HATCHET COVE FARM

It’s finally time! Fresh salad is in (long-range) sight… CSA sign-up is officially underway!

Before you rush off to the online sign-up link, though, take note of a few changes ahead in 2012. This is just an overview… more details can be found on the CSA page of our website and within the online sign-up wizard.

• New Delivery Location: Pen Bay Medical Center Café, Rockport. While we may end up shifting the time to accommodate members’ work schedules, we are planning a farmers market-style pick-up outside of the Pen Bay Café from 3:30-5:00pm on Tuesday afternoons. All MaineHealth employees are able to receive a $50 biannual CSA rebate through the WOW! program.
• New Delivery Location: Village Bakery and Café, Waldoboro. The bakery will host a CSA pick-up on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 to 5:30pm. Since we will not be providing home delivery this year, we hope that this pick-up location will help Waldoboro-area members access their shares more easily. These shares will be pre-bagged.
• New Meat CSA Options: Beef Share and/or Pork Share. We love the chicken and egg shares from Cheryl Denz at Terra Optima Farm and so this year she will also offer a monthly beef and/or pork shares. Another new feature this year is that the Terra Optima chickens will be cryovaced, eliminating any possibility of frost on the chicken.
• Sample the add-on options and meet the cheese, meat, bread and mushroom producers! Mark your calendar for Sunday, February 26th, 1-3pm at the First Universalist Church in Rockland (345 Broadway). We will be hosting a CSA & CSF “Fair” and the add-on producers will be there for you to ask questions of and to sample their products. This event is open to the public and is free of charge.
• Opportunity to “Share-a-Share.” When you reach the page in the online sign-up wizard for add-on shares, you will see the opportunity to donate $1 per CSA delivery (or more if you wish) to the CSA “scholarship” fund. Your donation will go directly to help cover the cost of a share for a family who would otherwise find it challenging to afford the CSA. If you would like to be the recipient of a scholarship, please just let us know (a slightly more formal application is in the works). SNAP (EBT) payments continue to be a payment option, and we hope to have SNAP matching funds again this year.
• Hatchet Cove Farm on Facebook (finally!). If you’re on Facebook, please “like” us (or just find us at www.facebook.com/HatchetCoveFarm)! I’ll utilize Facebook for crop and farm updates as the season nears, and the first pictures of Boston’s new calf will be up as soon as she or he is born! But don’t worry if you’re not on Facebook. Newsletters and important information will still arrive via email and will be posted to our website.
• “Farmers Market-Style” pick-up at the Farm. In response to feedback from the 2011 survey we are replacing the pre-bagged shares with “farmers market-style” pick up where you will be able to bag your own share (the same way we do it at the Rockland UUR). This will give you the opportunity to choose vegetables in the size (and sometimes quantity) you want, use your own bag or basket, and participate in a “trade” table. There will always be a couple of pre-bagged shares available for those in a rush.

Now that you made it through all those bullet points, here is a little bit of news from the farm… we’ve had a great winter so far. Bill completely rebuilt the second floor of our big barn with lumber milled from our woods, and we’re so excited to use that space to cure even more garlic, onions and shallots than ever before. It has been so rickety up there for so long that it’s like having a whole new barn… and Eli and Cecilia think it’s their newest playroom! Our seed orders are finally completed, and this year we’re super excited to use our small hoophouses to experiment with two new crops for the CSA: watermelons and sweet potatoes! Keep your fingers crossed for a bountiful harvest! Boston, our old lady Jersey cow, is due to calve in mid-February. She had a bout of illness over Thanksgiving and we’re a little worried about how she will make it through the birth, but we’ve been coddling her with extra minerals and hope for the best. Our cute little Dexter heifer, Cookie, is due in May. So hopefully we’ll have two calves on the farm this summer!

We’re all looking forward to another season of great food and great community. Please contact us with any questions, small or large. We can’t wait to get planting!

Be well,

Reba, Bill, Eli & Cecilia

Sign Up for the 2012 Season: http://www.farmigo.com/join/hatchetcovefarm/summer2012

We’re so excited about the CSA share this week.  We’ve never grown enough dry beans to be able to include them in the CSA, but finally this year we were able to save and plant enough seed to have a great harvest!  Dry beans have become my single favorite farm product.  They’re not only beautiful, but they’re so delicious (way better than older, more dried-out beans from the store) and allow us to have a home-grown source of vegetarian protein all winter long.  I absolutely love them.  They won’t require as long a soak as store-bought beans since they are so fresh, but if you overcook them by mistake, just turn them into bean soup!  You can’t go wrong, no matter how you prepare them.  We’ve winnowed them many times (see the pictures) but keep your eyes open for any split, moldy, or sprouting beans.  It’s inevitable that some make their way in to the bags.

