Sunset Farm Blog

A simple homemade soil sifter.

Appropriate technology.  You can’t beat it.

There are many things on the farm we’re thankful for.  Like the chorus frogs we’ll be hearing soon, the garter snakes coming out of their winter hideouts, the cute little seedlings taking cover from the wind in their cozy coldframe…and creativity!  We like simple solutions to the challenges we face.  The soil sifter you see in the photo above helps us break down the germination and potting mixes so the seeds readily germinate in a nice, fine mix.  It also will sift out any random twigs and rocks.

Here’s another not so techie gadget we love:  automatic vent openers.

A liiittttle fancier than our own cold frames...

Auto vent openers are designed to be hands-free and worry-free.  They don’t require batteries or electricity; instead, they open and close with the sun.  As the day heats up, a mineral wax inside a metal cylinder expands.  This pushes a piston and opens the vents, and as the sun fades and the temp cools, the mineral wax shrinks, a spring closes, and the piston is reset.

The seedlings in the cold frame greatly benefit from the gradual, automatic venting.  It prevents them from getting cooked in the middle of a 70 degree day (like today), and it ensures that they’ll be tucked in and warm overnight, when it’s far from 70!

Before I post this next picture, I have to provide you with the site I got it from–you should definitely check this Tiny Farm Blog out! http://tinyfarmblog.com/spin-cycle/

Revamped washing machine to rinse and spin greens.

This year, we’re scaling up from our commercial salad spinner to the real deal:  a washing machine.  Many farmers use washers on the rinse and spin cycles to efficiently clean and spin dry large quantities of greens.  When you’re dealing in large quantities of greens (I remember once last year getting 50 pounds of spinach for CSA one morning), something of this size is really what you need.

Here’s what we have used in the past.  We won’t be retiring it completely; we’ll just save it for small harvests.   If it never broke, we would love it more.  Sorry the picture is so small, but you get the idea!

We also wouldn’t want to live without:  dunk tanks to sanitize our harvest totes.

Most of us associate farming and gardening with dewey warm mornings, blazing sun, and lots of green. Naturally people are curious what we do in the winter. Well, winter is a time for reflection, organizing and planning. We order seeds, talk with our farmers, do crop scheduling, stare at our records ( sometimes for hours!), and plan as best we can, the year to come.

#1 Winter Farmers -We set our computer desktops to something sunny.

While preparing a schedule for our 2012 cooking and food preservation classes, I’ve done some reflecting on the classes of last year. One of the things I like so much about CROPS is the amount of workshops and classes they offer- from chicken keeping to season extension to pizza making and beyond! Soon we’ll finalize our 2012 Cooking and Food Preservation class schedule. The first class in that series will be in April so be on the lookout.

Pizza Class

Integrated Pest Management Class 2011

Trellis Class 2011

Greens Class 2011

Pasta Making Class 2011

Can't wait for those greeeens!

Harvest & Post Harvest Handling Class 2011

For those interested, we’re going to be hosting a Backyard Chicken Keeping class. Its an introduction to backyard poultry, you’ll learn the basics of raising chickens, the benefits, coop design tips, and a panel of local chicken keepers.

Save the date: March 15th 2012 6-8pm 444 Cherrycreek Rd.  (Registration.)

2011 Chicken Class

One more thing! Our 2012 CSA registration is open. Woo! Check it out here

Lots of exciting new CSA news:

• Market style- once a week. 27th & South area. We can meet and greet you every week!!
• Eggs and Cheese options available- Eggs from our graduate Efrain, and cheese from Branched Oak Dairy
• Our Growing Farmers participants will be growing a LARGE % of your CSA share. They are pumped, so are we!

We can’t wait for the season to begin!

Tomato season will be here before you know it!...hopefully better than last year!

We are ready to GO 2012!

Happy 2012 !

Its a shiny brand new year, full of possibilities! Welcome. Here is a  New Year’s Rulins’ list made by Woody Guthrie…

Keep Hoping Machine Running

Its crazy how warm it is here is Lincoln- today its supposed to reach 60. I went to the farm yesterday and it felt, and looked like a spring day.  Confusing to say the least.  There will be no photos of a snow covered farm this week. Instead I present these:

Winter Hoop House Spinach

Mole tunnels are among the exciting happenings at the farm. The moles, or "people of darkness" have been quite active in this mild weather.

Fistful of Dollars...

All the farm crew has been spending long hours in the CROPS office and mini shop. What on earth do we do in the winter you ask? well…

• Create new brochures for the CSA
• Prepare and host the Growing Farmers Workshop Series 
• Travel to places like Iowa and MO for regional conferences- Great Plains Growers Conference and Practical Farmers of Iowa Conference are both coming up!!
• Build and waterproof new produce shelves
• Feed the bees
• Justin preps the small engines for a new season
• write thank you cards
• Schedule 2012 Cooking Classes
• Seed Starting and Planting Schedule
• Plot about ways to decrease pest damage- beneficial plants, row covers, trap crops
• Cook and eat a lot.

