Patty Pan Squash Recipes

I usually get a few questions about our produce each season in the form of "What can I do with it?"  So, since our plants have produced a super-abundance of patty pan squash  (aka scalloped squash) I thought I would give out some ideas.  Here are few ideas to try this fun oddity of the produce world to get the creative cooking flowing.

Stuffed with cheese and bacon:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/39304/stuffed-pattypan-squash/
Stuffed with veggies and pecans:   http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/
Stuffed with rice and spinach:  http://southernfood.about.com/od/summersquash/r/r90708a.htm
OK you get the idea with stuffed.
How about grilled with salsa verde:  http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12632-grilled-or-roasted-pattypan
Grilled with Indian spice:  http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/indian-spiced-grilled-baby-squash
You can also saute'
Sauted with basil and feta:  http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sauted-baby-squash-with-basil-feta
or fried:  http://www.newlyweds-blog.com/2010/06/15/fried-patty-pan-squash/
and lastly you can always bake them or turn them into soup.

First Harvest Nears for 2016-2017 Season

Our first harvest is almost upon us.  For two years I have tried to start the farm harvest of fresh veggies to our members before Thanksgiving so that our produce could be included on the menu of the festivities.  Unfortunately, we have had problems with seed starting soil and have lost our seedlings two years in a row form different causes.  We almost had that happen again this year but I was able to catch it in time so things weren't pushed back too far.  It appears that saving the bale of leftover soil over the summer causes pH changes that are not conducive to plant growth.  I made a quick change and bought fresh soil and things grew the way they were supposed to.

Two hurricanes didn't help things out either.  Besides rotting a few seedling trays down and killing most of our pepper plants when the plastic mulch blew off, we escaped major damage.  The eggplants were injured but appeared to have recovered.

I have adjusted our nutritional program this year and the plants have responded remarkably.  I have never grown such a beautiful crop of vegetables as I see in the field right now.  Everything looks amazing! TBTG! Our squash plants (zucchini, yellow squash, and patty pan) are ten days earlier than expected and we have been picking bushels of cucurbits already.  Turnips, diakon, broccoli raab, and green bean plants are also looking tremendous and should be close for the picking this Saturday (Nov. 12) a full two weeks ahead of schedule!  Goal #1 accomplished!

I have a few other harvest goals I would like to meet this year.  Goal #2 - Have lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and scallions ready at the same time for a delicious salad.  We usually have all of this ready throughout the season but we never have it all at once.  Goal #3 - Have carrots, cabbage, and potatoes ready for St. Patrick's Day.  A good Irish Catholic tradition for our family has been to have a pot of corned beef and cabbage for St. Paddy's Day.  Whether or not this is truly "traditional" is up for debate, but it is traditional in our family, and now has passed into the second generation.  I would like to supply our pot with Steed Farm's, fresh produce, for the feast day. St Patrick pray for us!

So the harvest forecast for this Saturday (Nov. 12) is lots of squash, turnip greens, diakon radish, broccoli raab, sweet potatoes, mint, and Thai basil.  Green beans are really close but may show up on next week's menu.  We will also have as a bonus avocados from the tree at the house and starfruit from the tree at the office. This should make for a nice basket of produce to plan some meals for next week.

Just to round out the news from the farm, the tomato transplants are planted in the house along with the cucumber seeds.  The carrots have been sown this last week along with a fresh crop of broccoli raab and cilantro.   We should be transplanting to the field, bok choi, kale, collards, cabbage, lettuce, mustard greens, broccoli, and kohlrabi.  The strawberry plants are almost rooted and will be transplanted shortly as well.  Lots of work ahead.

Season Beginnings 2016-17

Our short summer is over at the farm and we are gearing up for this season.  In some of the fields the cover crops are growing nicely.  In a couple of fields we are trying to control the worst weeds (nutsedge and cogongrass) with herbicides which will not be planted back for three years.  We are cleaning up the greenhouse for tomatoes and cucumbers.  We are expanding our carrot raised bed and are adding a bed for beets.  This worked out well last year and hopefully it will do well this season.

We have already planted the sweet potatoes in white plastic mulch.  This is the first annual crop to begin when the season starts.  I have nice time posts that remind when to plant different crops.  Tomato, pepper, eggplant, onions and sweet potatoes need to be started by Anna's birthday, mid-August.  The cool season crops (cabbage, collards, broccoli) should be done by my birthday in early September.  With all these moving parts, birthdays help me to keep things in order.

All our seeds were ordered on the same night.  We used four different sources: Johnny's Seeds, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Seedway, and New England Seeds.  I like to see who can deliver to the house first.  This year it was Johnny's Seeds that showed up first.  Next by a day it was SESE.  A couple of days later we got the Seedway Seeds in.  Then, just about when I was about to make a call, NE Seeds showed up.  Congratulations Johnny's you did it again!  You've won the coveted Steed Farm-Seed Ship Showdown!

We have ordered our strawberries for October.  We went with 'Camino Real' again for this year as they produced well for the varmints last year.  Hopefully WE can eat some this year.  I cleared the surrounding fields to help reduce the cover that the animals can hide in.  Last season's end when I was turning the cover crop next to the field where we were producing, there were about 30 large rats that were in the field running for cover from the mower heading their way.  I figured it made a nice place to hide for other critters too.  This year they have a lot less places to hide.

I have found a potato seed producer in New York and am hoping that we can get potato seeds shipped to us for the early winter.  We have struggled with finding a source for a few years due to our small quantity we need.  Two years ago we got them too late, and last year our seed never sprouted after we planted them in the late fall.  We planted again in the spring and got a little production but I feel it was a little too hot to get a good crop.  I believe this will be a good year for potatoes as well.  Always got to have hope and faith!

Sun hemp cover crop.

A row of newly planted SWEET potatoes.