The Final Share:
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Announcements:Celeriac, also knows as celery root, is closely related to celery, but grown for the bulbous, starchy softball-sized root. Our celeriac experienced a challenging season and the roots did not size up to their potential. The mini roots will still be tasty though, roasted or in a soup, and the rest of the plant – stems and leaves will add a rich flavor to stock – recipe below. |
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Notes from the Field: It’s a WrapWhat a fantastic season! Thank you to our amazing Farm Crew: Bryan, Courtney, Justin, and Mike. They seeded, planted, weeded, harvested, tended chickens, weeded, tended turkeys, and weeded; they got cold and wet, they got hot and tired; they got sore backs, sunburns, cuts and stitches. And all of these things they did with passion, dedication, good humor, and amazing team work. And thank you Members for participating in Zenger Farm’s first ever Farm Share season! We are honored that you chose Portland-grown veggies, and that you chose to take time out of busy schedules to pick up your share each week at the farm, and to swap recipes or wrangle turkeys on the loose! Stay cozy this Winter, and we look forward to seeing you back for Farm Share 2012! And finally, I am pleased to bring you a re-cap of 2011, by Crew Leader, Bryan “Sir Mix-A-Lot” Allan: |
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In the Kitchen with Devin:
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Posted in 2011 CSA Weekly Notes | 1 Comment »
This Week’s Share:
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Reminder:Last Pick-up is Tuesday, November 22 (just before thanksgiving) |
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Field Notes from Bryan Allan, Crew Leader:
Did you know that this is only our second year where Friends of Zenger Farm has been in charge of the farming? Before that, other farmers were using the land and we were just educating neighbors and school children.
Why do our own farming?
I’ve written about the challenges of low-cost food before, but it’s not hard to do the math: $30,000 can not pay a living wage to a farm crew of five. While Zenger has a lot of room to grow, every single established, successful farm we have toured this year and last struggles to pay their crew a bit more than minimum wage while the owners (typically two people, married) are lucky to take home a total of $500 weekly. That means Portland’s “successful,” sustainable, small-scale farmer earns somewhere between $1 and $6/hour.
It’s a harsh reality when it pays better to work at any minimum wage job for less than forty hours weekly than it does to operate (working well over forty hours weekly) a farm larger, more established and more reputable than Zenger. When people balk at the market for $3/lb specialty eggplant or $2/lb cucumbers, there is no quick sound bite to explain how no one is getting rich off of the type of farming we do at Zenger. How do you explain to someone that their idea of a reasonable price is just another product manufactured by industrial agriculture?
Despite these high hurdles, I have been so encouraged by the passion I’ve seen this year. The passion of the farm crew creates a synergy and keeps us working hard despite everything else that may be going on. The Portland area is blessed with so many passionate farmers. And these farmers are blessed with customers that have a better understanding of a farmer’s challenges than people in other parts of the country do. I’m encouraged to see a new kind of food revolution taking place, with Portland as an epicenter, and to have been part of it. |
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In the Kitchen with Devin:
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Posted in 2011 CSA Weekly Notes | Leave a Comment »
Posted in 2011 CSA Weekly Notes | Leave a Comment »
This Week’s Share:
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Announcements:Three more weeks of Farm Share to go! Regular Season: October 25th & November 1st Thanksgiving Pick-up: November 22nd |
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Field Notes from Farmer Courtney, Apprentice:Farming during the peak of the season demands your presence, your focus and your ability to bend when the unexpected arises—the unexpected always arises. In August and September we were juggling 12 things at once and when one of the balls dropped we quickly had to find a way to replace it, or fix it, and get it back in the air. Now that the air is cooler, the days are shorter and the rain had returned we have fewer balls to juggle and more room to think about what lies ahead. Each of the apprentices has spent the last few weeks thinking and working on special projects that we didn’t have time for during the height of the season. I’ve been spending one afternoon a week collecting seeds that we can sow into next year’s crop. To save pure seed involves a lot of forethought: creating room for crops that you will save seed from and not consume; identifying which plants are the hardiest and tastiest throughout the season so you can save their seed; designing a plan where cross-pollinating plants are far enough away from each other to produce pure seed. Except for garlic, we haven’t deliberately saved seed at Zenger Farm before, so many cross-pollinating crops are planted too close together this year to produce a pure seed—although, we could have some awesome hybrids on our hands—and we didn’t plan for an excess, so most of the fruit was harvested before we could save the seed. My hope is that Zenger will incorporate a seed saving plan in the future, so that we can be more self-sufficient; we will be producing more adaptive plants that have been selected for hardiness, taste and climate tolerance, and we won’t be as reliant on large seed companies. In addition to our projects, we have been winterizing the farm. We bundled up all the irrigation and have started tidying up the barn. These are reminiscent of our first tasks when we arrived at Zenger in April, and it feels very much like we are closing a circle, which is satisfying in its sense of completion, but also feels sad that our time at the farm is nearing an end. Once winter arrives, there will be a lot of space to reflect and in turn plan for the coming season. The nature of an apprenticeship is that you take what you learn and move forward. This winter I will be passing my time thinking and planning how I can build and contribute to our urban food-system and readying myself to begin accomplishing those goals in the spring. |
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In the Kitchen with Devin:
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Posted in 2011 CSA Weekly Notes | 1 Comment »

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