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It's August

8/9/2017

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I love cooking at this time of year (which is also true for pretty much the rest of the year, too, but for other reasons).  There is such a cascade of delicious, fresh, on fire ingredients to delight my palate that it’s hard to get it all cooked up the way I want to before it’s time to move on to the next fresh thing.
We’re about to harvest our potatoes; my ultimate comfort food, and of course we had to “rob” some and do a little quality control before sharing them in the csa boxes. I always go way overboard when making potato anything, because after that first heavenly meal of potato whatever that I become simply giddy over (truly just ask my friends), I want leftovers.
I want to eat them cold as a salad ingredient, I want to fry them up in butta and eat ‘em with eggs in the morning, I want to turn them into soup, I want to make them into veggie fritters, I want to make a “crust” for quiche out of them…give me potato anything, especially leftover potato anything, and I am a happy farm girl.
I made the veggie fritter thing this past week from left over fresh garden mashers with peas, added into a dinner of veggie coconut curry with carrots, celery and yellow zucchini with turmeric and cardamom rice.  Jen whipped up some raita with freshly picked, and I mean FRESHLY, PICKED walla walla sweet onion and a cuke from a friend (who’s way ahead of us on cukes this year), our own carrots and tangy goat yogurt from the co-op.  We were dining somewhere on a farm in India that night (pakora is the East Indian inspiration, which is a chickpea battered veggie fritter); balmy breezes wrapped in a bizarrely tinged orange sunset, thanks to the smoke from our fire stricken neighbors to the north.  The only thing missing was the mango lassi, well and lots of other things too, but you get the picture.
Had it not been for the fact that zucchini is the one vegetable that Iris doesn’t like, there would have been grated garden zucchini or yellow summer squash in those leftover mashed potatoes with garden peas fritters, because it’s summer, but I cannot lie to Iris about squash! 
I saw recently that it was national leave a zucchini in your friend’s open car window week or something like that, which if you don’t grow zucchini, but do get a csa box from any farm, any where, you’ve got extra zucchini.  Barring zucchini bombing your family, friends, neighbors and business associates who don’t grow or otherwise acquire large amounts of zucchini with which to bomb you, you can also find a vast array of recipes for cooking with them, where else but, online.
Provided, that is, that your internet connection is actually moving faster than the speed of drying slug trails on morning dewy zucchini leaves!  If not, remember, there are always cookbooks, available in places like libraries and bookstores, which actually do still exist, thank goodness, and neighbors and friends with as many ideas as there are zucchini!
But I digress.  Zucchini, or summer squash types that look like various cousins of zucchini, such as are appearing in your boxes in abundance just now, are an excellent easy addition to just about any meal you are preparing.  As a raw vegetable added to a tray with other freshies and a whipped up dip o’sumpin’, they are among the most easily digested raw veggie snacks.  They take almost no time at all to cook to perfection in whatever you’ve already got going on, and on the bbq with some of kind of fresh-whipped dippin’ sumpin’ sumpin’, or stuffed with mushrooms, cheese and french bread crumbs, even non-zucchini eaters (except Iris!) can’t help but chow on ‘em, and just as long as Iris doesn’t know it’s in there, if it’s cake or sweet bread, she’s gonna eat it, with ice cream, given the choice.  Good stuff, right there in your box; give them another glance, give them another chance, I challenge you to do something surprising and delightful with your summer squash zucchini types.  And when you do, let us know so we can try it.
Happy Zucchini Appreciation Month!
Jeannine
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Springtime at BEF

4/13/2015

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The weather is crazy; sun, hail, wind, sun, rain, temperature range is 36 to 68 and can change on a breeze.  Trees and bushes are pushing new foliage and blossoms; weeds are quick to jump and stake their claim on the newly worked soil.  The start house is full of baby plants; tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, lettuce, cabbage and broccoli.  Peas and potatoes are in the ground, invisible to the eye but swelling and growing nonetheless.  In about 50 days it's all going to be jumpin' out of the ground and we'll all be runnin' to keep up with the watering and weeding and replanting and harvesting and preserving.....this week, though, this week, we can take it a little slower, appreciate the break brought on by the rain (it get's too squishy out there pretty quick at this time of year) and putter at the edges.
It's time to start signing folks up for the Summer CSA.  2015 season starts June 13 and runs through September 26:  16 weeks of veggies and fruit, and sometimes eggs for just $575.00. Delicious Good Deal!
Happy Spring!

posted by:  Jeannine
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Madrona Grove Retires after 12 Years

4/13/2015

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This year, 2014, Michael and Jeannine will be retiring the Madrona Grove Summer Fruit Stand and transitioning the business into Building Earth Farm. 
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We've got tomato and pepper starts....

5/5/2014

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 Call Michael at 866-2810 if you want to come to the farm and buy some.

Tomatoes:
  • Black Krim – black slicer
  • Cosmonaut Volcov – pink slicer
  • Jeune Flame – orange salad
  • Italian Heirloom – red slicer
  • Carbon – black slicer
  • Sakura – red cherry
  • Sun Sugar – orange cherry
  • San Marzano – paste
  • Wisconsin 55 – red slicer

Sweet Peppers:
  • Red bell
  • Orange bell
  • Sweet Chocolate

4” pots for $2.50 each


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ORGANIC: Watermelon, Cantaloupe and Peaches, Oh MY!

8/6/2013

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We’ve got the first bin of organic black-skinned watermelon of the season from I-NAB-A Farm in the Yakima Valley.  Iris, the 4-year old melon connoisseur, spotted the organic cantaloupes in the van as she was welcoming Michael home from his fruit trip and insisted on trying one out for dessert last night.  Sweet and delicious was the consensus.

