Where raw Milk Stands in Ohio

SMALL BIZ November 9, 2006, 2:25PM EST

By David E. Gumpert

The Raw Milk Wars Heat Up in Ohio

The state is aggressively pursuing farmers who make unpasteurized milk available to consumers. Will a Democratic governor declare a cease-fire?

Which state is toughest on small dairy farmers seeking to meet the burgeoning consumer demand for raw milk? It recently looked as if Michigan had the title, after its October sting operation on a farmer delivering raw milk and other products to members of a cooperative in Ann Arbor. That one-upped California, which the previous month had quarantined the state's largest raw-milk producer.

But Ohio may be tougher than both these states when it comes to policing distribution of raw (unpasteurized and unhomogenized) milk, moving aggressively over the last year-and-a-half against farmers who might make it available in any form—as pet food, via herd-share leasing programs, or even giving it away.

"They're treating raw milk like heroin or crack," says David Cox, a Columbus lawyer with the firm Lane, Alton & Horst who specializes in cases involving agriculture regulations. He now has six Ohio cases at various stages, and one common element in all, he says, is a sense of "vindictiveness" by the state's Agriculture Dept. (ODA). "I think there's competition among the directors of agriculture to see who can put raw milk out of business."

Coveting the Neighbors' Cows

Ohio's agriculture officials deny there's any vindictiveness behind their actions, but do allow that going after raw milk producers has become a high priority for the state and a hot topic among state agriculture officials. "When I go to meetings of my cohorts, it is the No. 1 issue that comes up," says Lewis Jones, chief of the agency's dairy division.

The crackdown appears to have begun in September, 2005, when some neighboring farmers complained that Arlie Stutzman's family dairy in Millersburg, Ohio, was distributing raw milk to consumers via a herd-share leasing arrangement. According to Jones, such complaints are increasingly common because farmers "are upset because [raw-milk producers] are getting three times the price [the conventional farmers] are getting."

So an agent from ODA visited the Stutzman farm pretending to be a building contractor, and asked to purchase a gallon of raw milk. According to the hearing testimony, before the agent's one-gallon plastic container was filled, "He inquired as to cost and was advised there was no charge, but he could make a donation if he so desired."

"Noble Purpose"

After the agent had received his milk, he "again inquired as to price. Stutzman replied, 'Whatever you think it is worth.' The investigator then gave Stutzman $2, asking, 'Is this all right?' Stutzman put the $2 in his pocket." Stutzman, an Amish farmer, "testified that he had been taught that if any person asks for food, one should give it if he has such."

The hearing examiner allowed that Stutzman's explanation "is a noble exercise. However, one cannot pursue this noble purpose by turning a blind eye to clear proscriptions set forth by the legislature." The penalty: revocation of his milk producer's license. A department spokesman says Stutzman subsequently applied for a new license and was granted it a couple months later. Presumably he will be more sensitive this time around to Ohio's stringent enforcement program.

Next to feel the brunt of Ohio's crackdown was Linda Fagan, a mother of eight children, who runs a 15-cow dairy in Macksburg, Ohio. She had decided five years ago after reading an article in a farming publication to sell raw cow's milk as pet food. She obtained all the licenses and approvals from ODA, and for the next four years sold her raw milk and cream at farmers markets, in containers labeled "not for human consumption."

Strong Suspicions

Her customers were mostly owners of calves, goats, and baby deer, though she doesn't doubt that at least a few purchasers were drinking the milk themselves. The new operation brought in about $300 a month in revenues, about 10% of farm income. The remainder came from sales of milk to conventional milk processors, along with vegetable sales.

Last February, the ODA inspector who visited for what she expected was her routine annual inspection, for no obvious reason issued a stop-sales order, and in April the agency revoked her registration to sell pet food. According to Jones, the ODA determined that farmers like Fagan were using pet food sales as a ruse to get around the prohibition on raw milk sales.

Linda Fagan says that until she was put out of the pet food business, "I never realized milk was such a big deal." She hadn't heard of controversies about raw milk. "I've grown up drinking raw milk and never considered it to be a threat," she says.

Losing the Farm

And probably the most serious case, from the dairy's perspective, involves Carol Schmitmeyer, who with her husband and five children runs a 300-acre farm in Versailles, Ohio. A year ago, she established a herd-sharing arrangement to make raw milk available to about 150 people in her area who were eager for the product. The lawyer who drew up the papers had previously worked for the ODA, she says, and thus she assumed the arrangement would pass muster with the agency.

