<![CDATA[Starlight ]]>http://www.starlightgardensct.comen-ushttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssCopyright 2012Starlight <![CDATA[CSA for 2012]]>We're really excited to tell you that this year we are having a CSA. For those of you unfamilar with the term, its stands for Community Supported Argriculture and is a great opportunity for you and your family to get healthy, great tasting certified organic, local vegetables  on a weekly basis.

Here's how it works. You buy a share in our farm's expected produce. Then once a week you come buy to pick up your share for tht week. Each week we will send you an email telling you whta will be availabe that week and including a couple of recipes.

The spring -summer CSA will start on May 1and continue every week through October 15.  after that there will be a fall-winer CSa , details of which we will add shprtly.

 The pick up days are  Tuesday and Thursday from 2-7 at our farm. We are located at 54 Fowler Avenue in Durham. When you come  from the outh on Route 17 you get to a traffic light with the town green on your left  then the library. On your right is the post office. THe CSA distribution shd is jusst before our  pink house on the left.

When you get here  there will be a variety of vegetables that we are offering that week.

 We will give you at the beginning of the season a CSA bag and you just fill it up with what apeals to you.  (Or  there will be a list of what your share for he week is and you go thrpuhg and load up your bag.)

Here is a list of what you can expect to be available.

May: Greens-- including fancy lettueces, asian greens such as tatsoi, mizune and tokyo bekana. Arugula, endive, Pea tendrils,

 

June :Our world famous heirloom tomatoes will start to come in early this month.Melt in your mouth sun golds and the

July:Tomatoes tomatoes tomatoes. IS there anything else worth eating? Well also,

August:Tomatoes tomatoes tomatoes . AS well as peppers ,eggplant, etcetc and the biggy watermelon!  Some of them are very big indeed.

September:

October:

 

Plus these special events

CSA Open house April ---  Come and tour the farm.See the new tomatoes growing as fast as they can in the hoop houses. Nibblegreens of all varieties right out of the ground. Plant some if you like. Vist our tomato grafting operation.  Try to pet the sheep. (they're kind of shy)

June 20 summer solstice--- Outstanding in field---- well actually sitting in the field for a wevening of stories to celebrare the longest day.

ADd some more

 

This is our  thirteenth year of operation and our food is welknown in many Ct restarants including the Copperbeech in Ivoryrton  and the Max Group of restaurants.  WE also have dedicated customers at the city seedmarkets at Wooster Square an EDgewood Park as well as the Madison, Chester andWestport Markets.

 

IMn a Csa you take on a little bit of risk. WE will do our best to give you what we have intended too and hopefully a little more thatn that. Sometimes however crops fail or some unforseen event happenes that messes up the grand plan. While we all in Ct have recently experiences pretty extreme unusual weather events and thei consequences,  Syar light Gardens to date has not really ever experience ed a crop failure that is worth mentioning.

 

Costs: for the 20 weeks from

Full share: feeds a family of four or more.   650.00

Half share: feeds 1 or 2 people                   400.

A deposit  of 200.00 is due on registering for the CSA with the balance due on June 1.( OR with 250 due on May 15 and 200 due on July 1.

Frequently asked questions about CSAs.:

 

 

]]>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:51:31 -0600<![CDATA[Energy]]>Ehryjmrmryny

]]>Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:32:19 -0600<![CDATA[We Are Amazed]]>It is amazing to walk through our six hoop houses at this time of year.  We’ve been growing greens for 12 years now and I still can’t get use to the fact that we can eat fresh locally grown food every month of the year.  Spinach, kale and claytonia are our first choices for deep winter.  They seem to care less how cold it gets.  Mizuna, lettuce, tatzoi, tokyo bekana (to name a few)  are somewhat impervious to cold weather.  We make sure that we have a lot of these choices for early fall, just making sure to have an abundance of the three Winter Warriors (spinach, kale and claytonia) for the dead of winter.  This kind of growing offers huge benefits to farmers and a lot of surprises, too.  There have been many a cold January day that I will walk in our hoophouses amongst frozen greens in the early morning and think that our crop is doomed with no hope of bouncing back to life.  By 9 or 10 AM, it has warmed up enough so that the frozen plants have turned back into viable, energetic live plants.  Plants that can do this have the ability to concentrate the water in the plant cell, changing the density and therefore changing the freezing point.  The other amazing benefit of winter growing is that the winter greens are very , very sweet.  That is because the carbohydrates are increased when the plant feels that its life is being threatened.  Extra carbs in plants means extra sweet.