Amy Wu from Rest-A-While called to let us know that she’s started picking Red Haven Peaches, and the Delp Peaches (great for canning – get your order in early if you want a box or two) are just around the corner.  Michael and I will be headed over this Wednesday to get some Red Havens, Saturn Donut Peaches and the first plums of the season; Shiro and Santa Rosa.  It looks like the weather is going to be HOT on the other side of the Cascades, which could push some of the fruit faster than expected; unless it’s so hot is slows it down, which can also happen.

We are so grateful for all the farmers who keep on farming and providing us with these sweet treats of Summer.  Ya’ll come out to the Fruit Stand and get in on the fruits of their labor!

Cheers,
Jeannine


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Peaches, Apricots and Bluegrass

7/20/2013

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Summer is moving fast!  We're already down to our last cherries; apricots are still in good supply but we won't be getting anymore once they're gone.  The upside is that it's peach season and we should have a steady stream of sweet orbs of peachy delight for the next couple of weeks!  Stop by on Saturday or Tuesday and get to drippin' peach juice down your elbow...it's only natural.

Steamboat Bluegrass Festival
That's right, we're going to have our own local Bluegrass Festival on Steamboat.  Our friends and neighbors, Lob and Amanda of The Tilted Stilts, have organized an event that is not to be missed.  Use the link above to check it out...you can get tickets in advance at the Steamboat Island Espresso Stand, or at the door on the day of the event.  Mark you calendars for Friday, July 26th to get in on Bluegrass, Beer and Burgers at your local grange.  What a great way to start the weekend!

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Cherry Season Party!

7/4/2013

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 Join us this Saturday, July 6 for a

CHERRY JUBILEE

During our Regular Saturday Hours of 9:00am – 2:00pm

Free cherry tasting from three varieties:

Sandra Rose – Large, luscious sweet red cherries

Van – These can truly be called black cherries

Rainiers – Our first organic cherry of the year

and For Sale:

* Cherry Scones (including gluten-free ones!)

* Cherries Jubilee (cherries cooked in a sauce and poured over vanilla ice cream)

* Coffee and Tea from Coffee Amazing!

(Amanda’s traveling coffee stand)

Of course, we’ll have a selection of fresh vegetables, plus Peaches

and Apricots for sale as well.

See you at the Fruit Stand!


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We're Havin' A Heat Wave!

6/30/2013

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Last night we drove from Olympia to Pateros so we could get an early start on the day, hoping to beat a little bit of the heat and Sunday homeward bound traffic.  So much for plans.....the weather prognosticators say it's going to hit 91 degrees in Olympia today, with only a five degree increase over that here in Eastern Washington; and the rest of the week looks about the same.  Lucky for us we're bringing back the first peach of the season, all cool, sweet and drippin' with juice.  Queen Crest is an early cling peach that we get from Rest-A-While in Pateros, and at 7:30 this morning, when it was already 70 degrees and climbing, the snap of the skin and rush of sweet peach flavor reminded me once again why we do this crazy thing we do.  Oh, and did I mention, it's organic?  That's right....pretty hard to beat such a summer gem as this one.
Of course, pair it up with the freshly picked organic Rainier cherries we're heading off to get in Omak and you're set for a delicious, refreshing party in your mouth.  Come on out to the Fruit Stand and get yours before the rush of the holiday hits.  See you Tuesday!
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May 22, 2013

5/22/2013

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We've had an amazing late Spring, that is up 'til now.  Not that the future is interminably bleaky, it just looks that way on the NOAA weather website.  We've all been out in the garden taking full advantage of the weather up until now and have gotten most of the garden under control in terms of weeds, seeding, transplanting, and of course, making it bigger and better than last year.  Jason put it a big new garden patch and filled it up (almost) with potatoes, with a long row of hot peppers on the side.
Michael has been getting in touch with our farming friends east of the Cascades and it's been confirmed; Summer will happen, fruit will ripen, we will bring it west to fill our fruit stand for the 13th year with amazing Washington sunshine packed inside drippy, sweet berries, stone fruit, melons, pears and apples.
I've just finished moving this website from SFC, where it was born and lived for the last 1+ year, to Weebly where, as far as I can tell, it will live forever more.  It looks different, isn't as sophisticated as before; you can't send in order forms, per se, for your poultry or meat or csa membership or winter subscription, but you can still get those things ordered from the site via our contact form.
Iris continues her gardening education, becoming an ever more adept weeder, plus planting seed and helping to transplant "little baby plants" in her spare time.  She also knows how to manage the operating end of her shovel and rake to help sift soil and scoop up weeding piles for the compost.
Jen's busy season is on with her day job teaching the masses about the importance of environmental awareness for the health of our bodies and our planet, and how to make better decisions about the products we choose to buy for cleaning our homes, taking care of our bodies and managing our yards and gardens for weeds and pests.
Whew!  What a busy household!
Today we're stewing chicken and kidney beans on the woodstove for dinner and staying inside.  Thank You Gaia for the showers!

Jeannine
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Winter's Passing

5/20/2013

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Picture
Posted 2/24/2013 by Jeannine
This was the scene at Madrona Grove's Summer Fruit Stand at Building Earth Farm in December of 2011; a great photo taken by a neighbor on her morning walk.  Now it's February 2013.  We've made it through the deepest, darkest aspects of Winter; this year without any snow to speak of.  Daffodils and crocus are starting to pop up everywhere; buds are swelling on trees and shrubs and Spring pushes past the chill and dark of Winter to offer us markers of Summer's promise.  We're still eating last Summer's fruit from the pantry and freezer; ever grateful for the amazing bounty that comes to us from Eastern Washington fruit farmers, and dreaming those warm dreams of fresh berries, cherries, apricots...and so the list of deliciousness begins.  Snuggle in against the lingering frosty bite and dream your own warm dreams of Summer; we'll be seeing you soon!


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