Speaking of cooking, I would like to take a moment to praise Hand Pies. AKA : Empanadas, Hippie Hot Pockets, Flip-Sides, Pasties, Puff pies, Pocket pies. 

Basically it’s pie crust filled with whatever you want- meat, veggies, cheese, fruit, nuts. Easy. Delicious. Savory. Sickeningly Sweet.You can make a ton and just freeze them to eat whenever you get a hankering for some serious comfort food. I went to Minneapolis for New Years and had an amazing Pumpkin Hand Pie at Birchwood Cafe. It was a little square pastry, filled with pumpkin, caramelized onions, and herbs. With gorgonzola melted on top. Topped with delicious beets. I swear I could have eaten 10.

Here’s a recipe for something close:

Hand Made Hand Pie

Crust Ingredients:

2 cups Flour

1 cup shortening

1 teaspoon salt

2-3 TBS cold water

Filling Ingredients:

2 ½ cups cooked winter squash or pumpkin

1 onion or some shallots

1 TBS herbs of your choice- thyme, fennel, rosemary may be good

pinch o salt

pinch o pepper

3 TBS butter

cheese

FOR CRUST:

1. combine flour, shortening and salt until mixture resembles course ground grits ( pebble/sand-like)
2. slowly add just enough cold water to make the mixture stick together
3. ball up the dough
4. flour a clean surface
5. roll out the dough to about a ¼ inch
6. cut out 5”x5” squares

FOR FILLING :

1. melt butter in pan
2. chop up onion
3. cook onion in butter over low heat, covered. For about 15 minutes.
4. mash up squash or pumpkin
5. add herbs, salt, pepper, and onions to squash mixture

• Spoon filling into each dough square, leave some room around the edges. Seal edges by folding corners to the center and pinching seams shut ( you may need to use some water to seal it)

• Cook at 350 for about 20 minutes or until golden on a baking sheet
• The last 5-10 minutes drape your cheese slice over the hand pie and let it bake with the cheese.
• Serve with salad, topped with beets or radishes or something refreshing!

I’m glad to hear it. It is hard.   It is rewarding. We are here to help you.

Mohamed testing out a tractor

Our Growing Farmers Workshop Series begin January 21st, 2012. The series consists of 9 Saturday classes from Jan-April, and let me tell you, they are fun and they will help you get started building your own farm dream successfully. We’re covering a lot and our days will be packed with useful, hands  on topics like:

• Business and Financial Planning for a small farm
• Crop selection and planning
• Organic pest management
• Marketing
• Equipment
• Seed Starting
• Land issues
• and FARM TOURS!

Sure some workshops are cold, but farm cats sure do help!

Everett of Common Good demonstrating tool sharpening

Kevin and Charuth of Shadowbrook talking about CSAs

Hoop houses, season extension, and direct seeding at Sunset

If you didn’t know, Community CROPS has a training farm just west of Lincoln. Sunset Community Farm is where CROPS staff grow for our CSA, and it’s also where our training participants grow for up to three seasons. These participants are required to attend the workshop series and upon completion can rent a 1/8-1/4 acre plot at Sunset to start up their business. CROPS staff are there to help them with any questions they have about plants, cultivation, harvesting, cleaning, and pests. Equipment, tools and know-how are shared at Sunset, creating a great support system. Participants also sell to our CSA and have the opportunity to go to the Sunday Farmer’s Market. The first step to growing at sunset is to take the workshops! The topics we focus on will help beginning farmers succeed.

More info on the workshops and registration

Sunset News:

• The farm looked beautiful covered in a blanket of beautiful snow, and we were sad to see it go because it nicely concealed some stuff that we needed to clean up and put away. So we’ve been cleaning up and peeking under the straw and row cover at our overwintered carrots and spinach. Things are looking good, and the carrot we tried was super sweet.
• We are busy putting seed orders together and getting pumped to start seeds in about 1 1/2 months. Can you believe it’s that soon? Fedco‘s 2012 catalog ranks high on before-bed reading materials.

I hope everyone’s winter is going well. We’ve already hit the solstice, so everything gets better and busier from here on out. Since it is the holiday season I thought I’d share a gift idea :

I’ve been paging through Tom Hodgkinson’s book “Brave Old World: a Month by Month Guide to Husbandry, or the Fine Art of Looking After  Yourself.”  Its a pretty hilarious book in which the author shares his experiences of living a simple life with his family. It’s organized by month and there are some fascinating sections about practical skills and their history. So if this tag line appeals to you “How to have fun: rip out your radiators and slaughter a pig.” You’ll probably enjoy this book…

FOOD TIP:

We’ve begun to dig into our freezer stashes of greens and pesto, so when in doubt look around and throw some greens into a soup or omelet.

Take care,

Margaret

CSA Box photos throughout the 22 week season. Ahh the mem’ries!

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1st CSA of the week seems like such* a long time ago!

Brought to you by Community CROPS & Friends:
Some of the Farm Crew:

Schy

Jeffery

Matt & Margaret

Mohamed

Justin

Jim C.

