Happy New Year!

Whipporwill peas are one heirloom southern pea from which we salvaged enough seed for next year.

Good afternoon. We’re back from our holidays in New England feeling rejuvenated, and ordering is open for Wednesday, the 2nd. Christmas was an excellent time to put the farm on the back burner for a little while, and now, after some much needed beauty rest, we’re very excited for the 2019 season. We had some major disappointments in 2018, as well as some successes, but we’re confident that we can learn from our mistakes (while praying for better weather). March already can’t come soon enough!

Most of our plans for 2019 involve doubling down on things we do well like kale, squash, potatoes, while also cutting out some of our biggest flops like cabbage and cauliflower.

One exception is dry beans. We had big plans for legumes this year and seeded over 2 acres. After a summer of drought and deluge, we harvested almost nothing, but next year we’ll be at it again. We were however successful at growing out enough of some rare heirloom bean and pea seeds so as to put those varieties into production next year.

One of those varieties is a drought tolerant southern pea (today’s black-eyed peas) called Whipporwill, which was brought to the US through the slave trade and was grown at Monticello. We’ll be tasting these tiny peas tomorrow as the traditional “red pea” in our new year’s Hopping John, along with some homegrown mustard greens and a friend’s pork. We’ll let you know how it is and hopefully we’ll have loads for you next winter. Happy New Year!

Me at the Harvard Fogg Museum enjoying some modern potato art and confirming that fresh potatoes are indeed powerful.

Picking Things Up

Our beautiful cover crop daikon radish pulling nutrients up from the deep soil horizons

Picking Things Up

We were able to catch up on some clean up this week with the warm, thawing weather. We also got very wet and muddy. Bryan planted lots of onions for harvest next summer. I continued cleaning up plastic mulch from this year’s summer crops, which feels like a never ending task. We do a lot of picking things up and putting them down somewhere else around here, and this week was no exception. Seemed like a good week to draw attention to this humble act since it’s not masked by the more fun aspects of growing food, like picking up a crate full of tomatoes and putting it down somewhere cool. While we are still in clean up and recovery mode, we are happy to still be harvesting loads of fresh greens each week and gearing up to be excited about the 2019 growing season. We’ll be buying our potting mix for next year’s transplants on Monday, in fact!

No CSA Pick Up on December 27th

Heads up that there will be no CSA pick up on December 27th since we’ll be travelling for the holidays. Get all of your goodies this week!

What We’re Eating

Polenta with Beans and Mustard Greens

We ate lots of creamy, dreamy polenta this week! We tried this recipe, plus a bolognese-style red sauce served over polenta. Both have been scrumptious and do great as leftovers.

Adapted from New York Times

• ½ pound (about 1 1/8 cups) dried pintos, red beans, borlottis or other similar heirloom beans, rinsed and picked over for stones (we used pintos), soaked for about 4 hours or quick soaked

• 5 cups water

• 1 small onion, halved

• 1 medium or large carrot, diced

• 3 garlic cloves, 2 crushed, 1 minced

• A bouquet garni made with a couple of sprigs each parsley and thyme, a bay leaf and a Parmesan rind

• Salt to taste

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes (more to taste)

• 1 pound mustard greens, chopped

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste

• 1 cup polenta

• Freshly grated Parmesan or feta for serving

1. Chop 1/2 of the onion and set aside. To cook dried beans, drain soaking water and transfer to a heavy pot. Cover with 1 1/2 to 2 inches of water, and add more water as necessary. Over medium-high heat, bring to a gentle boil and skim away foam. Add unchopped halved onion, crushed garlic cloves and bouquet garni, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer 1 hour. Using tongs, removed halved onion and whole garlic cloves. (My beans cooked quicker than this, so make sure to taste and test them as they’re simmering.)

2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium skillet and add chopped onion and carrot. Cook, stirring, until beginning to soften, about 3 minutes, and garlic and pepper flakes. Continue to cook for another couple of minutes, until onion softens. Stir vegetable mixture into beans. Add tomato paste and salt to taste (I use at least 1 1/2 teaspoons), cover and continue to simmer very gently for 1 hour or until beans are tender all the way through and their texture is plush and velvety. Remove and discard bouquet garni.

