Week 20
Last one. Kelly will tell you, we are stoked, that this is the day we have been waiting for for the last 20 weeks. We have paid off our debt to you! It always feels good to pay off a debt, but I am always a little sad to see it come to an end. I like routines and I enjoy CSA days.
Storms are pretty stressful for people with greenhouses, piles of crates and lots of random stuff everywhere. I think Kelly used enough concrete to build a nuclear reactor when we put the two larger houses in the ground, but still, I was relieved we didn't see more wind over the past few days. Instead we had a little bit of much needed free time and a good reason to get organized. Our house looks like human beings live in it again and the wood shop which also serves as dry storage for a lot of farm stuff is once again a wood shop and not just a giant table covered with random farm stuff. We put lots of stuff away there when we don't know where else to put it, but it isn't actually put away, it is just out of the way. Out of the way that is until you actually need to use the wood shop as a wood shop. I hope none of you had any damage from the storm.
Lots of the fields have cover crop coming up and garlic should go in the ground in the next couple weeks. Things are winding down. Thank you for going along for the ride. You were there for the hectic early months of transplanting, the peak of harvest and now the slow decline. Hopefully we took good care of you.
Carrots
Spinach
Butternut Squash
Rutabaga
Lettuce
Summer Turnips
Cucumber or Zucchini - Dealer's Choice - Can you believe we still have some of these?
Garlic
Cabbage - Large Only
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Week 19
Well, for some of you this is it. Incredible. I can't believe we are at the end. Hopefully you all enjoyed the season. At the end of each season when I thank you, I usually thank you both for supporting us and also for supporting local agriculture in general. Obviously to continue doing what we do, we need good customer support. On a rainy day, like yesterday, when our sales are no different then I would expect on a sunny day, I am reminded that we are fortunate. When my sales pitch for the farm share is the same little email I have sent out for the past eight seasons and you all sign up and give your friends a better sales pitch so they sign up I am also reminded that we are fortunate. We have amazing customers! Most of our energy and brain space is spent on growing good produce but I do also think about the bigger picture of local agriculture and how important it is to me. When you buy a farm share in hopes of having good food you also are throwing your support behind local agriculture in this community. Thank you!
We are ending on a delicious note (those of you who are here next week, don't worry, more delicious stuff to come).
Rainbow Carrots
Parsnips - First dig of the season - can not wait to eat some of these - parsnip hash browns to a plate near me soon!
Potatoes
Onions
Lettuce
Broccoli
Delicata Squash - This is our most popular squash, and deservedly so.
Kale - Large Only
Candystick Dessert Delicata - Add On Veggie Only - Are all delicatas the same? Even among delicatas that look similar there can be a wide range of quality. We have settled on Zeppelin after growing a couple varieties. This year a customer gave me some seed for a new delicata. This delicata was developed by a seed saver in Oregon who selected for sweetness and a smaller seed cavity. According to the description instead of a honey sweet flavor it has a richer fig sweetness to it. I am normally suspect of all seed catalog descriptions but Carol Deppe, the breeder, is highly respected in her field and I am excited about the new variety.
Well, for some of you this is it. Incredible. I can't believe we are at the end. Hopefully you all enjoyed the season. At the end of each season when I thank you, I usually thank you both for supporting us and also for supporting local agriculture in general. Obviously to continue doing what we do, we need good customer support. On a rainy day, like yesterday, when our sales are no different then I would expect on a sunny day, I am reminded that we are fortunate. When my sales pitch for the farm share is the same little email I have sent out for the past eight seasons and you all sign up and give your friends a better sales pitch so they sign up I am also reminded that we are fortunate. We have amazing customers! Most of our energy and brain space is spent on growing good produce but I do also think about the bigger picture of local agriculture and how important it is to me. When you buy a farm share in hopes of having good food you also are throwing your support behind local agriculture in this community. Thank you!
We are ending on a delicious note (those of you who are here next week, don't worry, more delicious stuff to come).
Rainbow Carrots
Parsnips - First dig of the season - can not wait to eat some of these - parsnip hash browns to a plate near me soon!
Potatoes
Onions
Lettuce
Broccoli
Delicata Squash - This is our most popular squash, and deservedly so.