The cycle of growing on a farm doesn’t ever come to an end.  Currently, we are planting carrots, lettuce, chard and beets for an early harvest in late April and early May.  The object is to get the plants started in the fall, let them winter over and allow them to take off once the extra daylight returns in late January, early February.  All of these crops are being grown outside in low tunnels.  A low tunnel is a series of hoops put over a plant bed with an appropriate piece of plastic put over the hoops and weighed down with sand bags to keep the plastic from blowing away.  The most advanced of these crops(chard and beets) was planted on October 21.  They’ve already germinated and created  the first baby leaves.  Lettuce, which normally will turn to  mush below 25 degrees, does very well if the plants stay at a small size until mid winter.  We’ve planted a special mix recommended by Johnny’s Selected Seeds of Maine called 5 Star Greenhouse Mix.  The lettuces in this mix  stay healthy and are very beautiful when mature.

Anyone interested in getting salad or spinach for the holidays are welcome to call us up and we’ll get it ready for you.  Tuesday, November 22 is the last day of work for that week.  We can be reached at 860 463 0166.

We are also posting pictures of some of the greens that are mentioned above.  Hope that you enjoy them.

]]>Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:53:20 -0600<![CDATA[Check this out]]>In the midst of the greens, reds and purples around here, Ty has been working as a professional visual artist for over 25 years. Or it could also be said that in the midst of a long art career,  Starlight Gardens was started and continues to flourish. We are always in a state of never getting everything in the way that we want to do it. So one of our goals for this year is to more publically connectthe two parts of our work together. Check out her website.  ty zemelsky

 

]]>Fri, 06 May 2011 08:21:20 -0500<![CDATA[Tomato Waves and Winter Woes]]>As I write this note, we are getting ready to start our first wave of tomatoes.  There is a real promise of spring in this activity.  If you count all the months that these tomatoplants will be in our lives, you  begin to realize that this is a long term relationship!  The plants that are started today will be with us until the beginning of September-that would be seven months!  Among the varieties tht we will start will be Sungold, Prudens Purple, Moskovich, Red grape, Paul Robeson and Cherokee Purple.  In a few weeks, these small plants will be grafted onto a sturdy rootstock.  What this means, is that we literally cut the plant in half and clip it to the rootstock.  The purpose of this procedure is two-fold.  First, we are able to avoid soil borne root diseases.  Second, the newly made plant has the ability to increase its productivity significantly. We have always provided unusual and extremely tasty heirloom tomatoes over the years and are very proud of our reputation with top chefs and our farmer’s market customers.



On a more somber note, our greenhouses have suffered mightily this winter with all the snow that the state has received.  Star Light Gardens has 5 greenhouses with a total area of 16,500 sq feet.  In most winters, the snow that fell on the roofs of the houses would always slide off very soon after any storm.  That was also true this winter, untilthe piles became so high along the edges that there was no longer any room for the snow to go anywhere.  There came a critical moment when it became obvious that the only way to save the structures was to cut all the plastic from the inside and let the snow on top fall thru to the crop bed directly below it. Four of our five houses are now standing tall, minus the protective plastic.  The last house, our largest one by 50%,  partially caved in before we could do this procedure.  This is a costly, but not irreparable situation.  In this larger house, we can still get in the house and harvest at least half of what is there-wonderful winter spinach, truly the best that winter has to offer.  In the other houses, the snow has buried all the greens, making them inaccessible for now.  We believe that this will not kill the plants under the snow, just slow down their ability to grow.  Once the snow around the houses goes away, we can put plastic back on and the plants will start growing again. Although, we wouldn’t rate this event as positive, our goal is to get back to doing what we know best-grow the best greens, tomatoes and other veggies around.