In addition, we’re really excited to be able to put enough storage crops into each share this week to hopefully contribute to everyone’s Thanksgiving meal.  If you’re wondering how to store these larger quantities, remember that potatoes like a cool, dark and humid environment (a cellar works well), carrots like cold and humid (keep them inside their plastic bag and squeeze them into a corner of your fridge), and onions and garlic like cold, dark and dry (a cold cupboard or cold room that doesn’t freeze).

Finally, the last surprise is the kale.  The warm temperatures last week allowed our field greens to rebound, and we are so pleased to have enough to put together a small bunch for everyone.  Enjoy what is likely to be your last fresh local green until next spring!

Thank you, every one of you, for being part of the community experiment which is the CSA.  We feel so lucky to be able to grow the food that feeds our remarkably diverse CSA families.  Your support, trust and encouragement inspires us and is truly central to our ability to succeed as an organic farm in the Midcoast.  So thank you not only from our family, but from the apprentices who learn how to farm with us, from our animals who live a good life at HCF, and from your neighbors and friends who appreciate open space and non-polluted waterways and soil.  We hope that the CSA gives you a connection to and satisfaction from your food that otherwise might be hard to come by.  It certainly makes our work satisfying in a way that I never could have dreamed.

Have a wonderful winter, please stay in touch, and you’ll hear from us in February when we start sign-ups for the 2012 season.  It’ll be here before we know it!

Reba, Bill, Eli, Cecilia and the HCF crew!

Week 4 (of 4):  Dry Beans (1 lb), Carrots (7 lbs), Onions (2 lbs), Potatoes (5 lbs), Garlic, Kale, baby Red or Savoy Cabbage

This week’s recipes:  Bean Soup with Cumin and Cilantro, Beans, Sausage and Rice

It was a week of unexpected snow and predictable (though never quite expected) complications (frozen hoses!  frozen lettuce!).  We screeched the wholesale accounts to a stop last week as we surveyed what remained in the fields, and realized that if we are to keep members happily fed for the final two weeks of the CSA, we’d better dry off the co-ops.

It was sad to say farewell to the bunching greens (kale, chard, collards) under the snow.  We’re counting on our freezer full of greens to get our family through to next April.  At most points in the season, when a crop is done for the year we’re lucky enough to have a new crop ready to harvest and enjoy.  At this time of year, though, it’s not necessarily that we have new vegetables to enjoy eating, but that we finally have time to savor the storage and root crops that have been sitting, waiting for us.  It’s ironic that winter is the time that we do the most cooking, but it’s how it works on the farm, and we are grateful for  the tastes of summer that peek through in our meals, no matter the weather outside.

Next week will be the final CSA delivery of the season.  Terra Optima Farm will be delivering the pre-ordered boxes o’meat to the pick-ups, and if you placed bulk veggie orders they will be available at that point as well.  Carrots (15 lb/$25) and potatoes (35 lb/$40) are still available for order.

A student at the Maine Media Workshop recently created a very short video about the farm.  It includes some beautiful images of the farm and from harvest days.   If you’d like to view it, you can visit http://vimeo.com/31281994 .

Have a wonderful fall week!

Reba and the HCF crew

A quiet moment at the end of the day: Reba watching CJ watching Bill drive the tractor in from the field.

Week 3 (of 4):  Carrots, Garlic, Potatoes, Beets, Mesclun Mix, Brussels Sprouts (or baby red cabbage), Winter Squash  

This week’s recipe:  Roasted Beet Salad

We’ve never had a snowstorm during a CSA delivery before, but it seems like we might have our first opportunity this Sunday!  For those of you who pick up in Rockland we will go ahead with the delivery as usual, but the shares will also be available at the farm on Monday and Tuesday in case you aren’t able to make it.  The shares will be pre-bagged and in our walk-in fridge (the blue door under the white tent next to our house).

If you’d like to stock up on pork, beef or lamb for winter, check out the opportunities below.  We’re really pleased to be able to connect our members to such great local farms.  It has become one of the most unexpected and satisfying aspects of growing such an engaged and hungry CSA community!

