Spring CSA

Week Five of the Spring CSA will include a mix of the following: Hydroponic lettuce, curly kale, cilantro, sweet potato, daikon radish, rainbow carrots, and red onion.  Please note that the weekly photo is not an exact depiction of what is in your share, but rather a reference image.

The weekly letter will be coming to your inbox the day before your pickup, and is also available at stillmansfarm.com/blog and stilllifefarm.wordpress.com.  

Weekly Featured Item: Cilantro

Herbs are one of those culinary items often get overlooked but can make or break a recipe.  On our farms, and in our kitchens, we love to add fresh or dried herbs to our dishes to add that little extra umph, so we work hard to have them available year-round.

This year at Still Life Farm we planted out experimental crops of cilantro and dill in our unheated winter high tunnels.  The dill has puttered along (it doesn’t like the cold) BUT the cilantro has taken off!  Cilantro is name of the fresh crop and coriander refers to the dried seeds…same crop, two names.  I find that people either love or hate cilantro.  My husband happens to think it tastes like soap and I can’t get enough of it.  Either way, check out the recipe below for a delicious soup – served this to Curt and he didn’t even realize it had a whole bunch of cilantro in it.   😉

Have you ever wondered how we overwinter greens crops on the farm?  At Still Life Farm we only have unheated high tunnels, but even without heat in the middle of winter our potential for amazing hearty greens crops is high.  In our high tunnels this past winter (and moving into the spring) we have grown four types of kale, swiss chard, head lettuce, escarole, spinach, bok choi, all the ingredients for mesclun salad mix, including spicy red and green mustards, red and green mizuna, arugula, and cilantro, and dill.  All of these crops were planted in October 2021 and have consistently been picked throughout this past winter and into the spring.  To accomplish this we choose hearty varieties, strategically planted our houses with the more-hearty greens closer to the outer walls and the less-hearty greens in the center rows, and we cover our crops with mini hoops and Remay cloth to create microclimates on especially cold nights.  All of this so we can eat green things all through the winter and into the early spring – a huge luxurious splurge (but totally worth it) for the true New England locavore.

Hearty Lentil Soup from Edible Pioneer Valley, Winter 2016.

• 3/4 cup lentils
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 Tablespoons EVOO
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 3/4 teaspoon coriander
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons flour
• 1 large bunch collards, stemmed and thinly sliced crosswise (I used Swiss chard, but you could literally substitute any type of cooking green)
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
• 3/4 pounds potatoes, quartered
• juice of one lemon

Place the lentils, 1 tsp of salt, and 6 cups of water (I substituted chicken stock) in a large pot.  Bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a large pan over medium heat, warm the EVOO.  Add onions, remaining salt, pepper, and coriander (I also added some chopped carrots). Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are well-browned and caramelized, about 15 minutes.  Add garlic and cook 1 minute, then add flour, collards, and cilantro (I chopped the whole bunch, stems and all), and cook, stirring occasionally, until the greens have wilted, about two minutes.  Stir the onion mixture into the pot with the lentils.  Spoon a bit of broth from the soup into the empty pan and use to deglaze pan, scraping up any brown bits.  Add the mixture to the soup.  Stir in the potatoes and lemon juice and return the soup to a simmer.  Continue to cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Farm Dirt

Stillman’s Farm.  Glenn and the crew at Stillman’s Farm suffered a couple upsetting days/nights as temperatures crashed into the low teens for two nights in a row.  With TONS of delicate starter plants stuffed into the greenhouses, heat is nonnegotiable.  Two furnaces went down on Monday afternoon and it was a huge scramble to get them back up and running.  After six hours of maintenance, the furnaces were once again running, but in the meantime, everyone with a spare propane heater was called to bring over reinforcements.  The good news is that after lots of hard work and nail biting, all of the greenhouses made it through the severe cold and no spring seedling crops (i.e. tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, flowers, etc.) were lost!  Starting Thursday with the return of “warmer” temps, the crew will open up the cold frame tunnels (unheated tunnels) and move the hearty crops over to make room for more summer crop seedlings.  The cold weather impeded progress at the farm for a few days, but now they should be able to get back to work.  The first group of Jamaican H2A workers has returned and they are welcome help to spring progress at the farm!

Still Life Farm.  With this cold wet weather, Curt has not been able to get onto the fields to plow yet, but he has prepped all our equipment and is ready to go as soon as possible.  In the meantime, we have added some new experimental spring greenhouse crops.  Curt seeded spring radishes in the greenhouse, and Tony planted out some of our imperfect leftover garlic into the greenhouse so hopefully we will be picking some green garlic soon! Curt finally was able to check off a bucket list item.  He has just installed his new basketball hoop indoors in our new storage building and is TOTALLY delighted about it.  He has literally been talking about making this indoor hoop happen at the farm since the day I meet him. Glad it’s finally a reality.

Update on farm costs.  As a continuation in conversation from last week’s newsletter, we have been working to purchase fertilizer as early as possible this year, but it has been difficult to get in stock.  Just as a cost update, in spring 2021 a one-ton pallet of fertilizer cost $1925, this spring 2022 a one-ton pallet costs $2800.  That’s almost a 50% increase.  It’s going to be a tough year, cost-wise and supply-wise on your local farms.

Signs of spring.  The crocuses are up and open!  Our daffodils made it through the 13 degree night and look almost ready to open.  My lovage is just starting to pop up through the earth.  We’ve been noticing lots of Merganser ducks on the surrounding ponds.

Eat well & love your food,

Halley Stillman (Still Life Farm) & Genevieve Stillman (Stillman’s Farm)