Author: Tiffany Burns

Easy ideas to make your hectic life healthier. Top 5 farm stand finds! Rediscover forgotten herbs. Lessons from my gardenlife.
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Best 5 items at Treat Farm Stand, Orange, CT

Treat Farm Orange CT sign

September 9, 2018

In its first couple centuries, the Treat Farm was focused on dairy and milk delivery. Wait, what? Rewind. Yes, I meant to say it, centuries. One of the great things about living in New England is the rich history. The region’s farmers are proud to be able to preserve and share America’s Colonial legacy.

I want to say that the delicious apples and sweet corn are my favorite thing about this farm, but the truth is, my favorite thing isn’t edible at all. It’s the old well. Even a quick study of it’s hand-placed stones leaves me imagining all the life that happened at and around this charming old watering hole.

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The Treat family offers more than just a farm stand. As the seasons change, they offer cut-your-own Christmas trees, pumpkins and a five-acre corn maze! Be sure to check back again or (easier route) follow this site, as the seasons change, I will post again about this historic, picturesque Connecticut farm.

Take a quick look at some of the fresh, classic offerings of an Early American farm.

#5
Bushels of sweet corn

Sweet corn at Treat Farm Orange CT

Nothing says late summer harvest like sweet corn. All along the way to my son’s fall ball baseball games, we see signs for sweet corn. It’s so exciting. We boil some up fresh a couple nights each week. Treat Farm has a massive display with a full table piled high with fresh corn cobs and bags and bushels of corn all around the stand.

#4
Zephyr Summer Bi-color squash

Zephyr Summer Squash a bicolor squash at Treat Farm Stand Orange CT

One of those delicious-looking veggies you might have to visit a farm stand to find and google to figure out what it’s called. My little daughter was immediately drawn to these zephyr summer squashes. Of course, we bought one for our dinner.

#3
Fresh-picked pears
Fresh picked pears in a basket at Treat Farm Orange CT

We don’t always see pears at the farm stands. It’s exciting when we do. Let them sit in a brown paper bag for a few days, and these pears should become soft and sweet. You’ll need a napkin to eat them, or else you’ll embarrass yourself. That’s the sign of a really good, farm-fresh pear.

#2
Pressed apple cider

I walked into the Treat Farm Stand, turned around and saw it. It took my breath away: an old-fashioned ice box holding the fresh-pressed apple cider! The only thing that says autumn more than my #1 pick, is a cup of cider. I serve it chilled with ice in September and warmed on the stove with a cinnamon stick in October.

#1
Colorful gourds

Basket of colorful gourds at Treat Farm stand Orange CT

Gourds! One of the darlings of farmhouse style décor. If you’re on Instagram or you open a magazine this autumn, you will see so many of these little suckers sitting on dark wood tables and bright white mantels, you might actually get sick of them, but I won’t. There are several baskets of gourds at the Treat Farm Stand. All are beautiful. We brought three home with us to decorate.

Treat Farm has upgraded their farm stand over the years. They operate out of this fancy little structure next to their giant barn. Notice the mums and pumpkins out front and the deep blue September sky. Autumn was just a few weeks away!

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Hope you’re enjoying my top picks from local farm stands.

Have you seen this farmstand5?

Fancy’s Farm Stand, Orleans, MA

Or, shop farm stand style, like these decorative and practical half-bushel baskets featured in this farmstand5.

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Weeding is winning (follow up to “Do you meditate? Not exactly.”)

You might think I am about to tell you just to redefine weeding in your mind, and it will take the work out of it. I’m not.

Weeding is hard.

It’s hard for me. It’s hard for you. It’s hard for professional landscapers and farmers. People have been murdered over weeds. Weeding is reality, and it can get overwhelming quickly.

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But for the everyday gardener, reframing weeding as winning is really about the habits successful people develop.

One of my coworkers went through a phase where he listened to a lot of podcasts about successful people and what a typical day was like for them. He asked me a question I have heard before, “Do you meditate?” I told him I don’t.

He thought for a second then asked me how I start my day.

I get my tea, round up the kids and go to the garden. He asked what I do in the garden. Pull weeds, mostly. HA! That’s it. He said successful people start their day with a “win”.

Weeding is my win.

