Every day of spring brings more shoots, flowers, birds, sun; all evidence of how nature has provided for us all if we take just a little time to know and respect our surroundings and how they work with one-another .  Who wouldn’t love an excuse to get out and enjoy the day?

My walks around the farm are now taking twice as long as usual.  I am always stopped dead in my tracks with something beautiful.  I am compelled to always carry my trusty old camera that works 75% of the time.  (Poor old guy- how many years of dust can a camera really take under its lens cover?)

Here are some of the flora that I encountered today and some of the stars of several of our meals this week!

Stinging nettle?  Yum! Nettle grows in nitrogen-rich soil and has a unique tendency to cause burning pain to the skin if you brush against it.  It has sticky, histamine-filled hairs on the stem and leaf that cause this, but if you can look beyond that and wear long sleeves and rubber gloves, now is the time to feast on its tender shoots!  If you should get stung, one effective remedy is Achille millefolium, a.k.a. wild yarrow.  You can rub the leaves on your skin and it will help tons.  They don’t really grow in the same type of soil, though, so I often have the cultivated variety, with the yellow flowers planted in areas around the farm, especially near the nettle patches.

Nettle is not a weed that we let hang around in the vegetable fields, but after years of fighting it, I have finally embraced it as a blessing to have access too on the farm. I harvest bags full at this time of the year for fresh eating and t dry for tea infusions.  Nettle has very powerful health benefits and the taste is similar to spinach and asparagus all in one.  I steam it with a little salt, or add some red pepper flakes, (it was delicious with some over-wintered scallions that were found in the field!).  You can serve them as a side dish as you would spinach or add them to a tortilla roll-up with other ingredients.

Nettle, rinsed and spun dry in a salad spinner

Nettles and green onions. Be sure to steam the stems until they are very tender. (these could have steamed a little longer, but they were still delicious.)

Into the pan with a little olive oil and a lid ( the wetness on the leaves will help them steam)

If you would like to learn more about foraging, there is still room in a workshop this weekend with foraging expert, Casey Dahl at the Sustain Jefferson Gardening Workshops (www.sustainjefferson.org ).

Here are a few more pictures from the farm-

Prunus 'Americana' (American Plum)
Sweet treats in July.

Un-gathered rosehips

Wood Anemone

This does not mean that we won’t have any extra eggs, though, especially in the beginning of the season.  You are welcome to come to the farm for eggs if we have them available, or we can deliver them to your veggie pick-up site if you call a few days ahead, if we have them and if it is a egg week for that site.

We also have lots of eggs right now, beautiful as they are for Easter!  In a few weeks, the young hens will start laying nutrient-rich eggs from their diets of  lush green grass and sunshine!  The pullet eggs (pullets are young laying hens) are always a little smaller and we often offer them at a reduced price for a few weeks because of this, so watch for specials!

We still have veggie shares and bread shares available.

I want to be thrilled about the warm days, the green grass, the flowers, but I haven’t even raked the flower gardens yet, and my snowshoes are still pouting by the back door!  I am concerned about the early progression of the season; if we would get a hard freeze, there will be serious damage to flowers and fruits and important food sources for wildlife (and people). but what can we do?  The bluebirds have returned, and I expect the barn swallows and the Orioles will be back any day now.  Friday as I walked down to the barn I started hearing a loud buzz and thought that someone had left a power tool plugged in but it turned out to be our honeybees covering the flowering red maple (acer rubrum). (It has been a good year for bees.)

Busy bee in the maple tree

I’ve been finding ticks on the dog, too, and I have been swatting at mosquitoes at night.  (A good year for those insects, too.)

I was thrilled about the weather this weekend, though, when we were able to finish our hoop house project with the help of some fantastic friends and workers that volunteered to help!  The warm sun made it so pleasant to be out working and the light breeze…well…lets say light breezes and 100′ long sheets of plastic don’t always cooperate with each other but we managed.  We had a great crew on Saturday to install the plastic on the end walls and the roll-up sides, but it just got too windy to do the top.

Sunday morning, we assembled a crew at 7:00 am, the winds were calm and we had the plastic over the top and anchored by 9:00!    Pretty exciting indeed!

Quack rhizomes

I’m not sure why I decided to plant chives in a patch of quack grass 2 years ago.  I should know better than to think that I could win that battle.  I can speculate on the thought process; 1.) They arrived as a gift unannounced, 2) they are perennial and needed to be planted where they would be undisturbed for years, 3.) that particular spot looked really good at the time and was near the horseradish, another perennial, 4.) I would be sure to keep them weeded…

These are thoughts that I had as I weeded the chives today.  I surely must have weeded them last year, but the quack roots were pretty large and determined!  But there is something about burying my arms up to my elbows in cool, worm-rich soil and searching for underground networks of quack rhizomes in March, that helps me to forgive them today.   Digging the fork deep into the soil and lifting the roots, shaking out the dirt and spreading nice soil around the plants, I am promising myself that I will be sure to keep them weeded this year.