Kale - Large Only
Candystick Dessert Delicata - Add On Veggie Only - Are all delicatas the same? Even among delicatas that look similar there can be a wide range of quality. We have settled on Zeppelin after growing a couple varieties. This year a customer gave me some seed for a new delicata. This delicata was developed by a seed saver in Oregon who selected for sweetness and a smaller seed cavity. According to the description instead of a honey sweet flavor it has a richer fig sweetness to it. I am normally suspect of all seed catalog descriptions but Carol Deppe, the breeder, is highly respected in her field and I am excited about the new variety.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Week 18
The change in seasons makes me crave different food. I know I should be grasping onto the veggies I am about to say good bye to, but all I want to fill my belly with is roasted roots and soups. I breath a sigh of relief when August is over, but our lives really don't change much until this time of year. We shifted the start time forward a half and hour and I look forward to an extra half hour of sleep each night this week. In a couple more weeks and we will have days with no crew and we will start working in earnest on some projects around the house, many of which are farm related, but still it gives our days a much different feel. Just as spring fills me with hope, fall makes me reflective. In summer I don't hope, I don't reflect, I just put my head down and go. Winter, I don't know what winter does. I guess in the beginning I reflect and at the end I hope and in the middle I just wish it wasn't winter! This week I have been thinking a lot about the changes that need to happen to make next year better. I signed up to go to women in farming conference at the end of November and I hope it inspires me and gives me some good ideas.
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The farm share season is winding down. I will try to touch base with all of your this week to make sure we are on the same page about whether or not you skipped a week. For some of you next week will be the grand finale. Those of you who skipped a week will have two more weeks after this week.
We decided to go with celery root, also known as celeriac this week. Next week we will dig our first parsnips!
We had a little surprise this morning. Our missing hen appeared with eight chicks. This is the third time we have had fall chicks. The rest of the year when a hen goes missing we look for her and usually either find some sign she was killed or occasionally we find her sitting on eggs and take them away from her. However in late summer when a chicken goes missing we usually just think about looking for her. That is what we did with Freckles and as it turns out she was right under our noses sitting on a pile of eggs.
Carrots
Golden Beets - milder than the purple ones but just as sweet
Lettuce
Herb Choice
Celery Root - leaves can be used in stock. We like to mash it, often with potatoes. It also adds some nice flavor to soups both in chunks in a broth or in a pureed soup. Ian, who many of you see on Wednesday, loves it roasted with parsnips.
Radish
Kabocha Squash - green or orange - I like to use kabocha for all my baked goods. It is also nice in curry or braised.
Spinach - Large Only
Marcus Samuelsson's Thai Chicken and Pumpkin Curry
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Week 17
We made a small dent in the winter squash last week but still have a lot to haul. We planted less this year but are still struggling to find a place for them all. Hopefully by this time next week we will be have them all inside and breathing a sigh of relief.
The rain did a number on the cherry tomatoes but we are hoping to give you one more round of them this week.
Broccoli
Cherry Tomatoes
Acorn Squash
Kale
Shallots
Spinach - Small Only (large share next week)
Bok Choy - Large Only
Carrots - Large Only
Fall Salad Mix - Add On Veggie Only - For the last couple years I have been experimenting with seasonal salad mixes. We seed our regular salad mix weekly. Timing the lettuce to mature at the same time as the mustards is irrelevant because we can always pick different plantings to get them to line up. It is a little harder to time the seasonal mixes. I had wanted the fall mix to have radicchio in it but it isn't even close to ready. Instead it is a pretty mix of red lettuces and orange and yellow calendula.
Hope you all enjoyed your weekend. I am off to trim and bag onions and listen to the game with Kelly.
We made a small dent in the winter squash last week but still have a lot to haul. We planted less this year but are still struggling to find a place for them all. Hopefully by this time next week we will be have them all inside and breathing a sigh of relief.
The rain did a number on the cherry tomatoes but we are hoping to give you one more round of them this week.
Broccoli
Cherry Tomatoes
Acorn Squash
Kale
Shallots
Spinach - Small Only (large share next week)
Bok Choy - Large Only
Carrots - Large Only
Fall Salad Mix - Add On Veggie Only - For the last couple years I have been experimenting with seasonal salad mixes. We seed our regular salad mix weekly. Timing the lettuce to mature at the same time as the mustards is irrelevant because we can always pick different plantings to get them to line up. It is a little harder to time the seasonal mixes. I had wanted the fall mix to have radicchio in it but it isn't even close to ready. Instead it is a pretty mix of red lettuces and orange and yellow calendula.