For those of you who are interested, remember that I will be speaking at the Juice conference PechaKucha at the Camden Opera House on 7pm on Friday, November 4th.  I’m second-to-last and so will have the whole time to get nervous, but hopefully I can talk slow enough for everyone to understand me!

Bulk items still available for purchase:  yellow onions (20lb/$30), Russet (white) potatoes (35lb/$40), carrots (15lb/$25), shallots (10lb/$45), turnips or rutabaga (15lb/$15).

Happy snowy Halloween!

Reba and the HCF crew

Pork and Beef from Terra Optima Farm
Terra Optima Farm will be offering a farmer’s choice selection of pasture-raised pork and/or beef for $50 per box (at direct sale prices).  You can choose between all pork selections (will include bacon), all beef (will include ground beef), or a mixture of pork and beef.  Delivery will be at the final CSA pick-up of the season (November 13/14).   Contact Reba (info@hatchetcovefarm.com) by November 4th with questions or with your order of an all beef, all pork, or mixed beef/pork box.   You can also order additional chickens for your winter freezer if you wish for delivery at that time.

Lamb from the Ullbrich Farm in Warren
The Ullbrich family has been raising sheep on Finntown Rd. since 1977.  The breed is mostly Scottish Blackface, which are a hearty, slow-growing breed that is mild in flavor.  They are completely grassfed on the farm’s own pasture and hay.

Lamb is sold by the 1/2 lamb (15-25 lbs) or whole lamb (30-50 lbs) at $7 per pound (finished product weight).   A whole lamb will generally fit into one generous-sized box and could be squeezed into a kitchen freezer.  Cuts include legs (bone in or out as requested), shoulder roasts (they recommend bone out), rib chops, loin chops, ground lamb (1 lb packages) and shanks.  They will request organ meat if you want it.

Pick up for the first batch of lambs is Sat. Dec 3 or Mon Dec 5 at the farm at 732 Finntown Rd, Warren (before you reach HCF on FInntown Rd).   Pick up for the second batch is Sat. Dec 31 or Mon Jan 2.

Contact Willy Ullbrich directly with questions or to order:  273-3044 or whulbrich@yahoo.com

Our most recent volunteer, Erin, moving the turkeys out of the field and into the barn before the snowstorm hits.

Week 2 (of 4):  Winter Squash, Salad (Hakurei) Turnips, Fall Salad Mix, Shallots, Savoy Cabbage, Potatoes, Carrots

This week’s recipes:  Ziti with Winter Squash and Roasted Garlic, Bubble and Squeak

Welcome to the start of the fall season!  We’re looking forward to four weeks of extended season crops including crisp orange carrots,  rutabagas you can roast to golden-brown  perfection, and salad greens that will soon be only a memory as we head into winter.  With the help of hoophouses, row covers, and careful planning, we look forward to enjoying as wide a variety of fall crops as possible.  We love everything about fall on the farm:  the weather, the crops, and because the pace has slowed down enough that we’re able to enjoy the farm and the food a little more ourselves, too.

It was  a lovely time at the cider-pressing, garlic-popping potluck at the farm on Saturday.  We popped over a hundred pounds of garlic cloves out of their bulbs, thanks to the help of members who will undoubtedly be smelling garlic on their hands for the rest of the day.  One highlight of the

A scene from Saturday’s potluck at the farm: the little girls carefully inspecting the chicken tractor for eggs.

afternoon was the band of little girls who roamed the farm together, inspecting the chickens and exploring every possible inch of the field.  And it’s always good for Bill and I to see our kids take pride in showing off the farm, since they usually view it as an inconvenient intrusion into what they suspect would otherwise be total domination of their parents.  Of course, the food was amazing.  Thanks to all who contributed.

As part of the upcoming Juice Conference in Camden, I’ll be presenting at a PechaKucha  at the Camden Opera House on November 4th at 7pm.  PechaKucha is a presentation format where ten members of the “creative economy” (in this case) will each present 20 slides, with 20 seconds to speak about each slide.  Other presenters on the 4th will include Elisabeth Tove Bailey, the author of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, who I am excited to hear speak.  If you’re interested in life on the farm but haven’t been able to make it out to the farm in person this season, hopefully you can come and have these slides give you a bit of a sense of life at HCF.

Have a great week, please contact me with any questions or concerns, and enjoy your meals!

Reba and the HCF crew

Week 1 (of 4):  Pie Pumpkin, Onion, Mesclun Mix, Rutabaga, Potatoes, Carrots, Collards, and just for fun…Decorative Gourds (don’t try to eat the gourds!)