3. Add greens (depending on the size of your pot you may have to add a portion at a time, cover for a minute until the first portion wilts, then add the next portion and so on until all of the greens have been added) and continue to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, until greens are tender but still have some color and life in them. Taste bean broth; it should taste rich, delicious, a little spicy. Add salt as necessary. Keep warm

4. Meanwhile, toward the end of the cooking time for the beans, cook polenta; or wait until beans are done and start polenta or grits. When done, spoon into wide soup bowls and press down in the middle with the back of a spoon. Spoon beans and greens with broth over polenta or grits. Top with a little Parmesan or feta and serve.

Rosie, still small and cute

Thanks everyone, have a great week!

• Joanna & Bryan

Warm and Cozy

Melvin supervised while we built a hugelkultur mound at our friend’s family’s property in Southern Maryland yesterday.

Warm and Cozy

We’re working hard outside and resting well inside this week. We helped out a pal at his property this weekend building a hugelkultur mound out of felled trees. Hopefully it will produce delicious blueberries in years to come! We’re gradually still cleaning up the farm from the 2018 season and starting to get excited about 2019. And of course, we’ve been eating very well!

What We’re Eating

Beef Stew

We made a family favorite this past week: beef stew. The sweet carrots and onions perfectly complement the tender beef. We, of course, added a multitude of frozen peas.

Adapted from New York Times

• ¼ cup all-purpose flour or brown rice flour

• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

• 1 pound beef stewing meat, trimmed and cut into inch cubes

• 5 teaspoons vegetable oil

• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

• 1 cup red wine

• 3 ½ cups beef broth, homemade or low-sodium canned

• 2 bay leaves

• 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

• 5 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch rounds

• 2 large baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes

• 2 teaspoons salt

1. Combine the flour and pepper in a bowl, add the beef and toss to coat well. Heat 3 teaspoons of the oil in a large pot. Add the beef a few pieces at a time; do not overcrowd. Cook, turning the pieces until beef is browned on all sides, about 5 minutes per batch; add more oil as needed between batches.

2. Remove the beef from the pot and add the vinegar and wine. Cook over medium-high heat, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen any browned bits. Add the beef, beef broth and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a slow simmer.

3. Cover and cook, skimming broth from time to time, until the beef is tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Add the onions and carrots and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes more. Add broth or water if the stew is dry. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle among 4 bowls and serve.

Chaotic family photo

Thanks everyone!

Joanna & Bryan

offseason

Going into their 6th year, S2L2’s tunnels have grown tens of thousands of pounds of food, but are starting to show their age.

With the beginning of December, we’re really barreling into the offseason around here. Joanna has been hard at work helping coordinate the Future Harvest-CASA Beginning Farmer Training Program. Meanwhile, I’ve started a contracting project renovating 10 massive, aging high tunnels at Strength To Love 2 Farm in Sandtown-Winchester. So while we may not have many veggies in the ground, I have been thankful for the higher-than-average temperatures as I wrestle with old steel piping all day.

But just because we haven’t been on the farm as much lately, doesn’t mean your CSA will be getting any less interesting. Cabbages and beets are in from Sassafras Creek Organic Farm in Leonardtown, and a couple varieties of onions are now available from 78 Acres farm in Smithsburg. Both these trusted growers sell through the Chesapeake Farm to Table aggregator, with whom we work closely, and we’re very glad to offer some of their crops to you.

If you’re wondering why we choose to buy some vegetables in, it’s a bit like our choice to buy in tree fruits, if less obviously so. Different farms have different systems, specialties, and business models that make them much more proficient at growing large quantities of certain crops as opposed to others. Specialized weeding, harvesting, and washing equipment, even on a relatively small footprint, allow a farm like Sassafras Creek to successfully grow many more beets and carrots, more efficiently than we could without changing quite a lot around here.