Hope you all enjoyed your weekend. I am off to trim and bag onions and listen to the game with Kelly.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Week 16
Happy Autumn (well almost). Today is a beautiful fall day. I love working outside in the fall when the sun is out. It has a mellowness and a pleasant warmth to it that is so different from the harsh, but also wonderful, sunshine of summer. Today though, I am mostly inside, roasting and freezing tomatoes, making garlic chile sauce and maybe, if I get to it, some pickled peppers. We had a long day Friday - harvesting and hanging dry beans after we finished preparing for Saturday. It is comforting to see them hanging in the rafters of our metal building. We also had unexpected visitors for a late dinner on Friday. Kelly drove the dry beans home to hang them and I drove through the farm at dusk with a harvest knife and a bucket gathering a bunch of veggies to roast, herbs and the propane for the grill. It was a meal that brought summer (tomato and basil salad with grilled peppers and onions) and fall (roasted cauliflower, potatoes and fennel) together. Your boxes kind of do the same today with a nice mix of summer and fall. We decided to start the winter squash party with a spaghetti squash. These are a new variety (Angel Hair) for us and look a little different than the common yellow spaghetti squash. I was attracted to the smaller size. The small shares will get a single squash and the large share two of them. They look a little bit like mini pumpkins but they taste like spaghetti squash.
Carrots
Cauliflower
Corn - hopefully for all of you. This is a bicolor corn or as we like to say around here in our best Tennessee accent, it is white, half yellow. This is the response my dad got when he asked a farmer in Tennessee what color his corn was.
Spaghetti Squash
Cherry Tomatoes
Slicing Tomato
Salad Mix
Happy Autumn (well almost). Today is a beautiful fall day. I love working outside in the fall when the sun is out. It has a mellowness and a pleasant warmth to it that is so different from the harsh, but also wonderful, sunshine of summer. Today though, I am mostly inside, roasting and freezing tomatoes, making garlic chile sauce and maybe, if I get to it, some pickled peppers. We had a long day Friday - harvesting and hanging dry beans after we finished preparing for Saturday. It is comforting to see them hanging in the rafters of our metal building. We also had unexpected visitors for a late dinner on Friday. Kelly drove the dry beans home to hang them and I drove through the farm at dusk with a harvest knife and a bucket gathering a bunch of veggies to roast, herbs and the propane for the grill. It was a meal that brought summer (tomato and basil salad with grilled peppers and onions) and fall (roasted cauliflower, potatoes and fennel) together. Your boxes kind of do the same today with a nice mix of summer and fall. We decided to start the winter squash party with a spaghetti squash. These are a new variety (Angel Hair) for us and look a little different than the common yellow spaghetti squash. I was attracted to the smaller size. The small shares will get a single squash and the large share two of them. They look a little bit like mini pumpkins but they taste like spaghetti squash.
Carrots
Cauliflower
Corn - hopefully for all of you. This is a bicolor corn or as we like to say around here in our best Tennessee accent, it is white, half yellow. This is the response my dad got when he asked a farmer in Tennessee what color his corn was.
Spaghetti Squash
Cherry Tomatoes
Slicing Tomato
Salad Mix
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Week 15
On Sunday nights do ever find it hard to believe that tomorrow is Monday again? Wasn't it just Monday? For us, and I imagine for many of you, it means that some of the things you had hoped to get done will have to wait until next Sunday. I am a little behind getting food put up. Last Sunday we did tomatoes, roasted and raw peppers and basil. I had hoped to do more tomatoes and apple sauce today but I spent too much time hanging out with the piglets we picked up last Wednesday. They are spotted, floppy eared, snorting little guys who love melons. I can't help but check on them…a lot. I also got the greenhouse ready for arugula, salad and bok choy transplants. We are just about done transplanting. Our last remaining flats to go out in the field are kale that we are planting to harvest raab off of next spring. It will go out this week and the greenhouse should be filled by the end of next week. Kelly did a bunch of tractor work and it feels so good to see some of the fields that we were done harvesting out of get mowed and disked. Our dry beans are about ready to come out and so is the squash. You can only fight the change of seasons for so long.
We hope to have corn in the boxes next week along with cauliflower.
