Tag: klesick family farm

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Freezing the Summer

The Klesick family has been in full freezing mode for the last few weeks and will probably continue here for the next few as well. Years ago, canners (those people who canned fruits and vegetables) would put up lots of jars for the winter food supply.  People canned meats, veggies, fruit and sauces when the items were plentiful and in season. The canners, for the most part, are a very small component of food buyers today. I know that a few of you still exist, so you can relate when I say that I can barely find a freestone peach to can anymore. Pickles have bucked that trend, however, and are still made every year, but most other canning items have fallen on “hard times.”

Ironically, the practice of canning has declined with our prosperity, stable electricity to run refrigerators and freezers, and a plethora of fruits and vegetables widely available all the time. Except for opening a can of black beans, I hardly even remember using a can opener—and we don’t even own an electric one—but when I was growing up it was the main kitchen gadget. I Still remember watching that can go round and round!

Today the Klesick family freezes and freezes and freezes. We freeze lots of berries, mangos, nectarines, peaches and grapes. The freezer has replaced the shelves of cans! It is not a perfect system – when the power goes out we NEVER open the freezers, and if it looks like it is going to be an extended outage we will fire up the generators.

The Klesick’s cannot be the only family in the off-season that enjoys a splash of summer on pancakes, or in hot cereal, or as a frozen treat. Joelle and I enjoy a green smoothie every morning and those frozen berries with fresh greens transport your taste buds right back to those “chin dripping” juicy peaches and nectarines of summer.

So, from now till the end of August, Klesick Family Farm is running a “Freezing the Summer” special! Check out the offerings in your email inbox, on Facebook and our website, and order a case or two of local summer goodness for your next delivery and start looking forward to winter

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Know Your Produce: New Potatoes

New potatoes are freshly harvested young, or small, potatoes. They have paper-thin skins and lots of moisture inside, and they tend to be sweeter than older potatoes (in much the same way that freshly picked corn is so much sweeter than cobs that have been sitting around for a few days). New potatoes are pure perfection in potato salads or simply boiled with a bit of butter and a few chopped herbs. Skins that are starting to flake away from the potato are fine – that’s the price of such youth and delicacy! New potatoes are freshly harvested and a bit of dirt just shows that they really are new potatoes and not just small potatoes.

Store: Because they have such thin skins and high moisture levels, new potatoes don’t keep as well as more mature potatoes. Keep them in a paper bag or loosely wrapped plastic in the fridge and use new potatoes within a few days of buying.

Don’t fall prey to the temptation to wash new potatoes before storing them. That bit of dirt clinging to their skins will actually help keep them fresh and any water on the outside will hasten bruising and softening.

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Disasters

UPDATE: 8/5/2014

Klesick Family Farm will be working with Pastor Phil Smith of Pateros Community Church in Pateros, Washington to engage in rebuilding our Eastern Washington neighbors’ lives. This local church is currently involved in distributing resources to people who have been adversely affected by these fires, and will be involved in the long-term process of rebuilding their community. If you would like to partner with us, you can add a $1, $5, or $10 donation to your deliveries or make a one-time donation, here.

7/30/2014

This has been a devastating disaster season for Washington State. The Oso mudslide earlier and now the Carlton Complex fire, which now has the dubious distinction of being Washington’s largest forest fire. As most of us know, due to the various media outlets, a good portion of the city of Pateros has burned, leaving another community with its world turned upside down.

I just spent an hour with our longtime friend and grower, Bruce, from Earth Conscious Organics (ECO) Farms in Brewster. Bruce is a volunteer firefighter and has been working around the clock trying to save people’s homes in and out of the city of Pateros. I was grateful to know that the ECO family of farms were spared from the fire, just skirting the Pink Lady block of apples. In fact, it appears that none of the farmers we work with in Eastern Washington have lost any of their farms. Thankfully, the loss of life with this disaster pales in comparison with the Oso mudslide; however, the magnitude of the disaster area is unreal and these farmers’ communities have been hit hard.

We have received a few phone calls asking if Klesick Family Farm will be doing a similar outreach to the one we did with the Oso/Darrington communities. The answer is, we are currently looking into how we can help. And based on our long-term relationships in some of the fire damaged communities, I am confident that we will be able to partner with a local nonprofit organization or church to help those communities rebuild their lives.

