Spring Farm Dinner Set for Saturday, April 2nd

Red Bud trees in bloom and the Houston Rodeo in full swing:  time to plant green beans and red potatoes. 

On another note, several of you have inquired as to when we are going to host another dinner event here at the farm. Call it “spring fever” or something, but we’ve gotten motivated and selected Saturday, April 2^nd to be our first dinner event for 2011.  Jon Buchanan, Executive Chef at Trevisio, will be directing the culinary team.  The Saturday evening dinner will begin with a reception staring around 3:30 or so, followed by a farm tour around 4:45, with our first dinner course to begin around 6:00, and the final course likely being complete  around 8:30-9:00. You can then take a seat over next to the camp fire to finish your coffee or spirits if you'd like prior to heading home.  The dinner menu, still under development, will focus on locally grown seasonal food, and will likely include four or five courses. To get a “grasp” and more info/photos about our five farm dinners held back in 2010 visit  WDF Spring Dinners . A lot of participants in the past have put together groups of 4-12 to make a party within a party.  Some rent a bus, some hire a limousine , and some just rendezvous here at the farm. Seating is "family style" so no matter if you are a party of one or twenty, you'll have more friends when you leave than when you arrived.

“Early Menu”

Field Greens with Fried Green Tomatoes, Pickled Red Onions,

Pola Cadoc Steel Eye Blue Cheese Dressing and Homemade Bacon

Gumbo with Pastured Chicken Sausage, 

Texas Gulf Coast Shrimp, Oysters and Texmati Rice

Texas Red Fish with Remoulade and Veggie Slaw

Whole Roasted Hog, Braised Greens with Herbed New Potatoes

Strawberry Shortcake with "Way Back When" Whipped Cream

Coffee, Herbal Tea & Spring Water

Alcohol Welcome, BYOB

 

Lots of planting this past week at our Rogers Farm Lease, located just down the road about 2 miles from the farm.

Broccoli, Cauliflower, Radicchio, and Onions being overhead watered.  Nice clean beds now, but with water and sunshine later comes the weeds, arrggg!

Pac Choi Plugs Ready To Be Transplanted.

What’s Growing?   Although it has been extremely dry here at the farm, the weather has been good for planting.  Consequently, we’ve got a huge amount of planting taken care of since our last update, both transplants and direct seeding. Potatoes and green beans are in the ground too. We just ordered 20,000 linear feet of row cover for our warm weather veggies. Row cover is a thin sheet of “gauze like” fabric which helps keep warmth in and frost out; kinda’ like a blanket.  While it can only protect plants down to about 29F, or so, it is good insurance for unpredictable Texas spring weather. Hopefully we’ll never have to use it. With that in mind, we’ll begin transplanting tomato plants into their cozy raised beds next week. Summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers are soon to follow.  We’re still a little behind, so the spring CSA is not set to begin until possibly the 2^nd week of April. Why? Well, back around Jan. 31^st we went through two weeks of cold enough weather, about 19F, to freeze a lot of veggies that were set to be our early March harvest. Having to replant has resulted in us being a few weeks behind. Those of you that visit us at the Farmer’s Market know that we have not had any arugula or salad mix since mid January. We want your experience to be a good one, so please be patient as we’re confident this is going to be a great season.

