CSA Newsletter #14 - Sept. 11, 2021

The crew at work in the kale patch

Many of you may be familiar with The Sun, "an independent, ad-free literary magazine that seeks to open hearts and minds." For over 45 years The Sun has published thought-provoking memoirs, fiction and long-form interviews while never seeking advertising.  Each monthly issue also includes a section titled "Readers Write," where readers of The Sun are invited to share short reminiscences around a suggested theme. The theme for the August, 2021, issue was "Summer Jobs," and one reader shared the following:

I DON’T THINK I’ve ever been more exhausted than the summer I worked on an organic farm. I was nineteen years old and had just returned home from a college that I had left for good. I wanted work that engaged my body, something more fulfilling than the pizzeria job I’d worked throughout high school.

My family got almost all of our summer produce from an organic farm in our small Vermont town, and my parents were well acquainted with the owners. My brother had worked there for twelve years, so it wasn’t hard for me to get hired.

My first couple of days were mostly spent in greenhouses, planting thousands of seeds. I couldn’t wait to get out in the fields and do some “real” farmwork.

By the end of the week I came home crying, drained, and sunburned, but I stuck with it. We rotated from task to task among different crops: we might spend two days weeding kale, three days transplanting squash, and a day harvesting green beans. I once spent three eight-hour days weeding beets in the sun. My wrists ached from propping myself up, and my hands and knees were sore.

My social life was almost nonexistent that summer. I was too tired. When I did have the energy to go to parties with friends, I was always the first to fall asleep on the couch, and if I could make it to a movie, I’d usually wake up at the end of the film with my head on a friend’s shoulder.

Despite the brutal days on the farm, that job taught me never to question the higher price of organic food. I know how much sweat goes into it.

Mallory Corley Moon
Johnson, Vermont

So the question is: Why would anyone want to do that?? Well, we are fortunate to have found a few intrepid souls who have stuck with us this summer through what has been admittedly one of the toughest years in terms of heat and mosquitoes!

Actually Ashleh Worden and Cale Stoker have stuck with us for three seasons now. We featured Ashleh and Cale in two of last year's newsletters, and we encourage you to go to the links and refresh your memory or read about them for the first time.

Ashleh with onions

Cale with puffball mushroom hat

 In addition to being dedicated soil stewards, Ashleh and Cale are partners in life and also in their Etsy shop, where they feature beautiful jewelry by silversmith Ashleh, and unique wooden spoons by carver Cale.

Samples of some of Cale's spoons - available in the shop by mid-November. Email the farm if you are
 interested in a spoon before November.

Just one example of Ashleh's beautiful work

Ashleh and Cale have also explored much of this state and country by land and canoe. And apparently their three seasons of farm work were all in preparation for a Thru-Hike of the Appalachian Trail, planned for 2022. Thru-Hikers cover the entire 2,190+ miles of this "longest hiking-only footpath in the world"; to qualify as a "Thru-Hike" it must be completed in in 12 months, although not necessarily all at once. Ashleh and Cale will be "thru-hiking" with us to end of this season, but are starting to make their plans for next year's adventure!

Ashleh, Moe amidships, and Cale setting off on a breezy Vineyard Lake (Brooklyn, MI) cruise

Taking a pause on the river that winds its way out of Vineyard Lake

Wherever Cale and Ashleh's travels take them, we know they will continue to tread lightly on the earth and offer their unique perspective of gentle justice to all they encounter.  We certainly appreciate the time that they spent at Frog Holler - we will miss them!

Off to see what's around the bend!

As for the share this week - we will be surprised as much as you will! :-) There are some items that we know for sure:

KALE - we made this Summer Kale Salad with Peaches and Candied Pecans although, not really. As in last week's Kale Salad With Peaches and Cornbread Croutons, we didn't have all of the suggested ingredients. But we were again inspired to make a Kale salad with peaches and candied walnuts, and it was good! Michigan peaches are peaking, and when you aren't eating one out-of-hand with juice dripping down your chin, they certainly can make Kale salads go down easy! Some day we'll get all those awesome ingredients together and make one of those recipes; if you do it, let us know!

CARROTS - working through our latest but not our last patch.

LEEKS - You no doubt have lots of ideas for what to do with leeks, but here are some basic suggestions for use and prepping. Looking for some leek inspiration? Here are 37 ideas! One of them might be just what you are looking for.

POTATOES - forget the 37 suggestions, did someone say Potato-Leek Soup? Lots of versions for this satisfying cool weather tradition, what's yours?

GARLIC AND ONIONS - can never have too much of these, right?

CELERY - Also appreciated in Potato-Leek Soup! 

maybes: tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, greens - we'll have to see how the harvest goes

Fun fact about celery: did you know that Michigan was the leading US celery producer in the early 1900's? Although the beginnings of the Michigan celery industry are a bit foggy, Dutch settlers, especially in the Kalamazoo area, are credited with developing large-scale celery growing and earning the city of Kalamazoo the title of Celery City The black muck soil around Kalamazoo, that emerged when swamps were drained, was especially suited to growing moisture-loving celery. Horses needed to be fitted with special shoes so that they didn't sink into the deep muck, but Dutch settlers, sporting the wooden shoes or "klompen" that were so useful in their lowland home country, had the right footgear to stay atop the soil. Other towns around Michigan also sported thriving celery farms, including Tecumseh, right next door, Grand Haven, Muskegon, and even Newberry, a small town in the U.P.!

You can see them placing boards along the sides of the celery rows. This technique "blanched" the stalks, creating a white or yellow celery variety, different from and (for a while) preferred to the green variety coming out of California.

At Frog Holler, we do have some low ground where we regularly try to grow celery. We don't blanch it, preferring a greener, more full-flavored veggie to the bland, uniform stalks now coming out of the California vegetable juggernaut. The Michigan celery industry eventually gave way to the four-season, predictable climate of California and Kalamazoo became know as Mall City in the 1950's.

The torrential rains of this season wiped out most of our crop in the low ground (sorry, no broccoli!), but some of the celery made it and we have been able to harvest a decent crop - even without our wooden shoes! 

Oh wait - Ashleh and Cale had another canoe - look who else got to come!
(l. to r. Kenny, Cathy and Billy King)

Hope you're enjoying these last days of summer - have a great week!