]]>Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:48:08 -0600<![CDATA[Spring-- everythings growing like crazy!]]>March 30, 2010

Not to put too fine a point on it, but-we’re having a great spring.  There are a number of reasons to be feeling this way.  Top on our list though is the great early Spring spinach that we’ve been selling both at Farmer’s Markets and to our restaurants. These greens were planted in late fall , spending most of the winter barely growing at all.  With the relentless return of stronger and longer light, they began to grow, starting at the end of January.  In addition to the spinach,  there have been plantings of mizuna, hot spicey mustard , kale and arugula started in mid february.  These plantings are now ready for harvest.  Additionally, outside we’ve benefited from our low tunnel system.(see our blog 2/11/10 for details).  These low tunnels are now full of early chard, beets, carrots.  They should be ready for harvest in 3-4 weeks.  The young baby lettuces have begun to be harvested.  They are a welcome addition to our salad mix, both in flavor and bright vibrant red color. Before the big rains came, we were able to get a first planting of the bordeaux spinach outside.  This would be pretty early for us to have planted outside at this date.

In the nursery, there are thousands of baby tomato plants, basils, parsley , chives, peppers. Lots of these plants will be going to the early May Farmers Market so that many of you will be able to grow some of the same plants that we are growing at  Star Light Gardens.  Notable tomato plants that we would recommend are Sun Golds,Green Zebra Paul Robeson, Juliets,  Cherokee Purple and Wapsipinnicon.  In addition to the Farmer’s Markets, they will also be available at our farmstand at 54 Fowler Ave./Durham, CT  starting in early May.

We are on the eve of our first tomato planting in the greenhouse.  This has always been an exciting time for us.  Once these plants go in the ground,  they will be an intregal part of our daily lives untill late September.  If you count the planting date, which is Feb 10. , that would mean that we will have had a relationship with these plants for over 7 months!

Right now we have wonderful greens available. First, there are salad greens.  In the mix you can find beet greens claytonia, red oakleaf lettuce, green oakleaf lettuce, rouge d'hiver, spinach, red russian kale.
Also, available now are two different kinds of spinach: samish and 7 green.  Both varieties are full of sweet flavor and texture. On the near horizon, we will be able to harvest pea tendrils and arugula.   Come visit us at CitySeed at Wooster Square , Fairfield Farmer's Market at the Fairfield Theatre Company and the Litchfield FarmersMarket.

Our farmstand will be open soon with many tomatoe plants, herbs and peppers.


]]>Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:59:19 -0500<![CDATA[Discovering Watermelon All Over Again]]>July 30,2010
Things happen fast on a farm.  Not only that, but when I see something different, I am shocked that it actually happened.  Take watermelon, for example.  We start them in small pots in early April.  The seeds are soaked the night before  to help them germinate faster.  Then there is a little waiting while they sit on the heat pads so that the soil remains warm to further speed up germination.  After 5-6 days, the plant emerges- cotyledon first.  It is a different shaped leaf from what the plant will look like-just a promise of what is to come.  After tending them for a while, and watering, and talking to them and thinking about what is to come next - we are ready to get them planted.  This year, they are all the way down at the bottom of the farm next to "New Day" ,our  144' x 30' high tunnel.  We plant them out in rows 4 feet apart - a foot and a half between plants.  A row of drip tape lies down the middle of the row to deliver a small trickle of water whenever its needed.  Black plastic is put down between the rows.  This would be mid to late May.  Can't put them out too early.  If the soil or the air is still too cold, these plants could languish or even die.   Even so, for the first few weeks, nothing seems to happen.  They don't die, but they don't grow either.  I begin to panic a little.  What if there is no watermelon this year?  The idea  sends a small panic thru my mind.  But I calm myself and remember to be patient.  Eventually,  all this waiting pays off.  The vine begins to grow.  And then it grows some more and eventually the black plastic disappears beneath a sea of healthy vines.  This is followed by the emergence of tiny golf sized melons.  That would be around the beginning of July.  Every day, we give a watch to these ever larger sized melons until one fatal day when our grandson has a look at them.  "They're ready, Grampy.  Let's pick one!"  He's more than excited.  So am I.  I get closer to one promising specimen and inspect closer for the  three signs of ripeness.  Firstly, there's the dying curly sprig opposite where the melon attaches to the vine.  It should be totally dead and dried out.  This reminds me of those roasting chickens that have a thermometer pop out when it is cooked enough.  This particular sprig is totally dead.  A good sign.  Then there is the yellow spot underneath the melon where it touches the ground. That's what this one is.   Another positive sign.  Lastly, the melon needs to "thump" properly.  This is the more abstract sign of a ripe melon.  According to ancient wisdom, it needs to sound hollow.  This takes years of practices.  Probably a lot of failures, too!  This thump works for us.  With a quick assembly of bravery, we decide to cut it from the vine and bring it to the house to be cut up.  Watermelons don't particularly ripen well off the vine, so you got to pick it ripe the first time.  Not like heirloom tomatoes, who are happy to keep ripening after you pick them.  Once inside the house we all gather round the cutting board.  Now its also Ty, and our granddaughter and my sister, Judy-a whole crowd to watch the first melon of the season together.  Now, we're all excited.  I take the biggest knife we have and give it a big whack-hoping for all red.  A moment of suspense and then a parting of the two halves.  RED!  Success!  There's yelps and other sounds of excitement from all sides.  Quickly pieces are divided up and soon there are drippy happy faces everywhere.  Such a long wait for this moment and so sweet it ultimately is! And this brings me back to being shocked.  For that is how I feel now.  Besides the incredibly sweet experience of watermelon, I can not believe that all that time has gone by to transform those small seeds into this bundle of green and red energy.  We are indeed lucky.

