Circle S Farms

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”
— Abraham Lincoln

When I look out the window, nothing has changed.  Luckily, as far as we know, our animals are not susceptible to this virus.  Our processor is still working, although she said they were swamped.  I am in agreement with Abraham Lincoln, that we will all get through this together.  And if you don’t drink beer, then perhaps hot tea?

We are trying to get things started early (our fields are still so wet!) so we can offer a delivery service for our vegetables, meat and eggs starting in April.  I am extending our sign up for CSA shares until the end of March, because of the uncertainty of whether our market will remain open or not.  I am also working on an online ordering system – so you can order things online and have them delivered to your house.  Unfortunately, our delivery area remains Lookout Mountain, St. Elmo, Downtown Chattanooga and North Chattanooga.  Our delivery days will remain Mondays and Wednesdays, to give us time for other farm work.

We will be extremely vigilant about our sanitation here.  Jennifer and I are the only garden workers – so we will double scrub everything to make sure your food is safe.  We will make sure there are no visitors in and out, so we are minimizing our customers risk.

We are looking forward to growing food for you in such an uncertain time.  We want you to know we will do our very best to keep you healthy and well fed!

Letty

before

after

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”
― Winston S. Churchill

Jennifer and I have been working on our small high tunnel.  We are closing in on this “ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving task”.   Isabel (her sweet furry pup) has been giving progress reports.  And her napping is a sign we are moving in the right direction!

So as we progress…..I am here to remind you you have 2 more weeks to sign up for our CSA (don’t miss out for YOUR furry friend and sign up for our new Temple Top Dog Treats).  The sign up info is on our sign up link.  Our sign up deadline is March 15.  If you have troubles, don’t hesitate to e-mail me at circlessouth@gmail.com

I planted onions before the rain set in – I’m excited about our 16th CSA season…..sweet sixteen. 

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”
― Mark Twain

 Jennifer came to work 2 weeks ago and told me she saw a dog at the end of our driveway.

Ghost made appearances almost every day after that.  We ran her off – thinking she might kill our chickens.  I kept thinking she was someone else’s dog because she always acted like she was going somewhere.  She ran up and down our road, several miles in each direction, until the pads on her feet bled.  We finally decided we needed to feed her before she starved, but as soon as we tried to retrieve her, she became elusive.  So Curtis named her Ghost – here one minute, gone the next.

After a few days, of putting food out for her – he finally managed to reel her in.  She has been on our porch ever since.  I carried her to the vet – we tested her for heart worms and she seems healthy.  They would not vaccinate her because she was so thin.  We have been feeding her well, and will take her back soon to get her fixed and up to date on all vaccinations.  She is a big dog – 65 pounds at starving weight – so I expect she will be 75-80 pounds at a healthy weight.

We are looking for a home for Ghost.  We already have three dogs.  Two are dogs that we have taken as rescue dogs.  The other is my Blue Heeler, Temple, who has cancer and needs our attention.  If you know anyone who wants a sweet, beautiful dog, please pass this along.  We will want to talk to them to make sure it will be a good home.  She has been through too much to be passed around.

Farm News:  Find Ghost a home.  She has not chased our cats or chickens.  She seems pretty sociable, and hasn’t been aggressive to our dogs – but did snap at our friend’s small Mountain Feist.

This is the last week of CSA.  I will bring your veggies in bags so I can retrieve all my buckets.  Please remember to leave your bucket out or bring it to market.

What’s in the Bucket?   Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, basil, peppers, green cabbage, red, white and blue potatoes.

If you are looking for a way to use those purple potatoes up – how about some gnocchi?  Chop some cherry tomatoes, basil and garlic add some olive oil and you have a nice sauce for your gnocchi.  Call it dinner:)

Happy Eating – thanks for buying local food from Circle S Farm!!

“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

Ahh – the long days.  I really don’t love them.  I am ready to go to bed usually by 8:30 and it is still light.   Some nights Curtis and I have to wait for the chickens to go to bed – often not until 9,  dusk.

