A Hiatus, But 2 Cool Videos Before We Go

With Labor day behind us and Fall just ahead, we’re going to wind down the Farm Blog for the season.  Thanks for your comments and questions throughout the summer.  Going to leave you with 2 videos that we’re proud of and hope you find interesting below.  But first, a few other ways to connect with Wegmans online:

Wegmans Youtube Channel - all our latest videos, including “complete set” of farm footage.

Wegmans FreshNews e-mail - news from our store, including occasional farm news

Wegmans Twitter  another new tool we’re experimenting with and learning through

Now, the videos. 

This one is a “part 2″ with Vince our bee keeper as he demonstrates how to harvest honey (and gets stung in the process.  didn’t see that coming)

Here, we follow Chef Chris Brandt and staff from our Tastings Restaurant to the farm for the day.  They’ve been using the harvest all summer long and were anxious to get closer to the source.   

Have a great Fall!

Matt Jones

Best Garlic He’s Ever Tasted

After sampling the first batch of garlic from our farm, executive Chef Chris Brandt at Tastings Restaurant in Pittsford, NY told us it was the best garlic he’s ever tasted!

From that review, I was curious to learn more about these special cloves. Chef Chris described them as being super crisp in texture, with a sweet yet strong spicy flavor. He also commented on their color being more white than beige which he attributed to their freshness.

To learn more about our garlic we grow on the farm, we shot a recent harvest of garlic bulbs and asked our farmers Marianne and Anne to tell us more! (Unfortunately I have not tasted the garlic yet…but I think this might be my favorite video we’ve had so far)

FYI- the recipe for the garlic insecticide mentioned in the video is from Jerry Baker’s Backyard Problem Solver book. We use the spray to treat for squash and cucumber beetles.

Here’s how to make it:

“Knock ‘em Dead Insect Spray”

6 cloves of garlic, chopped fine

1 small white onion, chopped fine

1 tablespoon of ground red cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon of mild liquid dish soap

Mix these ingredients together in a blender or food processor. Add 1 quart of warm water and then let it sit for 24 hours. Strain the mixture with a cheese cloth or the netting from an onion bag. Next, pour the liquid into a sprayer bottle, and you are ready to go!

How to use the spray:

• Spray on a cloudy day, not directly on leaves. Spray plants with water first. The bugs will try to hide under the leaves or fall to the ground, where they will be easier for you to find. Spray the bugs and around the plant, then rub off the eggs with your fingers.

How often should you spray?    We try to spray once every 3 weeks as preventative maintenance, so they will lessen over time. If the bugs are doing a lot of damage, we might spray more frequently (every 10 days).

List of garlic varieties we grow: (about 10-15 lbs of each variety)

• German Extra Hardy
• Okanowa Blue
• Chesnok Red
• Xian
• Romanian Red
• Persian Star
• Susanville
• Silver White
• Music Pink
• German Brown
• Metechi
• Siberian

Where can I try organic garlic from the farm?     We are currently sending our dried garlic to both our store in Canandaigua and Tastings Restaurant in Pittsford, NY until the end of August.

Meet Steve Strub at Canandaigua Wegmans this Saturday, August 15th 12-4pm

To celebrate our locally grown season, we are having “Meet the Grower” events this month, where you will get a chance to meet one of your store’s local grower partners and enjoy samples from the locally grown harvest. (See below for more details)

This Saturday, August 15th- our store in Canandaigua will welcome Steve Strub, manager of our Organic Research Farm!  Come meet Steve and enjoy samples of our recent harvest in departments throughout the store.

 

Display of Produce from Our Organic Research Farm in Canandaigua Store

 

Can’t make it to Canandaigua?

To find out who’s visiting  a store near you this month: click  here.

How to use coffee grounds in your garden

The next time you make a pot of coffee at home, you should think twice before dumping your spent coffee grounds in the trash.

Instead, you can put those grounds to good use in your compost pile or you can add them directly to the soil around acid-loving plants.

