May | 2024 | stilllifefarm

Bag 6 of the Spring CSA should include the following:

Fresh Herbs – Dill or Cilantro
Arugula
Mesclun Salad
Spring Greens – some combination of Bekana, Bok Choi, Kale
Carrots
Rainbow Daikon Radishes
Onions
Cortland Apples
Asparagus

The weekly letter will be coming to your inbox the day before your pickup and is also available at stillmansfarm.com/blog and stilllifefarm.wordpress.com.

If you cannot recycle or reuse them, we are accepting returned CSA bags. Please be sure that returned bags are clean and in good condition.

Spring CSA schedule:

We will see you in TWO WEEKS for your next bounty of Spring bag. The schedule is also on our website calendar.

Saturdays: March 9, March 23, April 6, April 20, May 4, May 18, June 1

Jamaica Plain, 12-3pm

Sundays: March 10, March 24, April 7, April 21, May 5, May 19, June 2

Lunenburg, 12-1pm

Thursdays: March 14, March 28, April 11, April 25, May 9, May 23, June 6
Boston (Boston Public Market) 12-5pm

Brookline (Beals Street) 1-6pm
Watertown (City Hall) 12:30-1pm
Natick (Princeton Rd) 1:30-6pm
Worcester (Deadhorse Hill Restaurant) 5-9pm
Hardwick (Still Life Farm) 4-6pm
New Braintree (Stillman’s Farm) 12-6pm

Dutch Baby with Apple, Mother’s Day Breakfast at Still Life Farm.

Weekly Featured Item: Apples

The end of May gets to be a sticky time with produce availability. Lots of winter crops are coming out of the greenhouses to make way for the start of summer crops. That always leaves us in sort of an odd spot for a week or two. That being said, we still have lots of food!

Apples hold amazingly well in cold storage over the winter! What a treat while we wait for the flush of early summer fruit to arrive. The Stillman’s have still been eating tons of apples in order to hit our daily fruit quota! For Mother’s Day, Curt made me the most delicious Dutch Baby. Sharing the recipe because it was delicious and easy, and you can adapt it sweet or savory with different fruits or even asparagus, leeks, herbs, whatever…use your imagination. And Happy (slightly belated) Mother’s Day to all our Farm Mamas out there!

New York Times Dutch Baby Recipe, By Florence Fabricant

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6648-dutch-baby

Ingredients:

3 large eggs, at room temperature
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole milk, at room temperature
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of nutmeg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Syrup, preserves, confectioners’ sugar or cinnamon sugar

Preparation:

Step 1 Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Step 2 Combine eggs, flour, milk, sugar and nutmeg in a blender jar and blend until very smooth. Batter may also be mixed by hand.
Step 3 Place butter in a heavy 10-inch skillet and place in the oven. As soon as the butter has melted (watch it so it does not burn) add the batter to the pan, return pan to the oven and bake for 20 minutes, until the pancake is puffed and golden. Lower oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake 5 minutes longer.
Step 4 Remove pancake from oven, cut into wedges and serve at once topped with syrup, preserves, confectioners’ sugar or cinnamon sugar.

***Curt sautéed/caramelized apples slices in butter before starting the Dutch Baby, then he poured them on top of the batter in the pan before throwing the whole thing in the oven to bake.

Farm Dirt

Stillman’s Farm. TONS of seeding, planting, and transplanting is happening. There’s lots of hardy and not-so-hardy plants going out into the field for an early start to the season. Glenn says he has nine acres of Remay cloth cover down over the early outside crops to protect them from less-than-ideal weather. The orchards are all pruned, and the bloom was plentiful. Some of the peaches might have gotten nicked on a cold night in April, but overall, we are very hopeful for a big crop this summer. Lots of wildlife news! At the feeder we have 5 pairs of Rose Breasted Grossbeaks, 2 pairs of Baltimore Orioles, loads of Finches and were graced by an Indigo Bunting the other day.

Still Life Farm. Curt and the crew have been working very hard on berry care – weeding, pruning, and mulching – and I’m happy to report that all the small fruits are looking good this year! And we are headlong into field prep – onion field has been prepped and the crew is working to transplant our 50k alliums – that’s a lot of onions. Next up, the sweet potato field. Of course, the sweet potato slips (highly perishable) have arrived on Friday afternoon – jeez – not to worry, it will all get done one way or the other. A tiny orange kitten has arrived at the farm, his name is Gus – but if you ask Kip, his name is Gus Bobbi Scratcher…so there you have it.

CSA Options

Winter CSA 2024-25 Membership Drive is open. Sign up by June 1, 2024 and save money with our Early Bird Discount! Still Life Farm CSA

Summer CSA 2024 kickoff is slated for June 15th. Visit the website to sign up for an option that works for you – a traditional CSA plan, a-la-carte to make your own selections, or one of the fruit or tomato CSAs! Stillman’s Farm Summer CSA

Eat well & love your food,

Halley Stillman (Still Life Farm) & Genevieve Stillman (Stillman’s Farm)

Gus, the new kitty. More formally known as Gus Bobbi Scratchy.

Bag 5 of the Spring CSA should include the following: Ramps! fiddleheads, Mizuna, potatoes, cabbage, leeks, turnip, bok choi, lettuce or mesclun mix, pink onions, carrots…and we are trying really hard to get our hydroponic strawberries in the bag too!!! Please note that the weekly photo is not an exact depiction of what is in your share, but rather a reference image.

This looks like a phenomenal soup and stir fry bag!