A lovely day at the creek yesterday.  The water is low – but still cool.  A good respite from the summer heat.

Farm News:  Two more weeks of CSA.  Our black rat snake has finally reappeared.  Good because the mice have been having a hay day in the hay barn.

What’s in the bucket? Broccoli, sweet corn, cherry tomato, potato, fennel, cucumber, green cabbage, basil.

Following a recipe for

“Freedom lies in being bold.”
― Robert Frost

The vegetables are bold, aren’t they?  Bold in their color, bold in their taste – some of them.   I wonder if they feel free?

Happy Independence Day!!

Farm News:  Otis got skunked.  The only dog that doesn’t know.  He has never been skunked.  He couldn’t get any back up – no dogs to go with him.  Nevertheless – he was BOLD and he got skunked!!  A bath of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda toned the smell down!!

What’s in the bucket:  radish, arugula, fennel,  shell beans, green cabbage, sweet corn, potatoes.

We are probably all hoping for a wonderful cookout for Fourth of July.  Include some cool coleslaw – with your BBQ.  And some corn on the grill – yum.  Potato salad….

I have an easy slaw recipe – from my mother.  I always use it – but do not have measurements.   I will try to tell you how.

Fourth of July Cole Slaw

Cabbage

Mayo

Apple Cider Vinegar

Sugar or honey

Salt and Pepper

With a large sharp knife slice the cabbage thin, thin, thin.  This is the key.  Add other thinly sliced veggies or grated carrot.  Fennel works nicely too.  Then mix your dressing.  Mayo, enough apple cider vinegar to make it a dressing and sugar, salt and pepper to taste.  Guestimate how much you need – but you can always make more…..

I make this for Curtis and I sometimes on a weeknight – and only enough for two.  Other times, I use the whole cabbage and make enough to share and for leftovers.  Simple and flexible.

Happy Eating and Happy Fourth of July.  AND thanks for buying local food from our farm.

Letty

“I bought a big bag of potatoes and it’s growing eyes like crazy. Other foods rot. Potatoes want to see.”
― Bill Callahan, Letters to Emma Bowlcut

One potato, two potato, three potato, four!!  More…..More.

Everyone loves potatoes.  When my potatoes start coming in, it feels like summer is really here!

Farm News:  Summer is here!  We have passed the longest day of the year, so we are on the downhill side.   We only have 4 weeks left of CSA in this short season.

What’s in the bucket?  Leeks or red onions, POTATOES, lettuce OR arugula, giant zucchini!! (see recipe for zuc -canoos below.), carrots, cucumbers, NAPA or green cabbage, green beans or fresh shell beans

Giant zucchini also make great noodles (consider getting a spiralizer) and/or zucchini bread.

Recipe follows from Genius kitchen

Zuccanoes

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

My father is at the beach right now with my mother, brother, sister in law and niece and nephew.  I am missing him so, all of them, on this Father’s Day.  It just so happens that his birthday is tomorrow – sometimes it is actually on Father’s day.

My Dad has always been a teacher.  When we were little – and teenagers, his favorite place to trap us for a lesson was in his car.  We were a captive audience on Sunday afternoon drives.  He would play Lewis Grizzard tapes in the car.  And then repeat quotes like:

“The rain to the wind said,
You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged–though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.”
― Robert Frost

Lucky to have some rain and cool weather in June.  I was beginning to think summer was here, long and hot.  The garden has responded in color.  All the cool weather plants boosted, and the sweet corn starting to tassle.

This picture is of our awesome turnip harvest last week.  I thought Jennifer might have been a bit ambitious – but we sold them all at the market with our Turnip Truck Special!