Why coffee grounds?    They are highly acidic, which help lower the pH of your soil to create optimal conditions for certain plants that thrive in acidic soil. Plus, they are full of nutrients including nitrogen, potassium and magnesium which plants love.

Brian collecting coffee grounds in Canandaigua Store

 How we use coffee grounds on our farm?     

 Every day we collect spent coffee grounds (filters and all) from our Canandaigua store for use on the organic farm.

We add them to our compost pile and keep a pile of them separately for use a few times in the spring and fall to apply directly to the soil around our blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb (all acid-loving plants). 

Coffee grounds around the base of a blueberry bush

When applied directly, we use about a shovel full of grounds per plant a few times in the spring and fall (which equates to about a month’s worth of coffee grounds for an average household).

 Interested in putting your coffee grounds to use in your garden?

First, test the pH level of your soil to see if you need to increase the acidity. You can buy a test kit to check your soil pH or…you can simply check the pH levels using baking soda or vinegar: click here to learn how.

If you would like to complete a more comprehensive test of your soil (amount of nitrogen, etc.) you can drop a soil sample off at your local cooperative extension office. For a small fee, they will test it for you and give you a detailed report as well as recommendations for how to improve its quality. To find a soil testing lab in your area: click here.

Fast Facts about pH

• The pH of soil is measured on a scale of 0-14.
• A pH of 7.0 is considered neutral.
• The higher pH levels, the lower the acidity and vice versa.
• Soil is considered “alkaline” if it has a high pH (greater than 7.5) and “acidic” if it has a low pH (less than 6.5).  
• For a list of plants that love acidic soil: click here
• For a list of alkaline-tolerant plants: click here

How to lower the pH/increase acidity: sprinkle some spent coffee grounds around the base of your plants. If you are worried about adding too much, simply add the coffee grounds to your compost pile to balance the acidity levels.

If you choose to add your grounds to a compost pile, allow for 6 months to a year for the compost to have the proper carbon/nitrogen ratio. As the coffee grounds decompose, nitrogen is released. Plus, the compost will act as a better soil builder than coffee grounds alone.

How to raise the pH/create alkaline soil: If you are growing plants suited for alkaline soil and need to raise the pH, try adding 1 tbsp of baking soda to 2 quarts of water around the plants. 

I never knew coffee grounds could be so useful. I also heard that they are good for deterring slugs and ants.

If you have any suggestions on how to use spent coffee grounds in other ways, let me know!

Field to Fork: Heirloom Tomatoes 2 Ways

 Summer seems to finally be here in Western NY!

We’re grateful down at the farm for the shift in warmer temperatures, which has allowed our heirloom tomatoes to finally ripen in our hoop house. 

To celebrate the long awaited harvest, we decided to follow the first harvest on July 28th to our Menu Cooking School in Pittsford, NY where Chef Mark Makovec showed us how to make a really simple heirloom tomato salad.

Since Chef Mark also happened to be teaching classes on canning tomatoes that week at our Cooking School, we decided to make a 2nd video, and asked him to show us how easy canning can be, for those of you who would like to preserve the flavor of the heirlooms to enjoy in the off-season.   

Below, you will find the two videos, the sliced heirloom tomato salad recipe and some tips on how you can try canning your own tomatoes at home!

 

 

Sliced Heirloom Tomato Salad Recipe

 

 

 Interested in canning?- The tools Chef Mark used in the video are available through the end of August in Wegmans stores.

 

Let me know if you have any questions about anything you saw in the videos! 

Watch Our Organic Farm Grow

I’m excited to share our two latest videos with you.

• First up…our anticipated time lapse video of our heirloom tomato hoop house is finally here! Watch the 365 tomato plants grow right before your eyes in the first video clip below.
• Next, we thought it was pretty cool to see the progress of the tomatoes, so we decided to put together a collection of photos from early in the season till now to show the growth of other areas of the farm. Check out “A Growing Season in Progress” below.
• Below the videos…I posted a few more photos.