Sweet Peppers
Lettuce
Japanese Cuke
Green Beans
Slicing Tomatoes
Sweet Onion
Melon
Eggplant - Small Only
Cherry Tomatoes - Large Only
Kohlrabi - Large Only
Yu Choy Sum or Shungiku - Add on Veggie Only - You will get one this week and the other next week.
Yu Choy Sum is an asian green in the same family as kale, cabbage, bok choy, etc. It is mild - not a bit of bitterness. I knew I would like it because I like greens but it isn't just a green for green lovers. It is mild enough to please everyone. I made Choy Sum with Garlic Sauce. It was quick and easy and yummy…less than 10 minutes start to finish.
Shungiku or Chrysanthemum Leaves - These are used in many Japanese dishes including shabu shabu, sukiyaki and tempura. In china the leaves and flowers are used in soups. They have a distinct flavor and are very aromatic. We grew a small patch of them last year. I used them in salads and in chicken broth. A customer used them to make gomae and brought me some. The simplest recipe I found here, however in the version I had the sesame seeds were ground into a paste. There are many recipes for gomae on the internet with lots of different vegetables. The seeds are traditionally ground with a mortar and pestle but a coffee grinder works great too. Chrysanthemum cooks very quickly. You only need to blanch it for a minute. The raw leaves can be added to salads.
On Sunday nights do ever find it hard to believe that tomorrow is Monday again? Wasn't it just Monday? For us, and I imagine for many of you, it means that some of the things you had hoped to get done will have to wait until next Sunday. I am a little behind getting food put up. Last Sunday we did tomatoes, roasted and raw peppers and basil. I had hoped to do more tomatoes and apple sauce today but I spent too much time hanging out with the piglets we picked up last Wednesday. They are spotted, floppy eared, snorting little guys who love melons. I can't help but check on them…a lot. I also got the greenhouse ready for arugula, salad and bok choy transplants. We are just about done transplanting. Our last remaining flats to go out in the field are kale that we are planting to harvest raab off of next spring. It will go out this week and the greenhouse should be filled by the end of next week. Kelly did a bunch of tractor work and it feels so good to see some of the fields that we were done harvesting out of get mowed and disked. Our dry beans are about ready to come out and so is the squash. You can only fight the change of seasons for so long.
We hope to have corn in the boxes next week along with cauliflower.
Sweet Peppers
Lettuce
Japanese Cuke
Green Beans
Slicing Tomatoes
Sweet Onion
Melon
Eggplant - Small Only
Cherry Tomatoes - Large Only
Kohlrabi - Large Only
Yu Choy Sum or Shungiku - Add on Veggie Only - You will get one this week and the other next week.
Yu Choy Sum is an asian green in the same family as kale, cabbage, bok choy, etc. It is mild - not a bit of bitterness. I knew I would like it because I like greens but it isn't just a green for green lovers. It is mild enough to please everyone. I made Choy Sum with Garlic Sauce. It was quick and easy and yummy…less than 10 minutes start to finish.
Shungiku or Chrysanthemum Leaves - These are used in many Japanese dishes including shabu shabu, sukiyaki and tempura. In china the leaves and flowers are used in soups. They have a distinct flavor and are very aromatic. We grew a small patch of them last year. I used them in salads and in chicken broth. A customer used them to make gomae and brought me some. The simplest recipe I found here, however in the version I had the sesame seeds were ground into a paste. There are many recipes for gomae on the internet with lots of different vegetables. The seeds are traditionally ground with a mortar and pestle but a coffee grinder works great too. Chrysanthemum cooks very quickly. You only need to blanch it for a minute. The raw leaves can be added to salads.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Week 14
Well, August is done. The rain came. It feels like fall. However, I am sure we have some nice days ahead of us and we won't be moving on to winter squash and parsnips just yet! No need to rush, we have plenty of time to enjoy those. We do have a veggie making it's farm premier this week - celery. It is our first year growing it. We only had one planting and it looks and tastes great. It has a more intense celery flavor than what you buy in the supermarket, particularly the outer leaves. My mother told me that when I was little we use to eat braised celery. I don't remember it nor would it have ever occurred to me to make it if she hadn't mentioned it, but she made it sound delicious. I looked at a recipe out of Julia Child's first book but ended up making a simpler version I found on line. I included a link below. I used chicken stock instead of beef (Julia favors beef as well, but I had chicken on hand). I really liked it.