Warren

Sue D.

Khoudeida & Erin

Memphis

La Leslie

Gina

Last week I made a point of taking photos of a CSA day. These were taken last Thursday from 7 am- 5pm. While they don’t capture everything that took place, they are representative of the variety of hurdles, tasks, surprises (good and bad) that Sunset Community Farmers experience every day. I’m always impressed with the way staff, farmers and volunteers can adapt to changes in harvest plans, weather, and life.

CSA days start about 7am ( or when the sun comes up!) – Erin, Warren and Margaret meet up at the office, where CSA emails are checked, pick up lists are updated, final box numbers are gathered, and harvest lists are prepared. Oh, and  coffee is brewed.

CROPS Coffee

Farm Program Manager Warren ready to start the day !!!

The temp goes down, the plaid comes out. Warren and Erin preparing CSA lists

The morning hasn't begun before coffee is spilt in at least one lap.

September sees a reemergence of arm warmers and hats.

View from the back of the S10 pickup window.

approximately 8 am.

Sunny Sunset Community Farm. The dew has been really heavy!

Warren counting twist ties, preparing for chard harvest

The sacred binder of CSA numbers. Consulted every CSA day.

Walking to the harvest station

Dew-y Marigold

Harvesting Brussels Sprouts, a different point of view ( without contacts in??)

Mountain of Dill

chard chard chard!

Wash Tubs and greens

Drying for a sec before going in the coolers

Amazing voluteer, work-trade CSA member GINA, and of course Chard

Perfect summer squash

Do you love arugula as much as it loves you??

Eggs are collected, chickens are corraled and cared for

Stretching while cleaning radishes

Around 12:30 when all the produce is ready to be packed up, a minute or two is used to eat ice cream.

Boots

Loading up, driving back to town 1pm

1pm arrives and we're all a little winded from the morning, so winded that some of us forget the e-brake is on!

Radishes in the afternoon van light

Sue, our Thursday box packing work trade. She brings a calm to the hurricane

#s

Butternut

Despite the look on her face, Sue really enjoys her crazy time with us!

Weighing and packing sweet potatoes

Loading up to drive to 80th and Pioneers pick up site

Van load of packed boxes

Boxes need to be delivered by 4pm. WILL WE MAKE IT??

Road work, 3:50pm

With the help of our awesome CSArs we get those boxes to the porch by 4:05!

The aftermath

At the end of the day, we get a little creative with all the fab. found materials in the packing shop. Wondering what to do with those bags you have?...

And there you have it. A glimpse of a CSA day. Come out and enjoy it for yourself sometime! It’s the hardest work and the most fun you may ever have. I’m not kidding!

-Margaret, Farm Program AmeriCorps

Our most recent CSA Box- Mid Season is here!

You may have noticed an absence of posts the past few weeks, rest assured though, we are alive and kicking, and so is the farm…and so are the weeds Going through the Lincoln Public School System I came to associate summer with vacations, road trips, late nights, late mornings, and no ( home) work! Though I’ve been out of school for a while now, I still kind of cling to the notion that summer is a time of adventure, rest and relaxation. Being involved in gardening and food production is definitely an adventure but it  takes the notion of R&R and turns it upside down. From April to November it’s non-stop preparation, cultivation, and harvesting. Good thing the days are so long!

CSA Harvest

Here at Sunset, we are pleased to announce that we’ve finished trellising our 9 beds of tomatoes, and now have the upper-hand on the weed front. Early summer crops like greens, radishes, broccoli, turnips and lettuce have been replaced by onions, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, beans, cabbage and squash. Winter squash and sweet potatoes are thriving in the big fields and are being lovingly cultivated by tractor- man ( Site Manager) Justin Jones.  I want to stress that the farm would not be, would not produce, would be overgrown with weeds and fatigued staff if it weren’t for our amazing volunteers.  Colby, Schy, Desiree, Lois, Brady, Gina, Alison, Carla, Drew, Jennie, Alexa, Kelly, Jefferey, Susan, Jackson, Sarah, Cassie,  work groups, and others  have been BEYOND incredible. Their hard work, great attitudes, and humor is inspiring.

Matt is stressed by all the vegetables that he cannot eat!

The farmer participants at Sunset are a hard working bunch. They somehow manage to juggle their jobs, family, community involvement and farm work. They’ve provided fresh herbs, flowers, carrots, tomatoes, beets, beans, squash, cucumbers and more to our CSA boxes- so delicious, so well cared for!

Two really fun events have been scheduled for the fall:

1. Farm Fresh Dinner, Saturday, August 20th @ Sunset Community Farm. This is going to be so, so, so good! Local foods prepared by talented chefs, a silent auction with one of a kind items, all at the farm! Call us 402.474.9802 or www.communitycrops.org/farmdinner for more info and to buy tickets. Proceeds go to Community CROPS.

2. Farm Walk, Friday, September 9th. Bring your family and spend an evening on the farm. Meet the farmers, take a tour, pet a chicken, and eat some amazing food!

Talk to ya soon! – Margaret