Hope you enjoy watching our farm grow!

Here’s some more photos to capture the growth on our farm this season:

Photo Taken on June 6th

Photo Taken on July 28th

Three Sisters Garden on June 16th

Three Sisters Garden on July 30th

The Three Sisters Growing Together on June 24th

The Three Sisters Growing Together on July 28th

Digging for Fingerling Potatoes

Anne harvesting some ozette fingerlings

Last month, when I introduced the people on the farm, Anne Grover revealed her favorite project this season, “harvesting potatoes-always my favorite. It’s like a box of chocolates-you never know what you’re gonna get.”

I didn’t really understand what she meant till I got the chance to harvest some fingerling potatoes with Anne last week.

Digging for the knobby finger-like tubers is like searching for buried treasure. You can start harvesting them when the vines are starting to die back, but “you never know what you are going to get” until you start digging.   

Digging for Red Thumb Fingerlings

I found some! However, some are still buried...keep digging

Some of the potatoes get disconnected from the roots...you need to keep digging to find them all

  Fast Facts about Fingerling Potatoes

• very thin-skinned; do not require peeling
• since they are small, have shorter storage life
• should be stored in a cool, dry place away from light
• you can prepare them like any other potato; but their small size make for great potato salads 
• For more info on Fingerlings:  click here or here

We grow several varieties of fingerlings on our farm, including: ozette, austrian crescent, french, russian banana, swedish peanut, red thumb, blossom and peruvian blue. 

Ozette: pale gold skin, creamy flesh, nutty flavor

Swedish Peanut: yellow flesh, nutty flavor

Red Thumb: red flesh, nutty flavor

Russian Banana: yellow banana shape, slightly waxy, firm texture

Austrian crescent: yellow-tan skin, light yellow flesh

French Fingerling: medium sized, red skin

Since I had never tasted a fingerling potato before, I decided to take home a few of the red thumbs I harvested to give them a try.

I found two easy recipes on Wegmans.com for Fingerling Potatoes (although you can prepare fingerlings like you would any other potato):

 Roasted Rosemary Fingerling Potatoes

Sauteed Fingerling Potatoes with Mushrooms

Let me know if you give them a try!

Do you have a favorite way to prepare fingerlings?

Field to Fork: Preparing for the Mark Bittman Dinner

How do you plan a dinner for one of the country’s best known and admired food writers, Mark Bittman?

Chef Chris Brandt at our restaurant, Tastings in Pittsford, NY was up for the challenge.

First, in order to use the freshest ingredients, he called down to Steve Strub, manager of our organic farm to see what could be harvested for the dinner on July 11th.

We were excited to see what he would come up with, so we followed the ingredients from “Field to Bittman’s Fork” in our latest video which follows:

• Marianne harvesting the fresh produce on our farm, 
• To delivery to our restaurant, where Chef Chris talks about how he planned the menu.

FYI- A copy of the menu is also included below as well as info about Mark Bittman and his trip to Rochester earlier this month.

Here’s the Menu from the dinner:

Bittman’s trip to Rochester, NY on July 11th included:

• Book signing for his latest book “Food Matters” at Pittsford Wegmans
• Talk at the George Eastman House:“What’s Wrong with the Way We Eat and How We Can Fix It,” followed by a book signing
• “Conversations with Mark Bittman” dinner at Tastings Restaurant

The dinner also allowed some of our employees to meet Bittman and learn about his philosophies and ideas about cooking as well as food industry news.

More on Mark Bittman: The Minimalist

New York Times food columnist and cookbook author, Mark Bittman has quite an interesting background. He has had no formal culinary training and doesn’t call himself a chef, but rather a “minimalist” with a mission is “to get people cooking simply, comfortably, and well.”

His most famous cookbook is “How to Cook Everything“, where he provides basic, no-nonsense recipes. Inspired by his “How to Cook Everything: Vegetarian” version and recommendations from his doctor, he now sticks to a vegetarian by day, meat eater after 6pm food plan.