While Kelly was at market last Tuesday and I was frantically cleaning the house in hopes of making it look like we are just very neat and tidy people all the time, Ian and Jo did a nice job of getting most of the onions out last Tuesday. We had a big push early last week to get everything that had matured out of the ground before it rained. I meant to take a picture of them before it got dark but time slipped away from me. They look great. If you would have told me in April that we might have the nicest onions we have ever grown I would have either laughed at you or called you nasty names. There was a period when I wondered if we would even have onions this year. For some reason many of the seedlings died and those that didn't weren't growing any roots. I ended up seeding all the remaining seed we had left three weeks after our normal seed date. The first round ended up growing roots after doing nothing for about a month and the new ones which I seeded in different potting soil looked great but they all got transplanted later than we ever have transplanted them before. They all look great. There were a couple beds that got planted even later than the rest with some of the onions that took so long to grown roots. I was so doubtful about their success that I didn't even label the different varieties. They aren't mature yet and we left them in the ground but I am hopeful for those as well.
Carrots
Beets
Cherry Tomatoes
Celery
Zucchini
Garlic
Basil
Broccoli - Large Only
Slicing Tomato - Large Only
Braised Celery
Well, August is done. The rain came. It feels like fall. However, I am sure we have some nice days ahead of us and we won't be moving on to winter squash and parsnips just yet! No need to rush, we have plenty of time to enjoy those. We do have a veggie making it's farm premier this week - celery. It is our first year growing it. We only had one planting and it looks and tastes great. It has a more intense celery flavor than what you buy in the supermarket, particularly the outer leaves. My mother told me that when I was little we use to eat braised celery. I don't remember it nor would it have ever occurred to me to make it if she hadn't mentioned it, but she made it sound delicious. I looked at a recipe out of Julia Child's first book but ended up making a simpler version I found on line. I included a link below. I used chicken stock instead of beef (Julia favors beef as well, but I had chicken on hand). I really liked it.
While Kelly was at market last Tuesday and I was frantically cleaning the house in hopes of making it look like we are just very neat and tidy people all the time, Ian and Jo did a nice job of getting most of the onions out last Tuesday. We had a big push early last week to get everything that had matured out of the ground before it rained. I meant to take a picture of them before it got dark but time slipped away from me. They look great. If you would have told me in April that we might have the nicest onions we have ever grown I would have either laughed at you or called you nasty names. There was a period when I wondered if we would even have onions this year. For some reason many of the seedlings died and those that didn't weren't growing any roots. I ended up seeding all the remaining seed we had left three weeks after our normal seed date. The first round ended up growing roots after doing nothing for about a month and the new ones which I seeded in different potting soil looked great but they all got transplanted later than we ever have transplanted them before. They all look great. There were a couple beds that got planted even later than the rest with some of the onions that took so long to grown roots. I was so doubtful about their success that I didn't even label the different varieties. They aren't mature yet and we left them in the ground but I am hopeful for those as well.
Carrots
Beets
Cherry Tomatoes
Celery
Zucchini
Garlic
Basil
Broccoli - Large Only
Slicing Tomato - Large Only
Braised Celery
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Week 13
I already regret complaining about last week's heat. It is just that I got a little too hot but now I am not hot enough. I need help. Really though, I do. Kelly's family arrives on Wednesday…11 of them! They are only here for a couple days and they are staying in a hotel so it really shouldn't be a big deal. The rub is that we like things to be perfect and it is hard to ever be perfect but it is particularly challenging for us in August. It is hard to explain August but it is not the easiest month to get through.
I am looking forward to cooking a nice meal and sharing with them the food we grow. I am also afraid that they won't understand how much that food and what we do with our lives means to us. It isn't that they aren't great people. I feel incredibly lucky to genuinely like my in-laws. It is just that our life is so different than theirs and I am not sure they will appreciate the things that we value about our life. I am fine with people thinking we are little crazy and in the case of my parents that we work to hard as long as they enjoy the food. The other day my dad told Kelly that the watermelon he gave him was the best watermelon he had ever eaten. It made my day.
I know that the veggies in your box aren't always perfect (although we try) but I hope you are enjoying them and sharing food and meals with people you care about. Knowing that people are enjoying meals together with food that we grew (along with a lot of help) is one of the things that makes my job great. I love it when people send me photos of their kids eating veggies or tell me about what they cooked. Don't worry, I become much less emotional once September arrives…more sleep, less sentimental!