It did, until this past September, when the ODA demanded in a hearing that her dairy license be revoked. The hearing examiner agreed, declaring that the herd-sharing agreements were "a thinly veiled attempt to evade the prohibitions against selling raw milk" in Ohio, and ordered her license be revoked.

Schmitmeyer is appealing the decision in court and retains her license in the interim, but she says a negative decision could be catastrophic. "If they take our license away, we lose the farm." While she could, like Stutzman, apply for a new license, there's no guarantee it would be granted. According to her lawyer, Cox, she "runs the risk that they could reject it in that she is a violator."

Going Underground

So intense is ODA's campaign against raw milk, the agency earlier this year even sent a written warning to Organic Pastures Dairy, the Fresno, Calif., dairy that tangled with California agriculture officials—against selling raw milk via mail order to Ohio residents. ODA's spokesperson readily acknowledges that it has no jurisdiction in California.

Mark McAfee, president of Organic Pastures, replied to the agency that the FDA doesn't prohibit interstate sales of his raw milk, since it's labeled as pet food, and then added this needle, "Please understand that there are literally thousands of people drinking raw milk in Ohio in the underground markets…this is only getting bigger and bigger."

As McAfee suggests, the ODA, along with other states, appears to be trying to hold back a tidal wave of demand. Food and agriculture officials are arguing that raw milk is dangerous, but too many consumers feel differently, seeing raw milk as a highly nutritious food capable of building their children's immune systems and relieving symptoms of ailments from asthma to autism.

New Regime

When consumers want something so badly, they will pay enough that farmers will take the risk of supplying them with it, and in that sense, the comparison made to heroin and crack holds true.

One glimmer of hope for Ohio's enterprising dairies is Tuesday's election, which saw a Democrat, Ted Strickland, voted in as governor. According to Cox, this means that ODA's raw milk policy will almost certainly be replaced come early next year. It could also give impetus to stalled Ohio legislation that would allow farmer-to-consumer distribution of raw milk, such as via herd-sharing arrangements.

In the meantime, the cat-and-mouse game among farmers, agriculture inspectors, and consumers continues…all over milk.

David Gumpert provides updates on this issue at his blog http://www.thecompletepatient.com

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2006/sb20060928_865207.htm

Buy and Eat Local This Thanksgiving

Give Thanks with the Right Food
November 2006
(from The Union of Concerned Scientists)

In the hubbub of planning and preparing a Thanksgiving feast for
friends and family, it can be easy to forget the environmental impact
of our food choices. Growing, harvesting, and transporting the
ingredients for a typical Thanksgiving meal consumes a significant
amount of water and energy and contributes to air and water pollution,
habitat degradation, and global warming.

Fortunately, you can make a holiday meal that is not only delicious but
also kinder to the environment and your family's health. Here's
how:

Look for food produced in your region. Food travels an average of 1,500
miles or more from the farm to the supermarket, consuming fossil fuels
and emitting air pollutants and heat-trapping carbon dioxide.
Regionally grown meat and produce not only travel a shorter distance to
your table and arrive fresher, but may also come from smaller farms
that often follow more environmentally friendly practices.

Choose organic. Organic standards prohibit the use of synthetic
fertilizers, toxic pesticides, and antibiotics (today's
industrialized animal production relies heavily on antibiotics to
accelerate growth and prevent diseases that stem from overcrowding).
Overuse of these substances generates air and water pollution and makes
it more difficult to treat human diseases and ward off agricultural
pests. If organic turkey is not available in your supermarket, choose
turkey that has been raised without antibiotics. Also look for organic
apples, celery, potatoes, and green beans because these holiday
favorites are among the fruits and vegetables that typically carry the
highest pesticide residues.

Support genetic diversity. Today's large-scale farms focus on only a
select few varieties of livestock and crops; for example, of the more
than 250 million turkeys sold in the United States each year, 99
percent are the Broad-Breasted White variety. And of the thousands of
potato varieties available, a small number now account for the majority
of commercial production. As our agriculture system becomes more
homogeneous, so does the risk of catastrophic losses if a disease
spreads rapidly throughout a plant or animal population upon which our
food supply depends. Choosing heirloom (or "heritage") varieties
such as American Bronze turkeys and fingerling potatoes helps support
biodiversity and ensures a reliable food supply for future generations.