Farm News:  We have a bobtail cat named Lucy (Lucifer when she is naughty).  She is old.  I’m not sure how old but I’m guessing 15.  She had one litter of kittens and has outlived all of her 7 offspring.  She is tough.  A friend of a friend trapped her from a litter of ferrel cats in Wyoming and she was tamed into domestic life – but she is still a bit wild.  Ferocious hunter.  She went missing – which happens when she is hunting in summer for a few days.  But this time it was a week, or longer.  I figured she had been hunted herself – and picked up by a coyote or bigger cat.  However she appeared yesterday.  Skinny and begging.   I had given up.  Perhaps she has another of her 9 lives – another great adventure in her future.

What’s in the bucket:  TURNIPS!  Just kidding.  Leeks, Swiss Chard, kohlrabi, red and green lettuce, summer squash, basil, mustard greens.

Following a NY Times recipe.  I love a one dish meal.  Add some summer squash and Chard cut into ribbons.  Happy Eating and Thanks for buying local food from Circle S Farm.

Baked Rice with Leeks and white beans.

The following recipe from NY Times.  Easily adjusted – add summer squash and Swiss chard cut into ribbons.  I love a one dish meal.

Tell You a little story and it won’t take long,
‘Bout a lazy farmer who wouldn’t hoe his corn.
The reason why I never could tell,
That young man was always well.

He planted his corn in the month of June.
By July it was up to his eyes.
Come September, came a big frost.
And all the young man’s corn was lost.

Writer(s): ALISON KRAUSS, PATRICK BRAYER, JERRY DOUGLAS, RON BLOCK, BARRY BALES, DAN (T) TYMINSKI

Every year when I’m weeding sweet corn this song comes to me.  I sing it while I’m pulling all the pig weed out of my corn rows.  Pig weed, if you aren’t familiar, is so thorny it is hard to have gloves thick enough not to get pierced.   When I researched pigweed for a scientific name, I came upon this.

Amaranthus spinosus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Order:	Caryophyllales
Family:	Amaranthaceae
Genus:	Amaranthus
Species:	A. spinosus
Binomial name
Amaranthus spinosus L.

Amaranthus spinosus, commonly known as the spiny amaranth,^[1] spiny pigweed, prickly amaranth or thorny amaranth, is a plant is native to the tropical Americas, but is present on most continents as an introduced species and sometimes a noxious weed. It can be a serious weed of ricecultivation in Asia.^[2]

Uses[edit]

Dye use[edit]

In Khmer language, it is called pti banlar and in Vietnamese giền and its ash was historically used as a grey cloth dye.

Food use[edit]

Like several related species, A. spinosus is a valued food plant in Africa.^[3] It is valued also in Thai cuisine, where it is called phak khom (Thai: ผักขม). In Tamil, it is called mullik keerai. In Sanskrit, it is called tanduliyaka. It is used as food in the Philippines, where it is called kulitis. The leaves of this plant, known as massaagu in the Maldivian language, have been used in the diet of the Maldives for centuries in dishes such as mas huni.^[4] In Mexico, it is among the species labelled Quelite quintonil in Mexican markets. In Bangladesh it is called “Katanote (কাটানটে)”. In Manipuri, it is called” Chengkrook” and is used as food in stir-fry and in broths mixed with other vegetables.

Traditional medicine[edit]

In the folk medicine of India, the ash of fruits of Amaranthus spinosus is used for jaundice.^{[5][medical citation needed]} Water extracts from its roots and leaves have been used as a diuretic in Vietnam.^{[6][medical citation needed]}

Who would know, such a mean and ugly plant could be used for so many things.  I am changing my attitude towards pigweed.  Perhaps I should be cultivating it instead of pulling it out!!

What’s in the bucket:  PIGWEED!  Just kidding.  Cilantro, kale, summer squash, beets, romaine and red leaf lettuce, young onions.

Recipe from the Kitchen Paper for Beet and cilantro gazpacho.  Yum, wish I had cucumbers coming in too – but they are easy to find.  Main Street market had plenty last week!

Happy Eating and thanks for buying local food from Circle S Farm!!