As with the Oso disaster relief outreach, we will want to be giving into these communities for a longer period. Currently, there are lots of dollars and supplies flowing into these communities, but we would like our efforts to extend beyond this initial blitz and be a “reminder that people still care in the months that follow.”

So, if you would like to partner with us as we engage in rebuilding our Eastern Washington neighbors’ lives, you can add a $1, $5, or $10 donation to your deliveries or make a one-time donation. We will diligently seek to locate an “on the ground” local nonprofit through our network of growers to get your donations to the most pressing need.

On a personal note, I want to thank you for trusting us with your family’s healthy food choice and also working with us to help others in need. You have shown yourselves to be a generous and giving family. And it leaves me humbled to work alongside each of you. May each of you be blessed as you have blessed others.

 

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Note: you can donate to the Methow Valley Fire Relief Effort on our website.  

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Grilled Green Beans and Peaches

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 peaches, cut into ½ inch wedges

1 lb. green beans, trimmed

2 tablespoons olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons slivered almonds

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

Directions

Toss peaches and trimmed green beans with the olive oil; season with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Cook in a grill pan or in a skillet over high heat, tossing often, until beans are crisp-tender and peaches are lightly charred, 8–10 minutes.

Toss with toasted slivered almonds and Sherry vinegar. Serve and enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Bon Appétit

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Stonefruit 101

“Stonefruit” refers to members of the genus Prunus, which includes peaches, nectarines, plums, pluots, cherries, and apricots. The season for summer stonefruit is short-lived, and delicious! With the fruit coming and going so quickly, we don’t want you to miss out by having to toss spoiled or improperly ripened fruit. We’d like to share some info on proper storage in order for you to make the most of these short-season gems.

Care – Store unwashed fruit at room temperature until ripe (usually only 1-2 days), then place in sealed container in the fridge.

Ripeness – Gently press around stem and when flesh gives slightly to pressure fruit is ripe. Stonefruit ripens from the inside to the outside, so if fruit is soft all over it is more likely overripe.

Tips for Preventing Spoilage – Stonefruit’s biggest enemy while ripening is moisture coupled with lack of airflow. Set ripening stonefruit on a cloth or paper-covered countertop or in a place where it gets plenty of airflow. Try setting them stem side down to ripen. This lessens the chance of then rolling and bruising. Once your stonefruit is ripe, it deteriorates very quickly. Within a day of being fully ripe, if left out of refrigeration, you can have overripe/spoiled fruit and some very attracted fruit flies. Check daily and place in refrigerator as soon as you notice the stem area has begun to soften. Take special care when handling your stonefruit – never squeeze to check for ripeness! Even a small bruise will be cause enough to turn into a rot/bruised spot on your fruit as it is still ripening. Check for ripeness by gently pressing around the stem area. It should yield to light pressure.

Use – Once fruit is ripe, and you’ve placed in the refrigerator, plan to use within a day or two (this gives you a total keeping time of about 4-5 days). Stonefruit is refreshing as a healthy breakfast paired with yogurt or hot/cold cereal, as a topping to a green salad, and as an ingredient in fruit salads. For grilling, or for topping green salads: use slightly less ripe fruit, it will hold up better without breaking apart/juicing. Stonefruit also bakes up fabulously into crisps, pies, and sauces!

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Farming

A few more days and we will be heading to August and then September and then October. This farm season seems a lot longer than years past. Maybe it’s just because the weather this year has felt more out of sorts with it getting hot in May, raining in June, and then blistering in July. I guess it has felt more like August and my farming clock is still adjusting.

Most crops have responded well to the heat, living off some of the earlier rains and our irrigation. The raspberries keep kicking out fruit, the strawberries are coming along, greenhouse cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes are thriving and the green and yellow zucchini are over achievers.

Our late season crops, like potatoes and winter squash, look fabulous, which makes this farmer pretty happy. Now only if the sugar snap peas could have joined that list. Our pea harvest is normally double what it was this year, but with the hot weather the peas set a bunch of fruit and then quit!