Go meatless. Meat production can deplete environmental resources more
than other food production, so consider a meatless main dish.

At Boulder Belt we will be feasting on locally raised, pastured, organic turkey along with salad, sweet potatoes, apple and squash pie from our farm.

Check out Local Harvest for locating local food in your area

Rainy Off Season Wednesday

It's raining and cold today so I have started the job of crunching the numbers on the season-adding up what everything made this past year to date (we are still selling some things and will for the rest of the year). I have 17 different items added up out of probably 125. When I get done I will than know what was not selling well and what has improved this past season sales-wise. This helps us make decisions about what seed to buy and how much to plant next year.

Many people will tell me I ought to set up a spreadsheet and do all this on the computer because it will be faster (only if I input data weekly during the season) But I have a paranoia about motherboards failing and taking all my data with it (this has happened to me more than once in the past though on lesser machines-not true Macs). Yes, I know about backing up files and I do this on a regular basis but I still don't trust these new fangled number crunchers with my stuff so I use the old fashioned pen and paper to do this. It gives my mind something to do while watching bad afternoon TV court shows (does anyone else watch Judge Christina Perez and think she looks like Andrea Jackson of the Daily Buzz in about 15 years?).

So that and posting to this blog is pretty much what I have been doing today.

Fascinating Huh?

Soon I will start dinner which is going to be spaghetti (sauce will be all homemade/grown), garlic bread (will use our home made garlic powder, dried basil and orgeano in the herb butter) and a salad made with our spring mix, tomatoes , peppers and sweet onions we grew. I love eating locally and try to do so every day.

Candy Roaster (squash) Pie

This past Thursday we had friends over to help us make some pear wine (which looks like this is going to take a couple of weeks of work before the juice gets to the point of becoming wine and can be bottled and than aged for about a year). Because of the visit and because we have a lot of this rare heirloom squash called Candy Roaster we decided to make a pie. And boy was it easy to do.

I have never made a squash pie from scratch. I had heard horror stories about way too wet filling and insipid flavors so the few times I have made a pumpkin pie I used canned "pumpkin" which in reality is butternut squash. But as I said, we have this rare heirloom squash that is really pretty. It looks like a lumpy pink and blue pumpkin. It has a rich buttery flavor and a moist flesh. And it is not selling because no one including us knows what this squash is all about. And the pie project was partially about finding out what the Candy Roaster is all about.

Like I said this was easy to make. First of all we found a medium sized squash (about 3 pounds). Cut it open, took out the seeds (which are good roasted) and put the squash cut side down on a cookie sheet and into a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes (cook until it is softy and there is liquid on the bottom of the pan). When the squash is cooked take out of the oven, flip them over so the flesh side is facing towards the ceiling so it will cool faster (like about 5x faster). While the squash is cooling you can make a pie crust. Eugene is the crust maker around here. He does a much better job than I do (I tend to over work pie dough making it tough). The secrets to his excellent crusts are the following. He uses lard rendered from the fat of pasture raised organic pigs. This lard is clean and contains nothing but fat from stress free healthy hogs, no BHT, no nothing. And he also makes sure all ingredients are cold by placing everything in the freezer before assembling the dough and than the dough goes into the freezer for about 15 to 30 minutes before it is rolled out. He uses the recipe in The Joy of Cooking.

For this filling what I did was take the cooked squash and removed the flesh and mashed it into a puree (use a fork, a potato masher or a food processor to get the flesh smooth. If the squash seems watery put the puree into a strainer and let the water drip out foe a couple of minutes, you can facilitate this by gently pushing on the pulp in the strainer. I found with Candy Roaster I did not need to do this as about 2 cups of water were released during baking making the flesh dry enough.

