Making Hay While the Sun Shines
After the many weeks of monsoonal rains we
experienced earlier this summer, the sunny weather is affording us the
opportunity to make some hay. Summer is the time to make sure the cattle and
sheep will have what they need for the winter, however long that turns out to
be.
While there is no such thing as a normal
season, the general plan is to mow a few fields at a time during the dry
weather windows, and between passing fronts which often bring rain. We have
developed our own predictability system, which is an interpretation of numerous
forecasts available through the media and internet sites. Making good hay is
all about managing the moisture in the plants so it can cure properly to
preserve the nutrients and store well in the bale.
This year due to all the rain, not only
was the hay making equipment parked for over a month during the prime time, the
hay crops were growing and maturing, as were the weeds. The optimum time to cut
a field for hay is just before the plant goes into flowering mode. Once
flowering, the reproductive tissue has more structure or woodiness to it,
making it less digestible and by extension less nutritious. Therefore, we will
have to feed more hay each day allowing the livestock to seek out the more
nutritious leaves, leaving the stemmier stuff behind (stemmier is a good
descriptive farm word but not respected by spellcheck). Additionally, with so
much rain, there are lots of taller plants and weeds to harvest, as compared to
a dry season. Weeds are generally less nutritious than the grasses and legumes
we plant for hay, further decreasing the feed value of the hay. Since the rains
stopped, we have cut and baled each of the hayfields, and are working our way
back around cutting some fields again at the optimum time for some really high
quality winter feed.
Making good hay requires well maintained
specialized equipment, an operator that knows how to make adjustments depending
on the conditions, and the ability to predict the weather to perform the
various steps at the proper time. First, a disc mower is pulled across the
field. This is an implement, about 9 feet wide, hitched to a tractor but hangs
off the right side, with a series of discs whirling at high speed that cut the
plants just a few inches above the ground, then let it fall behind in one
piece. By being offset to the tractor, the wheels never drive over the uncut
plants, making for a cleaner cut. This is done after the dew goes off when
there are several dry days in the forecast. The plants are left flat for a
couple of days to dry, or cure, in the sun. If the field was particularly tall
or thick, a tedder (another real farm word) is pulled over the field which is a
tractor mounted implement with slow moving steel fingers spinning that gently
lift and fluff up the plants to be sure all the hay is exposed to the sun and
dries out uniformly. A tedder can effectively speed up the drying process, but
every time you move the drying plants around you run the risk of shattering off
more of the valuable leaves. When the hay is ready to be prepared for baling, a
20 foot wide rake is pulled over the field, sweeping the wide flat carpet of
plants into a narrow windrow, making it more efficient for the baler to pick up
as it feeds the hay into the machine, designed to make the rolls you see. When
the rolls are packed good and tight, the outside acts like a thatched roof,
shedding most of the rain that may fall on it before feeding.
If a rain does fall on the hay during the
curing process, it can leach out the vital nutrients in the plants. A hard rain
will actually knock off the alfalfa or clover leaves. It also will require
another tedding, especially if the soil gets a good soaking. The art of making
good hay is mowing one field in the morning with the idea of raking and baling
the fields mowed the day before, sort of leap frogging around the farm, dodging
showers.
The other aspect of mowing the fields for
hay revolves around weed control and soil building, critical to a sound organic
farming system. Hay fields this season will be vegetable crop fields in future
seasons: remember reading our newsletter about crop rotation and building
organic matter in the soil? It does all tie together, in a seemingly
complicated, but really easy way of working with the natural systems of soil,
sun and plant growth.
As some of us are catching up on hay
making, the rest of us continue to harvest everything that is ready for your
vegetable shares. Please know that not only was the hay equipment parked for
over a month, so were the planters, tillers, and seeders. While we did all that
we could, by hand back then, we are seeing a little less variety of produce
available to harvest right now since we could not plant or cultivate the ground
for so long when the fields were waterlogged. In order to harvest each week, we
must plant each week. For example, we have more sweet corn coming, but there is
a break now in its readiness as there was a break in it being planted. There is
still plenty of delicious food for your shares, just maybe not the wide
diversity we desire. As we are able to seed fall crops now and get late summer
transplants out, we are actually making more than hay while the sun shines
these days!
