The Marker

Radishes germinate and mature so quickly that we often use them as a marker for other slower germinating crops.

Crops like...

Scapes

Garlic, the word brings out the best of flavor and and aroma. The garlic plant does its best to provide us with usable forms for most of the year. You can store hard neck garlic until March. In late March or April the garlic plant is up out of the ground and you can use green garlic until the aerial appearance of the curl.

What is the curl you might ask.

Macaroni and Cheese With Bacon

Did you know Thomas Jefferson invented Mac'n'Cheese. He brought a macaroni making machine from Europe and used Mount Vernon Cheddar. Several centuries Kraft commercialized the dish in that famous blue box.

Everything is better with bacon. This Mac'n'Cheese is simply amazing.

I used a cast Iron skillet.

Anchor

Anchor is typically a seafaring term used for a device to tether a boat to the bottom of a body of water.

I like to use it to talk about roots. If the root is healthy the plant is healthy. Wisdom from Mr. Miyagi the sage of the "Karate Kid" trilogy.

Have you ever gone out after a good rain to pull weeds because it is easier. The rain loosens the soil and lubricates the roots so they have less "anchoring" ability.

This time of year roots have a slightly different anchoring function...

Why Our Garlic is The Best

Here are 10 reasons why our garlic is the best...

What Does It Cost to Grow A Row of Organic Garlic

It is hard to get cost numbers for different vegetable growing methodologies. We are planting garlic right now so I thought I would "run the numbers" and see how it would come out.

We use a very intensive planting methodology so this maybe way different than what someone else does. We will call this the Vegetable Freak method. We use an organic granulated fertilizer called Sustaine.

First we till the area to be planted with a walk behind tiller. Then we mark the row to be planted with a 4 inch wide strip of Sustaine fertilizer (8-4-2) right on top of the ground. We use one 50 lb bag per 100 feet of row. (This is a low analysis organic fertilizer that breaks down very slowly. You would never use this much synthetic fertilizer in this small and area.) So it takes five bags for a 500 foot row.

Then we go over the top of this with a 12 inch wide and 4 inch deep strip of very well broken down and mature compost. (The compost plays many roles. It is a weed barrier, it is germination enhancer, it protects the cloves from winter cold and frost heaving, it attracts earth worms like crazy, the worms love to hang out in the roots of the garlic, it provide compost tea every time it rains and it enriches our soils for the following year's crops. This compost is valued at approximately $25 per ton and it takes five tons to do a 500 foot row.

The cost analysis follows...

Petersen's Market Menu October 17, 2015

Time To Plant Garlic, Photo Credit Reed Petersen

Mid-October is the perfect time to plant Garlic in Southern Minnesota. In addition to great eating many of our customers use our garlic to plant for to their own gardens. Garlic is is a close cousin to many of the bulbing flowers like tulips and crocuses and is planted in the fall like those flowers are. The varieties we plant, over winter great here.

Here is is a link to another article on our website for how to pick and plant seed garlic. How to pick seed garlic and plant.


 Don't forget the pumpkin pie, here is a link to 15 different recipes  we have developed for pumpkin pie. From classic to low carb, these are great creative ways to work a little pumpkin into your life


Fall greens are so amazing: wild arugula, baby spinach, lettuce, baby beet greens, baby kale, red russian kale, cilantro. All are at the perfect baby baby size. 

Hot, hot, hot...Reed picked a bushel of habernaro and poblano peppers this week. If you are looking for a nice fall recipe to use some of those poblano peppers is is one. Brian's corn bread and Poblano recipe.

Andrea dried some mints and herbs and is making some Vegetable Freak... Freaky Tea. Sweetened with fresh stevia.

• Andrea's Tropical Tea - Orange Mint, Pinneaple Mint and Stevia
• Jenna's Sweet Chocolate Tea - Chocolate Mint & Stevia
• Lisa's Orange Blossom Tea - Orange Mint, Spearmint & Stevia
• Just Mint - A Blend of Spearmint & Stevia
• Perky Pinapple, Lemon Majito, Minty Sage, Rosemary Lavendar (lots more).

