Carrots Coming Soon (I hope we can find room for them in your box.)

Welcome to Harvest Week 6

Farmer John Writes …    An Italian Farmer Shares about American Agriculture 

Reminder: Angelic Organics Open House, Saturday, July 20

10:30 am – 4:00 Hayrides + U-Pick + Angelic Organics Scavenger Hunt + Cookbook Signing + Potluck + Tour of Social Spaces. Sounds fun… See Farm News at AngelicOrganics.com for details.

12 Week Shares Available

The peak summer crops are coming on beautifully. Let your friends know that we have 12-week vegetable shares and 6 delivery fruit shares available, starting the week of August 5th. Tell your friends to visit www.AngelicOrganics.com and sign up by July 27th.

The Weather

Seems like the rain spigot has turned off. Weather is like the stock market in this regard. It goes in one direction for a long while. Eventually one just assumes it will keep going in that direction, but then one day, it goes the other way. We’re irrigating daily now.

The Work

I bought a nice piece of equipment…not sure what to call it…harvest platform, I guess. I’ve been looking for one for many years, and finally located the one below, in time to harvest ten 500 foot beds of cucumbers every two or three days without the crew needing to stoop or squat. No, they aren’t sleeping.

 

Harvest Platform

The Crops

More than we planned on…growing, unfolding, vining, flowering, sprawling, soaring, luxuriating, spiring, fruiting, setting…what a year!

our potato fields

new potatoes coming soon

A Farmer Exchange about American Agriculture

A Fellow Farmer Wrote Me:

John

…being one of the farmers that has become lit by the design possibilities in a Gothic barn, I was wondering if there is any design resource that you know of, off hand, for putting such an arched second-story people space atop an existing barn / shop space?

Mark

our Main Barn with gothic roof

My Reply:

Mark,

Your inquiry reminds me of an Italian dairy farmer about my age, who I met in northern Italy a few years back. who is obsessed with American agriculture. He speaks almost no English, but his daughter Laura is fluent in English, so she translated. Laura told him where I live and he informed me that The Brown Swiss Assn. is located in Beloit and has been there since…(I don’t remember the date, but I’m sure he still remembers it.) Then he told me the street address of the long gone International Harvester headquarters in Chicago, and the address of John Deere headquarters in Moline. He said that I’m one of the luckiest people in the world to live so close to such important past and present powerhouses of agriculture. Some day, he said he hopes to come to the U.S. and see these places for himself.

Anyway, he wanted to build a shed, or maybe he just wanted to put a different roof on an existing shed. He is gaga about American barns. He had seen The Real Dirt on Farmer John, and he was enthralled that I had such nice American style barns. I believe it was before he encountered my barns in the film, though, that he had investigated extensively how he could make his shed have a gothic roof. He simply couldn’t make it happen, as I believe no such rafters were available over there. He kept saying, in his best English, “oh, American barns. Nothing so beautiful like American barns. That there,” he pointed at the shed out his window, “I wanted American….American style…best barns…beautiful.”

John

Note to reader: The farmer’s brother came over to the dairy farm one night and said (via Laura’s translation): “American tractors, nothing like them. We got our first one in 1955, when I was 5, Farm-all. I was so happy. I went out to the shed the night it arrived and slept the whole night under the tractor.”

Somebody Said

“My favorite reading materials are Farm Show, Vogue and Rudolf Steiner.”

Stay Close to Your Farm

Visit us often at www.facebook.com/angelicorganics , where we post exciting farm developments regularly. We invite you to post about your CSA experience there, too.

A Message from the Angelic Organics Learning Center 

Join us August 3rd, 2013 for our 6^th annual Peak Harvest Farm Dinner, a 15^th anniversary benefit event for The Learning Center in the abundant fields of Angelic Organics Farm!  All proceeds support the Learning Center’s programs to build the local food system.

The farm dinner features Chicago top chefs creating a five-course, gourmet meal made with produce fresh from the farm and other sustainable, local ingredients.

Hosted by Mike Nowak of the Mike Nowak Show and featuring: Chef Paul Virant of Vie and Perennial Virant, Chris Pandel of The Bristol and Balena, Paul Fehribach of Big Jones, Jason Hammel of Lula Cafe, Scott Manley of Table, Donkey and Stick, & Johnny Anderes of Reno and Telegraph.

With beer & cocktails by New Holland Brewery and cocktails by Koval.

Go to http://www.learngrowconnect.org/farmdinner for more info & to purchase tickets.

Please Note: this summary is written before you receive your box—please be aware that some guesswork is involved. As always, be sure to thoroughly wash all of your vegetables.

 Brassicas – 1 green cabbage, 1 cauliflower, kohlrabi or red cabbage

Fruiting Crops – 3 summer squash (Zucchini, Yellow or Patty Pan), 6 cucumbers, sweet pepper, maybe a small eggplant

Cooking Greens – kale

Alliums – leek

Salad Greens – 2 heads of lettuce, bag of arugula

Root Crops – bunched beets

Herbs – basil