I really appreciate someone pointing that out to me. It inspires me to share that thought with you. Oh and true confessions, I haven’t always been perfect, but I pretty much crave going to the garden to pull at least one little weed or straighten up one tilting plant every day.

My actual win today is clipping all of my chives before they go to seed. It took about five minutes. I learned my lesson with this one last year.

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It makes me curious. If you think about your morning, do you start your day with a win? What is your win? PG-rated, of course.

 

“Weeding is winning” is a follow-up to “Do you meditate? Not exactly.”

Let me know what you think.

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Flying over Hurricane Florence inspired me to write something out of the ordinary

It’s no run-of-the-mill view from a plane window. Today I flew through and then over the remnants of Hurricane Florence 9/14/18 – 9/18/18.

I felt awe looking out at the clouds making their final assault on the East Coast of the US. Just south of here, dozens of people lost their lives in this hurricane.

Now I am looking at what’s left of it.

You can see the clouds reaching up to the sun rise. They looking like arms stretching out into the sky, the way arms must have stretched out from under the flood waters.

I felt humbled. It was moving to look out over that powerful storm. And still, it was over. I was watching the raging power dissipate. The storm grew weaker by the hour. Soon it would be silent.

There’s no traffic in flooded streets. As powerful as they are, hurricanes bring plenty of silence. 

I’ve always lived on the East Coast. I’ve experienced hurricanes. We lost a 120 year old tall pine during Hurricane Irene in August 2011. The storm was so loud and fierce we didn’t even hear the massive tree hit the ground. It shocked us to see it when the sun came up, as if the tree fell and didn’t make a sound.

As a child in Florida, my cousin and I ran outside during the eye of a storm. Of course, our parents were horrified. It’s so quiet inside of the eye. People describe it as eerie silence. I thought it was peaceful, amazingly abruptly calm.

air adj

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Forgotten herb: calendula

Weird name. Amazing herb.

Close enough pronounciation “ca-len-juh-la” (how a “d” makes a “j” sound in English, I suppose it’s my Connecticut accent.)

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Calendula is the weirdest looking seed I plant in my garden. Really, it looks like something from an alien nation. It’s mildly spikey and curved, almost in an arrogant way. It grows easily and goes to seed easily, if you don’t harvest the blooms.

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Planting is easy. I just mix the seed lightly into turned soil with my hand, and it fills my cedar raised bed with bright yellow flowers.

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When your flowers are almost fully open, it is time to harvest. If it rained recently or the petals still have morning dew on them, take a photo but don’t start your harvest. It pays to wait until the sun dries off any dampness. The blooms snap off the stems easily. You can layer your plantings a bit and gather them by hand almost all season from summer to fall. Consider getting yourself an airy and convenient basket for harvest time.

I don’t eat my calendula with the exception of a little petal here and there. They have a bitter taste.

In terms of other uses, I am not sure why would you need to do this, but Dr. Weil notes that you can mix white rice and calendula flowers together to color the rice without adding flavor. Someday, I may suggest that to my kids as a fun and interesting STEM experiment.

My favorite use for calendula isn’t making a stunning bouquet, although you could. I like to infuse olive oil with a bunch of dried calendula flowers. Then, I can add the infusion add it to salves. Salves are just heavy, solid lotions that are intended to be soothing to the skin or to wounds.

Not one to waste something so precious, I like the idea of chopping up those oil-soaked petals and mixing them into homemade soaps. Do not compost them. You shouldn’t compost oil or oil-infused herbs. Your bin will stink.

How do you dry calendula flowers? It doesn’t take much effort.

Oh, I know the internet will tell you to separate out the blooms on an old screen in a dry, dark place between two elevated stands. But I’ll tell you that during our BIG reno last year, I put my calendula flowers on a paper towel on top of our refrigerator. How’d it go? Just fine. I must have left them up there for a month or two, and dutifully, they dried out. I will likely include some in a salt or sugar scrub for beauty’s sake.

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I should confess that my husband is 6’3″ tall. He could see the top of our old fridge and was not a fan of my messy flower drying station. Everyone else was oblivious.

About the scent, I am almost at a loss for words to describe it. Calendula is only lightly floral. It’s about 5% tangy, 5% medicinal, 60% fresh, 20% floral and 10% other. Mainly, I would describe calendula as a fresh scent. It’s not earthy. It’s more like the woods after a rain shower.

