First week

Here is Erlene in the packing house grading out Golden Delicious




And here are the fruit boxes packed out and ready to go for today.



Have a great day!

Week one of Noggins Fruit CSA

Welcome to the first of the Noggins Fruit CSA Shares. We are excited to enter on this journey with you.

The apples this week are Crispins. They were harvested last year and have been in storage since they were picked in October 2009. On the farm we have storage rooms that take the oxygen out of the room so that the apples slow down their respiration rate and do not break down as fast. This mean we are able to keep apples throughout the winter and into the spring and summer to keep local apples available year round. Some varieties do better than other in long term storage. Researchers, farmers and other in the apple industry spend a lot of energy on learning how to improve storage of crops so we can keep the customer happy with crispy, juicy apples.

We have 400 Crispin trees on the farm. They are a Japanese variety, and the original name was Mutsu. They changed the name to Crispin to be more appealing from a marketing perspective. These apples are best for fresh eating but you can bake with them too.

Activities on the farm:

Beth is busy with school tours in the agritourism area.

Thinning Peaches - all the focus is into thinning peaches right now to ensure we have good size fruit for harvest.

Orchards - looking great. They are 9-10 days ahead of schedule. The great rain fall was welcomed by the trees as the orchards were very dry.

Cherries – the pits are beginning to harden meaning we will begin to harvest in about 3 weeks time. Yippy!

Raspberries - in the tunnels they look great and should be ready to harvest in 2 weeks. Outside the tunnels the raspberries are in bloom.

Recipes:

The cranberries can be used as a cranberry sauce for chicken or turkey, but also you could make cranberry coffee cake, cranberry salad, oat bran cranberry pancakes, just to suggest a few ideas. I will add some of these recipes to the Noggins blog.

Roasted Rhubarb

4 cups chopped rhubarb

½ cup sugar

¼ cup orange or lemon juice

2 tbsp candied ginger or fresh ginger root (minced)

1 tsp orange or lemon peel (grated)

Combine in a baking pan. Spread evenly and bake in preheated over at 450F until rhubarb is soft but retains its shape, about 25 minutes. Stir, cool slightly, and serve with ice cream or yogurt.

Serves 4

This recipe is taken from Simply in Season cookbook, page 74. It is a great cookbook and we have copies available for sale at the farm market.

Oat Bran Cranberry Pancakes – page 187 Simply in Season

¾ cup oat bran

½ cup whole wheat flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground ginger

Stir together in a large bowl

1 cup milk

1 egg

1 tbsp oil

2 tsp honey (slightly warmed)

Combing separately. Mix into dry ingredients.

½ cup cranberries (chopped)

½ cup apple (chopped)

Fold in. Fry in a medium-hot, greased frypan. Serve with cranberry syrup (optional)

Cranberry Syrup: boil together 1 cup cranberry juice, 2 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp cornstartch and a pinch of ground ginger.