Dear friends,
fall is coming and our Summer CSA will be four more weeks till 10/7 for Canton and 10/10 in Potsdam. The student CSA will keep going till the semester ends. I am so busy and harvest days are long and then a few hours in the barn at dark to sort all the goodies for market or CSA.
There is an abundance of sweet tomatoes right now. We have canning tomatoes available $22/box and basil $ 14 for 1/2 lb or $20/lb. Let me know if you want some for canning or pesto.
fall is coming and our Summer CSA will be four more weeks till 10/7 for Canton and 10/10 in Potsdam. The student CSA will keep going till the semester ends. I am so busy and harvest days are long and then a few hours in the barn at dark to sort all the goodies for market or CSA.
There is an abundance of sweet tomatoes right now. We have canning tomatoes available $22/box and basil $ 14 for 1/2 lb or $20/lb. Let me know if you want some for canning or pesto.
Canning tomatoes at Birdsfoot
The stores keep asking if our tomatoes are heirloom (more than 50 year old varieties) and I had to look it up and yes all heirloom! Here is what I found out:
Birdsfoot Farm heirloom tomatoes:
What is a Moskvich Tomato?
This heirloom tomato variety was cultivated in the early 1970s in Russia, and produced by the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry located in St. Petersburg. The Plant Industry was established after Nikolai Vavilov, a Russian scientist who was integral in identifying the origins of cultivated plants. Since Vavilov himself was a native of Moscow, the Moskvich Tomato means “man from Moscow.”
Annual Tomato : Druzba Sweet, juicy Bulgarian heirloom resistant to fruit diseases and cracking Bulgarian heirloom. Introduced in 1995 by SESE. Original seed sent to SESE by Carolyn Male. 'Druzba' is a productive variety with excellent juicy sweet flavor. Fruits are borne 2 to 4 to a cluster, weigh an average of 5 oz. and measure 2" high by 3 ...
Cosmonaut Volkov: A Ukrainian heirloom named by Russian space engineer/gardener, Mikhailovich Maslov, who named the heirloom tomato from his family garden after his comrade Vladislav Volkov, a Russian astronaut, who died while returning from the first visit to the Earth's first space station. Russians grow this variety for prize-winning, 1-2 lb. slightly flattened, fluted, pink beefsteak tomatoes with a full, complex flavor and nice acid/sweet balance. A good variety for cooler growing regions
Birdsfoot Farm heirloom tomatoes:
What is a Moskvich Tomato?
This heirloom tomato variety was cultivated in the early 1970s in Russia, and produced by the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry located in St. Petersburg. The Plant Industry was established after Nikolai Vavilov, a Russian scientist who was integral in identifying the origins of cultivated plants. Since Vavilov himself was a native of Moscow, the Moskvich Tomato means “man from Moscow.”
Annual Tomato : Druzba Sweet, juicy Bulgarian heirloom resistant to fruit diseases and cracking Bulgarian heirloom. Introduced in 1995 by SESE. Original seed sent to SESE by Carolyn Male. 'Druzba' is a productive variety with excellent juicy sweet flavor. Fruits are borne 2 to 4 to a cluster, weigh an average of 5 oz. and measure 2" high by 3 ...
Cosmonaut Volkov: A Ukrainian heirloom named by Russian space engineer/gardener, Mikhailovich Maslov, who named the heirloom tomato from his family garden after his comrade Vladislav Volkov, a Russian astronaut, who died while returning from the first visit to the Earth's first space station. Russians grow this variety for prize-winning, 1-2 lb. slightly flattened, fluted, pink beefsteak tomatoes with a full, complex flavor and nice acid/sweet balance. A good variety for cooler growing regions
 Opalka tomatoes |  Canning tomatoes $22/box |
Opalka: Family heirloom from Poland, brought to Amsterdam, NY in the 1900s by the Opalka family. Carolyn Male got the seeds from her co-worker, Carl Swidorski, whose wife was from the Opalka family and introduced the seeds through the SSE Yearbook in the 1990s. Indeterminate, regular leaf plant with wispy foliage produce some of the best tasting, red, paste tomatoes with 5-inch long fruit shaped like a banana pepper with a pronounced tip on the bottom. Fruit has very few seeds, is extremely meaty and loaded with rich sweet flavors lending to its sauce appeal.
We actually got those varieties from the Tomato lover Carolyn Male at an organic farming conference 30 years ago and have been saving our own seeds for that long.
Doug brought home 20 varieties and told me as the tomato care taker to grow them out and I said I could not keep 20 new varieties straight in one year and we grew them over two years and these are the varieties we kept going.
We actually got those varieties from the Tomato lover Carolyn Male at an organic farming conference 30 years ago and have been saving our own seeds for that long.
Doug brought home 20 varieties and told me as the tomato care taker to grow them out and I said I could not keep 20 new varieties straight in one year and we grew them over two years and these are the varieties we kept going.
The chard incident: 6 weeks ago Sam suggested that we grow more beets for the winter and I had just weeded the last carrots and two 130' long rows had not come up and I planted the beets that evening, a bit in a rush and without my glasses on. Three weeks later we were touring the gardens to see what should go on the work list and Kate pointed out that she liked the yellow beets . I said we have no yellow beets because they germinate poorly and the seed is very expensive. She insisted that we have yellow beets and then it dawned on me that I must have grabbed the chard package when seeding those beets. We now have 260' of beautiful rainbow colored chard almost ready to harvest. I hope you like chard? We will be digging up some recipes.
Your boxes are full and heavy right now and I don't know what to cut out and now the last planting of green beans is coming on strong too. Some people ask t do every other week and hang on the missing weeks into the fall share time. I think you also could can or freeze meals for winter if you have big pots to cook in and the time. Or you can invite some friends for dinner to share the food.
New this week are green beans and onions, we will take a break on the leeks.
Thank you for eating!
peace, Dulli
Your boxes are full and heavy right now and I don't know what to cut out and now the last planting of green beans is coming on strong too. Some people ask t do every other week and hang on the missing weeks into the fall share time. I think you also could can or freeze meals for winter if you have big pots to cook in and the time. Or you can invite some friends for dinner to share the food.
New this week are green beans and onions, we will take a break on the leeks.
Thank you for eating!
peace, Dulli