My calendula bed went above and beyond this year, producing three harvests. I only actually reseeded it once during the mid-summer season.  Calendula is so easy. It is one of the best students in my garden class. I feel like I ask calendula nicely to keep producing blooms, and it does its best to comply.

Calendula is such a happy flower. As you go about your day today, from time-to-time think back to this joyful bloom.

calendula

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Return to the Forgotten Herbs series.

Find out what borage is.

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Ground cherries. I did not expect so many questions.

Whoa. It’s not often that I’m stunned into silence.

I mean; when I first saw them at the farm stand, I thought ground cherries were cute and tasty. They fit my mission to showcase interesting and unusual farm stand finds perfectly. Plus, I could snack on them in the car during my long commute home.

It was fun creating a salsa recipe for them from scratch.

What I did not see coming was that so many of you would send requests about where to find them. I’m even getting ground cherry locator requests in-person from my long-time friends and neighbors.

If you can help us find other sources for ground cherries, please post an idea in the comments.

Ground cherries are also called husk cherries, winter tomatoes, and strawberry tomatoes, which would only be true if you saw the world in sepia tones.

RB ground cherries

How could I do this to you? I made you aware of these captivating little oddly-beige tomato-grape surprise lanterns—surprise! there’s a berry inside that papery husk—and then you frantically try to find them. And inevitably fail.

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If you happen to be one of the 20 million people who live within an hour of Connecticut, you can still get them from Rose’s Berry Farm Stand. Rose’s brings their ground cherries around to lots of farmers markets. I know they are in Hartford, New Haven, and Greenwich at least once a week from June until November.

Now if it’s the right time of year, and you promise to water them, you can buy ground cherry seeds. Not good with growing from seed? Have a lot of patience? Try a live plant.

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If you do happen to get your hands on some mildly sweet ground cherries, try my original recipe for fresh ground cherry salsa!

Where did you see them first? Ground cherries star in this farmstand5.

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Do you meditate? Not exactly

My hair stylist once asked me, “You’re always so calm and have such a good outlook on things. Do you meditate?”

Ah, I don’t. I just aspire to, like a lot of other things. Add it to the list. It’s is not to say that I don’t have other hobbies that might offer similar benefits.

I responded, “I don’t, but I pray…and I visit my garden almost every morning.”

calendula

It’s true. I wake up thinking about the garden.

And my husband. Husband first, then the garden.

When the weather cooperates, I wait for my kids to get up and ask them if they want to go to the garden with me. The kids and I really look forward to our mornings together in that peaceful, sweet-smelling space.

I brew myself tea while the little ones search for their boots.

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We look for new sprouts. We assess damage from storms and critters. We push stakes back into the ground and fix the nets on the berry bushes.

I handle most of the weeding myself.

Not everyone views pulling weeds as a calming activity. Most people view weeding as back-breaking work that seems manageable one day but gets out of control fast.

Most people have a point.

Weeding is all of those things. I just chose to reframe it. Instead of being overwhelmed by the chore, over the years I learned to redefine weeding for myself.

Weeding is winning.

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42 (and a half) uses for extra herbs

When you garden, you quickly find out that your supply of herbs can overwhelm your needs. Herbs get too woody or too pungent quickly. It is best to harvest them when they are ready, even if you are not. Often, you will still have time left in the season to plant a second or third crop in their place. Of course, harvesting all of those herbs at once means you need some ideas about what to do with them. Leave your ideas in the comment section!

Sell them (or just offer them for free)

1. Farm stand

Eat them

2. Herb salad
3. Ice cream (mint or sweet basil)
4. Herbed butters
5. Throw them over anything you’re baking
6. Mix chopped herbs with ground meat for burgers
7. Salad dressing
8. Herb soups
9. Herb-infused oils
10. Herb-rolled frittata
11. Herbed cheeses
12. Herbed spreads
13. Chicken rubs
14. Pickling brine
15. Pesto blend
16. Pasta sauce
17. Salsas
18. Stir-fries
19. Marinades
20. Herbed breads

Drink them

21. Flavor homebrew beer or wine
22. Fancy cocktails
23. Whiskey on ice with herbs
24. Vodka infusions
25. Brew teas – fresh or dried