New Clear Lake Pick Up Locations Added:  We have been looking for a friendly location to provide for customers living in and around the Clear Lake/Sea Brook area. Well “low and behold,” we may have found two at the same time.  We contacted the fine folks at The Coffee-Oasis located in Seabrook at 4650 Nasa Pkwy, 77586; a few weeks ago and after providing them more information about who/what we are etc, they’ve agreed to give us a try. For a map to their location visit Coffee Oasis Map . The other Clear Lake area location, Cullen’s, is located about 20 mins. north from the Coffee Oasis.  We have known Paul Lewis, the Executive Chef at Cullen’s, since when he was the Sous Chef at the Four Seasons of Houston. Paul was the guest chef last summer at the Outstanding in the Field Event over at Jolie Vue Ranch located in Chapel Hill, so he really understands the “buy local” concept.  We have been delivering our farm produce and herbs to Chef Paul since they opened a few years ago, so it seemed like a natural fit for us to have Cullen’s as a CSA pick up location.    Cullen's Upscale American Grill is located at 11500 Space Center Boulevard, Houston, TX 77059 or visit this link for a Map to Cullen's. We’re looking for both of these locations to be Thursday delivery days, i.e. 4:30-7:30. We’ll have both of these on our website soon. As mentioned last week, we recently added The Beans Café & Coffee House, located in the Energy Corridor of West Houston. This is going to be a great location as it has great parking and is only about one mile south of the I-10 Katy Fwy on Eldridge Pkwy. For a visual, visit this link for a Map The pick up times are set to be Wednesdays between 5 & 7:30, possibly earlier. We’ll keep you posted if the times are adjusted to earlier in the afternoon.  We are still visiting with prospective locations down near Pearland as well as in Spring. Smart Meals Location Changes? Our fine friends over at Smart Meals have decided to regroup and “close their doors,” while they refocus on a new business plan.  Not to worry however, as our nearby Upper Kirby host Joyce has told us that she welcomes the CSA customers that were set to pick up at Smart Meals.  Joyce’s house is only about three blocks away and can be found at 4208 McDuffie St. Houston, TX 77098. Visit this link for a map to the Upper Kirby Pick Up Location

CSA, What’s That? For those of you not familiar with the term, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is a direct partnership between you and the farmer. C.S.A. members pay in advance for a share of the upcoming harvest, thus the farmer is ensured a consistent market and the consumer is ensured high-quality local produce. Produce is delivered to many of our Houston neighborhood pick-up locations within 24 hrs. of harvesting. For a link to where we deliver, visit CSA Pickup Locations  For inquires email us at csa@woodduckfarm.com or call us at 713 876 8645 for more details. As mentioned previously, you can get an idea of what size volume a full shares is by viewing some photos on Our Farm Blog   (You'll need to scroll down a tad from the top.) FYI Partial shares receive about 1/3 less than full shares and are geared towards the two member household.  Our Spring CSA registration form can be found at this link  Spring 2011 CSA Registration . We think we have simplified the registration process to be just a few clicks and some of contact info and then pay with your credit card.  If you’d rather mail in your registration, you can go to this link WDF CSA Mail-In Form  We have added an Alternating Week option to our Full share size. The Alternating Week option is for those not wishing to receive a full share every week. So with the AW option, a farm member receives a Full share every odd week of the ten week program, i.e. weeks 1,3,5,7, and 9.  

Customer Survey Results & Comments: For those of you interested in hearing what some of our CSA members have said etc, please visit this link Customer Comments & Surveys

Grass Fed Meat/Egg Subscription Program: Visit this link to register online CSA Registration. Scroll down to middle of your screen. We listened to your comments and have created two options, 1) our Full Share priced at $210 for a three-month program and/or 2) our Poultry Share priced at $165 for three months. You can add on a dozen eggs with either program (a dozen eggs for the entire 3 month program for $15.)  You can go to this link Meat Subscription Svc to read more. Too much meat for your family? Consider splitting a share with a friend. The first month will likely be March, which should coincide with our Veggie CSA deliveries

Twitter?: Find us  @WoodduckFM.

WDF has facebook page, but this link will take you to Van's page, from there you need to search for Wood Duck Farm. Go figure huh.