We will have the following items at the Farmers Market for Saturday, October 17, 2015 (New items are in Bold Print)


Cabbage
Broccoli

Tomatillos

Garlic
Carrots
Leeks
Walla Walla Sweet Onions


Fresh Cut Herbs: Mint, Chocolate Mint, Oregano, Cilantro
Arugula - Wild
Mizuna
Mesabi Arugula
Baby Spinach
Spring Mix
Baby Kale- Regular and Red Russian
Beet Greens
Dandelion Greens
Herb Plants - Rosemary,


Pickles: Spicy Dill, Sweet Sandwish, Okra, Dilly Bean, Corn Relish, Pepper Relish.
Salsa

Chipotle Smoked Peppers

Charcoal (home grown, home made)

If you took the time to read clear to the bottom of Market Menu I'm going to include a thoughtful article from our website archives. This week's "thought for the day" is entitled Living Like No One Else.

It Is Time to Plant Garlic

In Minnesota mid-October is the time to plant garlic.

We have lots of great hardneck garlic at our market stand.

Here is how we plant it...

Spinach Cakes with Parmesan

These delightful little cakes are like baby quiches. An elegant way to increase the super food spinach in your diet.

A Trick For Growing Very Early Carrots

The first thing to come up in the spring at our farm is the garlic. Wait...I thought this post is about carrots.

Yes there is a connection, read on...

How Did You Get that Corn so Early?

The garlic is typically the first plants out of the ground in the spring and this year is no exception. The garlic plants are about two inches tall.

One year I had some garlic planted near the road and it caused great confusion for the neighbors.

Here is why...

Growing Great Garlic

Growing Great Garlic is the definitive source of organic garlic wisdom. The author Ron England is the owner of Filaree Garlic Farm in Okanogan, Washington. I got some of my early garlic starts from Filaree and they have been adapted to the Minnesota climate over several seasons.

Next week we will start our garlic season with...

Shallots in a Quick Greek Pasta Salad

A healthy salad seasoned with shallots that will spice up your taste buds. You can add optional rib eye steak or chicken breast to make it a meal. When I made this I used what I had on hand and added red bell peppers and fresh tomatoes at the very end so they didn't get mushy.

Ingredients:

• 8 onces whole wheat penne pasta
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 pound shopped shallots (Petersens)
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes diced (Petersens)
• 1/2 cup sliced black olives (optional)
• 1 cup chopped fresh spinach (Petersens)
• 1 cup chopped red bell pepper (Petersens)
• 1 teaspoon basil pesto (I made extra and froze some from this summer)
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/4 cup pine nuts or sun flower seeds
• Optional: Rib Eye Steak or Free Range Chicken Breast

Directions:

• Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8-10 minutes until al dente. Drain and toss with olive oil, keep warm.
• Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a skillet over medium heat. Saute shallots and garlic. Stir in soy sauce, and cook a few seconds longer.
• Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the sun-dried tomatoes, olives, spinach, basil, feta cheese, and pine nuts. Toss with pasta in a large bowl and serve.
• Add optional rib eye steak or free range chicken breast.

How to Pick Great Seed Garlic

Mid October to mid November is time to plant garlic here in Rochester, Minnesota. But how to pick the right garlic to plant. One of the best ways to pick a variety that does well in your location is to ask a local grower or gardener about varieties that work well in your area. I like two varieties here, Music and German White. Now we have selected a variety, how do you know which bulbs to pick.

An the answer is, you pick the ones with the biggest cloves. If the variety you have chosen has small cloves then save the small ones to eat and plant the biggest. Music has cloves as big as your thumb and those are the babies you want.  The bigger ones have more energy and make a larger more robust plant.

A good organic fertilizer will get you off to a good start and make for an excellent launch in the spring.

The cloves need about two weeks to root and get locked into the soil before freeze up.

10 Reasons I Like Fall

My farmer dad says that fall is his favorite season. I think he said that because he finally got to harvest all the stuff he worked so hard to grow that year.