This week’s recipes:  “You Won’t Believe These” Brown-Roasted Rutabaga Wedges, Collard Potato Salad with Mustard Dressing

It’s hard to believe that we’re at the end of another season.  Some things about it were difficult (between the wet and cold spring and the wet and warm fall we lost more broccoli and winter squash to mold than we care to think about).  But some things did better than usual (we usually are only able to give spinach once or twice to the CSA, but this year we were able to put it in the share multiple times).  We often hear questions about the “actual value” of the share compared to what you pay.  This season, if we were selling the veggies that went into your share to one of our stores or restaurants at wholesale prices, we would have sold the veggies for $357, and a store would sell them for around $572 retail.  But we know, more than anyone, how one year in the CSA can differ so much from the next.  Even if you love broccoli, and were saddened by the lack of a broccoli bounty this year, next year there will be another pattern of rain, another pattern of sun, a new field for the broccoli to grow in, and a new chance for broccoli to be the star crop of the season.  Farming is both stressful and rewarding, I think for both us and for our members.  Thank you for taking it on with us.

We were unbelievably lucky with the weather and the attendance at last Sunday’s fundraiser.  Thanks to all the generous contributors and attendees, we raised $3000!!  Half will go to the CSA scholarship fund, and half will go to the Rockland host of the CSAs, the UUR.  It was a fun, beautiful, delicious afternoon, and we were happy that so many of you could make it.

Remember that next Saturday, October 22nd, we are planning on having the garlic-planting, cider-pressing, csa potluck at the farm, starting at noon.  Bring apples to make cider if you have an apple tree, a dish to share, a plate and utensils to enjoy the food, and a folding chair or blanket to relax on.  It’s always a lovely, relaxed afternoon of popping garlic cloves and sharing good food, and we hope to see you there.   If the weather report calls for rain, I’ll send out an email with updated plans by Friday afternoon.

You should have already received an email with a link to our 2011 survey.  Thanks for taking the time to fill it out.  We really appreciate it. Sometimes it’s a little bit confusing what to do with all the information (for every person who hates beets or kale, there is another person who wants more of both!).  But we take it all into account, and it certainly impacts our planning in the winter.

Be well, and don’t be startled if you have a furry, bumpy little ball in your share this week.  It is my favorite soup component:  celeriac.  Just peel it, chop it up, and use it like you would use celery in any cooked dish.  It may be ugly, but it’s one of my favorite winter veggies!

Take care, and thanks for being a part of the farm this season.  We couldn’t do it without you!

Reba and the HCF crew

Week 18 (of 18) veggies:  Salad Mix, Brussels Sprouts, Celeriac or Celery, Potatoes, Red Cabbage, Garlic, Winter Squash, Redbor Kale

This week’s recipes:  Spicy No-Mayo Coleslaw, Kale Chips

I nearly forgot to write the newsletter this week, what with all preparation  underway for Sunday’s fundraiser at the farm!  Hopefully by the time many of you get this we will have had a successful, delicious afternoon together.

The first frost touched us this week, and while we’ll miss the cucumbers and the tomatoes, it is a little bit of a relief at the same time.  No matter how hard we work, mother nature eventually forces us to slow down.  The wet weather that continued this week has continued to affect the crops, but our fall salad greens are  coming up nicely in the hoophouses, just in time for the fall CSA.  There are still about ten spots left in the fall season, so sign up soon if you want a share.

Bulk items available this week:  carrots (15lb/$20), turnip or rutabaga (15lb/$15) and shallots (10lb/$45).

The survey is yet to go out, but as soon as the fundraiser is over I will create it and send it out.  We really look forward to hearing your feedback.

If you are not able to attend on Sunday but you want to send a check to support the fundraiser, please send it to me at the farm and note that it is for the fund, not for a CSA share!

Have a wonderful week, and we hope to see you either on the 9th or at the garlic planting party on the 22nd!

Reba and the HCF crew

We’re grateful for all the generous support we’re received from our members and from the community for Sunday’s fundraiser. The following fabulous businesses donated without a second thought.  Let them know how much we all appreciate them!

Uproot Pie,  music by Dusty & Joanna & Ray Montana, Good Tern Co-op, Rising Tide Co-op, Terra Optima Farm, Appleton Creamery, Village Café and Bakery, Atlantic Baking Company, Treats of Wiscasset, Pen Bay Medical Center Café, Oyster Creek Mushroom Company, I Love Pie, Capt’n Eli’s Soda, Maine Root Soda, Treats of Wiscasset, Hannafords, Shaws, CD’s by Josephine Cameron, t-shirts by Amelia Chambers and Carolyn Niehaus, Native Maine Distributers.

