family ability to absorb nutrients and water from the soil. Plants look yellow, weak and their roots grow inward causing them to entangle within themselves. Clubroot is pretty serious because the spores can live up to 20 years. The only way to manage it is to not grow brassicas in the infected field, be diligent about sanitizing all our tools, and maintaining a more alkaline PH. We grow a lot of brassicas at the farm, kale, collards, cabbages, mustards, radishes, turnips, broccoli, arugula, kohlrabi are just some of the brassicas we are growing. Since discovering clubroot, we have had to adapt our crop plan and move all of our brassicas out of the main plot to a newly cultivated area.
What’s Growing
This week potatoes are here!!! Who doesn’t love potatoes! We planted A LOT of potato varieties this season, but this particular variety is a red gold potato which has a light red skin and yellow flesh with a creamy texture and flavor. Here’s a recipe for roasted potato salad with a garlic dill dressing. Click here for recipe.
Let’s talk about broccoli leaves! It’s always a win-win situation when you can eat almost the entire plant and although using the broccoli leaves is a recent discovery, it’s been a successful one! Broccoli leaves can be used similarly to collard greens and arguably are more tender. We’ve been sauteing them up and steaming them to use as a wrap.Here's some helpful prep tips and recipes. We definitely suggest de-stemming it, but don’t waste the stem! Add them to the pan early and cook them a little longer than the leaves.
Farmer Spotlight
Meet Lyndsay, farmer and the owner/operator of Sprout and Blossom Farm.
Lyndsay grew up on the east coast in Alexandria, Virginia a suburb of Washington D.C. Her childhood was far from the farm life she currently lives, although food was always something that she felt connected to and cooking with her family has always been a big aspect of her life. During her first year of college at James Madison University, Lyndsay was exposed to the truths about Industrial Agriculture in a GenED sociology class. Super naive up until this point, it sparked an interest in learning about our broken food systems and how to cultivate her own food.
After graduating from school with a BFA in Interior Architecture and Graphic Design she spent 10 months backpacking Europe. After her return to the US she felt called to the west coast and to work on a farm. Through WWOOFING, (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) Lyndsay found a small-farm in Hood River, OR where she volunteered for a summer. It didn’t take much for her to fall in love with farming and after one season volunteering she wanted to learn more. She was accepted as an apprentice at Zenger Farms the following season. Zenger Farm was one of the best experiences of her life! They taught her so much and gave her all the tools needed to start Sprout and Blossom Farm the following year.
In addition to growing vegetables over the last few seasons Lyndsay has been also been growing cut flowers and making bouquets that are offered as an add-on to the CSA. Don't tell the veggies, but growing flowers is probably Lyndsay's favorite!
When she’s not farming, Lyndsay spends her time training aerial silks and lyra (aerial hoop). She loves to see live music and dancing. During the winter months, she enjoys long road trips and traveling outside of the country. Cooking is still a big aspect of her life, especially vegan and gluten free cooking. Recipes aren’t really Lyndsay’s thing and instead she considers herself to be a freestyle cook experimenting with whatever seasonal veggies she has on hand.
Local Spotlight
In case you missed it! Buckman Brines makes live cultured and unpasteurized products from locally grown produce. One of our recent collaborations is, Kim Choi (a Bok Choi version of Kim Chi). The Bok Choi was harvested from our early season crop in May. This will be available online to add into your share- and you can also grab it from our Farmers market stand on Saturday downtown or at the farm on Friday (and save 10% off online price!). Flat Tack Farm and Buckman Brines have been collaborating for a few years now and this won’t be the only collaborative ferment this season!
Your farmer,
Lyndsay (and the Flat Tack/ Sprout & Blossom team)