All the Best,

Van Weldon

Cell 713 876 8645

www.woodduckfarm.com

email csa@woodduckfarm.com

Kids Say The Darndest Things

Everyone has probably experienced first hand, or at least heard of a story where a parent realizes their child is evolving from a kid into a teenager. A few weeks ago I decided to surprise my son Morgan by visiting him, unannounced, for lunch at his school. Well after a brief visit at the lunch table, my soon to be thirteen year old son, looked up at me and remarked “… okay dad, you can leave now.  I want to spend the rest of my lunch with my friends.”   Well my jaw about dropped, but I understood.  So thinking he was now maturing to another level, I decided that Morgan was probably ready to learn how to drive a tractor. When I announced to him later that week I was going to put him in the “tractor seat,” his boyish grin surfaced ear to ear. A few days later, the late afternoon learning experience went according to plan as we took our largest tractor out to a frost withered broccoli patch which was far away from water pipes, trees, fences, chicken coups and anything else that could likely be a potential accident.  After several passes in a large circle, I decided to join him and sit on the fender well, which is above one of the rear tires and parallel to the operator’s seat. “Okay,” I said “…let’s go over there to that ol’ corn patch” and so off we went.  The tractor had an implement called a “disc” attached to the rear end, which is used to rip up old plant residue and mix into the soil. After making several practice runs, I told Morgan to drop the disc. Well Morgan lowered the tractor hydraulics lever and down went the heavy implement crunching the dead corn stalks along the way as they rolled underneath the numerous steel discs, churning the soil along the way. To his delight, Morgan would occasionally find the need to press the tractor throttle to assist pulling the heavy implement through the soft damp soil.  In doing so, a big black puff of smoke would exit the exhaust just as the engine would momentarily get louder.  To make things more eventful, every so often we could look down from our vantage point and see field mice scurrying out of the path of the “steel beast!” As the sun was beginning to set, I told Morgan to “… let’s head to the house.”  He lifted the hydraulic lever, which raised the discs up from heavily stirred soil, and carefully began steering down the tractor path towards home. With the tractor now “purring rather than roaring,” Morgan looked back at the field that we had just disced and remarked “…wow dad, we really did some destruction!”  I just smiled as I remembered what Art Linkletter used to say… “Kids Say The Darndest Things."

Morgan makes his debut at operating a tractor.

 

Yikes! Harvest time for some of our broilers.

Yep these birds are pushing ten weeks old and pretty big.

 

Above pictured is bed shaper, a fantastic tool that uses discs to form our soil into nice uniform raised beds for planting. We first have to till the soil so that it is loose and then we pull the bed shaper with our tractor to from the beds to a specific width and height. Here we are making beds for our tomato and pepper plants. Before we plant tomatoes next month, we will add drip irrigation and mulch to keep our transplants cozy.

 What’s Growing?   What a difference a week makes huh? Almost 80F here at the farm yesterday.  Remember those four days at 19F hit us hard, so except for warm weather veggies, almost everything will be transplanted in the ground this week. Most of these crops take 45-65 days from transplant to harvest, so our mid March time target to begin our spring CSA may be a little one-sided on certain veggies, if not postponed a few weeks.   Still sowing tomatoes, peppers, with squash and zucchini happening this week.  Cantaloupe and watermelon not too far behind.

 New Pick Up Location Added & Changes:   This past week we were fortunate to add a new location, The Beans Café & Coffee House, located in the Energy Corridor of West Houston.  This is going to be a great location as it has great parking access and is only about one mile south of the I-10 Katy Fwy on Eldridge Pkwy. The pick up times are set to be Wednesdays between 5 & 7:30, possibly earlier. We’ll keep you posted if the times are adjusted to earlier in the afternoon. We are still visiting with prospective locations down near Pearland and Clearlake, as well as in Spring. For a list and map of when/where we deliver in Houston visit CSA Pickup Locations .  We need to find an alternate pick up location for those of you that live in Katy as the elders at the Presbyterian Church we were using had a change in heart about us using their facility as a pick up location.  Let us know if you have any ideas. For inquires email us at csa@woodduckfarm.com or call us at 713 876 8645 for more details. As mentioned last week, you can get an idea of what size volume a full shares is by viewing some photos on  Our Farm Blog   (You'll need to scroll down a tad from the top.) FYI Partial shares receive about 1/3 less than full shares and are geared towards the two member household.  Our Spring CSA registration form can be found at this link  Spring 2011 CSA Registration . We think we have simplified the registration process to be just a few clicks and some of contact info and then pay with your credit card.  If you’d rather mail in your registration, you can go to this link WDF CSA Mail-In Form  We have added an Alternating Week option to our Full share size. The Alternating Week option is for those not wishing to receive a full share every week. So with the AW option, a farm member receives a Full share every odd week of the ten week program, i.e. weeks 1,3,5,7, and 9.  