Enjoy your veggies.
Arugula
Rainbow Peppers - you choose, there will be a basket full on the stand.
Kale - Hopefully mixed bunches If you have ever wanted to eat a kale salad but been afraid that it will be all chewy and tough this is your best chance. The last few years we have given the farm share our first picking off the fall kale. It has been living under row cover for bug protection and it is very tender. I will put a couple kale salad recipes at the end but I have a couple general suggestions. I like to remove most of the rib and slice it thin or chop it and I either massage it or let the dressing sit on it for a little while (it is the first thing I make if I am having it for dinner).
Cherry Tomato
Slicing Tomato
Cucumber
Melon - I am not sure what awaits us in the melon patch tomorrow. The Tuscan melons and piel de sapos are close.
Eggplant - Large Only
Little Gem Lettuce - Large Only
Shiso - Add On Only - This will start on Wednesday and then continue next Monday. Shiso is a Japanese herb that is in the mint family. It is sometimes called Japanese basil. It has an amazing aroma and a distinct flavor that is hard to describe. You will have green shiso. It is often served wrapped around sushi and can sometimes be found in rolls. You can use the leaves like little wraps around rice, grilled chicken skewers or veggies. When I asked a friend born if Japan if the shiso looked okay she became very excited, laid it on her palm and than clapped her other hand down on it to release the aroma. Here a few things to look at: Ume pasta with shiso and nori, shiso wrapped chicken, shiso cocktail, sushi roll with plum and shiso
Kale Salads
Shiso - Add On Only - This will start on Wednesday and then continue next Monday. Shiso is a Japanese herb that is in the mint family. It is sometimes called Japanese basil. It has an amazing aroma and a distinct flavor that is hard to describe. You will have green shiso. It is often served wrapped around sushi and can sometimes be found in rolls. You can use the leaves like little wraps around rice, grilled chicken skewers or veggies. When I asked a friend born if Japan if the shiso looked okay she became very excited, laid it on her palm and than clapped her other hand down on it to release the aroma. Here a few things to look at: Ume pasta with shiso and nori, shiso wrapped chicken, shiso cocktail, sushi roll with plum and shiso
Kale Salads
Sesame Kale Salad
The following two recipes are similar. Both have a lemony dressing, bread crumbs and grated cheese. The second is basically a slightly different rendition of the first with the addition of raisons and walnuts. Both ways are great, but the first is the simplest. They both call for Tuscan kale or Lacinato kale but any kale will be fine.
Kale Salad with Bread Crumbs
Kale Salad with Bread Crumbs, Walnuts and Raisons
The following two recipes are similar. Both have a lemony dressing, bread crumbs and grated cheese. The second is basically a slightly different rendition of the first with the addition of raisons and walnuts. Both ways are great, but the first is the simplest. They both call for Tuscan kale or Lacinato kale but any kale will be fine.
Kale Salad with Bread Crumbs
Kale Salad with Bread Crumbs, Walnuts and Raisons
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Week 12
We had two goals today after delivery. One was to thresh the seed from the beet plants we pulled out of the ground and spread on tarps last week and the other was to get space cleared out/cleaned up to start receiving onions. The onions started falling over here and there a week or so ago but in the past couple days a lot of them have fallen. Everyday I marvel at how quickly time passes.
Lettuce
Carrots - Purple Haze
Broccoli
Cabbage
Cherry Tomatoes
Potatoes - Satina, gold skin, gold flesh
Korean Melon - Sun Jewel - Small Only
Watermelon- Large Only
The beets took a while(most things take longer than we think they will) so I am off to join Kelly to make some space in our blue metal building for the onions. Hope you all had a great weekend.
We had two goals today after delivery. One was to thresh the seed from the beet plants we pulled out of the ground and spread on tarps last week and the other was to get space cleared out/cleaned up to start receiving onions. The onions started falling over here and there a week or so ago but in the past couple days a lot of them have fallen. Everyday I marvel at how quickly time passes.
