Langwater Farm

Happy New Year!

Thanks to all our supportive friends, CSA members, farmstand customers, and community for sharing our first season with us.  Our first year here in Easton has been incredibly busy and productive: we built a greenhouse and a farmstand, grew 5 acres of crops, and fed hundreds of people.  2010 has been a year we will always remember.

This winter we will be toasting by the wood stove, poring over seed catalogs, building new greenhouses, and welcoming Kevin & Kate’s new baby in January!  We already can’t wait for the crunchy green spring peas and salads that are just around the corner.

If you too are dreaming of delicious fresh springtime foods, make sure to reserve a spot in our 2011 CSA! We have some new options this year, including whole shares, half shares, a flexible “farmstand CSA”, flower shares and winter shares.  More information and signup is at http://langwaterfarm.com/find-our-produce/join-our-csa/

Here’s hoping you stay warm and well-fed through the winter. We are looking forward to continuing to bring you tasty organic food in 2011.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who came to our talk at the North Easton Ames Library!  Fun to see lots of familiar faces and meet some new folks as well.  Read more about the lecture at the Easton Patch: http://easton-ma.patch.com/articles/after-successful-start-langwater-farm-looks-ahead.  And, by popular request, here is the recipe for the chocolate chip squash bread we served.  We doubled the recipe and it worked well, but below is the original.  We used Kabocha squash, one of my favorites for baking due to its smooth, dense flesh, but you can use pumpkin, butternut squash, or any other kind of winter squash.

Chocolate Chip Squash Bread

Recipe adapted from “Recipes from the Root Cellar”

• 1 2/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup cooked mashed squash (Kabocha is great, butternut or pumpkin will also work)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Butter and flour a loaf pan or a shallow baking pan.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg in a medium bowl.

3. Combine sugar and oil in a large bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.  Add squash and milk and stir well.

4. Add flour mixture and stir just enough to combine.  Fold in the chocolate chips and spread the batter in the baking pan.

5. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes, until a knife or toothpick in the center of the loaf cmes out clean.

6. Cool 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

Brrr, it’s chilly out!

Despite the temperatures, you can still find us at the farm stand up until Christmas time! We have beautiful Frasier Fir Christmas trees, known for keeping their needles well, along with lots of wreaths, garlands, and other decorations.   And we still do have some produce, including squash and potatoes, greens, apples, apple cider and honey.

We will be open until Christmas Eve, after which we will go into hibernation for a bit before we hit the ground running for the spring season.  Stop by anytime you see the “Farmstand Open” sign out– we have been staying open a little late some nights for night-time Christmas tree shoppers.  We often have a cozy little fire going to warm up by.

Hope you are staying warm, and wishing you a very happy holiday season!

A chill is in the air, the leaves are all gone from the trees, and it feels like winter out.  Luckily we are still open at the Langwater Farm Stand, all the way through Thanksgiving up until Christmas!

To us, Thanksgiving is all about family, community, and good food, which makes it the perfect holiday to celebrate with a delicious locally-grown meal. And plenty of Thanksgiving foods are in season at the farm stand right now: winter squash, potatoes, brussels sprouts, apples, pumpkins, and more.

The days are getting cooler, the leaves are changing colors, and fall is in full swing on the farm! We are harvesting a beautiful crop of big orange pumpkins from our pumpkin patch.  Come visit the farm for pick-your-own pumpkins, hayrides, and lots of fall goodies like winter squash and local apples.

Pumpkins are available pre-picked at the farm stand, or you can come pick your own pumpkin out of our pumpkin patch on Washington/138.   The pumpkin patch will be open every day during normal farm stand hours.  On weekends from now through Halloween, we are offering free hay rides around the pumpkin patch.  Pumpkin patch hay rides run every Saturday and Sunday from 10am-6pm.   We will be open on Columbus Day, Monday October 11, for pumpkin picking and hay rides.

We have fat orange jack-o-lanterns as well as smaller sugar pie pumpkins perfect for baking into pies and breads. We also still have plenty of our own delicious organic vegetables, including late-season tomatoes,  winter squash, root crops, fall greens, and lots more.  Plus we have many varieties of local apples, local honey, and fall decorations like cornstalks, hay bales, mums, and gourds.

Tomatoes are in, and is it ever a fantastic year for them!  This summer’s weather has been great for tomatoes, and we are pulling in buckets upon buckets of beautiful fruits of all types, from round red slicers to fat colorful heirlooms to tiny sweet cherry tomatoes. We’ve been enjoying farm-fresh salsa, pasta, and tomato sandwiches, but most of all we’ve just been eating them sliced up with a little salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar– the ultimate summer treat. Stop by the farm stand and pick up a pint of orange Sun Golds (our absolute favorite), a tangy Green Zebra, an enormous Striped German, a peach-colored Persimmon, a deep dark Black Krim, or one of our many varieties of classic red round slicing tomatoes.  Tomato season only lasts until the first frost, so get ‘em while you can– the time is now!

The most highly anticipated moment of the summer has arrived… we have SWEET CORN!  We’re not growing it ourselves, but are buying it from Cervelli Farm in Rochester MA (IPM grown about 25 miles away).  Corn on the cob, steamed or grilled, with some butter and salt and pepper… what could be better?!  We’re also still getting some truly delicious blueberries from Ward’s Berry Farm over in Sharon.

We also have plenty of great organically grown vegetables coming out of our very own fields: carrots, beets, broccoli, basil, parsley, summer squash (we have some fantastic varieties, including yellow straightneck, green zucchini, golden zucchini, pattypan, and heirloom Costata Romanesca), green beans, yellow wax beans, and spring onions.

And we have flowers! Beautifully arranged bouquets of cosmos, sweet peas, Queen Anne’s Lace, early sunflowers, and plenty more.

Hope to see you at the farmstand this weekend!

Spring onions are in season!

We’ve been getting a lot of people coming through the farm stand wondering why we don’t have corn, or tomatoes.  The answer is– it’s not in season yet!  Even though it feels like summer outside and the plants are growing quickly, and everything has been early this spring and summer, many of the late-summer goodies like corn and tomatoes are just not yet in season.

Zucchini and summer squash are in season!

Fortunately, we do have many delicious things that ARE in season!  Lettuce, carrots, beets, peas, zucchini, spring onions, green beans… all of these tasty late-spring-early-summer foods are at their peak right now.  One of the great things about eating with the seasons is that the veggies are always at their best.  In-season foods are naturally the sweetest and most flavorful. You’re enjoying them at their finest.  Plus, you can eat them every day for the few weeks when they’re at their prime, and then by the time you’re sick of them– the season’s over until next year!  Voila!

How do you tell what’s in season?  The folks over at SEMAP have provided us with this handy dandy calendar:

http://www.farmfresh.org/learn/harvestcalendar.php

Check it out the next time you’re wondering when tomatoes are going to come around, then come by the farm stand to see if it matches up!