1) Salsa Freak - Tomatoes, Peppers and Onions (see our simple recipe)
2) Candy Carrots - The adage is frost on the pumpkins, but we like frost on the carrots.
3) Leeks, Onions and Shallots "Oh My"
4) Heirloom Tomatoes for BLT's
5) Watermelon - 15 varieties
6) Winter Squash
7) Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkins
8) Cool Weather
9) Planting Garlic
10) Fall Broccoli

Sun Dried Tomato Butter

Sun dried tomato butter is a great flavored butter recipe to use on your sweet corn or other buttery things.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter
garlic clover, minced
2-3 minced sun dried tomatoes (Petersens), pour boiling water over and let stand for 15 minutes to soften
A small Roma tomato, chopped finely, cored and seeded.
2 tsp fresh lime or lemon juice
1/4 cup cilantro (Petersens) or parsley (optional)

Directions:

Combine butter, garlic, lime juice, sun dried tomatoes and regular tomatoes and cilantro together
Shape mixture into a log (about 1 inch around) on waxed paper. Wrap and chill. Slice and use with sweet corn, green beans or other vegetables.

Kick It -Up:

• Add more garlic
• Add a jalapeno, minced.
• Sprinkle the outside of the log with fresh ground pepper
• Sprinkle the outside of the log with black & red sprinkle (Pensey's)

Squash Blossom Salsa

A wonderful combination of flavors and textures from unusual ingredients. We have a good supply of squash blossoms now at the farmers market.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup diced sweet onion
1 cup finely diced zucchini or patty pan squash
1 Roma tomato
1-inch piece of jalapeno (more to taste)
4 tablespoons cilantro leaves
1 clove garlic
4 squash blossoms
juice of half a lime

Directions:

1. Place onion, 1/2 of the squash, the tomato, Jalapeno, cilantro, lime juice, garlic and squash blossoms in a blender and blend until chunky
2. Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into a skillet and add remaining diced squash. Saute over medium heat for 3 minutes. Add the puree from the blender or food processor and cook for 3-5 minutes, until the salsa is thickened and any excess liquid had evaporated. Salt to taste and set aside to cool. Chill in refrigerator.

Serve with chips, quesadillas or tacos.

Kick It Up:

1. Add some corn.
2. Add more Jalapeno
3. Add more tomato
4. Make a bigger batch with more blossoms and proportionally more other ingredients.

A Simple Fresh Salsa Recipe

A salsa kit contains all the vegetables that it takes to make a great salsa. Once the tomatoes start we offer this weekly. It can vary a little from week to week early in the season, don't worry about the exact proportions, about anything works. The kit typically contains the following:

• Tomatoes
• Bell Peppers
• Jalapeno
• Sweet Onions
• Tomatillo
• Garlic
• Cilantro
• Salt and Lime to Taste (not included)

We suggest you add salt and lime, but we don't grow those so they aren't included.

It would typically be about twice the cost to gather up all the ingredients separately so this is a pretty good deal. Makes 1.5 quarts of salsa.

A Simple Fresh Salsa Recipe

Instructions to assembly your salsa. It is easiest to use a food processor, but you can make salsa with just a sharp knife.

Chop up the garlic, cilantro and jalapeno first (if you want it hotter, leave the seeds in, otherwise remove the seeds). Add bell peppers, tomatillo and sweet onions and pulse the food process several times to chop. Cut tomatoes into quarters and pulse again to chop. If you want chunky only pulse a couple of times. If you want a smoother salsa, pulse a few more times.

Enjoy!

Kick it Up:

• Add some of Petersen's sweet corn, cut kernels off the ear (a great way to use up leftovers)
• Add black beans
• Add chipotles
• Add more Jalapenos
• Double the recipe size with your own tomatoes or buy some extra

A Minnesota Paella

I first had a paella at Nosh Restaurant in Lake City, Minnesota. It is one of Greg Jaworski's signature dishes and is typically on the menu in any season. Greg is a weekly customer at the Rochester Downtown Farmers Market and buys greens (spinach, spring mix, arugula, ruby sweet, cress, baby kale), patty pan and carrots from our stand during the season. I'd highly recommend Nosh Restaurant and Greg's paella to you.

