Broadsheet #12
fruit wild plums+
fruit wild apple mix+
fruit tomatoes
('Sub-Arctic Plenty', 'Black Krim', 'Hawaiian Pineapple', 'Kellogg's Breakfast', & 'Ruth's Perfect Red')
fruit cherry tomatoes
('Lollipop', 'Sweetie', 'Pearly Pink', & 'Sungold Select X')
fruit salad tomatoes
('Imur Prior Beta', 'Sub-Arctic Plenty', and 'Bloody Butcher', 'Sungold Select X', & 'Virginia Sweets')
root carrot mix
('Chantenay', 'Red Cored Chantenay', & 'Dragon')
root fingerling potato
('Purple Peruvian')
herb wild oregano mint
herb parsley
herb wood sorrel+
vegetable sweet corn
'Country Gentleman'
vegetable 'White Scallop' patty pan@
vegetable 'Dark Green Prolific' zuke
vegetable 'Lemon' summer squash@
vegetable 'Yellow Crookneck' squash
vegetable cucumbers
('Mountain Pickling'@ and 'Boothby Blonde'@)
vegetable 'Korean Dark Green' peppers
vegetable serrano peppers
vegetable jalapeno peppers
vegetable 'Magnum' habanero pepper@
vegetable green sweet pepper
'King of the North'
vegetable yellow & orange sweet pepper
'Red Belgian'
+ Wild foraged
@ Random rotation
+ + +
Use first Ripe tomatoes, herbs, peppers
Best keepers Carrots, potatoes, squash, & zucchini
Room temp All tomatoes & peppers
Best cooked Wild plums and wild apples
Dry it Wild oregano mint, parsley, hot peppers
Replant it Wild oregano mint
Quick Picks
Tomato sauce Tomatoes, wild oregano mint, parsley, sorrel + red wine, red wine vinegar, salt
Salsa Tomatoes, serrano, jalapeno, Korean pepper, habanero, sweet peppers, sweet corn, zucchini + lime, garlic, red onion
Long-stewed hen Carrots, tomatoes, parsley, zucchini + stewing hen, red wine, garlic, red onion
Lacto-fermented peppers Jalapeno, serrano, habanero, sweet peppers, habanero + salt, garlic
Wild plum-apple sauce Wild plums, wild apples + water, sugar or honey, vanilla bean
Wild plums
What I consider to be the harbinger of fall, as it's always ripening as the nights are cool and . One of my first foraging experiences was on the corner of an old field in Puposky, Minnesota, where rickety old trees collapsing under wild grapevines lighted up with maroon-yellow orbs of fruit. Plums range in ripeness from almost liquefied to hard-and-yellowish, with the very softest ones most enjoyable for fresh eating. Then, the yellow-orange flesh is sweetest while the skin never loses any tartness. The best application here is for cooking. Not only do the sweet juices blend with the tart skins, but that vivid reddish-purple color leaches out into a sauce. You have to strain the pits, but that's no big deal once you've smelled their signature wild plum aroma coming from your saucepan. Don't attempt to pit them - not only are they 'clingstone' rather than 'freestone', but the flesh and skin cook away from the pit. Lastly, if you're a true kitchenista, you can make a child's strength fermented beverage traditionally made from the leavings of fruit processing like leftover pulp, skins, and pits - kin. Probably named after 'kinder' (German for child), it's a low-alcohol ferment that gets a second use out of the first harvest.
Wild apples
Some are ugly, some are red, some are sweet and dry, and some are tart and juicy - that means they're best with their powers combined. Since that kind of rules out fresh eating, delve into some fall fare like applesauce, apple pie or tarts, or combine their body with the flavor of wild plums and spoon over ice cream, oatmeal, or dress up a plain old cheesecake. Joe and I foraged most of these cosmetically-impaired fruits from seldom producing wild trees along a pasture fenceline in Buffalo County. Now that we've lived here for about five years, we're starting to get to know where all the apple trees are, when they are ready, and which ones are worth the effort. Weeks back, I teased wild crabapples - nope, that tree was ransacked by deer who jerked the branches down to make all the ripe fruit fall. But then these lagging trees had ample amounts, plus we gleaned from our friend Margaret's mother's tree whose fruit was at risk of not being picked and eaten.