Having said all that about melons,  you might be surprised that I didn't mention the tomato crop first.  Could have written the same story and substituted  the tomato for melon.  An even longer wait from seed to fruit and 10 times the work.  Our crop is pouring in now.  We've managed several 2 pound striped german tomatoes and equally impressive, but smaller green zebra.  The list goes on, but I won't burden you with the rest of it right now except for the Juliet.  This tomato has been named by me as the one I would take to a desert island if I had to choose only one.  It isn't an heirloom, but it's personality beats out all the rest. The fruit is smaller, deep red and shaped like a lopsided rugby ball.  Here is a tomato that doesn't care whether you eat it off the vine, cook it on pizza or dry it in the oven.  Either way,  it will knock your socks off for full flavor.  I can not overstate how delicious this tomato is.  If you come to a market, please visit our tent for a free sample.  You'll get what I am taking about right away.

On August 29th, we are going to be hosting a Farm Dinner prepared and served by Chef Scott Miller and his staff from Max's Oyster Bar of West Hartford.  Scott sits at the front of the boat as far as seeking out Connecticut grown products, whether it is cheese, meat, fish or produce.  He would be classified as a local hero in our book.  We are really excited about this upcoming event.  If you are interested-visited the Oyster Bar website at maxdiningcard.com  to make reservations.  We'd love to have you be part of the evening.

]]>Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:58:32 -0500<![CDATA[Sungolds On My Shoulder Make Me Happy]]>Sungolds on my shoulder make me happy...
Didn't John Denver write that?
That sums up our attitude towards sungolds these days.  Sungolds?  Pretty little cherry tomatoes, the color of orange.  When they first began to ripen , there were 2 or 3.  Then 10.  After that 100.  Can't keep track of how many there are now.  The important thing to know about sungolds, is that they are all about the sugar.  The other thing that is important to know about sungolds is that everyone wants them.  The last thing you need to know about sungolds is that they are terribly distracting.  When we first started growing them, it was only in one house.  That would mean that if I was working on the far side of the farm, I would have to walk a long ways to get to them.  Like all farmers,  I always look for ways to save time and energy.  So the next year, we planted sungolds in every High Tunnel.  That way, when the spirit moved me, I wasn't too far away from one of these lumps of sugar with orange skin.

The biggest news around here is that we are hosting a Chef to Farm Dinner, created by Executive Chef Scott Miller from Max Oyster Bar in West Hartford.  The event will take place on August 29th at 6PM.  The theme of this dinner is organic products only, with a heavy emphasis on vegetables from Star Light Gardens.  Scott is extremely creative and will undoubtedly utilize  our vegetables in amazing ways.  Please go to Maxdiningcard.com for  more details, and ticket information.  These dinners are a fine example of the collaboration that can take place between chefs and farms.  We really hope to see you there.

