Weekly Weeder

Olin-Fox Farms Volume No. 7 Issue No. 27 August 31, 2006

www.olinfoxfarms.com Summer Season Week 8

STANDARD REMINDER

Please be sure to wash your weekly share thoroughly before serving. To preserve freshness, it is NOT ‘table ready’ (i.e., pre-washed). We deliver your Olin-Fox Farms’ produce right from the fields to ensure highest quality.

This Week's News From the Farms

As the relentless heat wave drags on, all of us who work the land are doing whatever we can to keep the sun-baked crops going while preparing for the upcoming fall/winter seasons.  Our members are asked to do whatever variations on a Rain Dance you happen to know!!!  Parley with the thunder gods and call upon the Weather Devas, if you happen to have an inside track and connections with those realms, too, as some of you surely do.  [ Editor’s aside:  Clearly it works; I received tantalizing rain showers where I live on both Monday and Tuesday nights!]  On less arcane, purely mundane [yet equally important] levels, we at Olin-Fox Farms─darkly-tanned, dripping with sweat, sporting wide-brimmed straw hats─are well into the process of crop rotations and a major restructuring of our growing areas, with more raised beds, environmental and animal protections (errant turkeys, beware!), upgrades to the watering system, and plans for additional growing space in the greenhouse.  Thanks to a number of improvements already implemented thus far this year, day-to-day operations now run much more smoothly, what with the newly constructed high-tunnel greenhouse, additional coolers and cold packs, refrigeration units, and our spiffy new pick-up area. … all of which you will see for yourself if you attend the …

Olin-Fox Farms Membership Event

Please note, the correct date and time: Saturday September 9th, 10 am to 2 pm.

This festive gathering will feature visits from other members of our Fine Family of Farms, including Canning Farm, purveyor of "home-raised beef without added hormones, antibiotics, or feed additives.", offering a wide selection of choice cuts and sumptuous meat products (see last week’s edition of our newsletter for further details).  In addition, there will be fun tours of the farm and interesting discussions on growing/crops and Mother Nature’s domain.  Come visit us and the turkeys!  Refreshments and light snacks will be served.

Locusville Plantation Music Festival

The Locusville Plantation 4th Annual Music Festival is Saturday, September 16 from 1 to 8 pm.  There is no charge for this event, although donations are very much appreciated.   Proceeds go towards the cost of the event and a donation in support of the fledging Northern Neck Farm Museum.  And, as a special privilege for our CSA members, camping is available.  For more information, contact Sharon and Miles Coursin at 804-462-0002, or Olin-Fox Farms at 804-453-4125.

In other news, many of you have been kind enough to bring your favorite baskets out to pick up your produce.  This thoughtful and highly-appropriate gesture has proven most helpful and adds to the pleasure in packing up each weekly share so honored.  If you are traveling to the farm from any appreciable distance, may we also suggest you might wish to bring along a cooler as

Weekly Weeder, August 31, 2006 Page 2

well.  And please, if you have any extra plastic or paper grocery bags (which are especially useful), please bring them out to the farm or your distribution point.  Thanks, in advance!

Crop Report

Figs are coming in at a record number this year (with the moisture-starved turkeys harvesting their fair share from the lower branches), so enjoy them while they last.  The drought has taken its toll on late plantings of squash and cucumbers.  On the other hand, the beans, peppers and okra all love it, and the hot peppers are really going to be very hot.  The first of the sweet potatoes have been dug and cured to bring out their sugars.  As much of the soil in these parts is still too brick-hard and bone-dry to work, seedling planting proceeds in cells and flats instead.  Tomatoes continue to be harvested and we hope to include some green tomatoes soon, for those of you who like fried green tomatoes.

In Your Produce Basket This Week

Sweet Potatoes, Okra, Rutgers Heirloom Tomatoes, Sungold Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Hot Tabasco Peppers, Basil, Black Mission Figs

Recipe

It’s just too dang hot to do much serious cooking.  Ingenious Alice has been experimenting with drying figs covered with a screen on her tin roof with the thermometer reading a sizzling 150°s!  {The ambient humidity forced her to complete the drying process in a slow oven, leading her to investigate the feasibility of constructing a solar oven for outdoors.}  In the same creative vein, Farmer John tried grilling them cut in half, doused with balsamic vinegar and blanketed with Monterey Jack cheese to melt just before they’re done. 

Keep this recipe handy for when the green tomatoes arrive...

Lucy, a member of Richmond’s Junior League, prepares Fried Green Tomatoes according to this simple, time-tested Old Dominion recipe:

Ingredients

Green or half-ripe tomatoes             Salt & pepper

Cornmeal                                                       Butter

Grease frying pan (or grandma’s cast-iron skillet) with butter and pre-heat.  Mix cornmeal, salt, and pepper.  Slice tomatoes 1/4 inch thick and roll in cornmeal mixture.  Simmer tomatoes for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, turning once.

Newsletter and Recipes by Ethan Brent, Official Newsletter Focalizer

Bon Appetit!