After the flesh is prepped the rest goes quickly. You will need:

1 can of condensed Milk (use no more sugar, this already has lots)
or
1.5 cups of heavy cream (add additional sugar) This is what I used for my pie
2 cups of squash puree
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup white sugar (use with cream only)
1/4 cup brown sugar (use with cream only)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground allspice

Add everything together and mix well. Pour into prepared raw pie crust and put into a preheated 450 degree oven and set a timer for 15 minutes. When the timer goes off set the oven temp to 350 degrees and bake for another 45 minutes or so, until the edges of the pie are browning and the center is solid. Remove the pie from oven and cool for about 30 to 45 minutes

This was pretty much the best "pumpkin" pie I have ever eaten. It was sweet, light and the candy Roaster squash imparted a wonderful smooth buttery taste to the pie. Much better than any can of butternut (AKA Pumpkin) squash will ever make.

The next squash pie will be made with one of our butternut squashes which are a lot better than the B-nuts you buy at the store. That lively soil makes a big difference in flavor. Than after the B-nut may try a buttercup squash which has a sweet dry flesh and ought to make a great pie.

Voting

We eco-farmers feel it is our patriotic duty to vote in all elections (even the local ones for the mental health levy and a primary for the township trustees) and I'd say between Eugene and me we have voted in about 90% of all elections since we have been together.

So yesterday we were not about to shirk our duty as Americans and miss out on the vote. We voted around 2pm. We voted in a new precinct for the first time in 13 years and this was also our first time using the new electronic voting technology. We were in a new precinct because we moved last year but did not get reregistered until after last year's november election. We voted in some evangelic church along with 4 other precincts. There was a good crowd especially for an off year election and the fact it was between lunch and quitting time. I guess there are a lot of full time farmers and retired folks in our precinct.

I was paranoid that I would not be allowed to vote, that either my DL would not be sufficient (so I took my passport and voter registration card as well) or that my name had been purged from the rolls. So I get to the guy who has the big book of eligible voters and he cannot find my name (oh shit...I knew it!). But he turns the page and there I am, the last O in the book. He looks at my ID and lets me sign and I am on my way (whew!).

Preble County is the last county in Ohio to go electronic so this was my first time voting not using the punch system that in the past would occasionally leave unsightly chads behind. Since no one wants an unsightly chad Ohio switched from a tried and true balloting system to a new and unproven system. Preble County now has optical scanners. This makes filling out a ballot pretty much like taking a computerized exam only you use a black pen and not a #2 pencil. In order to vote you needed 3 things, a ballot, a black pen (not blue!) and a big manilla folder to hide your completed ballot while on the way to the scanner device that would eat the ballots and record our votes. The thing looked like a cross between a xerox copier and a trash can but it did its' job. I had to wait on a pen and a folder for a few minutes (they really should have sent someone out to the nearest store to buy a few more pens and several more folders as there were not enough to go around and people were waiting needlessly. As voter complaints go this is tiny). But soon I had my pen and folder and was ready to completely darken the appropriate circles so I sat down at a nearby table and got to work filling out my ballot. I pretty much voted a straight Democratic ticket and voted yes on some levys, no on others and voted for or against the 5 issues on the ballots. Than I tore off the stub of each ballot (I had two pages so basically two ballots-it was a busy election for Ohio) and carefully put my completed ballot into the manilla folder they had provided to me and walked the 10 feet over to the scanning device, dropped the ballot stubs into the receptacle taped to the side of the scanner and fed my ballot sheets into it and it registered some numbers on the LED and I was done.

Than I waited about 5 minutes for Eugene to finish up. He had to wait for a pen and folder as well and is as slow as molasses when it comes to voting. Soon enough he was finished and we hopped in the van and went south 1/2 hour to pick up our weekly share of raw milk, which is a story in itself.

Farm Sex

Another post based on the keywords in my blog-counter. So far today 22 people have visited this blog looking for farm sex and 1 person wanted sex on the farm.

Farms are sexy places, those plants and animals are pretty much doing nothing but looking for sex so they can procreate. The squashes are particularly promiscuous, they will cross pollinate with about anyone. Even squashes of different species. I think this is what Rick Santorum was afraid of when he did his man on dog speech against gay marriage. But fortunately for us contrary eco-farmers Santorum is now a former senator and the Democrats are back in the saddle again and the Nat'l gummint once again has its' checks and balances pretty much back in place.

Ah but I digress. We were talking about farm sex not politics (though they do seem to overlap an awful lot these days). The rats around here seem to be heavily into sex judging from all the juvenile rats we have caught in traps the past few days. Got a breeder hidden out somewhere that we need to get before she pops out another litter.