In Your
Share :
Fresh Herbs
Red Beets
Green Beans
Lettuce
Okra
Okra
Tomatoes
Yellow Squash
Green Zucchini
Green Zucchini
Celery
Kale Greens
Melon
Recipes:
Very
Versatile Creole Squash
Our
thanks to Chef Lisa for sharing one of her special recipes. Lisa has been the
Sous Chef at Holly Hill Inn in Midway since Ouita and Chris Michel opened the
restaurant. We always enjoy her tasty original recipes!
1
medium onion or large green onions, diced
1
stalk celery, diced
1
bell pepper, diced
3-4
cloves garlic
4
C peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes
¾
T fresh thyme, chopped
¾
T fresh oregano, chopped
1
½ tsp Worstershire sauce
hot
sauce, as much as desired
salt/black
pepper
1
bay leaf, if desired
3-4
C summer squash, chopped
Options:
Can include cabbage, eggplant, cooked chicken or sausage, blanched kohlrabi;
any combination of favorite vegetables or meats.
In
a large sauté pan over medium heat, sauté onion until it turns translucent. Add
celery and pepper and cook until soft. Add garlic, tomatoes, herbs, and sauces.
Add squash or any other optional items. Cook 15 minutes and serve.
Tomato Bread Pudding
recipe from Edible Ohio Valley, adapted
from Giada DeLaurentiis
Butter,
for preparing pan
8
oz. challah or brioche, cut into cubes
3
Tbsp. olive oil
1
large or 2 small shallots, thinly sliced
2
cloves garlic, minced
12
oz. cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
Salt
& pepper
1
packed cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1
½ cups (6oz.) shredded Parmesan
6
large eggs, at room temperature
1
cup whole milk
Preheat
the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9x13-inch glass baking dish, add the bread
crumbs, set aside.
In
a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the shallots add
garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and season
with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until slightly soft, about 2 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the basil. Pour the tomato mixture and
Parmesan over the bread cubes and combine well.
Beet Cupcakes with
Cream Cheese Frosting
Many Beet Cake
recipes can be found online, some use cooked beets, some raw like this
one. This recipe originally in New York
Times Magazine, adapted from Kathryn “Katzie” Guy-Hamilton at the Breslin.
Cupcakes:
12 ounces butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon salt
4 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups shredded red or purple beets (in season try yellow for a corn-like flavor)
½ cup orange juice
½ cup toasted chopped hazelnuts.
1. Preheat the oven
to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment,
cream the butter, spices and sugar on high speed for six minutes until fluffy
and pale.
2. Sift together the
flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. With the mixer running on medium
speed, add the eggs one at a time, stopping to scrape down after each egg. Add
the vanilla extract.
3. In a separate
bowl, stir the orange juice into the shredded beets that have been squeezed of
most of their juice. (Save the juice for sorbet, a cocktail, what have you.)
Mix until combined, then stir in the nuts. Using a spatula, fold in the dry
ingredients and mix until just combined.
4. Scoop into
paper-lined cupcake tins, or spray muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray and
scoop batter directly into tins.
5. Bake for 20
minutes until brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool before frosting and
adorn with toasted hazelnuts. (Toast your nuts slowly at a low temperature for
even toasting from inside out.) Makes 12 cupcakes.
Cream-Cheese
Frosting:
12 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
8 ounces butter, softened
8 ounces confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of a quarter orange.
1. To keep it smooth
and dense, paddle your cream cheese in the bowl of standing mixer on medium
speed until smooth.
2. Put the cream
cheese in a separate bowl. Add the butter to the mixer and mix on medium speed
until smooth. Now
add the cream cheese back into the butter, being sure to avoid “whipping” the
mixture. Add the confectioner’s sugar,
salt, vanilla and orange. Paddle until smooth.
Tomato Basil Sorbet
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
6 T minced fresh
basil leaves
1 lb tomatoes peeled,
cored, cut
½ lemon