]]>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:03:53 -0500<![CDATA[The Days Are Getting Longer]]>Now our days are longer than 10 hours.  This  means that the days are long enough to see real growth in existing plants that are in our High Tunnels(aka hoophouse).    The time that is below a 10 hour day is known as the Persephone Period, name because of the Greek myth about how plants  stopped  growing while Persephone was held captive in the underworld by Hades (see Wickipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persephone).  While it is not exactly true that all growth stops during this time period (October 13-January 29th),  it certainly slows to a trickle.

At this point in the year, we've harvested all of our greens and are already seeing a lot of regrowth.   This is a wonderful thing, as we've been enjoying supplying our restaurants and farmers markets all winter and now look forward to resuming shortly.  Our greens are always delicious, but the big attraction to winter greens is their sweetness.  This is largely because the cold weather causes the starches in the plant leafs to change into carbohydrates, a simple sugar.

This is also the time of year to be thinking about tomatoes.  Our first planting of tomatoes goes into the one High Tunnel that has a heat source around March 29th.   A tomato plant wants to be around 6-7 weeks old at the time of planting.  That means that we'll be starting tomatoes next week.  Hard to believe.  Very hard to believe.  But then again, growing helps one feel like Spring is right around the corner.  We'll be busy setting up grow lights in the basement this week.  Right on the heals of tomato planting will be onions, peppers,lettuce heads and herbs.  Growing in the basement goes on for a few more weeks and then we transfer everything to our nursery that is out in a hoop houses.  We have built a 10' x 20'  houses inside this hoop house and installed a small propane furnace.

Meanwhile, we'll be preparing new beds throughout the different hoop houses for spring greens.  These will be planted out with arugula, mixed lettuce, kale, spicey mustard greens, tatzoi, mizuna and pak choi.  Can't wait.  It is hard to beat the feeling of working in a hoop house on a cold, sunny winter day.  You don't need a coat and it feels like a day in May.  This is a great substitute for going to Florida in February.  Infact, one winter when we couldn't go anywhere, we satisfied or warm sun needs by bringing lawn furniture out to the hoop house and sprawled out in total luxury.

During the last warm spell when all the  snow melted, I had the opportunity to look under some of the outside rowcovers.  It was amazing to see live and tasty spinach growing there.  As soon as warm weather arrives, these plants should really start to take off.
We also have several low tunnels that are performing really well.  These are made from wirehoops that make a low arc over the greens bed.  Plastic is put over the hoops and weighed down with sandbags on the edges and corners.  We planted lettuce, chard, beets and carrots around the beginning of November.  At this point, everything is small in there.  With the return of the light and warmer weather, all of these greens will make great progress.  And interesting part of all this is that baby baby lettuce can survive the harsh temperatures, but larger leaves will turn to mush.  Like all our winter greens, they have an anti-freeze system of sorts whereby the water migrates out of the plant cell and concentrates deeper down in the leaf, lowering its freezing point.  This is how we are able to provide fresh greens to restaurants and farmers market all year round.Now our days are longer than 10 hours.  This  means that the days are long enough to see real growth in existing plants that are in our High Tunnels(aka hoophouse).    The time that is below a 10 hour day is known as the Persephone Period, name because of the Greek myth about how plants  stopped  growing while Persephone was held captive in the underworld by Hades (see Wickipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persephone).  While it is not exactly true that all growth stops during this time period (October 13-January 29th),  it certainly slows to a trickle.

At this point in the year, we've harvested all of our greens and are already seeing a lot of regrowth.   This is a wonderful thing, as we've been enjoying supplying our restaurants and farmers markets all winter and now look forward to resuming shortly.  Our greens are always delicious, but the big attraction to winter greens is their sweetness.  This is largely because the cold weather causes the starches in the plant leafs to change into carbohydrates, a simple sugar.

This is also the time of year to be thinking about tomatoes.  Our first planting of tomatoes goes into the one High Tunnel that has a heat source around March 29th.   A tomato plant wants to be around 6-7 weeks old at the time of planting.  That means that we'll be starting tomatoes next week.  Hard to believe.  Very hard to believe.  But then again, growing helps one feel like Spring is right around the corner.  We'll be busy setting up grow lights in the basement this week.  Right on the heals of tomato planting will be onions, peppers,lettuce heads and herbs.  Growing in the basement goes on for a few more weeks and then we transfer everything to our nursery that is out in a hoop houses.  We have built a 10' x 20'  houses inside this hoop house and installed a small propane furnace.