Now that it is fall most everything has given up on sex for the year. Hard to have sex when you are dead.

Garlic planting

Eugene cleaning last seasons' garlic harvest (the 2006 season). Some of which became this years' garlic seed

We finished planting the first crop for 2007-the garlic.

Put in 4 beds that contain around 1875 cloves of garlic. I spent most of yesterday splitting open heads of garlic. I think I opened up 400 heads of garlic and my hands are feeling it today. Eugene got the beds ready in the morning and than in the afternoon helped with the garlic and thought he would get some planted yesterday but he was wrong . The days are just too short to start any project after 3pm and it was about 5 pm and the sky was in full gloam when we got done splitting up the garlic and counting the cloves to be sure we had enough to plant 4 beds with 400+ cloves apiece.

Today we got out to the field around 9am with 3 heavy paper grocery bags of garlic cloves and preceded to lay them out in nice straight lines, four lines to a bed. This took about 2 hours. This is something we are pretty anal retentive about. If the garlic is not laid out just so it will become hard to impossible to keep the beds hoed and weedy beds mean the garlic will not get as big and it can. So we take care to do the laying out right so we do not have [problems 5 months later when it is May and the weeds are growing like weeds.

Than we took a lunch break and came back around 1:30pm and started putting the garlics into the soil and got that done at 3pm. Burying the garlic cloves is a simple and repetitive task. About the only skill to the job is knowing which end will be growing the roots and being able to put that end of the garlic clove down. Otherwise the garlic will grow upside down and become weirdly shaped. So the two of us sat or kneeled and pushed cloves into the ground for two hours straight and talked about things like the guy who played Doogie Houser coming out recently or how deep to plant the cloves (is deeper better?) or why the CSA's are different for the farmers (who expects community and active members willing to spend time at the farm) and members (who expect fresh food and conveinence but no participation at the farm and tend to not like them because of no choice in what they get and too much food) and how the concept of CSA has morphed over the past decade from a way for a person to get fresh food, support a local farm in a profound way and get reconnected to the farm/land by participating with their CSA farm to a trendy thing middle-class to rich people do because they either do not trust the food system or suffer from liberal guilt but they do not want to travel to the farm to get their food much less participate on a work crew for an hour a week instead they want the food dropped at a convenient pick-up point in a share that they picked out themselves via the CSA's on-line ordering system. In other words, CSA has gone from an incredible way for a person to reconnect with the land to a buying club. Needless to say, I am no longer enamoured with the CSA concept and Boulder Belt will not be doing one any longer unless people want to do an old fashioned CSA where everyone participates and makes regular farm visits, helps in the decision making and other things (Ha! Fat chance on that).

I am happy this job is done, It has been weighing heavily upon our shoulders for the past 3 weeks or so ("gotta get the garlic planted...") and it is a tedious job too boot. But garlic is one of our better selling crops and one of my favorite foods. It's good in about anything, and I do mean anything. Garlic jelly and ice cream are both excellent

Newsletter

At least once a week I send out an electronic newsletter of sorts telling my subscribers what we have been up to and when and where we will be selling our goods along with a (somewhat) complete list of what we are harvesting that week.

And that is what I have been doing this morning since around 9am-writing the news letter than sending it out to the 300+ subscribers all the while listening to the Royal Crecent Mob's record (okay CD) "Omerta" which is one of my all time fave CD's. The RC Mob was a happening white boy funk band outta OHIO that broke up about a decade ago. Some of the members went on to become Foo Fighters along with members of Nirvana.

But I digress. Below is the current electronic newsletter. If you want this in your inbox about once a week send me an email at goodows(at)infinet.com (change the (at) to @ and the addy will work) with "Newsletter" in the subject line. If you leave the subject line blank I will assume it is porn spam and delete it without looking at it.

Howdy all,

It's been a cold one this week and it looks like the cold will continue until tomorrow morning meaning that we just might miss the farmers' market or if we do come we will not have nearly everything on the list below. Right now it is 10:00am Friday morning and it is still below freezing. We did a subfreezing market last winter and lost a lot of squash and taters and we are not going to make that mistake again. The good news is we will have everything on the list below (and probably a few items I forgot about) at the farm store which is heated to a balmy 60 degrees and open today, tomorrow and Sunday. So if the oxford Farmers' market leaves you wanting jump in the car and take a nice ride out into the country and buy your local and organically grown food at the Boulder Belt Eco-Farm Store this weekend (if you are lucky and ask nicely we might even take you around the farm and show you where and how your food is grown)

Cold weather also means it is just about time to plant the garlic for next season and move the hoophouses to their final winter spring beds.

