Church FarmYour Weekly Newsletter

Friday 15th June 2012

A Note from the Grower

Among the fruit trees and bushes in our forest garden you can see an occasional specimen of a herbaceous plant with large, spear shaped leaves covered with fine hairs, and at this time of year, pendulous bell-shaped purple flowers. This is comfrey, a most useful plant to the organic gardener. It is useful in many ways as a fertiliser, as its long roots accumulate nutrients from deep in the subsoil, which would normally be unavailable to most plants. Thus if comfrey leaves are added to the compost heap they contribute these valuable elements to the finished compost. Alternatively the leaves can be cut and packed into a large barrel with a hole in the bottom. They will rapidly rot down, producing a dark brown liquor which can be collected and diluted 20:1 with water to make a useful fertiliser. Warning: it is rather “fragrant”! Comfrey is rich in potassium, one of the three plant “macronutrients”, along with nitrogen and phosphorus. Potassium is used by plants to help make flowers and fruit, and so comfrey liquid is particularly good for feeding any fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, or peppers. The plant also has powerful medicinal properties; its common name in old England was “knitbone”, as it was used as an aid to healing fractures. It also helps to heal skin wounds. I can attest to this myself as I have used a comfrey poultice to heal a nasty foot injury I suffered once due to the careless use of a rotovator. It works! Comfrey can be easily grown from root cuttings, the sterile strain “Bocking 14” (bred at Bocking in Essex), being the most suitable. Other ways it can be used are as a mulch for tomatoes, or for lining the trench before planting potatoes. Mixed with leafmould, it can make a base for an excellent potting/seed compost. It is also a great attractant for beneficial insects. I recommend that you grow some if you have a bit of spare space on your allotment or garden.RikImage source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfrey

Ramiro Peppers are a distinctive member of the pepper family with long tapered bodies and a fresh sweet taste. This crisp, juicy fruit (yes, like the tomato, this is technically the fruiting body of the plant) is ideal eaten raw as a snack or chopped up in a salad. In fact, you can do pretty much anything with it, as peppers are tasty when grilled, stuffed, boiled or fried. To keep them fresh for as long as possible, your pepper should be stored in a tight plastic bag at the top of your fridge.

Here are a couple of recipe ideas:Salsa: Ramiro peppers give a lovely sweet edge to a fresh salsa. Cut an onion, tomatoes, pepper and coriander up finely, add a squeeze of lime, and salt, pepper or even chilli to taste.BBQ: A great addition to the BBQ, especially if you’re catering for vegetarians. Add the peppers to the grill and let the skin completely blacken, then put them in a bag or a covered bowl for a couple of minutes. This generates some steam to lift off the skin making them easier to peel. Once you’ve got them peeled cut them into skinny strips or dice them up.

Getting the Best from your Box

Thank you to everyone who came along to the Campfire last week, it was a fantastic night, and everybody seemed to have a great time. It seems a long way off to the next one (July 21st), but the tickets are already booking up very quickly. Please do contact us soon if you’re intending to come along, or you might miss out!

Campfire Weekend!

You might remember Rik the Grower’s column in this newsletter a couple of weeks ago on the amazing power of sheep’s wool for repelling slugs from our plants. One keen reader came in straight away to get some wool and test it out in their own allotment.

As our sheep are being sheared soon (hopefully this weekend, weather permitting), we’ve decided to bag up some of the fleeces and sell them in the shop to anyone else who’s interested. They’re only £4 for a whole fleece,which gives you a lot of all-natural, biodegradable slug repellent to protect your plants with.

Please contact us in advance to arrange to collect one of these, as we won’t be keeping the wool in the Store itself. You can either email us on info@churchfarmardeley.co.uk, or call 01438 861 447.

Church Farm Fleeces for Sale

Church Farm, Ardeley, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG2 7AH, T: 01438 861 447E: info@churchfarmardeley.co.uk www.churchfarmardeley.co.uk

What’s in my box next week?

MEAT (small boxes)

Farm VarietySausages, whole/portion duck, pork leg chop, minced beef, back bacon

Lean Cuts (NEW FOR 2012)Skinny sausages, skinless chicken fillets, extra lean minced pork, supertrim duck leg portion

Premium SelectionSausages, duck breast, back bacon

VEGETABLESExtra Small (6 varieties)Potato (white cosmos), carrot, onion, calabrese, green batavia, butternut squash

Small (8 varieties)Red ramiro peppers, spinach

Medium (10 varieties)Courgette, cabbage

Large (12 varieties)Mangetout/broad beans, aubergine

Extra Large (15 varieties)Sweet potato, mixed herbs, spring greens

FRUITBananas, clementines, plums, rhubarb, kiwi, mangos

Please note that these are standard items and are subject to change. If you have asked not to be supplied with a particular item, a substitute will be provided in your box.

Real Ales: Real Food : Warm Welcome at the

Jolly Waggoner

Book a table today to avoid disappointment on 01438 861 350!

