Welcome to the 2023 season (… and what’s for dinner?!)

On yet another snowy day, we wanted to say welcome to the farm.  We have 17 new members this year!  Thank you so much for joining our farm.  We are honored to be your farmers.  

Here’s an update on what’s going on at the farm by the numbers

This is Heather-Marie’s 13th year in business.  There were SIX moves in there, which made for 11 years actually farming.  In 2018, John joined her and we bought our farm in 2020.  

2023 will be our biggest year yet, we have 43 shares sold, which means with the CSA alone, we’ll be feeding over 90 people — even more with the weekly farmstand.  As a CSA farm, we are part of a group of other CSA farms in the area called the Lake Superior CSA Guild.  We have a partnership with CHUM in Duluth to get fresh produce to low-income people in the community.  We will be selling 5 shares to CHUM again this year.  These shares are distributed to a number of families.  We’re proud to be part of this program again.  We’re also partnering with another community outreach program that is in partnership with a cultural entrepreneurship professor from UMD helping families in the Hillside neighborhood learn about cooking and eating healthy.  We’ll be selling them weekly produce.    

Since being on our farm, we have had a farm stand every Friday during the summer.  We will continue this tradition.  We love providing food at this most local level. Most farm stand customers are traveling no more than 10 miles to buy their produce and flowers from us.  We’ve also gained a number of CSA members through the farm stand, so that has been a nice bonus

Speaking of flowers, this has become a love project for Heather-Marie.  This year, she plans on growing 32 varieties of flowers!  She was supposed to scale back but…well, it’s a problem.  Last year she grew all the flowers for our wedding and although many flowers made their way into bouquets for the CSA and farm stand, many were kept for the wedding.  This year, keep an eye out for flowers in your weekly shares.  We’ll have Flower Shares available as well for an additional cost.  

In addition to all the flowers, we grow over 50 vegetable and herb varieties.  We like diversity!  Not only is it better for the health of our human bodies, it’s also better for soil health.  We’ll talk a lot about what that means throughout the season but just like when the doctor prescribes eating a variety of fruits and veggies, soil needs a variety of foods including things like cover crops and trying to rotate where we grow everything to keep our soil happy and healthy.   

One of the goals of our farm is connecting people to their food.  Besides weekly deliveries of produce, we hope to make connections on a more personal level by hosting monthly farm events.  This helps us to get to know one another.  Some of these will be in Duluth and Moose Lake/Barnum and some at the farm.  The first one is in May and is the kick off to our season.  Once we have the date set, we will let you know.  

In addition, one of our goals is to host farm events.  Last summer, we fixed up our barn with a Whole Foods Co-op grant.  We’re happy to announce that we will be hosting two public events this summer!  In July we’ll be hosting a yoga retreat led by our friend Amanda, a yoga instructor who lives in Alaska.  And in August we’ll be hosting a flower arranging workshop led by Heather-Marie and CSA member, Kristina.  

Speaking of donations and grants, this year we had $725 donated by YOU, our members, to our Farm Sustainability Fund.  This will go towards any number of farm projects like building a larger farm stand, and a lean-to in the field to house tools.  We also got a small grant this year from Lakewinds Food Co-op in the Twin Cities.  This money will go towards building up our huge irrigation project that we began last fall and hope to complete by the end of June. 

We have an intern this year.  Her name is Olivia and she lives nearby in Sturgeon Lake.  Most of our seasons farming we’ve had an intern but last year and didn’t and naively thought we could do without.  Haha.  By June we realized our error but it was too late.  We are excited to work with Olivia.  She works hard and likes food.  Sounds like a perfect fit.  Here’s what she has to say as an introduction:

My name is Olivia Jutila, and I am currently a sophomore at Moose Lake Community School. I participate in track, cross country, and multiple other clubs and activities at my school. Outside of school, I enjoy snowboarding, cross country skiing, spending time with friends and family, and gardening. My interests in gardening and sustainability have lead me to this internship, and I am excited to get to know and work with this community!

Olivia Jutila

And finally…let’s talk about food!  One of our favorite topics.  Anyone else getting a little short on inspiration right now for meals?  We do our best to eat as close to home as we can and what’s in season.  We do some canning, fermenting and freezing but it’s never enough and, sometimes you just need something fresh!  We’re still not buying out-of-season things like watermelons but we’ve been buying citrus, avocados and the big tubs of “power greens” from the co-op.  Sometimes the greens are even from Minnesota!  We’ve been using the greens for everything from soups, salads and smoothies. 

Today, Heather-Marie made a simple fried rice with ginger, farm garlic scapes (frozen), farm-made kimchi and local eggs over the power greens.  Last weekend we made spring rolls with shredded farm cabbage and carrots, local eggs, store bought cilantro and a tahini dipping sauce.  We’re eating alooooot of potatoes.  John made a salsa out of grapefruit, avocado, farm red onions, lemon/lime juice and cilantro.  Did you know that you can FREEZE avocados?!  We just learned this and our minds are blown.  Heather-Marie bought a bunch of avocados, skinned and pitted them.  They were chopped into large pieces and sprinkled with a little lemon juice.  Then she laid them all out on a tray with parchment paper and set them in the freezer.  She used some the next day in a smoothie!   

One dish we’ve made twice in the past month since it was so good was a rice noodle dish.  We loved it so much we thought we should share it, and a photo.

What are you making right now?  Please share your ideas.

Rice Noodle Salad 

Martha Rose Shulman for the NYT

For the Dressing

• ¼ cup fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce or 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 to 3 teaspoons finely minced ginger (to taste)
• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, or a pinch of cayenne
• 2 tablespoons Chinese sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons canola oil

For the Salad

• 3 ounces dried rice noodles (rice sticks) or cellophane noodles
• ½ small Napa cabbage or head cabbage
• 3 scallions, cleaned and thinly sliced on the diagonal (optional)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
• 1 medium carrot, grated or cut in fine julienne
• Lettuce leaves, or salad mix, for the bowl or platter

Directions
Mix together the dressing ingredients. Taste and adjust seasonings. Place the rice or cellophane noodles in a bowl and cover with warm water. Soak for 20 minutes, and drain.  Usually this is enough to cook rice noodles.  Follow the instructions on the packaging.  You can also boil the noodles briefly.
Drain the noodles well and coarsely chop using scissors.

Toss with all but 2 tablespoons of the dressing.
If using Napa cabbage, cut the halved cabbage in half again, cut out the core, then slice crosswise into thin strips. If using romaine, cut in half, then slice crosswise into thin strips. Toss with the noodles, along with the scallions, cilantro, and carrot.

Line a platter or bowl with lettuce leaves and pile on the noodle salad. Spoon on the remaining dressing, and serve.