Canning tomatoes two ways

This summer Trevor, Jen K, and farm manager Julia learned how to can tomatoes using a pressure canner. The lesson was held at Uconn and hosted by Diane Wright Hirsch. 

We started the lesson off with an information session on canning and got right to the kitchen! 

The first step to canning the tomatoes was to boil them enough to break their skin. Breaking their skin makes it easier to peel the skins off for canning.

After boiling them the proper amount we peeled off their skin and got to cutting them apart. There are many different ways to prepare the tomatoes for canning but in this session we cut them into quarters.

After cutting and putting them into the jars we sealed them up and got them ready to be sealed shut by the pressure canner. To the left are some of our delicious tomatoes all canned up right before putting them into the pressure canner.

Tomatoes in the Pressure Canner

We then put the jars in the pressure canner and waited 40 minutes for the pressure and heat to seal the jars vacuum shut.







The tomatoes turned out to be delicious and we even got a little inspiration from two examples or other canned items she brought. Who knows, maybe next time we will make pickles, three bean salad, tomato sauce...the list is endless!

Blueberry Picking at Uconn!

Nothing is better than going blueberry picking in the summer, especially when it is easily accessible. It is even better when it is right on your college campus. Recently, UConn has started to incorporate edible plants to the campus landscape as part of an edible campus campaign.

Of course everyone at the farm was very excited so we grabbed our buckets and headed over to get picking!

To the right is a picture of a beautiful and ripe blueberry bunch right in front of Homer Babbidge Library.

We had all the Ecohouse farmers come out and after picking we had about 8 containers full of blueberries.

We got so many blueberries we even used some of the blueberries to make Blueberry Limeade, here is a picture of our delicious drink. We juiced fresh limes, added some crushed blueberries, water and a little bit of mint tea and mixed it all together.

SVSF @ Beltane Farm!

To kick off the first week of summer, SVSF paid a visit to Beltane Farm in Lebanon, CT for a seasonal goat milk cheese tasting. (Photos courtesy of Paul Parzyszek)

We even met some roadside llamas along the way:

Spending some quality time nursing the newborns:

After a thorough introduction to the goats, the farmers and the wide variety of cheeses on the menu, we spent an hour in the tasting house enjoying the local art (fantastic pottery, artisan goat milk soaps and local honey) and tasting the selection before proceeding to the checkout to buy a couple pounds of cheese to enjoy at home. A favorite of the group included the chive and black pepper fresh chevre: an award winning cheese made in fresh weekly. Other seasonings include dill, black pepper, boursin and plain

Another favorite was the Dans de la Lune, a French style rinded cheese ripened for 10-12 days, thick and creamy with a tart and fruity finish, great for pairing with white wine. 

The majority of Beltane Farm products are sold at local CT farmers markets. You can check here to see if their products will be available at a market near you. Big thanks to Paul Trubey and his staff for the wonderful visit! Next visit: Cassidy Hill Vineyard in Coventry?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to it's playground!
Well, that's what the chickens at SVSF are doing at least.

Another awesome summer project we took on was to extend the chicken coop and build them a little playground so they have more room to hang out and play when we can't let them out onto the farm to roam and play there. We added an additional 10 feet in length to the chicken's fencing and created a little door way for them to go in and out of the new fenced in area. Here's a snap shot of the new fencing!

In addition to the fencing, you may have noticed the wooden structure in the middle. With the help of farmers Laura, Jen and additional assistance from farm groupie/ Laura's boyfriend, Karl, we used twine and some pieces of wood to create a little "playground" as we like to call it for the chickens to hop up on and roost on top of when they wanna flap their wings but don't want to go in their coop. Here's another picture of it in use by the chickens!

From Plots to Plates

Nothing is better than fresh produce for dinner and us at spring valley student farm definitely understand that! Today while reviewing the fields with Julia we got the opportunity to snag two of the Chioggia beets, also known as candy- striped beets. Using the beets, farm fresh eggs from our chickens and a radish from the field Jenn S and I took to making ourselves a little dinner.

Here is a picture of us with our ingredients before cooking them.

Here are the eggs, the beet and the leaves of the beets. We put the beet in tin foil and broiled it in the oven to get all the delicious beet flavors mixed in. We took the stalk of the beets and after lots of rinsing we divided them up into two sections. We sautéed some of the stalks in a pan with the radish and combined it with the scrambled eggs for a makeshift omelet. The remaining stalks we simply steamed because we wanted to enjoy the stalks natural flavor. 

After 30 minutes of broiling, scrambling and sautéing we got our delicious and completely home-harvested meal to perfection.

In the bowl we have the split apart Chioggia beet and the steamed stalks. On the plate is our delicious beet stalks and radish scrambled eggs. The most fun part of the meal was definitely splitting open the Chioggia beets. It was also a pleasant surprise to find out the beets had a different and almost sweeter taste than normal beets that are darker and not striped.

Here's Jenn S. enjoying her meal that came right from the plot to her plate! 

Post by: Jen Kruzansky

Beans, Beans the Magical Fruit

Everybody loves beans, maybe you like them in your burrito, or possibly you like them baked, or maybe you just like the song about them. Either way beans are a great crop for our garden and we took no hesitation with the architecture and building of different types of bean poles for our climbing beans. We set out to make two different designs and after much research we settled on two different methods.

Our first idea utilizes wood poles with twine strung across each pole. We hope that the beans will grow up and curl around the different levels.

Our second design is quite different and these ones resemble may poles. We simply took slim branches from the woods and attached twine to the top and fastened the ends into the ground. These are taller and we hope their height will allow them to also grow taller than the other ones.

We are super excited to see the outcome and we will keep you posted on more bean action in the near future.

Summertime and the livings...dirty.

This summer has been filled with non-stop plant action. We have been filling our days with clearing out  patches, weeding, harvesting and of course planting! This summer so far we have planted a numerous array of crops. We have planted everything from beans to corn to squash and even a few plants with fun names such as 'diva zucchini'.

Here are a few pictures of our different crops!

Here is some garlic with some lettuce growing in-between!

These are our potatoes, we have hilled them so they can expand their tubers more and make us more delicious potatoes.

This is Mesclun, we are getting ready to harvest these soon!

Here we have Tanner working on our asparagus! 

Spring Valley Student Farm welcomes summer farmers!

This summer most of the farmers stayed, however we did say goodbye to some for the summer (they will be back in the fall, so no need to worry.) To Lina, Chris, Shane and Paul we wish all of you good luck on your adventures this summer!

While goodbyes are sad it is always nice when they are accompanied by some hellos and we give a big welcome to our new summer farmers, Jen Silverstein, Jen Kruzansky and Brett Lehner!

Both are members of the ecohouse learning community and took a wonderful opportunity to help out and live on the farm for this summer. We are very excited to welcome them and have them join our community. You can check out the "About the Farmers" page to learn more about them!