Special Offers for Booked Tables:“Pimms & Pitchers” in celebration of

Summer - free cheesy chips with every pitcher of Pimms, lager or bitter

Celebrate your birthday with us and get a free bottle of wine for each table of 6 or

more people.

www.thejollywaggoner.co.uk

Spicy Chicken Thighs with Cucumber and Cashew SaladServes 4

Ingredients

For the spicy chicken thighs:3 tbsp fish saucefreshly ground black pepper, to taste3 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed2 large red chillies, finely chopped2 tsp sugar8 chicken thighs, bone and skin removed2 tbsp vegetable oil

For the cucumber and cashew salad:3 tbsp lime juice3 tbsp caster sugar200g/7oz vermicelli rice noodles2 cucumbers, halved and thinly slicedsmall handful fresh mint leaves4 spring onions, sliced finely2 tbsp cashews, crushed

MethodFor the spicy chicken thighs, whisk the fish sauce, pepper, garlic, chillies and sugar together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, pour half the marinade over the chicken thighs. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Reserve the rest of the marinade.For cucumber and cashew salad, make a dressing by adding the lime juice and sugar to the reserved marinade, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.In a heat-proof bowl, cover the vermicelli with boiling water and leave for a minute or so until the noodles have softened. Drain and rinse the noodles under cold water. Mix the drained noodles in a large bowl with the cucumber, mint, spring onions, cashews and the dressing until well combined.Remove the chicken thighs from the marinade, shaking off any excess.Fry the chicken thighs in the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until cooked through.To serve, divide the cucumber and cashew salad among four plates, slice the chicken and place alongside.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spicy_chicken_thighs_43925

Saturday 16th June - Rural Care Fundraising Evening - live music and Ceilidh from 7.30pm, plus a BBQ of farm food

Sunday 17th June - Father’s Day Lunch, book ahead on 01438 861 350

Friday 22nd June - An “evening of game” 2 courses and a glass of wine for £21.50

Events at the Jolly Waggoner

This Saturday (16th) Rural Care is holding a fundraising event at the Jolly Waggoner pub across the road from the farm. There will be some traditional folk music and dancing, followed by a more contemporary folk/jazz band called Toucan. There will also be a BBQ and a raffle so please do come along and help us raise some more money towards making the Rural Care project more accessible to wheelchair users. The event starts at 7.30pm Last Friday Rural Care had a visit from Elmside Care Home in Hitchin, with 10 residents and 5 carers coming for a sensory experience. The group was able to get a taste of the farm, sampling food from the bakery, whilst also meeting some of Church Farm’s animals, including Daisy the gosling and one of our Black Welsh Mountain lambs. The visit ended with a ‘guess the veg’ game, involving fresh produce from the farm. Everyone had a fantastic time and the group said they would definitely visit again. Rural Care is hosting further similar visits during the summer.

Rural Care Event and Visit

This week, the leaflet for the Little Farmer’s Club is one that should be fun and interesting for everyone. We’ve put together an identification guide for some of the trees at Church Farm. Why not bring it with you on a visit, along with some plain paper and wax crayons. This way you can make rubbings of the leaves and bark samples you come across, to make a big identification guide of your own.

Tree Identification Guide As well as conserving Church Farm’s ancient Hornbeam coppice and a wood planted here after World War II, we’ve also added to our natural habitat by planting three woods in 1999, and two in 2003, which cover 15 acres altogether.

Take this sheet with you on your walk around the farm to help you identify some of the trees you can see on your visit. Why not bring some wax crayons and plain paper to the farm and make rubbings of the bark and leaves of other trees to make your own identification guide.

Tree Identification

OakThis is the most common tree in southern and central British broadleaved woods, so it should be fairly easy to spot. It’s especially noticeable in Autumn, when it is covered in acorns (a single tree can produce up to 90,000 a year!), but it also has very distinctive leaves:

The oak tree has a long history of folklore, it was considered sacred by many people, including the ancient Greeks, the Norse and the Celts. It tended to be associated with the gods of thunder, since oaks are often split by lightning (this is probably because oaks are usually the tallest tree in any area). More recently, oak was the sacred wood burnt by the druids for their mid-summer celebration. In fact, the word ‘druid’ literally means ‘oak man’.

AshIt is one of the last native trees to come into leaf, but the characteristic black buds at the end of each shoot can help early identification. The seeds are very distinctive, they’re known as key or helicopter seeds, and they spin as they fall from the tree.Be careful though, as our maples and hornbeam trees also have this sort of seed.

The tree’s name goes back to the Old English æsc, which meant “spear”. In the past it was used by the Anglo-Saxons for their spears and shield-handles as the wood is both strong and flexible. Folklore in Scandinavian myths the ash tree was known as yggdrasil, the ‘Tree of the World’ and the ‘Tree of Rebirth and Healing’. In Britain, the ash was also regarded as a healing tree. In the past, a naked child was passed through the split trunk of an ash in a ritual to cure a broken limb or rickets.

JuniperThe Juniper is an evergreen conifer, unlike the Larch. Its needles are curved and are silver on the inner side. They are sharp and spiny and arranged in groups of three around the stem. When crushed they smell of apples/lemons.

The common juniper is a scarce tree made famous by the use of its berries in flavouring gin. More recently the berries have become popular in liqueurs and sauces, particularly for game. It is also said that the wood burns with little smoke, which made it a favourite for illegal distillers! Folklore claims that the Juniper is a powerful deterrent against the devil and witches. It was hung over doorways on the eve of May day to keep away evil, and burnt on Hallowe’en to ward off evil spirits. It was said that if one dreamt of gathering the berries in winter it foretold prosperity, whilst the berries themselves signified either great honour or the birth of a boy.