So we choose to focus our current carrot-growing capacity on producing unique varieties for fresh, greens-on marketing, and leave the orange long-storage guys to someone who’s really mastered it. Similarly, we take advantage of our favorable growing conditions to produce lots of extra winter squash and watermelons to sell to other CSA farms in the area. We feel very lucky to have so many other organic and sustainable farms in the area we can trust to grow produce that lives up to the same standards we set for ourselves.

brassica juncea

One such crop that we think we really get right is the mustard green. Although in America, we most commonly think of mustards as the get-the-heck-out-of-here horseradish spicy of “Southern Curled,” mustard greens are as diverse as cabbages and kales. As they grow up in our tunnels, we’ve decided to start listing many of our mixed greens individually so you can love them as much as we do.

My personal favorite is the “Miike” mustard green from Kyushu, the southernmost of the main Japanese islands. We’ve grown several varieties from this region, but have finally landed on a “reselection” from Wild Garden Seeds in Oregon. If mustards enjoy any advantages over kale, it’s their consistently tender texture, regardless of age or size, as well as the eating quality of their stems. Instead of having to cut out and discard the stem, it’s actually the best part. Miike exemplifies both these qualities, and it’s very sweet, ever-so-slightly hot, and uniquely umami flavor is best enjoyed cooked lightly or not at all.

If you’re a serious mustard lover, this one is perfect sliced into ribbons, and tossed with a touch of sesame oil, vinegar, soy, and pepper oil into a slaw. Colorful radish disks or matchsticks make a great topping.

Another great choice is to stir it into a soup at the very, very end. For a more traditional south Japanese vibe, try a very simple soup made with broth (dashi, chicken, or vegetable) with scallion whites, ginger, cubed tofu, a splash of soy and mirin, and a coddled egg. Right before serving, stir several whole leaves into the soup until just wilted but still florescent green, top with a dash of sesame or pepper oil and serve.

But the sweet, tender virtues of mustard need not only be enjoyed in East Asian cooking. Miike greens are also great in classic Tuscan white bean soup. Make any Italian-y bean soup of your choosing—something like this—skip the kale (and the de-ribbing), and instead of cooking all the green out of your greens just let them simmer for 3-5 minutes before serving. Give any or all of the above a try and let us know what you think.

Enjoy!

Bryan and Joanna

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We hope you all enjoyed a lovely time with your family and friends and came out the other side full of love and good food. We enjoyed a spectacular turkey from Whispering Breeze Farm with Bryan’s family in Bel Air.

As always, it’s back home and back to work, as we set about catching up on Quickbooks and cleaning up, and getting started on 2019 planning.We even made our first seed purchase for next year: ginger!

To ensure the highest quality product, we buy certified organic, disease-free, outdoor grown ginger from Hawaii to ship here in March. These experts have been doing it for 25 years and produce amazing quality seed for one of the most special and unique crops on the farm. And as a little early Christmas gift to ourselves, I also threw in some related Thai ornamental bulbs that I can’t wait to see blooming on the farm.

Tropical farm goals.

Reminder: New Pickup Location

A very important reminder: this week is the official beginning of the Winter CSA season. If you order between now and April, your share will be available at HEX Ferments in Belvedere Square between 1 and 7pm. No other pickup locations will be active for the winter.

Reminder: Pizza Party Time Change

Because of the snow last week, Well Crafted had to reschedule a large event they’re hosting to our pizza party night, Thursday November 29. There’s still room for us, we just need to make it a little earlier. Instead of the originally planned time, we WILL BE THERE FROM 5:30 TO 7:00 PM ON NOVEMBER 29. There will still be special snacks with Good Dog Farm produce, with the best beer and ‘za in Baltimore available for purchase. Come hungry!