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| I took this picture about a week and half ago when they where just starting to fall. Once an onion's neck goes soft and the top falls over it is done growing. There was a point in the spring when we thought we may have lost all our onion seedlings and we thought it might be too late to start new ones. I am ecstatic with how great they look. |
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| As seed growing newbies we don't have a lot of fancy equipment or a definite plan for how to accomplish the threshing but we made do and it went pretty well. |
Lettuce
Carrots - Purple Haze
Broccoli
Cabbage
Cherry Tomatoes
Potatoes - Satina, gold skin, gold flesh
Korean Melon - Sun Jewel - Small Only
Watermelon- Large Only
The beets took a while(most things take longer than we think they will) so I am off to join Kelly to make some space in our blue metal building for the onions. Hope you all had a great weekend.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Week 11
We hit the melon patch on Friday. We harvested a few almost ripe watermelons and a few Sun Jewels, the Korean style melon. Some melons, such as the Sun Jewel, are really easy to judge when they are ready to eat. First they turn yellow and then if they are ready the stem will slip which is means it will release from the melon when you apply the smallest amount of pressure to it. Some melons are what we call forced slip, meaning they are ripe when the stem releases with a little encouragement. Some melons are harvested based on color and skin condition. The watermelons are the trickiest. We look for a tendril that is dying down or dead depending on the variety. Sometimes we look for a nice yellow spot where the melon sits on the ground and sometimes the skin changes color just a little bit. We also thump them but that isn't always reliable and each variety has its own quirks. We eat a lot of melons during melon season, particularly new varieties to make sure we understand how to harvest them. It is fun to wade through the patch grabbing random melons and sampling them (along with hot, sticky and dusty and melons are heavy and difficult to haul out of the field - just incase you are jealous I will give you the full description).
Carrots
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Cherry Tomatoes
Sweet Onion
Herb Choice - most likely cilantro, dill, parsley or basil
Bell Pepper
Slicing Tomato
Sun Jewel Melon - Large Only
Papa Cacho Fingerling Potato - Add On Veggie Only
Papa Cacho-
Can you believe what you read on the internet? We have tried to grow fingerlings before but we always end up underwhelmed with the results. The seed costs more, they have a lower yield and because they are small they get culled harder for blemishes. One blemish on a large potato isn't a big deal but who wants to peel a bunch of baby potatoes? Anyway, I have a habit of deciding something isn't worth growing only to be lured in by some description on the internet or seed catalog that convinces me we need to try growing it again. Papa Cacho has a cool name, is from Peru and lives up to its fingerling name with long somewhat strange looking tubers. It is suppose to have decent yields and late blight resistance. It is also uncommon and I had never seen seed available before. Oh yeah, I fell for it hard. When our seed potato shipment arrived in the spring we unpacked it and put the potatoes into crates to check for any rot and to let them come out of dormancy before planting them Kelly remarked on them. Something heavy with with sarcasm like "I bet these are going to do great" came out of his mouth. Well, I dug a plant today and I really hope they all look like the ones I dug today do. They are beautiful - bright pinkish red and blemish free. The flesh is also pretty - white with pink streaking. The yields don't seem great, but decent for fingerling and the plants look healthier than any other potato out there. Maybe, big maybe, I have found the fingerling for us!
We hit the melon patch on Friday. We harvested a few almost ripe watermelons and a few Sun Jewels, the Korean style melon. Some melons, such as the Sun Jewel, are really easy to judge when they are ready to eat. First they turn yellow and then if they are ready the stem will slip which is means it will release from the melon when you apply the smallest amount of pressure to it. Some melons are what we call forced slip, meaning they are ripe when the stem releases with a little encouragement. Some melons are harvested based on color and skin condition. The watermelons are the trickiest. We look for a tendril that is dying down or dead depending on the variety. Sometimes we look for a nice yellow spot where the melon sits on the ground and sometimes the skin changes color just a little bit. We also thump them but that isn't always reliable and each variety has its own quirks. We eat a lot of melons during melon season, particularly new varieties to make sure we understand how to harvest them. It is fun to wade through the patch grabbing random melons and sampling them (along with hot, sticky and dusty and melons are heavy and difficult to haul out of the field - just incase you are jealous I will give you the full description).