The weekly letter will be coming to your inbox the day before your pickup and is also available at stillmansfarm.com/blog and stilllifefarm.wordpress.com.

If you cannot recycle or reuse them, we are accepting returned CSA bags. Please be sure that returned bags are clean and in good condition.

Spring CSA schedule: We will see you in TWO WEEKS for your next bounty of Spring bag. The schedule is also on our website calendar.

Saturdays: March 9, March 23, April 6, April 20, May 4, May 18, June 1

Jamaica Plain, 12-3pm

Sundays: March 10, March 24, April 7, April 21, May 5, May 19, June 2

Lunenburg, 12-1pm

Thursdays: March 14, March 28, April 11, April 25, May 9, May 23, June 6

Boston (Boston Public Market) 12-5pm
Brookline (Beals Street) 1-6pm
Watertown (City Hall) 12:30-1pm
Natick (Princeton Rd) 1:30-6pm
Worcester (Deadhorse Hill Restaurant) 5-9pm
Hardwick (Still Life Farm) 4-6pm
New Braintree (Stillman’s Farm) 12-6pm

Weekly Featured Item: Ramps

Sometimes called Wild Leeks, Ramps are our native wild allium. They are related to garlic and onions and can be enjoyed in anything you wanted that flavor profile in. I think of them more like leeks because I love them sautéed in butter and served up with scrambled eggs. Simply trim off the roots, rinse carefully, and use the entire stem and leaf. Sautee whole or chop them up, it’s all good. Ramps are high in vitamins A and C. Our ramps have been sourced from a partner farm in the Connecticut Valley (that’s still in MA) that sustainably harvests these delightful alliums.

Wild Ramp and Swiss Chard Pesto from Domestic Dreamboat

With a rich, garlicky flavor and thick, spreadable texture, this Wild Ramp and Swiss Chard Pesto is a great springtime addition to all your favorite foods.

½ cup walnuts
4 ounces Swiss chard, washed
2 ounces wild ramps, cleaned, root ends trimmed
½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
tap here
1 teaspoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil

Toast walnuts in a small, dry skillet over medium heat until they are lightly browned and fragrant. Remove from heat and cool.

Coarsely chop the Swiss chard leaves and stems and the ramps. Add them both to the bowl of a food processor with the walnuts, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Process until everything is finely chopped, about 10-15 seconds. Slowly stream in the olive oil until the mixture forms a thick paste, using a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Serve with pasta, as a sandwich spread, as a raw vegetable dip, or in any other way you think might be delicious. One of my favorite ways to eat it is spread on crusty toast with a fried egg on top. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to a week, or freeze.

Second featured item 🙂 Fiddleheads

As Spring is fully upon us we don’t want to miss the short season for fiddleheads either.

This local delicacy is best described as the “tightly coiled tips of early spring ostrich ferns with a tender texture and mild nutty flavor”. Stillman’s Farm has sustainably foraged for some of your fiddleheads, and the rest are coming from our partner farm in the CT valley. Fiddleheads are best simply eaten as a spring side, sautéed with EVOO/butter and lemon.

Preparation and cooking are important when dealing with this spring treat. To prepare, remove any papery brown skin and trim away any brown stem ends. Soak thoroughly in water to remove any dirt or grit. Fiddleheads contain a toxin that can cause mild stomach discomfort, so they must be cooked thoroughly. To cook, boil or steam for 10-15 minutes. Then blanch in cold water to avoid overcooking. After that you can do whatever you like with them, but a simple sauté with EVOO/butter and lemon will really allow their mild spring flavor to shine.

For more information and recipes check out “The Spruce Eats”.

Hardy cold crops being transplanted into the field.

Farm Dirt

Stillman’s Farm. Seed! Till! Plant! Rinse and repeat. We are still doing loads of transplanting in the greenhouses AND we are transplanting outside now too. The most exciting time (and stressful for weather reasons) is the actual planting. When those plants go in the ground, they not only free up space for new plants in the greenhouse, but they have also made it to their final growing destination, which is the exciting part – PLUS it is very rewarding to see the beautifully grown plants we have been fussing over all Spring get into the ground. Any of you who garden know how satisfying planting is on a number of levels. We have plants at the JP and BPM markets, but a drive out to the New Braintree farm is worth the trip. Looks like we will have plenty of baskets ready for Mother’s Day and for those who aren’t into hanging baskets, we have loads of herbs, veggies, and colorful annuals.

The other exciting and stressful event on the farm is the peaches are blooming! We had a couple nights that were in the danger zone for causing damage, but I think we are mostly okay. Now we need to focus on it warming up and not dropping into sub freezing weather 😉

Still Life Farm. The first of our H2A labor, has arrived back at the farm and our farm crew is busier than ever with spring projects, picking, planting, pruning, and more. Our new greenhouses have been delivered and are waiting to be erected. The NRCS archeologist visited the proposed greenhouse site to ensure that we were not building on anything particularly special. We’re rocking and rolling with spring crops in our already existing greenhouses, including zucchini, cucumbers, beets, scallions, herbs, greens, and more. The orchards and berries are in full bloom and the bees are out in numbers. I saw a beautiful orange oriole flying out of the fully blooming cherry orchard this morning – very vibrant!

And…Winter CSA 2024-25 Membership Drive. Sign up by June 1, 2024 and save money with our Early Bird Discount! Still Life Farm CSA

Eat well & love your food,

Halley Stillman (Still Life Farm) & Genevieve Stillman (Stillman’s Farm)