Bluebird Report

Red Wiggler Bluebird Report at Ovid Haven Wells Park:16 of our 30 Bluebird boxes are now occupied. Red Wiggler has already fledged 20 young Bluebirds out of 4 nests. Currently twelve boxes have tree swallow nests-nine with eggs (a total of 34 eggs!) and 3 with babies (11 newborns). Two boxes have bluebird nests-one with eggs and one with babies. One box has wren eggs and another has chickadee eggs.

The Worm's Voice Week 1A

The Worm's Voice is the weekly newsletter that is available to our CSA customers when they come to pick up their shares. The content from the newsletter will be posted here each week. Check back often for new recipes. Enjoy! click here for pdf version

Welcome to the Season!

Welcome to Red Wiggler’s 2009 CSA season! We are excited to have so many wonderful new and returning members and we are looking forward to a great year of beautiful vegetables. Many of you joined us for Muffin Luck, our season orientation, but for those of you who couldn’t make it, a quick season refresher:

• Please bring your own bags to carry your share home! We’ll have plastic grocery bags just in case.
• Always wash your produce when you get it home. We rinse everything as it comes out of the field, but please give it a thorough washing at home.
• Bring your compost to the farm! If you like, take home a bucket with a lid, gather your kitchen scraps (no meat, no dairy) during the week, and next time you come to the farm, exchange your full compost bucket for a clean one. We’ll do the dirty work!
• We are using a new email format to keep in touch. If you have not received emails or want to add another account, see one of the staff!
• Printed newsletters will be available each week, but if you’d like to go paperless, the same content will be available on the blog each week.

The Pick Your Own (PYO)

Take advantage of the Pick Your Own! When we calculate the value of your share each week, we anticipate that you are taking home a small bunch of flowers and/or herbs. We love to grow these beautiful & fragrant additions to the garden and we want to make sure you take some home to enjoy all week!

When you are putting together your bouquet, it is worth a hike to the top of the hill near the solar house. Here you’ll find the Wild Flower field in bloom. In addition to drawing our favorite beneficial friends (butterflies and honey bees) up into the fields, these flowers are beautiful in arrangements.

As for the herbs, it is usually worthwhile to have a look at the recipes before you head out of the barn. Often our recipes include herbs you will find in both the upper and lower PYO areas. Someone will be available to answer any questions you might have regarding the PYO- just ask!

Braising Mix

Braising mix is a delicious combination of Red Russian Kale, Hon Tsai Tai, Komatsuna, Southern Giant and Red Giant mustards, and Tatsoi. These slightly spicy mixed greens are great tossed in salads, or try them sautéed in a little olive oil and garlic for a savory side dish.

Collards

These delightful greens are full of vitamins A, C and K. While there are lots of ways to prepare them, we find these greens are best when steamed briefly before sautéing. Heat a frying pan with a small amount of water. Trim the stems from the greens, chop them and add to the pan ahead of the greens by a minute or two to allow them to soften. Coarsely chop the greens, and them to the pan as well, then cover and steam until the collards are bright green. Carefully pour off any remaining water, add some oil (olive and sesame are great choices) or butter and sauté with a little salt to taste.


Did you know?

Sugar snap peas are a cross between regular peas (inedible pods, plum peas) and snow peas (edible pods with immature tiny seeds). Like snow peas, sugar snap are completely edible- pod and all. Often, however, they are filled with juicy peas that can be nearly as big as the regular kind. Sugar snap and snow peas can be used interchangeably in most recipes.

Sugar Snap Peas with Fried Ginger
from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop

Ginger can be pan-fried until golden brown and crisp and then used as a garnish for any number of vegetable dishes. Here it is paired with stir-fried sugar snap peas or snow peas, but also is a great compliment to asparagus or greens.

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon roasted peanut oil
1/3 cup minced gingerroot
¾ pound sugar snap peas, ends trimmed
Kosher or coarse sea salt

Heat ¼ cup of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over high heat until almost smoking. Add the ginger and fry, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 2 to 3 mintues. (Don’t let the ginger turn dark brown or it will taste burned.) With a slotted spoon, transfer the fried ginger to a small plate lined with a paper towel. Discard the oil and wipe the pan clean with a wad of paper towel.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in the empty pan over high heat until shimmering. Add the peas and sprinkle with salt to taste. Stir fry until the peas are crisp-tender 2-3 minutes. Transfer the peas to a serving plate, sprinkle with the fried ginger, and serve.

Here We Come!

Wow, what a day! We spent all morning in the pouring rain harvesting for the first CSA pick up. We froze our fingers in the Collards, found a bird's egg nested in the Easter Egg Radishes, and spotted a snapping turtle mosying along the barn. We were a little nervous at first that we weren't going to have too much to offer (though our mud harvest was out of this world), but it looks like we're going to have a good haul for everyone.



Just a reminder, this first week's pick up is a Week A--that's groups Arugula on Wednesday and Asparagus on Saturday.

