The Teen Ag Crew van helps to transport all of  the crew and their seedlings grown in the greenhouses. 
Welcome to the Wolfe's Neck Farm Teen Ag and CSA share newsletter, written by our Teen Ag Crew member Gabriella Gaspardi. This weekly newsletter provides information about what produce you can look forward to receiving in your CSA share, a recipe or two, and any bits of information we think you might find interesting.

Thank you so much for your support of this program. Enjoy!  
CSA Pickup Day Details
Tomorrow is CSA Pickup Day! Please remember to return your baskets at each weekly pick up.

CSA pickups will occur on  Thursdays from 3:00-5:30 PM . If you need to pick up your share after 5:30 PM, it will be accessible in the refrigerator at the
Farm Stand. If you need to pick up early on a CSA day, please contact Richard at teenag@wolfesneckfarm.org at least 24 hours in advance.
This Week's Basket
The produce in this week's basket includes:
  • Cabbage
  • Peas
  • Beans
  • Turnips
  • Kale 
  • Cucumber 
  • Summer Squash

This Week's Food Pantry Contributions
Liane taking inventory of the produce harvested for the food pantries.
This week we took cucumbers, turnips, kale, peas, and summer squash to Freeport Community Services, Yarmouth Food Pantry, and Bath Area Food Pantry.

In collaboration with Good Shepherd Food Bank, we are contributing thousands of pounds of fresh produce to these three food pantries this year.
Recipe of the Week: Summer Lasagna
Ingredients (serves 8):
Summer squash, potatoes, kale, turnips, and cucumbers after harvest.
  • 1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
  • 2 to 4 Cloves Garlic
  • 1 Medium Chopped Onion
  • 1 large Summer Squash, chopped
  • 1 Turnip, thinly sliced
  • 1 tsp Basil
  • 1 Quart Spaghetti Sauce
  • 9 Lasagna Noodles
  • 1 Bunch Kale, chopped
  • 1 ½ Cups Cottage Cheese or Ricotta Cheese
  • 1 Beaten Egg
  • ¼ tsp Salt
  • Black Pepper to taste
  • ½ Lb Mozzarella Cheese
  • ½ Cup Parmesan Cheese
Method:
  • Heat oil in saucepan and saute garlic, onion, zucchini, and kale.  Stir in basil and spaghetti sauce and allow to simmer over low heat while you prepare the rest of the lasagna.  Cook noodles in boiling water until tender.  Drain and rinse with cold water. 
  • Mix Cottage cheese or ricotta and egg together.  Season with salt and pepper.
  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
  • Oil the bottom of 9 x 13 inch pan. Layer 1/3 of the noodles, cottage cheese, sauce, and mozzarella cheese, then repeat 2 more times.
  • Top with Parmesan cheese
  • Bake for 40 minutes
To complement the Summer Vegetable Lasagna you can add a side salad of chopped lettuce, shredded cabbage, sweet peas, chopped beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Top with a vinaigrette of:

Field Trip to NASAP
By Lilly Kuhn, Teen Ag crew member

The crew listens to an owner of Packard-Littlefield farm, Robert Packard.  
Last Friday, the Teen Ag crew traveled to the Packard-Littlefield Farm in Lisbon, ME. Cultivating Community's New American Sustainable Agriculture Project (NASAP) is based out of Packard-Littlefield Farm and provides both land and training to refugees hoping to get involved in Maine agriculture.
 
Most participants start out with a quarter acre of land and can access more as they progress in the program. The growers at NASAP are responsible for a 300-member CSA, and in 2013 produced more than $150,000 of produce. While many participants have come to the U.S. with farming experience--often in Somalia--NASAP helps them learn the nuances of growing in Maine. NASAP's goal is for participants to leave the program to farm independently.  
 
