Heirloom Harvest

Roasted Vegetables

Celeriac, carrots, potatoes, turnips if they're good (mine went pithy), and parsnips, peeled, cut in 1-inch dice, and tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and dried rosemary, then roasted until tender.

I am thankful for the farm's good food.

Golden

See Red

Rustic

Sugar Content

Member James Donald samples his first green bean of the season, also his first with Heirloom Harvest CSA. He pronounced it sweet.

When the World Gives You Kale

Don't forget the kale recipes we've got; they're gonna come in handy (thanks, commenting member!). Also, check elsewhere. Kale's just dang healthy.

Raddish

They look like radish seedlings to your uneducated editor, but Farmer John cleared it up: They're Chinese Cabbage. Wait for them. Your editor is happy to report that on making Grilled Asian Pork Chops and Baby Bok Choy recently, his five-year-old son actually requested additional Bok Choy. (It was provided and consumed. If it takes a little Black Bean Garlic Sauce to get the game up, well, that's just the price of admission.)

The editor would like to admit that food photography is an art, and no one has accused him of being an artist, including the time that he wiped up black oil paint with his new turquoise shirt, when he was 9, and spent the rest of the day in the backyard. Nevertheless, this is what the above recipe looks like while it is cooking.

Rain Date

Sunday brought a soaking rain to pickup time. Mimi Cronyn lugged share support stuff around the watery pickup area. There were two strategies that members used to deal with the rain. They either wore ordinary clothes and got soaked, or sought to defend themselves, as did these two (click the pic to see them -- artsy blogger alert!) on the way to collect their you-pick items.

Farmer John stopped a moment from crawling around the eggplant fields where black plastic is set to keep the weeds down to discuss the rain (Farmers like rain, at least when it’s not falling on their heads).

Earth Day, Earth

Heirloom Harvest celebrated Earthday 2006 from 1 to 4 pm on Sunday, April 23. The rain forced a change in our plans to walk the farm and pick up trash. Instead, those present filled peat pots and seeded in the barn in between education events that included a discussion of Oxfam's campaign to reform farm policy in the US, and a demonstration of how pollution affects groundwater.

Volunteer Chris Wright and Oxfam representative Stephanie Demmons work to fill peat pots and plant summer squash seeds.

Barb Harrington (left) from the Crystal Spring Center for Earth Learning gives a demonstration of how pollution from various sources—including a golf course, a factory, a housing development, a clearcut hillside, and a conventional farm—affects ground water.

Audience members participated in the pollution demonstration by playing the roles of the various facility owners on the model. Here, the "factory owner" is pouring effluent into his factory which flows out into a stream, which leads to a river and eventually to a lake and the wetlands where the water changes color from the pollution.
[We are indebted to Mark Fisette for the next three photos.]

Let's Call the Whole Thing Hot

Hopkinton resident and CSA member Kathy Mosher (left) came in with her daughter to help seed start Black Krim heirloom tomatoes, while Trish Stephanko transplants hot pepper seedlings at right.
Kathy is taking an organizational role in the effort in Hopkinton to establish a community farm on the 600 acres of Weston Nurseries land that is coming up for sale in that town. If you'd like more information about how to become involved in helping to preserve a significant portion of the 600 acre parcel for farming, contact Kathy at jkmosher@comcast.net.

Please note: Town water will not be turned on at the farmsite until around last frost in May, so please be sure to bring your own water bottles for drinking water, as the greenhouse can be as hot as 90-plus degrees even when it's only in the 50s outside.