And thank you to our wonderful baking and cooking and helping friends:   Emily Arons (cook, baker, organizer extraordinaire), Patsy Dunton (ice cream!), Ashby and Jesse Bartke (ice cream cookies!), Amy & Joe Libby (flowers!), Dee Obuchon, Ingrid Bathe, Sara Hotchkiss, Eve & Fred Richardson, Melissa Holt,  Bob McLaughlain, Jean Matlack, Jeannie Klainer, Susan St. John, Liga & Chip Jahnke, Tom & Claire Pluecker, our wonderful apprentices Sara Hodges and Les Macare and John Wright, Ryan Parker, Anne Mynttinen, Jaxsun Darlin, Kevin & Josie Johnson, Noah deLaski, Audrey Richardson, Louise & Dick Cadwagan and no doubt others before all is said and done.

Week 17 (of 18) veggies:  Spinach, Carrots, Winter Squash (Acorn or Carnival), Beets, Shallot, Potatoes, Savoy Cabbage, Turnip

This week’s recipes:  Cabbage Salad with Apples and Walnuts, Roasted Root Vegetables with Rosemary

We have a lot to look forward to on the farm in the coming weeks, but in the meantime this extended warm and wet weather is really doing a number on some of the fall crops.  We expected to have broccoli in your share for another week or two, but mold sprung up all throughout the broccoli field, and so Cookie and Boston are reaping the benefit of thousands of pounds of unusable broccoli (see picture below).  Winter squash, too, was first thwarted by the wet and cold weather in the spring, and now is not curing well due to the wet and warm weather.  We’ll put all the winter squash we can into the shares, but for the first time in years we won’t have lots of it.

We’ve got a pretty exciting few weeks ahead for the farm.  The salad and pizza event at the farm on October 9th is shaping up to be lots of fun (see details on reverse side) and now we have something else to put on your calendar:  Saturday, October 22nd (rain date Sunday, October 23rd) we will host our annual cider-pressing, garlic-planting, potluck starting at noon.  It’s usually a relaxed afternoon in the fall sun, popping open garlic bulbs and enjoying amazing food contributed by all.  Unlike the event on the 9th, this is a get-together just for CSA members and is free, so head on over first on the 9th and then on the 22nd with  your lawn chair, ready to eat!

Unlike the above-soil crops, the root crops love this weather!  Available for bulk purchase are carrots (15lb/$25), red or golden beets (15lb/$25), turnips (15lb/$15) and shallots (10lb/$45).  All of these are great keepers.  In our kitchen fridge you can find bags of carrots, beets and turnips stuffed into every possible crevice, and they stay crisp and delicious all through the winter and spring.  Other bulk items for sale (these require blanching and freezing) are spinach (5lb/$40) and kale/chard/collards (10bu/$15).

It’s hard to imagine that this is the last week on the farm for our apprentice Les.  After the fundraiser on the 9th he will take off for a couple of weeks of travel.  After that he will be living in Rockland, so we’re happy he and his boyfriend Jaqxun won’t be far away.  We’ll miss him very much on the farm, though!  And it will be strange not to have Bucket, Les’s dog, enjoying himself on harvest days by chomping away on cauliflower or zucchini.

The fall CSA is a little over half full, so make sure to sign up soon if you’re interested.  The link is available from our website, or you can call the farm directly.  In the next week I will send out a CSA survey. We count on your feedback, and every year we try adjust things based on what we hear from members, so chime in with your thoughts!

We hope to see you all on Sunday the 9th.  Farm tours will be at 1pm and 3pm, and the salads, pizza and dessert are going to be amazing, so don’t miss it!  We still need volunteers for everything from parking to selling items, so let me know if you want to help out!

Have a great week with wonderful meals,

Reba and the HCF crew

Cookie, enjoying a mountain of broccoli. She’s due to calve in late spring, so this has got to be healthy for her baby!

Week 16 (of 18) veggies:  Spinach, Carrots, Cherry Tomatoes, Yellow Onion, Brussels Sprouts, Garlic, Salad (Hakurei) Turnips, Winter Squash (either Delicata or Carnival)

This week’s recipes:  Pan-Browned Brussels Sprouts, Minestrone