Letty

“He who sits/stands in front of the fire sees more than the flames.. He feels the heat! Too often from a distance others observe the flames only as a source of light.”
― Lennox D. Lampkin

picture by Julie Clark

Hot!!   No I’m not talking about the cutie standing in front of those hay bales – I’m talking about the weather.  And I sometimes wonder if everyone worked outside – if we might worry a little more about climate change.   So often, from a distance, things don’t seem so serious.

Curtis is so tough.  He has been relentless.  Cutting hay – baling hay, hauling it to our barns.  I helped only one day – raking.  But mostly I am here working in the garden.  And at least I can come inside and take a break every once and a while.  I hope we are not in for another drought.

Farm News:  Hot!!  All of my spring plants were planted late because of the rain – and they are not happy!!  I did take a chance and plant sweet corn early – and it looks like it will be here soon!! fingers crossed.

What’s in the bucket:  leeks, spring onion, radish,  kale,  green leaf and/or red leaf lettuce,  baby squash,  turnip roots with greens.

What’s at market:  LOTTA LOTTA lettuce.  Trying to harvest it all before it gets bitter.  Radish, Turnip, Arugula, Mesclun, Mustard, young onions, leeks.

I love onions and leeks.  Following a great way to appreciate the two!  Make a salad and serve.  Call it dinner!!  Recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

leek fritters with garlic and lemon

yield: about ten 2½- inch fritters

• 2 pounds (905 grams) leeks (about 3 very large ones)
• ½ teaspoon table salt, plus more for pot
• 2 scallions, trimmed, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced
• ¼ cup (30 grams) all- purpose fl our
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
• 1 large egg
• Olive or vegetable oil, for frying

garlic lemon cream

• ½ cup (120 grams) sour cream
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed
• lemon juice
• Few gratings of fresh lemon zest
• Pinches of salt
• 1 small garlic clove, minced or crushed

prepare the batter Trim the leeks, leaving only the white and pale- green parts. Halve them lengthwise, and if they look gritty or dirty, plunge them into cold water and fan the layers about to remove any dirt and grit. On a cutting board, slice the leeks crosswise into ¼- inch strips. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and cook them for 3 to 4 minutes, until they are slightly softened but not limp. Drain, and wring them out in a dish towel or a piece of cheesecloth.

Transfer the wrung-out leeks to a large bowl, and stir in the scallions. In a small dish, whisk together the fl our, salt, baking powder, freshly ground black pepper, and cayenne pepper, if you’re using it. Stir the dry ingredients into the leek mixture, then stir in the egg until the mixture is evenly coated.

cook the fritters Preheat your oven to 250 degrees, and place a baking sheet covered in foil inside. Stack a few paper towels on a large plate. In a large, heavy skillet— cast iron is dreamy here— heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Drop small bunches of the leek mixture onto the skillet—only a few at a time, so they don’t become crowded— and lightly nudge them flatter with the back of your spatula. Cook the fritters until they are golden underneath, about 3 minutes. If you find this is happening too quickly, reduce the heat to medium- low; I find I have to jump the heat back and forth a lot to keep it even. Flip fritters, and cook for another 3 minutes on the other side.

Drain the fritters on paper towels, and transfer them to warm oven while you make the remaining fritters.

I like to let the fritters hang out in the oven for at least 10 minutes after the last one is cooked— they stay crisp, and this ensures that they’re cooked through, even if they finished quickly on the stove.

to serve Whisk together the garlic lemon cream ingredients until smooth. Dollop on each fritter before serving. These fritters are also delicious with a poached or fried egg on top. Trust me.

do ahead Fritters keep well, either chilled in the fridge for the better part of a week, or frozen in a well-sealed package for months. When you’re ready to use them, simply spread them out on a tray in a 325-degree oven and heat until they’re hot and crisp again.

Happy eating and thanks for buying local food from Circle S Farm.

Letty