Reminder: Teas and Herbs + Farm Swag

A reminder to try out the herbs and teas we’ve added to our store. This year, our friend and local food and flower maven Shelley White started her own herb farm in lovely Fork, MD (incidentally, right around the literal corner from where Bryan’s dad grew up). Hydes Hill Herbs is only the second dried herb farm in the state (Congrats, Shelley!), and we’re very excited to be able to offer her herbs and teas through our CSA. All products are grown using 100% organic practices, the teas are strictly herbal with no additives, and the culinary herbs pack so much more flavor than anything you’ll find outside your own garden. Give it a try, spice up your winter menu, support another beginning farmer, and never look back!

We’ve also added a new section for Good Dog Farm swag (currently magnets and stickers). Look for new wearable swag in the future! Happy Thanksgiving!

Bryan and parents at the Thanksgiving table.

no news is good news

Hi, everyone. I hope none of you were too put out by the unusually early snow. We got about 3 inches up here, and with ice on top of that. Maybe it’s helped on by having worked several years for a non-profit on the BCPS snow schedule, maybe it’s a reflection of having spent most of my 20s in the South or abroad, but personally I love a good snow day. They’re great enforced days off to relax by the fire, peruse seed catalogs, and pick up a new book (or one you started back in April…).

Of course, while the snow is lovely, the mud that comes after is an annoyance. It does seem we’ll have some good sun this week to dry us out, though. Really though, this time of year, we subscribe to a “no news is good news” policy. The plants that will serve us from now through March are either in the ground or harvested. No matter what happens weather-wise, so long as the farm looks roughly the same as it did when we come out on the other side, everything moves forward as planned. Very ready for all your Thanksgiving needs. And so on that note, here are some announcements.

IMPORTANT: Pizza Party Time Change!

There is news on the pizza party front, though. Because of the snow, Well Crafted had to reschedule a large event they’re hosting to our pizza party night, Thursday November 29. There’s still room for us, we just need to make it a little earlier. Instead of the originally planned time, we WILL BE THERE FROM 5:30 TO 7:00 PM ON NOVEMBER 29. There will still be special snacks with Good Dog Farm produce, with the best beer and ‘za in Baltimore available for purchase. Come hungry!

Tea Time + Herbs

And since it’s so clearly already curl-up-by-the-fire season, what better way than to embrace the change than with some delicious hot beverages and flavorful soups? This year, our friend and local food and flower maven Shelley White started her own herb farm in lovely Fork, MD (incidentally, right around the literal corner from where Bryan’s dad grew up). Just last month, Hydes Hill Herbs got their final approval through the Health Department to be only the second dried herb farm in the state (Congrats, Shelley!), and we’re very excited to be able to offer her herbs and teas through our CSA. All products are grown using 100% organic practices, the teas are strictly herbal with no additives, and the culinary herbs pack so much more flavor than anything you’ll find outside your own garden. Give it a try, spice up your winter menu, support another beginning farmer, and never look back!

Thanks and have a lovely holiday!

Bryan and Joanna

cold snap

Leaves at Lake Roland before the wind.

It got cold last night. And all the better for all of our greens. Some vegetables can’t survive frosts or temperatures below 32F, but many can. The reason freezing damages plants is that, unlike animals, vegetative cells have cell walls in addition to permeable membranes. Cell walls provide structure for the plant like bricks in a wall. When the water inside a plant cell freezes, it ruptures the cell wall, compromising the plant and making it wilt.

Many vegetables, especially greens, are capable of expanding their cells in the case of freezing but also use another mechanism to survive cold weather. Freezes trigger many vegetables to produce additional sugars (sometimes visible as darker, bluer, or redder leaf veins) in order to lower the freezing point of the solution inside their cells, often down to 27 or 28F.

Each subsequent freeze encourages the plants to produce more of these sugars, which are also responsible for the distinctive —sweet, nutty, spicy, bitter—of each unique vegetable. Colder means more flavorful. This is why local East Coast greens and roots will almost always be more flavorful than California or greenhouse grown greens from the store.