Coming your way are:
Braising Mix
Spring Onions
Collards
Butler's Orchard Strawberries
And one surprise from the CSA variety pack!

The Pick Your Own is also looking beautiful, with Cilantro and Dill poking up, tons of Irises and Lupine blooming, as well as Oregano, Thyme, Sage, Lovage, Mint and Chives going to beat the band. And don't be shy about heading into the Wild Flower patch just above the garlic. We have some lovely flowers growing there that are considered part of the PYO.

We can't wait to welcome you back to the farm!

Goodbye Barbara!

Today was an emotional day here on the farm. We said farewell to Barbara Hittle, who retired today after more than 44 years of working with adults with developmental disabilities. For almost 30 of those years she has worked as a job coach with the ARC of Montgomery County and 14 of those she spent with Red Wiggler as a job coach and farm enthusiast extraordinaire. We will miss her and her indomitable spirit, incomparable sense of humor, and generous heart. We wish her the best as she heads west to run her own farm and be close to her family. We know that she won't have a quiet retirement, but we wish her a happy one, filled with quilts, chickens, and many, many projects. Thank you, Barbara for all you've done!

CSA Muffin Luck this Saturday!

The start of the CSA season is right around the corner, and here on the farm we're getting revved up for this Saturday's season kick-off event, the Muffin Luck. Muffin Luck is a great chance for old CSA members to reconnect and for new CSA members to meet their farmers, get to know Red Wiggler, and connect with the larger CSA community. We have expanded the number of CSA shares this year from 94 to 120 so there should be plenty of new faces to meet on Saturday!

Our CSA shares sold out quickly this year, so we don't have any more spots available, but if you are already a signed up member, please don't forget to join us on Saturday from 10am to 12pm at Red Wiggler Community Farm, located at 23400 Ridge Rd, Germantown, MD.

We will all be bringing a half dozen of muffins, and I'm personally excited about trying out this recipe for Strawberry Banana Muffins. Strawberries are just starting to come into season, and man do they taste great!

Bluebird Babies!

This spring has been an amazing time for bird watching. We've had tons of sightings on the farm of a variety of different birds. The 10 or so bluebird boxes that we've had on the property turned out to not be enough for all the couples looking for nests, and so we just put up 6 more to lessen that healthy competition. We've been fortunate enough to have the efforts of two very kind volunteers who have been coming by to monitor the bluebird boxes for us. Here's what they had to say about their visit on Tuesday.

"On our visit we saw at least 12 kinds of birds including 20-30 Goldfinches gorging on dandelion seeds, at least a dozen Bobolinks, Redwinged Blackbirds, Mourning Doves, wrens, Song Sparrows, Bluebirds, cowbirds, one Mockingbird, Tree Swallows, Starlings and Robins. We also heard warblers and a Wood Thrush. Two of the boxes now have tree swallow nests and eggs and two others have wren nests but no eggs yet. [There are] two blue bird nests with hatchlings, [and] a third clutch of eggs should hatch w/in the next few days."

There are several more boxes with bluebird nests that don't have eggs yet, but our bluebird experts inform us that since some couples are hatching chicks so early this year, they may have time to lay a second clutch of eggs.

Here are two photos of some of the baby bluebird chicks. The ones on the top are a little younger, and have less fully formed beaks and fewer feathers. The ones on the bottom are a little older, with more developed eyes and beaks. It's hard to believe, but pretty soon they'll be flying!

Invading Invasives

You've probably heard about invasive, non-native species in the news. Sometimes they're animals--like the Zebra Mussels that take over freshwater shellfish habitat from native species, and the introduced species of weasels that decimated the New Zealand bird population. Sometimes they're plants, like Kudzu, which conquered the South, and Mile-a-Minute that can grow up to 6 inches a day. Today we tackled a particularly tenacious invasive plant on the farm, Oriental Bittersweet. The plant is a viney, trailing bush that takes over large swaths of areas, climbing on and weighing down trees, choking and shading out native species, including American Bittersweet.

Our Oriental Bittersweet had taken over a part of the cattle fence, that stands as a reminder of the dairy farming that was once occurred on the Ovid Hazen Wells property. Most of the fence rotted away long ago, but in the wetlands stands a stretch about 30 feet long that was simply covered in Bittersweet. This morning Beth and Michelle tackled it and were able to take out about 10 feet of the viney bush. Here's a photo of Beth taking the pruners to the base of the plant. Check out the giant pile of branches on the left that she already ripped out!

The best way to deal with this bugger is to cut a window out of the plant. Chop it at the base, and chop at the top, then pull out the section you've just sliced. This kills the part above, and hopefully stops or slows down growth of the bottom portion.



If you decide to try to tackle this problem plant, pay close attention to the plant's structure to make sure you're targeting the right guy. The one on the left is American Bittersweet and is a good native plant. The one on the right is Oriental Bittersweet and is a bad invasive plant. The surest way to tell them apart is that the Oriental Bittersweet buds all along the stem in between leaves, while the American Bittersweet only buds at the very end of the stem.

Next on our hit list: Garlic Mustard!