Cilantro Chutney

The cilantro is starting to come on, and if you are not familiar with it, it's commonly used in Mexican inspired cooking and salsas. Here is a great recipe to utilize this delicious fresh herb. This goes well with rice and chicken or garbanzo beans.
CILANTRO CHUTNEY
fresh cilantro- 2 cups
apples, cored with skins on-1 small
raisins-1/8 cup
cumin- pinch
coriander- pinch
black pepper-pinch
hot pepper-pinch
salt-pinch
vinegar- 2 tsp
Buzz it all up in a food processor.

Garden Update And July Garden Day

Greetings Folks,

We'd like to thank everyone for all of their help these past weeks.
The gardens are looking great and we are on our way towards another productive season.
There is way too much to report on in detail but in a nutshell the major planting is behind us. All of the hot crops are in the ground as are the fall potatoes, lots of potatoes. The 6 varieties of dry beans are up and doing well. The local crow population did their best to eradicate the initial seeding of corn. Because of this we had to replant and cover with floating row cover. Not the most practical prescription for a large planting but certainly helpful.
The late brassicas are in their nursery bed and under row cover waiting to be transplanted in early July.

Formal harvest and distribution is just around the corner. This will happen once we have a critical mass of harvestable veggies. Until then we encourage you to come by often for a fresh picking of greens, herbs, flowers and eggs. As more food starts to come in we will offer it immediately. Stay tuned for more details.

Because the first Saturday in July falls on the 4th we will have the formal garden day on the 11th of July. We will still be in the garden on the fourth most likely harvesting etc..

As you can see from the photos, besides Jim's overactive sweat glands, we now have a yurt. Many thanks go to Louise and crew for all of their generosity and hard effort in making this a reality. The yurt will be used as seasonal housing for guests and as a communal space for farm events and gatherings. We still have some detailing to do but even so it is already a wonderful addition to our project.
Thanks again!

As always stay in touch and please feel comfortable in expressing your thoughts and ideas.

Keep On Keepin' On

Garden Days

Hey Folks,

This week saw another flurry of planting and progress on the farm.
On Friday with the help of a couple of dedicated SLU students we planted more fall bearing raspberries, two more beds of raspberries, two peach trees touted as being hardy down to -25 degrees, 2 chinese chestnuts and we inoculated the mulch around the currants and rhubarb with mushroom spawn. This week we will inoculate more mushie logs adding to the logs prepped last fall. The logs will sit on a crib over the creek on the way to the house. The farm is taking shape to be a virtual eden of diversity.
All of the early brassicas are in and under row cover.

These next weeks will be quite busy prepping for the hot crops set to go in at the end of the month.
If anyone is interested in coming out to the farm on the next couple of saturdays your help will be greatly appreciated.
The word for the next weeks is mulch! mulch! mulch!
We will be in the garden from 8am until noonish.
These days will be a brown bag lunch arrangement, aka b.y.o.

Our first 'First Saturday" workday will be on June 6th.
This will be a potluck. We will start at 8;30am and break for lunch around 12:30ish.
Unfortunately this day falls just after when we will be planting the bulk of tomatoes etc..
But there will still be plenty to do. We will most likely plant corn and beans on this day, weather permitting of course.

We will send out another reminder just prior to the 6th.
We wish everyone a great May and hope to see you in the garden soon.

take good care and stay in touch

Garden Update

Greetings Folks,

We haven't had as much computer time of late so apologies for the lack of updates.
The gardens are really taking shape.
In the last weeks we have planted spinach, radishes, carrots, parsnips, burdock, lettuce, storage onions and leeks. The celeriac and early brassicas are poised to go in this week.
We have also been busy prepping and planting 3 new strawberry beds. These beds are situated right next door to the rhubarb.
We have expanded the asparagus beds and now have over 300 ft planted and mulched.
With the help of a very sturdy bicycle trailer we purchased last fall (it will haul over 300lbs), we have been acquiring manure/bedding from the SLU stables and excitedly mulching the raspberries and blueberries.
This is a fun trip to and from town.
If anyone is interested in joining in on one of these pedal runs you should let us know.
We also planted 24 more fruit trees (apples, pears and plums)These too were transported via bicycle from St Lawrence Nurseries in Potsdam.
On this trip we also brought back 3 chickens. It was quite the load.

You may have noticed another major chunk of ground freshly broken.
This land will be planted with winter squash, potatoes and corn later this month.

Please remember that there are eggs in the large fridge in the front outbuilding.
Take them as you like. The overwintered spinach is sizing up and will be ready for cutting soon. This will be on a you pick basis (with our help). The same will go for the early asparagus.

We will be in touch soon regarding the details for the first of our "first saturday workdays" on June 6th.

Thanks and stay in touch.

What is Food For Thought all about?

Our garden project is an intimate and experimental experience with roots in
community, subsistence agriculture, education and activism.
Based on the CSA model, we offer an immersion into small scale and almost
entirely human powered food production.
Our central theme is to produce a wide variety of food during our short growing season
and then employ traditional methods of preservation to allow for a healthy and diverse
year-round diet comprised of local foods.

Hi Folks,

Despite the flurries in the air and the sugar snow on the ground, the outdoor gardening season is right around the corner. We began seeding plants indoors in early march and all are doing well. We have been hosting students on Saturdays and working on projects such as boiling sap, stacking firewood, doing seed inventories, cleaning tools etc..
By now most of you have responded to our offering for 2009. We appreciate your commitment to the project.
In the next week or so we will be digging spring parsnips and distributing them shortly thereafter. We have eggs available in the small fridge in the front outbuilding. You should feel comfortable in helping yourself.
We will regularly update the blog with all the news that's fit to print and probably some that's not. You can be the judge.
Please bear with us as we go forward with our dream to be part of a community farm. Managing personal lives while living and working in such a public way is just one of the many challenges community farms face. We appreciate everyones patience and understanding.
We are looking forward to this season for many reasons. We hope you are as well.
Please stay in touch, we sure will.

bob and val

Hi Folks,

As we turn the page on another year it is with gratitude that we look back at this past growing season.
The months have come and gone but the garden still feeds us in many ways.

As we think about how the next chapter might read it would be extremely helpful to us
to hear your thoughts regarding what the garden project has meant to you
and what it might mean to you into the future.

Thanks for taking part in the experiment known as Food For Thought.

Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Bob and Valerie