Delicious and colorful cold-sweetened salad.

enjoying mustard greens

My personal favorite has always been mustard greens, which we sometimes list individually, but always list as “Stir-Fry Mix.” If you’re new too mustards or have found them too spicy in the past, I highly encourage you to try par-boiling before you eat them. Simply bring a stock pot to a rolling boil and toss all the greens in for 1-2 minutes, until they shine iridescent but before the water has turned too green. Pour the pot through a colander to collect the greens, let them cool, chop or put in the food processor, and then use them in any recipe that calls for cooked greens like chipped spinach.

A household favorite is an onion-sweetened, garam masala spiced side like this. Or they’re great as the base for a classic cheesy greens casserole. Just sautee a couple onions and garlic in butter for 7 or 8 minutes in an oven proof pan, toss in about a pound’s worth of parboiled greens, with a 1/2 cup of broth, cover with 1 C of grated cheddar and Parmesan, then bake at 400F until the cheese is browned and gooey, about 20 minutes. Classic, artery-clogging Americana.

CSA MEMBER HAPPY HOUR NOVEMBER 29TH

Join us for a celebration! We're having a special happy hour for Good Dog Farm CSA members at Well Crafted Pizza (1700 W 41st St, Baltimore, MD 21211) on Thursday November 29th, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm. Well Crafted will be making us some special snacks from Good Dog Farm produce, and of course there's yummy beers from Union available for purchase. Please RSVP to this email by November 25th so that we know how much food to make. Can't wait to meet/see you all there! 

REMAINING BALANCE NEWS

And an important reminder: Starting the week of November 28th, our only pick up site will be HEX Ferments in Belvedere Square. So here's what you can do if you are currently picking up at a different site: 

Option A: Spend down your balance at your regular pick up site through November 21st

Option B: Spend down your balance over the winter picking up only at HEX Ferments.

Option C: Apply your remaining balance as a coupon to our main season share starting June 2019 when we will resume our regular pick up sites, plus a new site in Hampden at Prime Corner. Our ordering format will be slightly different next season, but you will still be able to customize your shares and pick up on a schedule that you determine. And the website will be easier to use too! 

Please let us know what you decide by Sunday November 18th. And feel free to let us know if you have any questions about the different options. If we do not hear from you by the 18th, we will save your balance as a coupon for the 2019 season.

Thanks everyone!

Windy Clean Up

MAPLE SYRUP IN BOXES THIS WEEK

If you ordered maple syrup, it will be in your box this week! If you don’t order anything else, we’ll still send it for pick up this week. If you cannot pick up your syrup this week, please reply to this email and let us know. We’ll hold it for you for the following week!

In addition, we sent an email earlier this morning about your share options for the winter/summer 2019. Check your spam email folder if you did not receive it. There’s good stuff in there!

Greens growing in the high tunnels, cozy and sound

Windy Clean Up

Hi everyone! Well, we’re officially in clean up mode. This includes pulling our plastic mulch that covered the beds of our summer crops our of the soil so that we can plant cover crops. This will help to reduce weeds, add nutrients back into the soil, and reduce erosion during the winter months. Not the most glamorous task, but crucial to our soil health and in some way quite satisfying. We’re digging up the last of our sweet potatoes which will be ready in a few weeks once they’ve cured aka gotten super sweet! We’re starting to make plans for our crop plan and CSA for 2019, which feels exciting though a bit overwhelming. We have plenty of time to scheme for 2019 this winter in between packing winter CSA boxes, so we’re also trying to take a bit of a rest and enjoy time with friends and family.

Bryan with our friends Christy and Connor at Dylan’s Oyster Cellar’s “Beer for Farmers” event last Sunday

What We’re Eating

It was warm again for a minute there, but now that it’s back to fall weather, we’re right back to cozy food! We’re back into Shepherd’s Pie season, which is a family favorite in our household. We recommend using carrots and turnips in the filling, and of course, creamy yummy potatoes on top!

Shepherd’s Pie is one of those delicious foods that looks a bit wretched in photos, so I thought I’d just link to a recipe that’s similar to the one we make. Here’s on from The Food Network.