Meanwhile, we'll be preparing new beds throughout the different hoop houses for spring greens.  These will be planted out with arugula, mixed lettuce, kale, spicey mustard greens, tatzoi, mizuna and pak choi.  Can't wait.  It is hard to beat the feeling of working in a hoop house on a cold, sunny winter day.  You don't need a coat and it feels like a day in May.  This is a great substitute for going to Florida in February.  Infact, one winter when we couldn't go anywhere, we satisfied or warm sun needs by bringing lawn furniture out to the hoop house and sprawled out in total luxury.

During the last warm spell when all the  snow melted, I had the opportunity to look under some of the outside rowcovers.  It was amazing to see live and tasty spinach growing there.  As soon as warm weather arrives, these plants should really start to take off.
We also have several low tunnels that are performing really well.  These are made from wirehoops that make a low arc over the greens bed.  Plastic is put over the hoops and weighed down with sandbags on the edges and corners.  We planted lettuce, chard, beets and carrots around the beginning of November.  At this point, everything is small in there.  With the return of the light and warmer weather, all of these greens will make great progress.  And interesting part of all this is that baby baby lettuce can survive the harsh temperatures, but larger leaves will turn to mush.  Like all our winter greens, they have an anti-freeze system of sorts whereby the water migrates out of the plant cell and concentrates deeper down in the leaf, lowering its freezing point.  This is how we are able to provide fresh greens to restaurants and farmers market all year round.

]]>Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:12:01 -0600<![CDATA[A brief history of our farm]]>Welcome to the 10th year anniversary of our farm. Can't believe it has been that long since old organic farmer Hyman Scrilowitz convinced us that we jsut had to go visit this guy in Maine who practiced the idea of seson extension with the use of hih tunnel unheated greenhouses. That of course was Elliot Coleman. When we visited him we knew so little that we couldn't even think of questions to ask so the visit was inspiring but  brief.

While more or less hanging on to the day jobs for a bit we  started to build a grrenhouse or two--- in November and December. The cold mud and snow didnj't stop us. We planted our first crop of salad greens-- mizuna, tatsoi,spinach and kale at the beginning of February and made our first buck on April 9,1999.

By then we had built four high tunnels-- each 30x98. David started calling and visiting mostly fancy restaurants on  the Ct shore and north to Hartford and we collected acounts of quite a few wonderful places--The Copper Beech in Ivoryton, Cafe Routier in Westbrook, Trumbell Kitchen and other restaurants in the Max Group and Middletown's Its Only Natural, to name a few. For the first 4 or 5 years our business was built solely around restarants. We continue to have the privilege of getting to know and working with many talented and extremely hard working chefs.

Then all of a sudden there came the wave of excitement about eating organic and especially fresh and locally grown food. And farmer markets became the new thing.  We look back now laughing at the way we went kicking and screaming when begged by Jennifer McTiernan to  join the then brand new City Seed Farmers Market at Wooster Square, New Haven. Now it is celebrating its 6th year and has become an important part of our business and a place where not only is our produce received with enthusiasm but where we have made many friendships with our customers over the past 6 years.

Now in addition to our wonderful restaurant customers we go to numerous farmers markets each season. At the markets we have become known especially for the wide variety of salad greens that we grow. Some are by now quite well known, like mizuna and tatsoi. Others are still"new " to our area. such as the deliously hot and spicy golden frill mustard green. We like to let shoppers mix and match to put their own salad mixes together. Salad greens were the original base of the farm but a few years in we got interested in growing heirloom tomatoes. In the summer, the  greens are grown outside and initially we looked for a way to make the empty high tunnels useful in summer. Well, that we certainly did. Now four houses are planted every summer season- with over 30 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.  David has been dubbed the Tomato King and the Tomato Scientist by our farmers market customers. Apparently a few folks even do good imitations of him talking about particular varieties of heirlooms.


]]>Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:33:41 -0500