Garlic is a fall planted crop and one of our favorite things. we have been planting garlic for about 10years now. We started with one type, Hardy German White and now do 3 kinds of garlic, Shvilisi and Persian Star. All are hardnecks, meaning they grow a flower stalk called a garlic scape that we harvest in late May and early June. Most of the garlic we find at grocery stores are Chinese grown softnecks that do not have as hearty a flavor nor are they grown organically.

The plan is to prepare and plant the garlic sometime next week. There are several steps involved. First we have to have beds ready to go. This means they are tilled and raked. next we have to split garlic heads into individual cloves. We plan on planting around 2000 garlic cloves so that means splitting up hundreds of heads which can be hard on the fingers and takes the two of us several hours to complete. After the cloves are ready we than take them up to the garden along with string and stretch the string out over the length of the bed so we are sure to plant in straight lines (makes it a lot easier to get a how between the plants in the spring when we have to weed). We than put the cloves where we want them, 400 per bed (4 rows of 100 cloves per row) and finally we poke each clove into the soil and we are done. In late November/early December we will put a row cover over top of each of the beds for the winter to keep the soil from freezing and thawing. This causes "frost heave" which is where the cloves get heaved out of the soil and tend to die or if they live, make weak plants.

The hoophouses right now are protecting tender summer crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes and peppers but it has been too cold for these crops to keep on producing well (or at all-the cukes and melons have been a complete bust this fall) so soon we will either remove the hoophouses and let the tender crops they were protecting die and than move them over to protect kale, cabbage, spinach, spring mix. Or we will remove the spent crops, leaver the hoophouse where it is and use those beds to plant early spring crops such as lettuce, radishes, spring mix for the winter farmers' markets and our farm store (which is heated and out of the elements so we can keep going as long as we have produce to sell).

Even after killing freezes there is still a lot to do here at Boulder Belt. We will have less to do soon as tomorrow is the last regular farmers' market of the year in Uptown Oxford. After this week we go to the once a month (3rd Saturday of each month starting Nov 18th) market through April. But our farm store will be open Thursday through Sunday 10am to 7pm (2 to 7pm this Saturday) for the foreseeable future. We are EZ to find just a mile north of eaton, OH on US 127 at the top of the hill.

On that note here is what we will be offering this week:

Winter Squash-We have 5 kinds of winter squash for sale. We have Butternut, Acorn, Buttercup, Lakota and Candy Roaster (a beautiful pink and blue heirloom pumpkin that has a rich buttery, sweet flavor. Incredibly rare)

Kale-The kale is as sweet as it is nutritious this week.

Bright Lights Chard-Chard is a mild leafy green, closely related to beets. It is one of my favorite things.

Spring Mix-We have a small amount of spring mix this week. The dark cold weather we have been having the past 3 weeks has really slowed down the spring mix so despite having a lot planted we are getting small harvests. But it is wonderful salad that we wish would grow more.

Tomatoes-We have been picking tomatoes out of the hoophouse for about 5 weeks now and the ones that are not eaten by the mystery varmints (voles and rats we think) have been quite beautiful fruits though not as tasty as summer grown maters but better than grocery store maters. Hey, it's November and most local tomatoes were killed off weeks ago. we do not have to give up on summer quite yet (she says with a heavy frost on the ground)

Baby Zucchini-This is one of the hoophouse crops, normally one cannot grow zucchini in October/November but with season extension capabilities one can. we do not have a lot of zukes because it has been so cold and dark this past month that few of the male flowers developed enough pollen to fertilize the female flowers so a lot of the tiny squashes could not develop and rotted on the plants. But we are getting a few pounds each week of this rare, tasty and special veggie.

Kohl Rabi-We call these cabbage radishes-they are crunchy like a radish but taste more like cabbage. These are good raw or cooked.

Red Meat Radishes-These are a hot sweet radish that is white on the outside and red in the middle. If you like a hot radish you will fall in love with these.

