Clagett Farm Notes

Gleaning--what's available

It's that time of year when our members, worksharers, and friends can glean whatever remains from our fields.  Beginning tomorrow (Friday, 11/18) through Sunday afternoon, you can come to the farm anytime and harvest.  At the washing station we will have a map telling you where to find everything, and around the farm we will post signs to help guide you to the fields.   If you would like to come when we are there to help you, we will be around 9am-5pm Friday, 10am-2pm Saturday, and noon-3pm Sunday.  A small volunteer group will come Sunday afternoon to help us glean what's left for a soup kitchen. 

Here is a list of what is available to pick right now:

lettuce
spinach (very small; requires patience and good knees to harvest)
arugula (plenty)
spicy mix (plenty)
mizuna
red mustard
green mustard
turnip greens
collards
kale
small heads broccoli
tiny heads cauliflower
many immature heads cabbage
about 10 pounds small, slightly-soft sweet potatoes
about 20 pounds garlic bulbs
hakurei turnips
purple-top turnips
watermelon radishes
regular radishes ("cherry belle" and "easter egg")
jimmy nardello peppers (sweet, frying)
padron chiles (hot when larger than a golf ball)
lots of assorted, dried chiles scattering the ground where they were growing
dill
cilantro
garlic chives
oregano
mint
nasturtiums (peppery, edible flowers and leaves--some frost damage)
basil (doesn't win any prizes for appearance--frost damage)
anise hyssop (licorice flavored herb--great for hot tea! Some frost damage  )

Please be warned that many of the above items are scattered in distant fields.  These are items that were not harvested before because there was not enough to serve our hundreds of members, or it was so small or scattered it was not worth the time.  By it's nature gleaning requires some patience and a keen eye for what might be hidden in a field that looks cleaned out.  Please bring bags, and a knife will be helpful to harvest the small greens.  If you're hoping for a couple pounds of salad greens, expect to squat or crouch for 15 minutes or more.  Also, it's been cold and windy at times, so please dress appropriately for the weather, and wear comfortable shoes that you can get dirty.  The frost on the grass will get your feet cold and wet until mid-morning.

If you would like to surprise someone with a Thanksgiving or Christmas wreath, we will have some for sale.  Many include garlic, popcorn and chiles, so they are useful even after the holidays have passed. 

If we don't see you this weekend, have a terrific winter!

Papalo anyone?

Intrigued by the description of papalo in a seed catalog, I ordered a packet. Papalo is native to the warmer regions of the Americas. Although we don't have many of them the plants are doing rather well now. I like its strong unique taste (the younger leaves are much better), but as I found out I'm the only one in my family who does. Reports from adventurous u-pickers are rather mixed. Some like it, others don't. We have a well-traveled bunch of shareholders, so if you have any papalo stories, or tips on how to use it, or even a recipe or two, please add a comment to this post.

For some very basic information on papalo, go here. One of the main things to keep in mind is that papalo is not cooked. Its leaves are used fresh or added to cooked meals right at the end.

We will be bringing samples of it to shareholders. Whether or not we will grow it next year depends on the feedback we get from you.

Anise hyssop

Judging from this tiger swallowtail, our species is not the only one that enjoys anise hyssop. Although anise hyssop--also known as licorice mint--belongs to the mint family, as its names indicate it tastes more like anise or licorice. Among other uses, its leaves and flowers are used in salads and refreshing drinks and when dried both of them can be used for tea as well as in cookies and coffee cakes.

Basil and Arugula

As you can see from the photo above, it has been a great basil year at Clagett Farm. We've had so much that we simply could not keep up with it and that's why we urged shareholders to "you pick" as much basil as they could. Well, by now most of the basil has flowered. After flowering basil leaves become more bitter. Yesterday evening, though, two worksharers told me they made good pesto from basil they had harvested earlier in the day. There's plenty left if you want to experiment.

Our fall arugula looks promising. A couple of plantings already matured and a couple of others will be ready later in October. While basil is very frost sensitive, arugula is fairly frost tolerant. So unless a really bad frost hits us (always a possibility) we will probably be harvesting arugula until the end of the season (mid-November.)

Below is a picture of a small thirty-day-old arugula bed. It was direct seeded on August 23 and was already harvestable a month later. Incidentally, because of the shorter days and cooler weather, arugula direct seeded in late September would take somewhat longer than thirty days to reach the same level of maturity.