Tomorrow, maybe I’ll be sore from the first day of garden work.  I will surely have a visible farmer-tan-line. I found 2 ticks on our dog, Leo and we had mosquitoes flying around our heads tonight. Now I’m not sure what to make of this weather… I don’t think our seedlings do, either.

Baby Brassicas, hoping for cooler weather

Baby onions

One of these things is not like the other...

If you live in the area and would like to sign up for the rest of the winter season egg share, the cost would be $20.00 and you will receive eggs every-other week for the next 10 weeks, (a total of 5 dozen).  We deliver to Fort Atkinson and Lake Mills and we also offer pick-up at the farm.  Call the farm to sign up!  920-699-3658.

During the veggie season, (June – Nov.), summer egg shares go out to ALL of our delivery locations: Watertown, Lake Mills, Jefferson, and Fort Atkinson.  We may be adding a few additional areas as well, check back soon!

Pick-up times will remain the same (4:30-7:30pm on Tues.) as all other sites.

Specific details regarding area of pick-up, etc.  will be provided to you at a later date.

Claytonia Perfoliata

Claytonia, aka ‘Miners Lettuce’ is related to common and cultivated purslane; a weed to some, a salad and source of tons of vitamin C to others!  ’Miners lettuce’ got its name because it grew abundantly and was so often eaten by miners to prevent scurvy.  A plate-full (a large salad) can contain about 1/2 of your daily requirement for Vit. C!

When my son was in college he would come home and devour bags full of the green.  It really made me wonder how much time he was spending in a dark, nutrient-deprived environment.  I am relieved that now that those days are behind him, he’s living in CA, shopping at great farmers markets and he still craves Claytonia in the spring.

3 days later, my cabbage and carrot kraut is a bubbling, fermenting brew- I can't wait!

Wednesday night I finally started my first batch of fermenting cabbage (sauerkraut) with cabbage and carrots that I have been saving just for that purpose.  Thursday night’s snowstorm was perfect for a delicious veggie beef stew and today, with a cup of rosehip tea from our farm’s wild roses and our own lovely bees, I see that it is time to bring this blogging up to date!

One of the things that I love to do inside in the winter is (no, not housework) making broth and soup and revisiting summer through jars of canned goods and root cellar booty.  Broth-making is ongoing here.  Somehow we can always find a use for it, so what we don’t use right away we freeze.  The flavors of the broth vary with what is available; in fall the fragrant and deep green celery leaf enriches veggie broth, in winter, it’s more mellow relative, celeriac (celery root), gives a more subtle flavor.  Onions, red and yellow have distinct flavors.  Red onions, the kind used in salads, cook up very sweet and yellow are savory.  Deep orange carrots, grown in rich organic soil, are so sweet and fulfilling.  The Queen of all root storage vegetables, the rutabaga, is in many of the things that we cook.  We even love it raw; it is crisp and delicious!

An easy veggie broth can be made in small amounts by using the parts that you usually discard; the root ends and skins of onions, carrot ends and peels, leaves of celery and stems of greens …yum!  Just make sure to wash the veggies well before preparing and drop them into a pot of water with some seasoning and herbs.

In late fall, there are always a few hanger’s-on in the field that are destined to be added to a hot pot of water.  Celery is one of them.  So in early December, I declared a day of broth-making and retrieved the remaining celery and herbs and made a day of it.

Veggie broth; 5-6 med. onions, 3 or 4 carrots, 4 potatoes, celery leaf, parsley, 1.2 tsp whole peppercorns 2-3 bay leaf, 1 celery root, chunked, fresh thyme sprigs salt 4-5 allspice berries and 4 qts. water.

Fragrant chicken broth

Chicken broth; similar to veggie broth, but with a whole, lovingly raised, free-range stewing hen or the carcass of a roasted chicken.  You can cut the veggie quantity in half or more.  Sometimes I add a little sage to the broth.

One of my favorite broths is Southeast Asian Vegetable Stock.  The credit for this one goes to Moosewood.  We had lots of lemongrass to use up in the fall; a key ingredient in this broth.  I love to sip on a cup of this or add shelled Edamame to it for a little something extra.

3 cup and 1 cup containers of broth, ready for the freezer.

Southeast Asian Vegetable Stock

Thanks to everyone who has returned for another season and welcome to our new members.  If you haven’t sent in your membership yet for 2012, there are a few days left to get a great discount!

We are already looking forward to the next season and hope that you will join us!

Sign up now to get the “early bird” discount!

We also have lots of produce and eggs available all winter.  If you are looking for organic, local produce, I hope that you will check out the “Farm Market” page for details!