Paco admires a winter radish

CSA Member Happy Hour November 29th

Join us for a celebration! We're having a special happy hour for Good Dog Farm CSA members at Well Crafted Pizza (1700 W 41st St, Baltimore, MD 21211) on Thursday November 29th, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm. Well Crafted will be making us some special snacks from Good Dog Farm produce, and of course there's yummy beers from Union available for purchase. Please RSVP to this email by November 25th so that we know how much food to make. Can't wait to meet/see you all there! 

Thanks everyone!

Joanna & Bryan

family and friends

Hello, all. I’ll be keeping it short this week because we’re enjoying our veggies (and other foods, drinks, and company) with Joanna’s parents this week/ weekend.

A couple quick updates, we’ve relisted some additional potato varieties for the winter after our final dig, so you should dig in! We’ve also added our long storage squash, the Seminole pumpkin to the availability. If you like butternuts, give it a shot. It has a similar taste and texture but keeps months longer. There’s also classic purple top turnips up now, a favorite for mashing or roasting in our house (try cubing and glazing them with honey or maple syrup).

That’s it, and remember to sign up for your winter share!

Until net week,

Joanna’s mom and dad at Chez Hugo downtown, where you can find our produce and others given an absolutely royal treatment.

first frost

Red beets and purple carrots, straight from the field.

Hello, friends. We just enjoyed our first frost Thursday night, we’re starting to see some golds and reds on the trees, and we are so very ready to settle into fall. The frost finally wrapped up the season on any peppers we were still harvesting, and it signals that it’s really time to clean up from the rest of summer. Our roots and greens will be no worse for wear. We’re still harvesting some of our sweet potatoes and you should see those available in a week or two once they’ve cured.

In the meantime, we do have a few new items this week, with red beets and rainbow carrot bunches, plus celery root and topped orange carrots. We’ve been waiting for all these fall favorites for over three months(!), and now it’s perfect timing. These roots and many other fall vegetables only taste better with each succeeding frost. A kiss of cold weather triggers these cold-hardy vegetables to begin producing extra sugars, thus lowering the freezing point of the water in their cells, and conveniently making them even more delicious. Last night, we got our fall on by enjoying by enjoying a one-pan roast of beets, carrots, and celery root with oranges and baked chicken thighs (recipe below). Tomorrow, we might even have our first fire of the season.

maple season

maple candy

Speaking of sweater weather, it doesn’t get much more autumnal then maple syrup season, and we’re very happy to again be joining in the semi-annual Baltimore bulk syrup order from Baer Bros, a small batch syrup producer in western PA. Get your order in by Monday, and we’ll place the order for you and pack it in your box when it arrives in a few weeks. For the uninitiated, “Amber” or Grade A is most likely what you’re used to, but we strongly urge you to give “Dark”'/ Grade B a try. It’s richer, maple-er, and thicker, and is a treat usually reserved for those in the northern maple states. Maple cream is pure syrup that has been further reduced to an apple-butter like spread, and maple candies are 100% syrup crystallized into a small leaf-shaped mold.

what we’re eating

ingredients

• 4 bone-in chicken thighs

• 2-3 garlic cloves, minched

• 1 tsp thyme, 1 tsp tarragon

• 1 tsp orange zest, plus 2 tsp

• salt and pepper

• 1 bunch rainbow carrots, washed, topped and halved lengthwise

• 1 bunch beets, peeled and sliced in half-inch rounds

• 1 bunch celery root, sliced in half inch rounds

• 1 pound yellow potatoes, washed and quartered

• 2T olive oil, plus 1

• 1 sweet orange, peeled (half-supremed) then sliced into rounds across the segments

• juice of 1 orange, 2T olive oil, plus 1

cook

1. Rinse and dry chicken thighs, pat with salt and pepper, 1 T garlic, herbs, and 1 tsp zest. Let sit uncovered in fridge for one hour.

2. Toss prepped vegetables in a bowl with 2 T oil, remaining zest, and garlic, then arrange on a sheet pan.

3. Arrange orange slices over the vegetables. Then place chicken thighs on top of that and drizzle everything with orange juice and remaining oil. Bake for 50 minutes at 350F. Let cool and serve!