Gildrien Farm

By popular demand, all of this year's CSA newsletter recipes are now on our recipe page!

American Flatbread's Middlebury Hearth is having a special community dinner this Wednesday the 28th, featuring produce from our farm. It's $30 prix fix ($15 for kids under 10) for four courses of Gildrien-farm-filled deliciousness. Call for a reservation if you want to go - 802-388-3300 - we hear it's filling up fast.

A few weeks ago we had a clean-up day to deal with the aftermath of the flooding. Honestly, we'd been pretty depressed about the whole thing - losing that field this year, plus the winter plantings we can't plant, plus the potential of having it happen again, plus the thought of all that food going to waste - and we took up the offer that Annie Harlow made to put our clean-up day out to the ACORN network because we figured if we got a few more hands, we could get it over with more quickly.

Well, we sure got some more hands.

Those hands included the entire Middlebury College men's soccer team, several of our CSA members, some friends, and a couple of folks hardly even know. It was humbling and gratifying to watch all the energy that these people brought to the work of tearing out plants, pulling up plastic, hauling potatoes, and making the biggest compost pile we've ever had.

It was also incredibly efficient - in literally an hour and a half, our team of 30+ people did what would have been at least two weeks of work for Jeremy and Brian. And it was almost fun! Such an amazing gift to receive from our community.

We've also been touched by all the people who stopped by our stand and the market to ask how we're doing and buy an extra squash or two.

As climate change makes big weather like Irene more likely and alters the patterns of the seasons, farmers are going to have to adapt in a lot of different ways. Perhaps that gorgeous river-bottom soil will have to be limited to orchards or pasture. Clearly diversification is going to be increasingly important - if we'd been growing only winter squash, we'd be totally screwed. And I think community is going to become more and more important as well - for work parties, for investment in new ideas, for moral support.

So the good thing about having lost our field was that we got to see our community in action. And that was pretty great.

(Thanks to Annie Harlow for the photos.)

The ginger harvest is in! Since this was an experiment, there won't be much - come to the next few markets early if you want some!

(The ginger was in the greenhouse, which was not damaged by the storm. We still have greenhouse tomatoes and eggplants, too, and Jeremy has been busy seeding greens and radishes for harvest soon.)

And we will be at the market this week! Come give us a hug. :)

We just went out to the field this morning to assess the possible damage from Irene.  We both had hopes it wouldn't be too bad because there was no damage to our house or greenhouses.  Well we were certainly wrong.  The New Haven River tore through our field.   The tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers, hush cherries, greens, basil, and carrots were all wiped out.  The potato hills look unaffected and the melons and winter squash are still there.  The peppers are holding on too.  The fall broccoli and cauliflower look like they will recover.  However, due to food safety concerns we might need to trash everything in the field... more to come as we find out if anything can be salvaged.

Just discovered this great resource from the State of Vermont: Eating What We Grow, a pdf full of information and recipes for pretty much everything grown in Vermont. Check it out!

Yup, they're here! CSA got the first tomatoes on Tuesday, and we're bringing several flats to market tomorrow. We've got both red and golden slicers - try them both and see which you like best. The heirlooms and cherry tomatoes are on their way, and should be ready in the next week or two.

We'll also have eggplants - both the big purple ones and the little green Thai ones - and cucumbers, as well as lettuce, kale, green beans, peas, and more! The weather looks perfect for tomorrow, so we hope to see you there.

Our famous spring butter lettuce is ready (and the other lettuces, too)! We'll have it at the market this week.

From the last indoor winter market.

We won't be at the market tomorrow (the 21st) because all the wet weather got us a bit behind & threw off the succession plantings. But we should be back next week with lots of goodies, and we're getting really excited for CSA!