Tomatoes
The only change with tomatoes - besides seeing new south-garden varieties like Virginia Sweets, Ruth's Perfect Red, and Ananas Noire starting to show ripe fruit. However, the downpours have added up to nearly five inches of rainfall this week. The full-grown canopies of tomatoes plus constant moisture that never really dries out puts the crop at some risk of fungus, but it also means added habitat for slugs which reduced our perfect orange beefsteak tomato harvest by half. Twelve little slug bites translates eighteen pounds of beautiful tomatoes rendered un-servable. These bigger orange tomatoes - primarily lookalikes Hawaiian Pineapple and Kellogg's Breakfast - have all their distinctive markings, unique scars, and lewd shapes plus the result of our packing policy where 'only one blemish allowed'.
Little allowances like that are done to cut down on waste, as up to 40% of food that is grown is wasted.
Cherry tomatoes
The most significant thing we've discovered here is that two of our anticipated varieties are not fruiting true to their descriptions. Sungold Select Cherry is supposed to be not only the best flavored orange cherry, but also the overall taste test winner for all of cherry-tomato-dom. However …. the only organic seed available was from an Etsy seller and they must not have ensured against cross-pollination because every plant sets a different color fruit, and none are cherry sized. Few are even orange, but instead with pixelated stripes, oblate yellow cushions, and brownish with green shoulders. Same thing is happening with the newly fruiting Aunt Ruby's German Green Cherry, which also is not cherry sized and is already showing color variations making the harvest of intentionally green and ripe tomatoes into a very perplexing endeavor. With no uniform size or color traits to count on for ripeness. Thinking next year about going with Green Zebra, another green tomato that indicates with yellow stripes when it's ready.
Salad tomatoes
A selection of not-quite-cherry, not-quite-slicer tomatoes that would otherwise roll around the box and get squished by everything. Our most prolific fruits so far are Imur Prior Beta and Bloody Butcher, but now Stupice is coming on strong with nearly identical fruits and the lovely variations of Sungold Select X showing variety. Quarter or eighth them, toss with chopped cucumber, crushed garlic, and a vinaigrette and you're ready.
Carrot mix
First of our carrots - don't peel to retain the nutrients in their colorful skins! Dragons also lose their purplish color upon cooking.
Potatoes
As per a sharer request, we bring you Purple Peruvian potatoes. Their appearance is delightful, but our yields were disappointing, probably due to incredible weeds. We want your feedback on flavor for this variety, because we're doing purple fingerlings again in 2015, but there are many choices out there. For a fun experiment, you can create purple or blue baked goods with potatoes like these. To tint things up, bake, boil, or roast the potatoes, mash them, and include in your favorite bread or pancake recipe. Also feels perfect plating these alongside a Salad Nicoise.
Herbs
Parsley, wood sorrel (the invisible herb from last week's share - it got cut after print deadline), and wild oregano mint. These should pair well with two of the most popular routes, Italian and Mexican.
Summer squash and zucchini
Old zukes are succumbing to powdery mildew; new zukes are putting on fruit and filling the space where our lettuce crop bit the bullet. For perspective, sixteen patty pans last week; one this week.
Cucumbers
The last hurrah for these, too - the plants are done.
Peppers
From sweetest to hottest: Green bell, yellow and orange sweets, jalapeno, Korean pepper, serrano, habanero. Still only four habaneros - they need heat.
Technology Report
To save time and track all of my ideas, I keep a file called Broadacre Everything File as a journal and catch-all for seed-shopping, important dates, recipes, & ideas for the Broadsheet. This week, the power supply was interrupted while saving this 67-page document of everything going on at the farm, and turned it into hash marks. RIP, Everything File; I last printed you two months ago. ###
Mixology Note
Wild oregano mint is back, and the flavor has changed again - the thyme-oregano herbal notes are all at their strongest, but mint has come back to match them with mild, sweet, delicious leaves. Turn wild plums to syrup.
Preview of next weeks Potatoes, carrots, aronia berry, tomatillo, more peppers & more tomatoes
- Barrett Johanneson