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Prep them

26. Hang them to dry
27. Freeze them in plastic bags
28. Freeze them into ice cubes
29. Keep parsley and cilantro fresh longer in the fridge with a paper towel
30. Keep basil fresh longer by coating it in olive oil
31. Grind them up to make a dry powder

Decorate

32. Garnish your other dishes
33. Flower arrangements
34. Table setting accents
35. Decorate gifts
36. Add pressed herbs to cards
37. Make shadow box displays

Handcrafted skincare

38. Make a gentle, exfoliating face scrub
39. Add them to homemade soaps
40. Herb-infused tinctures

When even the best intensions fail


41. Compost them
42. Let them go to seed – who says you have to pick your extra herbs? Let a few plants go to seed. THEN, you actually should make a decision.

42 1/2.  Choice #1: let them over-winter. Choosing option 1 means you will likely have a hundred baby plants to incorporate or weed next year. In the case of my parsley plant, I was happy to give its descendants one-third of this bed. Perfect!  In the case of my chives, I knew I should have picked every one of those mesmerizing white flowers last year, but instead, we have a blanket of pointy seedlings to pluck.

Choice #2: separate and save the seeds. For most herbs, you can hang the old, brown stalks upside down in a brown paper bag until they are very dry. Then you can shake them until the seeds collect in the bag. They must be stored dry in jars with lids or little baggies. Do yourself a favor and label them well. You can share extra seeds with your friends or coworkers. You can even offer them for sale at your farm stand.

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Have another idea on how to use extra herbs? Please leave a comment below.

borage napkin

Tired of the obvious? Check out some forgotten herbs.

Want to see some of the best other farm stands have to offer? View top choices at farmstand5.

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Best 5 items at Off Center Farm Stand, Woodbridge, CT

August 30, 2018

Welcome to the new kid on the block. Off Center Farm’s stand just opened up a few weeks ago. Last time I was there, they were already starting to sell out of certain items. I personally bought out their stock of my #2 pick.

Even though the farm is new, the farmer, Kristyna, represents the sentiments of farmstand culture perfectly. She passionately manages her farm while reaching out to the community. You will notice I credit her in other places on this site for the help she’s given to me.

Enjoy the beautiful and unique items you can find at her farm stand.

#5
Big, happy dahlias!

Dahlia’s have strong stems that explode into powerful blooms. The colors find almost every shade of the rainbow. You might notice that I included a small photo of a mix of sunflower varieties with the choice. It’s a great example of flowers that bloom simultaneously and pair really well in arrangements. I picked up a handful of the darkest sunflowers and the lightest dahlias for a vase in my kitchen.

#4
Maitake mushrooms

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Maitake mushrooms are believed to have medicinal properties. Off Center Farm goes above-and-beyond in harvesting and drying these remarkable mushrooms for their customers. The little basket of hand-packed mushrooms is reminiscent of the offerings you might have found at an old-time apothecary.

#3
Tomatillos

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I have a confession: an obsession—with tomatillos. They add a vinegary flavor to soups and sauces. I almost always blend them in a verde salsa with jalapenos, onions and cilantro. A spice-paring tip: the flavor of tomatillos is really complemented by a smoky ground cumin.

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#2
Kermit (Thai) eggplant

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I did not know what these were when I saw them at the Off Center Farm stand—of course that was enough of a reason to buy them. A quick google search told me they are eggplant. Actually, they are closer to the shape of their namesake (and my #1 pick) than a traditional purple, Black Beauty eggplant. I got home late one night and made a quick dinner by sautéing these chopped Kermit eggplants with onions, basil and chicken.

#1
Fresh, hand-gathered eggs

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Yes, that little table at the end of your neighbor’s driveway with the hand-painted “fresh eggs” sign is a farm stand. Egg stands are one of the best examples of the farmstand culture our communities gave up when big grocers cornered the market. But, as keeping flocks is becoming a popular past time again, I predict you will see more egg stands in your neighborhood. People with hens usually go through a time when the supply of eggs exceeds their personal need. I love the bright chartreuse cartons Off Center uses for their fresh eggs.

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I hope you are having fun and feeling inspired to shop farm stands and cook fresh. Or at least to find some friends who do and let them do all the cooking.

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Did you see this farmstand5 post?…

Fancy’s Farm Stand, Orleans, MA

Back to farmstand5 full list.