Welcome to Mary Margaret's Blog

“Hey, this kale is all limp!” "These carrots are all rubbery!" Have you ever said that? If you have, this post is for you! If you haven’t, then either you already know some of this (yay!) or you haven’t had fresh greens or other veggies in your fridge very often. Wilty greens or limp carrots aren't just unappetizing, they're also not as nutritious either.  And they plain just don't last as long or taste as good. Whether you are a gardener or a farmers market shopper or a CSA member, you "get" how special truly fresh veggies are, right? So that's why we're here to help you not let the freshness go to waste! At Ripley Farm we take great care to get our CSA farm share vegetables to you in the best condition possible so that they will have maximum freshness for you all week. We want our CSA… Read More

When I signed up for my very first CSA share as a customer back in 2004, I really had no idea what I was getting into. I was taking a leap of faith based on a paper brochure and a phone conversation with a farmer.  Maybe you know what I felt like? Of course, this was back before it was common for most small businesses to have a website full of more information on their products. I did it at age 21, when I barely knew how to cook, let alone knowing how to identify all of the veggies I would be getting in the future. But, I was gung-ho.  Determined to try it.  To support a farmer.  Know where my food comes from.  And get more adventurous in the kitchen.  Learn a thing or two or... thirty!  Ha! But as it turns out, that was a fateful moment for me, because… Read More

With the holiday season right around the corner, I'm thinking about how I can squeeze more homegrown and locally grown veggies into my family's meals. Yes, veggie side dishes, got that. Yes, fresh salads, got that. But, going a little further... Have you ever tried using the “real thing” when making your holiday pumpkin pies? I mean not canned, but the real veggie straight from the garden or a local farm? Why should you care? Because it tastes so much better and is easy to do! What is a pie pumpkin? Wait, are you talking about the halloween pumpkins...? Nope, I'm talking about pumpkins that are specifically grown for cooking and making pies. Their flesh is smooth, relatively dry (but not too dry), stringless, and makes a delicious puree ready for your recipes! There are many varieties of pie pumpkins available in the seed catalogs of different shapes and sizes,… Read More

“Mmmm! What is in this soup?” Soup is one of the things I serve that I get the most complements on. Why? It’s kind of like building a house. It needs to start with a solid foundation or else it won’t be very successful. Soup is the same way. And broth is that foundation. Broth is a magical ingredient in soup that you can’t see, but makes it taste so much better. Because I love good tasting food, it is something that I don’t like to compromise on. And when you have tasted homemade broth, you’ll know why. Not only does broth taste great, but it also helps reduce waste from your vegetable scraps.  And captures all of those great nutrients from the food you might otherwise throw away. I started doing it many years ago and have never looked back. It is practically as easy as boiling water and… Read More

I love this time of year! The garden's bounty is at its most generous with things like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, winter squash, root veggies, onions, garlic and more all piling up. My house is often filled with veggies I am supposed to somehow cram into the freezer, into jars, into the dehydrator, and best of all straight into my family's tummies! If you're like me and you love veggies fresh from the garden and want to eat as many of them as can be in the short season that we have here in Maine, then this blog post is for you! Stay tuned for my family's most popular harvest recipe of this year!     This harvest season veggie-packed recipe is versatile, easy, and tasty I have made this reicipe already more times that I can count this late summer/early fall. The funny thing is that every time I've… Read More

If you’re like us, you’ve been babying those precious tomato plants in the garden for months now. Since Memorial Day to be exact! Seems like forever to wait for a ripe tomato! Then, all of a sudden, your tomatoes start to ripen. And by September, you’re swimming in tomatoes! That’s how we feel on the farm, too! Farmer Gene and the crew harvested well over 1000 pounds this week alone.     No complaining since it is what we’ve all been waiting for, right? But how to you use them up before they go bad? You don’t like having tomatoes sitting too long in the kitchen collecting fruit flies… Plus, garden fresh tomatoes taste so much better than grocery store tomatoes that it’s hard to let them go to waste. Any of them. In September it seems like putting them on sandwiches and salads isn’t enough to use them all… Read More

It’s warm August and you’re spending time in the lake, in the kayak, and outside picking berries… Winter is the furthest thing from your mind. Everywhere you go, people are talking about the humidity--and this year, the rain. You join in, but you have a nagging feeling in the back of your mind reminding you that soon things will change. Soon enough we’ll all be complaining about the cold and snow. Late August and early September are peak season for your Summer CSA farm share.  And you're loving the farm-fresh bounty from the box each week. You’re not looking forward to the days when it will be over, because it all tastes that much better. Or maybe you're a home gardener during the summer. You love to see the abundance that grows from your work. Your “gardening” time now is taken up with harvesting the fruits of your labor. And that… Read More

You’ve heard of garlic. You’ve used it. You love it! But when you add the word “scape” at the end of garlic, you’re confused. What the heck is a garlic scape? I totally understand. Garlic scapes are not something I’d ever heard of until I got into farming. They look like this:     And they are the flowering tops of hard neck garlic plants before they’re ready to harvest. They grow out of the top of the garlic plant and curl over in their own unique cute way, full of the same beautiful blue-green characteristic to all plants in the allium (onion) family. We snap them off so that the plant can give more energy to producing a nice big bulb of garlic to harvest in early August.  If you're a home gardener growing hard neck garlic, you can do the same thing, too!  Just look for when they… Read More

How To Harvest Fresh Basil So You Can Enjoy It All Summer Basil is one of those veggies that we can all pretty much agree that we love! In fact, the taste of fresh basil with tomatoes is the quintessential taste of summer, don't you think? And luckily basil is really not that hard to grow… Or is it? Have you planted basil seedlings, in anticipation of making quarts of pesto and jars of perfectly seasoned tomato sauce, only to find that your plants produce just a few coveted leaves before becoming woody and pushing up blossoms? A common issue many gardeners face when planting basil is keeping it properly pruned to produce the maximum amount of those sweet, herbaceous leaves we all love. But, luckily it's an easy technique to learn! After reviewing these basic instructions you should be on your way to heaping harvests of basil! How to… Read More