Your Weekly Newsletter
Church Farm Friday 22nd June 2012
Gertie the Human Gosling! You may remember from previous newsletters that Rural Care have been incubating eggs in the chick shed. Recently, they had one solitary gosling who hatched at a different time to all of the others ducks and geese. Gertie has been joined in the past few days by lots of chicks, but she has spent so much time on her own and being looked after by people that she now thinks she’s one of us! Rural Care are taking her down to the field each day to try and get used to other geese, and they hope that she will be ready to move in with them by next week. Keep an eye out on our website for a video of Gertie the human gosling, coming soon.
Getting the Best from your Box It is starting to feel (intermittently) like summer, and the lovely green Batavia lettuce should inspire you to make fresh crispy salads. Batavia is a non-hearty lettuce with frilly leaves. Its crunchy, nutty-flavoured leaves grow upright to form a loose leaf head. Batavias have an excellent shelf life, maintaining their crispness from the time they’re harvested until the time they reach the dinner table. You should store your lettuce in the vegetable drawer in your fridge. Batavias are sometimes known as Endive and are characterised by large jagged leaves, the colours vary from a bright green through to red. They are best served with spicy seasoning as a side salad, or tucked into a sandwich to give it crunch. You can also cook them in a similar way to kale – either stir-fry them or add the leaves to a cooked bean stew.
Metal Detecting at Church Farm Last week we gave special consent to a group of enthusiastic metal detectors to come and have a search on one of our fields. The event was organised by Joan Allen Electronics who have said that although their group didn’t find anything exciting, they all had a great day out and really enjoyed eating in the café and pub.
Fleece Update Just to let those of you who enquired about purchasing a fleece know, the weather has still not been good enough for our sheep shearer to come and do their work! We will let you know when the shearing goes ahead, fingers crossed for sun!
A Note from the Grower
Comfrey’s Little Sister In our salad mixes lately, whether bagged for the box scheme or shop, or served at the Church Farm café and Jolly Waggoner pub, you may have noticed some pretty white or blue star-shaped flowers. These are the flowers of borage, the smaller, annual sister of comfrey (the perennial we featured last week). Sometimes called starflower, this herb originated in North Africa, but has spread throughout much of the globe. It has been grown by people for kitchen use and as a medicine for many centuries, but nowadays it is sometimes cultivated commercially as an oilseed. As a vegetable the young leaves can be used in salads or cooked like spinach. The stems also may be cooked as a vegetable. The flowers too are edible and provide decoration for salads, desserts and for beverages such as the Pimms cup cocktail. Culinary use of borage is common throughout Europe, most notably in Germany, Aragon in Spain and in Liguria in Italy, where borage is used in the filling for ravioli. Medicinally, borage has traditionally been used in infusions to lift the spirits and to provoke courage, and modern clinical trials have confirmed that borage stimulates the production of adrenaline to help in dealing with stressful situations. Modern herbalists use it to treat colds, bronchitis and respiratory infections, and to alleviate symptoms of menopause. It is also indicated in the relief of eczema and other serious skin conditions. Borage is an excellent plant for attracting bees and other beneficial insects and is a good choice for a wildflower garden, though it self-seeds freely and can become a troublesome weed. Rik Image source: http://caterersguild.org/blog/borage-a-beautiful-garnish-with-a-cucumber-taste/