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The cover of our Harvest
2010 Catalog now in the mail hints at a tasty potato dish: Homemade
Potato Chips. Recipe below.
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Coming
Into Fall
With
some nights now dipping into the low 40s we are slipping into Fall.
This has been a wonderful growing year. Everyone is
getting
ready for Potato Harvest which in Northern Maine is called
"Digging." We have killed our seed plots - the seed we will
plant
back next year here on Wood Prairie Farm - and are beginning to kill
back our early varieties. The best Seed potato growers
carefully
monitor tuber size and age this time of year and kill the plant tops
(we burn back with propane flame) when
the potatoes are still juvenile and full of energy.
This
practice will result in extra vigor and higher yields for the crop you
plant from our seed next season.
Harvest
Help
Everyone loves the Fall in New England. Fall’s
harvest
represents the culmination of a year’s work and you can bet
that
we are extremely busy. Like all farmers we have a lot of
expenses
this time of year – labor, equipment and fuel to name a
few. In addition to those customary outlays, our unique Wood
Prairie Farm niche of selling our crops directly to you also racks up
additional seasonal expenses like printing and mailing out our catalog.
The fact is, we need some Harvest Help from you. You can help
us
in a very tangible way if you place your order right now. As
a
thank you for your timely orders we are offering a 15% discount on all
orders placed by 5pm Eastern Tuesday August 31, 2010. We will
send all orders out as promptly as possible. Orders
must ship by 5/10/11. Please use code XXXXX. Market
Growers - this is your chance to save hundreds of dollars on your next
order!
Kitchen potato orders of ten pounds or less plus all seed potatoes and
grain items will ship just as soon as they are dug in
September.
Potatoes for kitchen use in quantities greater than ten pounds (i.e.
20s and 50s) will ship around November 1 when the potatoes are fully
ready for fall brushing.
Help us harvest and we’ll help you save. Thanks,
Jim & Megan
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Recipe:
Home-Made Potato Chips
This Recipe idea and
photo sent in by our customer and friend Jan Snyder
Ingredients
4 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced paper-thin
3 tablespoons salt
1 quart oil for deep frying
Directions
- Place potato slices
into a large bowl of cold water as you slice.
Drain, and rinse, then refill the bowl with water, and add the salt.
Let the potatoes soak in the salty water for at least 30 minutes.
Drain, then rinse and drain again.
- Heat oil in a deep-fryer to 365 degrees F
(185 degrees C). Fry potato
slices in small batches. Once they start turning golden, remove and
drain on paper towels. Continue until all of the slices are fried.
Season with additional salt if desired.
- Enjoy them while they're hot!
https://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Homestyle-Potato-chips/Detail.aspx
More recipes on Wood Prairie's
Facebook, including Butternut Squash Chocolate Chip Cookies |

Photo
of Potato Chips by Jan Snyder. |
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Question
and Answer : Fall
Planting
Q.
Some people around here plant potatoes over the winter. I'd
like
to try it with some of these potatoes as seed. Any
recommendations on which variety would have the best shot in a rainy
winter?
LM
Stinson Beach CA
A.
This is doable. A good number of our customers in areas with
mild
Falls/Winters will plant back a portion of their Spring/Summer potato
harvest. In this way they are never more than one generation
away
from clean certified seed and you should do fine.
The big consideration in Fall planting is the dormancy
factor.
Before any tuber will sprout it has to go through a resting or dormancy
period of 4-8 weeks. Dormancy varies by variety and by the
kind
of growing season year: a tuber grown in hot weather and
under
stress will be aged more at harvest and accordingly such aging
conditions will shorten the required resting period . So the
best
keeping varieties (long dormancy) are the worst Fall planting varieties
(Swedish Peanut, Red Cloud, Yukon Gold and Prairie Blush) because they
won't wake up. The best fall varieties are short dormancy
(for
example, Russian Banana) and the very best are both short dormancy AND
short length of season (Caribe', Reddale, Onaway).
To
encourage an early end to dormancy and sprouting the best practice is
to store tubers at room temperature and plant after you see the sprouts
beginning to emerge from the eyes (indication the tubers have come out
of dormancy and are ready to grow). We apply an organic plant
growth regulator gibberillic acid (GAA) to all Fall shipped seed
potatoes intended for Fall planting. The GAA gives tubers a
leg
up to helping break dormancy. The safest technique is to not plant your
seed tubers until they are starting to sprout and ready to
grow.
Good luck. Jim
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Monsanto
& USDA Dealt Historic Defeat
Not
Above the Law
Monsanto, the chief biotech corporation and pusher of GMO (Genetically
Modified Organisms or gene-spliced) crops and their boosters at the
dysfunctional regulator USDA-APHIS were dealt a major blow last week
when federal district judge Jeffrey White issued an order rescinding
the USDA’s approval of the planting of GMO Roundup Ready
Sugar
Beets. Judge White ruled that the USDA is not above the law
and
acted illegally when it approved the planting of RR Sugar Beets without
having conducted the mandatory Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS). The court decision ruled on a lawsuit filed
by
fellow organic seed growers and allies at the Center for Food Safety
and at the Organic Seed Alliance (Last year Jim completed a three year
term as OSA President).
The highly mobile pollen from RR Sugar
Beet seed
production has the ability to contaminate the seed of table beets,
swiss chard and other non-GMO sugar beets. Click here for more info on the court
decision.
Be
Safe and Be Sure
Wood Prairie Farm organic seed of varieties that
are at
risk for GMO contamination is carefully grown in isolation and PCR
tested in 10,000 seed samples. Our seed lots must test as
“not found in” (meaning zero seeds
GMO content out of
a 10,000 seed sample) or else we won’t sell it.
Monsanto
in Ag
We absolutely do not support Monsanto and we do
not sell Monsanto seed.
The Wood Prairie belief toward Monsanto is short
and to
the point. It is recorded in Michael Pollan’s
“The
Botany of Desire” and can be found on page 221: “If
there’s a source of evil in agriculture its name is
Monsanto.”
Monsanto
on the Ropes?
Monsanto is suffering setbacks. Last
week’s RR
Sugarbeet ban marks the second time a Court has rescinded the
USDA’s approval of a Monsanto biotech crop. Earlier
this
summer Monsanto brought a case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The
High Court upheld a lower court ban ruling against Monsanto and left in
place the prohibition on planting GMO Roundup Ready Alfalfa. (Click here for the story of the
defeat of RR Alfalfa.)
Jim |
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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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