The short harvest on the peas, while sad, will give us a little breathing room to catch up on some needed weeding and a little R&R. Hopefully, we can get our family into the canoes and out on the Stillaguamish River, which we find very relaxing, especially if you pay attention to the tides!

And just as that R&R comes to an end, it will be all hands on deck as we begin harvesting green beans! Ironically, we were well into picking beans by this time last year, but our first planting this year never got going during that cold spell in June, so technically, we are picking our second planting with the third well on its way.

Grandma always said, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” and we know that all too well, but that saying’s cousin, “Don’t count your chickens till they hatch,” is the kicker. For us, diversification of our crops helps this farmer to sleep a little deeper as the harvesting and farm season marches on!

I consider it a privilege to grow, source and deliver the freshest and healthiest fruits and vegetables for your family. Your purchases mean a lot to our local network of farmers and their families. Thank you!

 

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Farm Update

This is the part of the season where farmers are planting, weeding, and harvesting as well as planning for the next season. Last week, the harvest rotation was cucumbers, snow peas, snap peas, raspberries and zucchini. This week, we have the same harvesting schedule, but less of some and more of others. Raspberries will taper off, with peas, cucumbers and zucchinis kicking in to high gear. We will also be harvesting red leaf lettuce and kohlrabi and a few bunches of chives and sunflowers. Once the harvesting is finished, we have weeding, and lots of it.

Now we are adding irrigation. Irrigation—some farmers lovingly refer to it as “irritation” J. No water, no crops, no food—funny how that works. Fortunately, our soil has a good water-holding capacity, so we get by with a lot less “irritation” than most folks.

Wedding

Our second son, Aaron, has found the love of his life and asked her to be his wife. We are delighted to add Emily to our family and host their wedding in late August on the farm.

The wedding date has precipitated a change in our annual farm festival, which has traditionally been the third weekend in August. As parents and hosts of our son’s wedding, we have decided to change the festival to a series of educational farm walks and events.

So, in lieu of our annual farm festival, we are hosting two farm tours, a fun run (tentative), our squash fest and a garlic planting day. We are excited to share our love of farming and our farm with each of you through these fun, interactive and informative farm days. Each of the listed events are free to our customers, except the Harvest 5k Fun Run. If your school group, church group, book club, etc. would like to come see the farm on a different day, give the office a call and we would love to schedule a farm tour.

Schedule of farm events:

Friday, August 1st, 7pm and 8pm, 1 hour farm tour with wagon ride through the farm.

Thursday August 28th, 7pm and 8pm, 1 hour farm tour with wagon ride through the farm.

September 27th Harvest 5k Fun Run, supporting the Port Susan Food and Farming Center.

September 27th (same day as the Harvest 5k Fun Run) noon to 5pm. Come and help farmer Tristan harvest winter squash and potatoes.

October 12th Garlic Planting, 9am to noon. It will be a clove-popping, garlic-planting party.

See you this summer,

 

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Farm Update Wednesday

Every week for the last few months, I have been vlogging (video blogging) on Wednesdays about something on the farm.  It has taken me a few years to warm up to the idea of vlogging. I have been writing a weekly blog since 1998, but vlogging that took some coaxing. But eventually Marty, our social media and menu planner, was able to talk me into it. And she is quite faithful to send me reminders, but this week I beat her to the punch and sent one in before she even asked!

 

I have covered berries, apples, pruning, potatoes, chives, sunflowers, winter squash, and greenhouses. It has been a lot of fun to chronicle what is happening at that moment and what is going through my mind at that same moment. If you could hear the bloopers! I usually take three or four videos before I get an acceptable 45 – 60 second “winner”. I always seem to start with, “Hey, Klesick Family Farm customers, Tristan Klesick here……”  Last week, we talked about raspberries. This week’s topic will be decided on Wednesday morning, where I will find something that catches my eye and get to vlogging.

 

My hope is to communicate how we grow your food and the importance of growing good food.  It is about a way of farming that nourishes you physically, emotionally and spiritually. Our message is one of hope through good farming and good food, hope through good customer service and hope through being a part of a community that cares about the environment now and in the future.

 

So when Wednesday rolls around check out our Facebook and Twitter pages and see what is on my mind and what is growing on the farm!