Strawberries-the cold has not been kind to the strawberries but they are still producing some nice big berries. Cold weather tends to encourage a gray mold on the berries and soon we will come to a point where more berries are moldy than not and we will give up on picking them for the season. But we are not quite there yet so we will have berries at the store this week.

Pac Choy-We planted pac choy (Chinese chard) as an after thought so the plants got ignored most of th season. despite that they have grown into some very nice pac choy plants perfect for stir frys or on their own.

Potatoes- There are few things better than freshly dug taters. And taters are of those foods you want to buy from as organic a source as you can (that would be us). On the bulletin board of our store is a poster all about all the toxic substances applied to the vast majority of taters grown commercially, it's an eye opener. We have have 4 kinds of spuds-fingerlings, all blue, Pontiac red and Kennebeck white. All are tasty.

Leeks- Cold weather has not scared the leeks none, they laugh at freezing temps and tend to get more flavorful. this means we have a nice supply at happy tasty leeks this week.

Parsnips-We have been digging some funky looking parsnip. We did not use hybrid seed and it seems this farm has a problem with parasitic nematodes (something we believe we have taken care of by applying beneficial nematodes) so we get parsnips with split roots. but they are very tasty once you get passed their bizarre appearance.

Carrots-Between flooding, parasitic nematodes and other ills we almost did not get a carrot crop this year and what we have is not our best effort. But the fall planted carrots are showing promise and despite the roots being on the homely side they are great tasting-crisp and sweet with no turpintiny flavor. oh and they come in 3 colors-yellow, orange and red.

Onions-We have the heirloom Ailsa Craig, a nice yellow sweet onion and Mercury a nice sweet red onion.

Garlic- We have 3 kinds of hardneck heirloom garlics. They range from fairly mild to hot and pungent. They are all better than the Chinese grown garlic found at the major grocery chains and I will be honest with you they cost more to because we American farmers cannot live on the $600 a year that a Chinese farmer survives on. That, and they are far higher quality garlic. Oh yeah, they are grown organically meaning they are in lively soil and have not been exposed to toxic chemicals

Sweet Potatoes- We have some nice but smallish sweet taters.

Sweet Peppers-We still have peppers coming out of the hoophouse but soon they will be just a memory so get yours now. peppers freeze well and are very easy to freeze. Simply remove seeds and cut the peppers into the shape you like best to cook with and put in freezer bags and into the freezer. One thing I like to do is take whole peppers, fire up the grill (gas, charcoal or wood). put the peppers over the flame and let them get all black and soft, remove them from the heat and put in a paper grocery bag (not plastic!!!) and let them sit for about 10 to 15 minutes. Than peel or wash the blackened skin off, cut open and remove the seeds and you now have roasted peppers ready to eat or freeze. To freeze cut into strips or cubes and put on a baking sheet and into the freezer. When frozen put the peppers into a well marked plastic freezer bag.

Spinach-People have been asking for this and we finally have some, but not a lot. It is sweet and e-coli 157 free.

Lettuce-It got cold so we harvested all the lettuce we could yesterday before the freeze did it for us. We have some nice bags of red and green mixed heirloom lettuces.

Fresh Dill-We have been waiting literally months for the dill to grow up big and strong and it is finally ready for its' first cutting. Need Dill? We have it.

Dried Herbs- Many people claim dried herbs are never as good as fresh and I say au contraire. Dried herbs are often the better choice for many dishes as they have a more concentrated flavor (that's basically what drying does, concentrates the flavor). Granted dried basil, for example, makes a horrible pesto but it is better than fresh in a tomato pasta sauce that requires a few hours of simmering. We have on hand the following herbs- Basil, cinnamon basil, tarragon, oregano, savory, coriander, parsley, dill, garlic powder & sage

Honey-(Farm Store Only) We have local honey in two sizes. Soon we will be getting more sizes and chemical free honey (I'd call it organic because the bee keeper who raises the bees that make this honey is into deep organics and understands that the bees are not living better thru chemistry but first I gotta sell a bit more of the honey I have on hand which is raised by bee keepers who do believe in using chemicals on their bees and hives)

Tomato Juice-Homemade mater juice that is sooo much better than anything you will buy from the industrial food stream. I have made this from a blend of 8 or 9 different tomatoes and some herbs and spices grown right here on the farm. If you like tomato juice you will get none better.