Our time at Packard-Littlefield Farm started with a tour of the participants'  various plots of land. We met several of the farmers as they were planting beets, weeding and harvesting. On our walk, we just happened to bumped into Robert Packard, an owner of Packard-Littlefield farm, and he shared a brief history of the farm's involvement with NASAP. Later, we divided up to work with different farmers. Maya and I worked with two teenage farmers weeding collard greens and carrots. The four of us talked a lot about their transition from a refugee camp in Kenya to life in the U.S. Richard and Lauren worked with a female farmer weeding carrots. Tom and Liane worked with another farmer, and learned a few Somali phrases. The one that has stuck with us, "Ba Sagru Es", translates to "Go harvest weeds!". We reconvened at the end of our time, excited to Ba Sagru Es in our own plot.

By Gabriella Gaspardi

This article about women in agriculture will be the first in a series of explorations on this topic.

Bachelors degrees in agriculture and natural resources conferred by post-secondary institutions, by student gender: 1970-71 through 2012-13 (Digest of Education statistic)
RFD-TV, an American digital cable and satellite television channel owned by Rural Media Group, will be launching a new series called FarmHer. The channel features programming devoted to rural issues and interests, and will be featuring a series focusing on the growing role of women in agriculture. The channel hopes the "FarmHer" series to help people recognize how valuable women are in agriculture throughout the U.S. 

Often people assume that women involved in agriculture are the wives or partners assisting their husbands. While many farmer's partners help out a great deal on the farm, there are almost one million female farm operators in the U.S.--one third of whom are principal operators of the farm. In the U.S., agriculture is still dominated by men; however, in the Global South women are the majority of farmers. 

For me, it has been so interesting to work with Teen Ag two years in a row as part of crews that have primarily consisted of young women (this year the entire Teen Ag crew is female). It is exciting to see more women displaying an interest in agriculture each year, something that is reflected in agriculture departments in colleges and universities. Since 2013, the gender gap within agricultural majors has closed; women are now the majority of students pursuing degrees (including PhDs) in agricultural sciences.
Tom Talk: Pollination and Monarch Habitat
Pollination is the buzzword this week in the Teen Ag plot. Our acre of Cucurbit crops is buzzing with bees and other pollinators alike. The cucumber and melon plants bear many flowers and are crawling with bees hard at work. The deeper flowers of the squash and pumpkin crops often hold more than one pollinating bee at once. Let's do a crash course in pollination:
 
Two bees pollinating in a sunflower.
The plant's pollen is its genetic map, essentially its DNA.  Pollination  is the process in which pollen is transferred from the male plant's reproductive organ, called the anther, to the female reproductive organ, the stigma. There are two types of pollination: biotic and abiotic. Abiotic pollination is not assisted by insects or pollinators, but rather with the mechanics of the plant. A good example of this is corn, which relies on wind to carry its pollen to other plants. This is why corn is always planted in blocks, to assist with abiotic pollination. Biotic pollination is buzzing up at the Teen Ag field. Bees enter the plants' male flowers in search of nectar and cover themselves in pollen, which is then transferred to the next female flower that the bee (or butterfly) enters. 80% of the world's flowering plants rely on biotic pollination!

A monarch butterfly pictured with the milkweed.
Much is also abuzz in Teen Ag's newest orchard. I encourage everyone to pull over and admire the new Teen Ag orchard set on the hill side by the Banter House (at the corner of Wolfe Neck Road and Burnett Road). It is complete with apple trees, American plum trees, elderberry, and peach trees. Many thanks to the nonprofit ReTree Us for donating the trees. An impressive amount of milkweed has popped up at the orchard this month, and was teeming with Monarch butterflies last week! Don't worry - I've made sure to mow around the habitat (hooray for protecting this endangered butterfly!). Stop by and try to find a cocoon while admiring the beauty of the Monarchs and orchard alike.
Thank you for taking part in our CSA for the summer! We hope you will enjoy what our vegetable plots have to offer. Stay tuned for weekly updates from your Wolfe's Neck Farm Teen Ag Crew.