 

See you Wednesday,

 

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What Are You Wearing?

laundry soap_cedar & lemongrass

Handmade La Conner Laundry Soaps

Now that you’re on the road to better health by eliminating toxins that go into your body, what about the toxins you’re putting on your body?

Laundry detergents usually contain chemicals that are dangerous to the health and irritating to the skin. A residue of these chemicals remains on clothing after it is washed that then transfers to your skin. Clear evidence of this can be found in scented products, because chemical fragrances would be useless if they were simply washed out. Chemical fragrances are especially bad and are known for aggravating asthma. Laundry product manufacturers sometimes add formaldehyde to their formulas. Formaldehyde is carcinogenic, a skin irritant, and a respiratory poison.

We’ve recently come across a natural laundry soap crafted locally by Handmade La Conner that we are really excited to share with you. These ultra-concentrated laundry soaps are handmade in small batches, absolutely never using fillers, parabens, phosphates, chlorine, artificial colors or fragrances, making them ideal for those who have sensitive skin. They are safe for both septic systems and high-efficiency washing machines.

We are making this laundry soap available to you in these refreshing options: cedar & lemongrass, lavender, sweet orange, spicy citrus, as well as unscented (fragrance comes from pure organic essential oils). Each 16-ounce jar of this powdered soap will wash up to 64 loads of laundry in a high-efficiency washing machine. Order some today and take your detoxing efforts to the next level.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to check out the natural, skin-loving, earth-friendly soaps and lotions handcrafted by EcoSations available on our website.

 

Septic Cents™

Septic Cents™ is a liquid enzyme product that stimulates broad ranges of desirable microbe populations commonly found in septic tanks to ensure optimum performance from your septic system.

Benefits of Septic Cents™:

  • Reduces and liquefies contents of your septic tank and drainfield.
  • Reduces build-up of solid organic waste and allows it to flow freely through the leach bed.
  • Improves percolation and absorp-tion many times over, even in clay.
  • Helps eliminate messy back-ups.
  • Cleans and maintains drainfields, septic tanks, cesspools, pipes, and grease traps.

Visit the products page of our website for more information.

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Berry Time!

The berry season started early this year. I shudder to even mention the weather, but we could use a drink for a lot of our crops, but it would be a disaster for hay farmers and berry farmers now. But it is what it is and if we get rain, great, and if we don’t we will drag out the drip tape and get to watering.

I have already dragged out the drip tape for the strawberries to keep the moisture sufficient to keep those berries growing. We plant a variety called Albion. It is a day-neutral variety, which means that it is not affected by the increasing day length like many of its June-bearing cousins. The advantage of day-neutral varieties is that they produce all season, well into October. The disadvantages are that the fruit set or production and they do not have that classic NW flavor. So we end up picking a little all season instead of a bunch in June.

The June bearing varieties produce copious amounts of strawberries in June and have that classic NW flavor, but are extremely delicate to handle. The disadvantage here is that if it is a rainy June, mold becomes an issue and you can lose a year’s worth of work pretty quick!

While I love the Albion berry for a lot of reasons, I find myself missing the bigger harvest of June bearing berries. So I decided last week to order 3000 plants of Puget Crimson. It is a newer variety developed by WSU for northwest growers. In addition to the Puget Crimson, I am also ordering Black Diamond Blackberry plants to trial them on our farm. We will start with 200 feet and go from there. The Black Diamond is also a newer variety that seems to do well in our climate and to top it off it is “thornless”!

May your health be vibrant and days be merry!

 

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Local Organic Berries & More!

Blueberry Flats…. Full $38, Half $22

Raspberry Flats…. Full $38, Half $22

Strawberry Flats. Full $36, Half $20

Pickling Cucumbers……. 5 lbs. $7.50

Bulk Basil……………………… 1 lb. $7.50

Green Beans……………….. 20 lbs. $40

Garlic & Dill will also be available – notify us to request some with your pickling cuke or other bulk order!

To place your order, please call our office (360-652-4663) and we will add your name to our reservation list. Once the items are ripe and ready, we will contact you and schedule a delivery. Orders are on a first-come, first-served basis.