Customer Survey Results & Comments: For those of you interested in hearing what some of our CSA members have said etc, please visit this link Customer Comments & Surveys

Grass Fed Meat/Egg Subscription Program: Visit this link to register online CSA Registration. Scroll down to middle of your screen. We listened to your comments and have created two options, 1) our Full Share priced at $210 for a three-month program and/or 2) our Poultry Share priced at $165 for three months. You can add on a dozen eggs with either program (a dozen eggs for the entire 3 month program for $15.)  You can go to this link Meat Subscription Svc to read more. Too much meat for your family? Consider splitting a share with a friend. The first month will likely be March, which should coincide with our Veggie CSA deliveries

Twitter?: Find us  @WoodduckFM.

 WDF has facebook page, but this link will take you to Van's page, from there you need to search for Wood Duck Farm. Go figure huh?

 

All the Best,

Van Weldon

Cell 713 876 8645

www.woodduckfarm.com

email csa@woodduckfarm.com

PS If you have moved or not interested in receiving our updates, please click the "unsubscribe" link above to "option out" of any future emails.

Good Agricultural Practices

Ever wonder about the quality of water that irrigated the farm produce you eat or how many times the fine folks that harvest the produce wash their hands? Well fortunately most farmers use common sense when it comes to harvesting produce, but a new law was recently enacted which now places the FDA in charge of “ready to eat” produce.  Please don’t misunderstand, as this is not a complaint, as we all realize that pathogens can’t differentiate between small family farms and large industrial farms. Trying to learn more about the upcoming changes, I attended an Ag trade industry seminar earlier this week that discussed the details of the new law known as Good Agricultural Practices,( aka GAP) and how it might impact our farm.  Basically, each farm is supposed to have its own a set of operating procedures that encompass common sense topics like water quality, produce storage & worker sanitation, temperature control etc.  .  For the record, small farms are not required to comply with the new GAP guidelines. This having been said, while it may be a burden of sorts, we plan on enacting the new GAP guidelines over the next few months here at our farm as we wish to make our customers more comfortable knowing that we have procedures in place that help insure a quality product. 

Morning shadows fall on this freshly tilled ground now ready for planting.

 A Hawk, enjoying the winter sunrise while  perched on an uncovered hoop house. Look Out Chickens he's looking for breakfast. 

19F this morning at the farm. This pond reflection altered by the surface ice.

Sun rising through the pines on a cold winter morning.

What’s Growing?   This morning it was 19F at the farm. Almost everything that was growing outside is now not harvestable. Fortunately we have lots of items in our greenhouses that are ready for transplant such as  broccoli, cauliflower, napa cabbage, parsley etc. More tomatoes seeded this week as well. The good news is that next week is supposed to be more spring like which is great as our seed potatoes are due to go in the ground.  I was speaking with another local grower and he said the severe weather has cost him about $35,000 in lost income due to destroyed crops.  Unfortunately, no USDA  crop subsidies for the little guy.

Shameless Marketing:  Registration is in full swing for our Spring CSA program. We currently deliver in the Houston and surrounding areas, visit CSA Pickup Locations for a current map/listing.  For inquires email us at csa@woodduckfarm.com or call us at 713 876 8645 for more details. As mentioned last week, you can get an idea of what size volume a full shares is by viewing some photos on  Our Farm Blog   (You'll need to scroll down a tad from the top.) FYI Partial shares receive about 1/3 less than full shares and are geared towards the two member household.  Our Spring CSA registration form can be found at this link  Spring 2011 CSA Registration . We think we have simplified the registration process to be just a few clicks and some of contact info and then pay with your credit card.  If you’d rather mail in your registration, you can go to this link WDF CSA Mail-In Form  We have added an Alternating Week option to our Full share size. The Alternating Week option is for those not wishing to receive a full share every week. So with the AW option, a farm member receives a Full share every odd week of the ten week program, i.e. weeks 1,3,5,7, and 9.  

Customer Survey Results & Comments: For those of you interested in hearing what some of our CSA members have said etc, please visit this link Customer Comments & Surveys

Grass Fed Meat/Egg Subscription Program: Visit this link  CSA Registration to register online. Scroll down to middle of your screen. We listened to your comments and have created two options, 1) our Full Share priced at $210 for a three-month program and/or 2) our Poultry Share priced at $165 for three months. You can add on a dozen eggs with either program (a dozen eggs for the entire 3 month program for $15.)  You can go to this link Meat Subscription Svc to read more. Too much meat for your family? Consider splitting a share with a friend. The first month will likely be March, which should coincide with our Veggie CSA deliveries

Twitter?: Find us  @WoodduckFM.