We had the fresh ingredients on hand so I thought I would make a paella for supper Saturday night after the market last week. The paella is a rice dish that originated in Spain near Valencia. It is very popular and is often considered  to be Spain's national dish. There are many variations. Greg makes his paella with his own house sausage and seafood including clams. A typical paella also includes vegetables, beans, short grain rice, saffron and olive oil. Paella is derived from the Old French word for pan, which comes from the Latin word patella for pan as well (I put that in here because my children have had 6-7 years of Latin in school and I thought they might recognize it.) Traditional paella is cooked over an open fire, fueled by orange and pine branches with pine cones, which produces an aromatic smoke which infuses the paella (I didn't go quite that far for authenticity.)

Ingredients:

1. Saffron rice. (I just bought a Spanish saffron rice and followed the directions. You could also add turmeric to rice to get the golden color.) 2 cups
2. Patty Pan (Petersen's) 1/2 pint
3. Yellow Zucchini Summer Squash (Petersen's) 1/2 pint
4. Sweet Onion -minced (Petersen's) (1 large)
5. French Fillet Beans -cut in half, with stems and tips removed (Petersen's) 1/2 pound
6. Garlic Minced (Petersen's) 2 cloves
7. Italian Sweet Sausage (You can make your own or uses your favorite)
8. Large Shrimp - 1/2 pound
9. Cajun Style Andouille Sausage Links (cut into bit sized pieces)
10. Paprika - tsp
11. Turmeric - tsp
12. Salt - 1/2 tsp (optional)

Directions:

In a large sauce pan prepare the rice according to the directions on the package. Takes 30 minutes.

In a large skillet cook the sausage thoroughly, leave in 1 inch chunks, let caramelize a little on the outside. When the sausage is almost done add the onions, garlic and shrimp. Cook another 5 minutes until shrimp is done. Add the patty pan, zucchini, and green beans. Cook lightly, leaving the vegetables crunchy. Add paprika, turmeric and salt.

In an official paella you have a paella pan and put the rice in the bottom, stir with the vegetables and meat and cook on a open fire or in the oven for 5-10 minutes after combining all ingredients. You want the rice to scorch a little on the bottom. I didn't do that.

I served the rice and meat/vegetables separately in bowls, letting each family member select the quantity of each (I wasn't sure everyone would like everything). Reed really likes shrimp so he took a disproportionate amount of that. 

For this same meal, Jenna made leek fritters with lime and sour cream. That is for another post.

Baby Patty Pan, Zucchini and Kale White Sauce

I made a delightful white sauce with very small Patty Pan and Zucchini squash, Baby Kale and Sweet Onions last weekend. We will have all of these at our market stand this week. I used Ricotta cheese as the base for the sauce. You can get hand made pasta at the Farmer's Market, or use any pasta you wish. I used bow tie pasta as I had that on hand.

It was very good, give it a whirl.

Ingredients:

1 box of patty pan squash (Petersen's)
1 box of baby zucchini squash, tips and stems remove and sliced into bite sized pieces (Petersen's)
Large bag of baby kale (Petersen's)
Large Sweet Onion, diced (Petersen's)
8 oz of Low Fat Ricotta Cheese
1 cups of low fat milk
white pepper to taste
salt to taste
pinch of cayenne or chipotle pepper
1 clove of garlic, minced (Petersen's)
1 tsp of arrow root starch or corn starch dissolved in a small amount of cold water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound pasta of your choice (bow tie, spiral, penne)

Directions:

Prepare pasta of choice and drain while finishing sauce (most pastas take 8-10 minutes to cook)

Saute onion with olive oil and garlic. When on)ion is starting to soften add patty pan and zucchini. Cook about 2 minutes (don't over cook squash). Stir in Ricotta cheese and milk, salt, pepper and cayenne. Warm up to where it just starts to bubble, add arrow root starch to thicken. Bring back to a simmer and add kale. Wilt kale and gentle stir into the sauce. Serve over pasta.

Kick It Up:

Serve Over Potatoes (Petersen's)
Serve Over Saffron Rice
Serve Over Seafood like scallops or shrimp
Add a little more cayenne.
Add some fresh Rosemary (Petersen's)
Add some fresh Basil instead of Kale, price is the same at our stall (Petersen's)
Add some fresh Thyme (Petersen's)
Add more garlic or several shallots. (Petersen's)