 Jim chopping down Buckwheat plowdown crop, seven weeks after planting. This step is followed by plowing under the residue, and then replanting another plowdown crop of Rapeseed, a member of the Brassica family. |
Friday September 3, 2010 Wood Prairie Farm Seed Piece Newsletter This Issue: Special Offer - FREE $50 Gift Card Organic Food Sales Rise 5% in 2009Gates Foundation Supports MonsantoQuestions and Answers:Home for PotatoesFuture of Food Curing and Storing Potatoes |
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Dodging EarlTo those of you who have already placed orders - Thank you!Orders that you continue to place now and which can ship either sooner or later as you desire, will significantly help us with this year's cash flow and harvest expenses. 2010 has been a much improved - hot and now dry - growing year compared to the last two seasons which were plagued with serious weather related challenges. Thanks for your help. We expect to start digging our seed plots next week and the main crop after that. As soon as this newsletter goes out Jim and our son Caleb will use the long weekend and work around the effects of Hurricane Earl. We are 100 miles inland from the Downeast coast and expect to get rain but not too much wind. We will chop and plowdown our fields of Buckwheat and then plant a Fall biofumigant crop of hardy Rapeseed which will cleanse the soil (CLICK HERE for an article on biofumigants) before next year's seed potato crop. Up here in northern Maine we are nearly ready for Digging. Our Harvest Catalog is in the mail and should be in your mailbox soon. We hope you have had a good year and that bountiful harvests lay ahead for you. Jim & Megan Click here for our Wood Prairie Home Page |
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| Recipe:
Potato Sundaes Potato base: 2 lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes 2 oz. Cream Cheese (1/4 of an 8 oz. package) 1/4 cup of softened Butter (1/2 stick) 1/2 cup of Whipping Cream or Half & Half Toppings: 6 slices of Medium Sharp Cheddar Cheese 2 strips of thick Bacon or Pancetta, sliced thin, fried and drained 6 Tbsp Sour Cream Chives, chopped Quarter, salt and boil the potatoes until soft enough to mash, about 25 minutes Mix in Cream Cheese, Butter and Whipping Cream with potatoes Consistency should be a stiff. Start broiler in your oven. Using an ice cream scoop dollop potato into ceramic, oven proof dishes (makes about 6-8 scoops) Top with a slice of Cheddar Cheese and put into broiler. Carefully watch to see when the cheese melts, bubbles and begins to slightly brown Remove from oven and slightly cool. Top with Sour cream, bacon bits and chives and serve!! This is a recipe every bit as good as it looks. Megan More recipes on Wood Prairie's Facebook, including Butternut Squash Chocolate Chip Cookies |
 Photo and recipe for Potato Sundaes by Wood Prairie friend Jenny de la Cruz: "We love Potato Sundaes made with Wood Prairie Farm's beautiful blue Caribe potatoes (Cream-cheese & butter mashed potatoes, topped with Tillamook Cheddar cheese and oven broiled. "Sundae" toppings: sour cream, pan fried pancetta/bacon and fresh chives from my garden)" |
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| Questions
and Answers Home for Potatoes Q. About 2 years ago I "won" 4 lb of your seed potatoes which you donated to the NOFA [Northeast Organic Farming Association] Vermont silent auction. They were wonderful and they were wonderful again last year. In spite of the blight, my potatoes were spared. And I'm growing some of them again this year from last year's seed. I just wanted to thank you for your donation to NOFA Vermont and to introducing me to 4 delicious varieties of potatoes. - Rose Gold, Onaway, All Blue, Reddale. CL Randolph Center VT A. Glad our seed has done well for you. Its always nice to know our spuds have found a good home. Jim The Future of Food Q. I don't like Monsanto, I appreciate what you guys do. There's a good movie called The Future of Food that brings all this to light and exposes Monsanto. Maybe you could recommend it to your readers. NB Erieville NY A. We haven't seen it yet but we've heard good things about "The Future of Food." We also want to watch "Food, Inc," which has been highly recommended as well. Thanks, Jim How to Cure and Store your potatoes Q1. How long should I leave my potatoes sitting in the sun to dry? PN Fort Washington PA Q2. When
you harvest your potatoes what’s the best way to get them
ready for storage? RK Our practice is always to keep the potatoes DARK so they don’t turn green & bitter. Keep to a minimum the time tubers are exposed to light after digging. I would say if you have to leave tubers out in the sun more than an hour to dry then it's too wet to dig. Best to wait for drier soil conditions. Jim |
Organic Food Sales Rise 5% in 2009While a weak ecomony last year saw conventional food and beverage sales rise a meager 1.6 %, sales of organic food and beverages rose 5.1% according to a survey by the Organic Trade Assn. Leading the charge were organic fruits and vegetables (38% of all organic sales) with sales up 11.4%. Overall, 11% of all fruit and vegetable sales are organic, up from just 3% in 2000.Despite the hard times, 48% of organic purchasers in the US said they were buying as much or more organic food than before the recession. Source: http://www.naturalfoodnet.com Gates Foundation Supports Monsanto For years there has been concern that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been inappropriately foisting GMO crops upon African nations. Now the plot thickens. As we say here in Maine: birds of a feather flock together. It's now been revealed that the Gates Foundation has purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock at a cost of $23.1 million dollars. Click here for the full story. Jim A related article on Huffingon Post follows with excellent comments that you'll want to read. Click here for article and comments. Want to gain background about why organic farmers can't stand biotech giant Monsanto? Click here for the expose on Monsanto published in Vanity Fair. Click here for more discussion on the Wood Prairie Blog |
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| Jim
& Megan Gerritsen Wood Prairie Farm 49 Kinney Road Bridgewater, Maine 04735 (800)829-9765 Certified Organic, Direct from the Farm www.woodprairie.com |
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