WDF has facebook page, but this link will take you to Van's page, from there you need to search for Wood Duck Farm. Go figure huh.

All the Best,

Van Weldon

Cell 713 876 8645

www.woodduckfarm.com

email csa@woodduckfarm.com

PS If you have moved or not interested in receiving our updates, please click the "unsubscribe" link above to "option out" of any future emails.

Onward through the fog; or cold weather this week!

What a week huh? Everything appears to be okay here at the farm. The livestock seem to be okay and we’re not really sure how many busted pipes we have in the field just yet as everything has been frozen since Tuesday.  Good news is that our baby tomato plants like being in their “little nursery.” Last year we decided to create a “hoop house" inside our greenhouse. This way we can better “micro manage” the environment needed for ideal germination and growing our spring vegetable plants.   :  Not sure how some of our early plantings of spinach will fair the freezing temps. Even the mustard greens and cilantro look pretty burned from the sustained low temps.  We’ll prevail though. Onward through the fog; or cold weather this week!

Sad "sack face" huh? So what do ya' think he's thinking? I guessing something like "It's dang cold out here!"

Red onions covered with ice. They'll be ready come spring.

Our first week of eggs.

Our "Coup with a Hoop" aka Chicken Tractor. These Broiler are being raised for our Meat Subscription Program

Our Hoop House within our Green House for germinating our spring vegetable plants

Remember these? This batch of tomato seedlings are now three weeks old.

Spring 2011 CSA Program: Registration is in full swing for our Spring CSA program. We currently deliver in the Houston and surrounding areas, visit CSA Pickup Locations for a current map/listing.  For inquires email us at csa@woodduckfarm.com or call us at 713 876 8645 for more details. As mentioned last week, you can get an idea of what size volume a full shares is by viewing some photos on  Our Farm Blog   (You'll need to scroll down a tad from the top.) FYI Partial shares receive about 1/3 less than full shares and are geared towards the two member household.  Our Spring CSA registration form can be found at this link  Spring 2011 CSA Registration . We think we have simplified the registration process to be just a few clicks and some of contact info and then pay with your credit card.  If you’d rather mail in your registration, you can go to this link WDF CSA Mail-In Form  We have added an Alternating Week option to our Full share size. The Alternating Week option is for those not wishing to receive a full share every week. So with the AW option, a farm member receives a Full share every odd week of the ten week program, i.e. weeks 1,3,5,7, and 9.  

Customer Survey Results & Comments: For those of you interested in hearing what some of our CSA members have said etc, please visit this link Customer Comments & Surveys

Grass Fed Meat/Egg Subscription Program: Visit this link to register online CSA Registration. Scroll down to middle of your screen. We listened to your comments and have created two options, 1) our Full Share priced at $210 for a three-month program and/or 2) our Poultry Share priced at $165 for three months. You can add on a dozen eggs with either program (a dozen eggs for the entire 3 month program for $15.)  You can go to this link Meat Subscription Svc to read more. Too much meat for your family? Consider splitting a share with a friend. The first month will likely be March, which should coincide with our Veggie CSA deliveries

Twitter?: Find us  @WoodduckFM.

WDF has facebook page, but this link will take you to Van's page, from there you need to search for Wood Duck Farm. Go figure huh.

All the Best,

Van Weldon

Cell 713 876 8645

www.woodduckfarm.com

email csa@woodduckfarm.com

Lots of Texas 1015 Onions, shallots and garlic

Lots of Texas 1015 Onions, shallots and garlic














Tomato Seedlings, about two weeks from germination. Looking good so far!














A photo of our chicken coup with a hoop. Notice the brooder box inside. This box is kept warm with a heat lamp.

Full share contents for the week of Dec. 21st, 2010

Full share contents for the week of Dec. 21st, 2010: Sweet Potatoes, micro radish, micro arugula, grapefruit, head broccoli, two heads cauliflower, two bags baby leaf salad mix

Full Share contents for the weeks of Dec. 13th, 2010:

Shown here are the Full Share contents for the weeks of Dec. 13th, 2010: 2 bags baby leaf salad, greens, radishes, grapefruit, sweet potatoes, cabbage, turnips, mushrooms