To learn more about Mark Bittman check out his:

• NY Times Column: The Minimalist
• Bitten Blog
• Website

In Search of Summer on our Organic Research Farm

If you live in Rochester, NY you may be wondering…is this the year without Summer?

Last month we had the 8th wettest and 19th coolest June in 139 years of weather records according to the National Weather Service. July is not looking so good either…with the unseasonably cool weather we’ve been having.

What does this rainy, cool weather mean for area farmers?

I reached out to Dr. Stephen Reiners, Associate Professor of Horticulture at Cornell University to find out more. Here’s what he had to share:

“Probably the biggest impact so far is that the cool temperatures this summer (about 3 degrees F below average in June and 6 degrees F below in July) are causing a delay in harvest. We just don’t have the heat units so growers may see corn delayed a week to 10 days from the time they hoped to harvest. The excessive rain also prevented some plantings going in for autumn harvest, as the soils were too wet to work and plant. The rains also will leach away nitrate in the soil, which the plants need, so we may be looking at many vegetable crops needing a sidedressing of nitrogen fertilizer, either with a synthetic fertilizer or compost.”

Has the weather impacted our organic farm?

Steve Strub, who manages our farm,  told me that since we are a small-scale farm we haven’t had much damage. Our farm also sits on a 45 degree angle hill which helps with drainage and our raised beds have really protected our crops from excess water. 

The cool weather however is delaying the ripening of our heirloom tomatoes in our Hoop House .

 

Fried Green Tomatoes anyone?

For more info on how local farmers in Western, NY have been impacted by our cool, rainy summer check out: an article in the Democrat and Chronicle.

Students from the Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection Visit our Organic Farm

We’ve had a strong partnership with the Hillside Family of Agencies since 1987, when Wegmans founded the Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection. The program was created in order to help reduce high school drop out rates in Rochester City Schools by providing one-on-one mentoring, academic support, as well as life and social skills to prepare students for future careers or post-secondary education. “Graduation is the Goal” and here at Wegmans we are always trying to find new ways to lend our support to the program.

Recently, we were able to offer a learning opportunity for students at the Hillside Summer Academy who have an interest in a career in culinary. On July 11th, eight 8-10th graders and two of their mentors came out to our farm to learn about organic farming and the process from farm to fork.

Many of the students had no previous experience with farming. They were most surprised to learn how “trash” or food scraps (like their banana peels) can be used to make compost to nurture the soil.

 Here are some photos from their tour:

 

First stop….the chicken house

Brian showing the students one of our hens

They learned why organic eggs from chickens that graze are different: thicker shell, richer flavor

 Can you guess where they visited next? 

 

The Compost Pile!

Brian showed them how food scraps are mixed into the compost pile, then allowed to heat up to break down into organic matter (humus) to be used on the farm.  

The students also had a chance to compare the difference in soil samples to show how adding organic matter (in the form of compost and hardwood mulch) changes its texture and quality. (See below)

 

Next Stop… 

Heirloom Tomato Hoop House!

Tasting cherry tomatoes off the vine

 The students tried some edible flowers: nasturtiums and borage.

Or you can still enjoy them as decoration...

 Next…they were able to dig up some potatoes and garlic. The students thought it was neat how they both grow underground.

Digging for Garlic Bulbs

Back in the barn….Marianne talked to the students about the purpose of a glass greenhouse on the farm. Seed starting, growing lights, to being placed outside to adjust to the outdoors, then transplanting in the soil.

The students learned that the organic seeds we use come untreated, mostly from a seed catalog called Seeds of Change.

 

After their visit, the students had lunch and reflected on their experience. They were noticing the items on their plates, like tomatoes and recalling where they had been growing on our farm.  The students also expressed interest in coming back to the farm in the future, perhaps next spring to help plant and then return later in the season to see the fruits of their labor.

We hope to make future plans with Hillside to allow more students to visit next year and experience the full process from seed to harvest.

 

For more info on our partnership with Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection: click here.