Apple Sauce -We have home made apple sauce and it is excellent. Sweet and tart with a rich apple and cinnamon flavor you will not find from store bought apple sauce. Perhaps this is because I do not use insipid tasting apples such as golden and red delicious in my sauce but instead use apples with good flavor.

Bearded Iris Roots- It is by no means too late to plant irises (or any other bulb). As a matter of fact now is the perfect time to plant for some great color next spring and summer. That said we have no idea what colors we are selling as a lot of these plants were so in need of splitting up last season they did not bloom. but now they have been split up and should put on a garish display.

Pretty in Purple Pepper Plants (farm store only) we have some very nice decorative pepper plants that can supply you with yummy hot peppers all winter and if things go right for the rest of your life. You see, peppers are a tender perennial that if brought indoors when temps drop below 45˚F can live for 100 years.

Basil Plants (farm store only)-need absolutely fresh basil? than you need a big ol' basil plant and we got 'em. If cut back and kept indoors these plants should provide you with fresh basil well into early winter


Oh yeah, we still need YOUR paper or plastic clean shopping bags. We can always use bags for the store and the farmers' markets. Many thanks to those of you who have been supplying us with bags. Your recycling efforts are greatly appreciated on several levels.

As always thanks for your support

Lucy and Eugene Goodman
Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
3257 US 127 N
Eaton, OH
http://www.boulderbeltfarm.com
http://boulerbelt.blogspot.com

Vote Organic

VOTE ORGANIC:
The Nov. 7 elections are just around the corner. How well do you know the candidates running for office from your area? OCA's allied lobbying organization, the Organic Consumers Fund (OCF), has put together a detailed nonpartisan Organic Consumers Political Candidate Survey to identify candidates who support organic agriculture, and are willing to get behind legislation that promotes health, justice, peace, and sustainability. Learn more about your local and Congressional candidates and spread the word about the Organic Consumers Political Candidate Survey by visiting the OCF website: http://organicconsumersfund.org

Vote Organic

VOTE ORGANIC:
The Nov. 7 elections are just around the corner. How well do you know the candidates running for office from your area? OCA's allied lobbying organization, the Organic Consumers Fund (OCF), has put together a detailed nonpartisan Organic Consumers Political Candidate Survey to identify candidates who support organic agriculture, and are willing to get behind legislation that promotes health, justice, peace, and sustainability. Learn more about your local and Congressional candidates and spread the word about the Organic Consumers Political Candidate Survey by visiting the OCF website: http://organicconsumersfund.org

Spider

This beautiful spider was hanging out in front of the house most of September and October until it got too cold for it, than it disapeared. I do not know what kind of spider it is but it looks quite a bit like a garden spider (argiope), though the web is more like an orb weaver's. At any rate, all who saw her agreed she was spectacular

Frosty Nights

Got the first night of 3 that will bottom out in the mid 20's (˚F) last night. This caused Eugene great anxiety so he went out and harvested as many greens as he could. He got 8 pounds of chard, some nice but small heads of a lettuce (marvel of 4 seasons, Simpson and one lollo rossa), some tasty but windburned spinach (and e-coli free to boot!), a couple of pounds of pac choy and a bit of spring mix (4 6oz bags IIRC). Plus he pulled all the leeks that were not in a hoophouse which came to around 20 leeks and all the beets (most are small and many have been chewed upon by the varmints).

It's hard to let go of one's garden but nature will force the issue. Of course we being some of those crazy season extension growers we make nature really forces the issue before we give up on the garden and that has not happened yet. So we will be harvesting kale, brussle sprouts, broccoli, cabbages, spinach, chard, spring mix and maybe some lettuce for at least 6 more weeks (longer if the el Nino, predicted for this winter/spring, really kicks in and gives us a dry and mild winter, than we get to harvest practically all 12 months). The cold may well kill off the cukes, melons, zukes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant but that's okay. They were not producing all that well or if they were the varmints were eating the fruits of our labors. The hoophouses will either be moved over the kale, broccoli, cabbages, brussle sprouts or will be left in place all winter and be planted with something like radishes, spring mix, arugula, etc., sometime in January or early Feb. This will insure that we have greens in March.

And for the meantime we have some really nice leafy green type produce at the farm store and will be bringing what we do not sell today and tomorrow to the farmers' market on Saturday (last one of the year-Yay!)