Carrots
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Cherry Tomatoes
Sweet Onion
Herb Choice - most likely cilantro, dill, parsley or basil
Bell Pepper
Slicing Tomato
Sun Jewel Melon - Large Only
Papa Cacho Fingerling Potato - Add On Veggie Only
Papa Cacho-
Can you believe what you read on the internet? We have tried to grow fingerlings before but we always end up underwhelmed with the results. The seed costs more, they have a lower yield and because they are small they get culled harder for blemishes. One blemish on a large potato isn't a big deal but who wants to peel a bunch of baby potatoes? Anyway, I have a habit of deciding something isn't worth growing only to be lured in by some description on the internet or seed catalog that convinces me we need to try growing it again. Papa Cacho has a cool name, is from Peru and lives up to its fingerling name with long somewhat strange looking tubers. It is suppose to have decent yields and late blight resistance. It is also uncommon and I had never seen seed available before. Oh yeah, I fell for it hard. When our seed potato shipment arrived in the spring we unpacked it and put the potatoes into crates to check for any rot and to let them come out of dormancy before planting them Kelly remarked on them. Something heavy with with sarcasm like "I bet these are going to do great" came out of his mouth. Well, I dug a plant today and I really hope they all look like the ones I dug today do. They are beautiful - bright pinkish red and blemish free. The flesh is also pretty - white with pink streaking. The yields don't seem great, but decent for fingerling and the plants look healthier than any other potato out there. Maybe, big maybe, I have found the fingerling for us!
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Week 10
Most of the time we try to have what we call a no alarm Sunday. We don't get up much later than normal but it is just nice to feel like there is a bit of flexibility and it is nice not to listen to the alarm go off four or five times while I have coffee and tidy up - someone likes to snooze. This morning we had an alarm of a different sort. I casually glanced out the kitchen window after I made coffee and noticed Blackberry in the corn field. Not the invasive weed, but the neighbor's large black cow, who was looking at me from from the edge of the field while chewing. I yelled to Kelly who was still in bed. "There is a cow in the corn", I shouted. "Shut up" he responded in annoyed disbelief thinking I was just trying to wake him up. "No seriously, there are two cows in the corn, no there are three cows in the corn" I said as I approached the window and my view widened. He was dressed before I even finished the sentence. I called the neighbors and Kelly convinced the cows to hit the road. The damage could have been much worse. I would estimate it at about four nice steaks and few packages of ground beef. They also sampled the zucchini and melons but they seemed to favor the corn. I don't typically feel like we live in the country but this morning I did.
We do have some corn from a different field that is ready to harvest and you will have it in your boxes this week along with some other summer treats.
Lettuce
Zucchini - All you can eat…help yourself.
Cherry Tomatoes
Slicing Tomato - This one is a little iffy but I am hopeful. You might have bell peppers instead.
Corn - This is a small planting. The planting at our house, even after this morning's incident, will hopefully produce a heftier harvest a little later in the season.
Green Beans - Thanks to a farm share member I had the best green beans the other night. I am not sure I made it exactly how she does but it was delicious. Chop up some tomato and garlic and put them in a bowl with some olive oil and salt. Stir the mixture and let it sit while you prep the green beans. Remove the stems of the green beans and slice them into three pieces. Blanch until they reach the point at which you like to eat your green beans. Drain and toss into the tomato mixture. Add a little chopped basil and or parsley. I liked how the slicing tomato gave off a lot of juice but cherry tomatoes would make for a prettier presentation.
Poblanos - Cauliflower for those of you who received poblanos last week
Garlic
Papalo - Add On Veggie Only
Papalo
Two years ago this week Kelly and I got married in our back yard by our friend Chad with his wife and kiddo sharing a front row seat with our friends Josh and Mellissa, from Newuakam Valley Farm, serving as our witnesses. It was low key and we all sat around our dining room table for tacos and chile rellenos afterward. Melissa brought one of the best salsa I had ever had. It was made with plums from their farm and seasoned with papalo. I had not only never had papalo, I had never heard of it. Apparently it is eaten daily in Bolivia and is native to South America. It can be found growing wild in Mexico and in Texas and Arizona. It has a distinct taste. Despite my love of the plum salsa I am a little unsure about it at the moment. Our plums are almost ready and I will give it another go when we make tacos for our anniversary. What should you do with it? In Puebla it is eaten on a sandwich called a cemita and according to the internet often found in vases in restaurants so that customers can add it to their food. I would suggest using it the way you use cilantro in salsa but use far less. It can also be used in guacamole.
Most of the time we try to have what we call a no alarm Sunday. We don't get up much later than normal but it is just nice to feel like there is a bit of flexibility and it is nice not to listen to the alarm go off four or five times while I have coffee and tidy up - someone likes to snooze. This morning we had an alarm of a different sort. I casually glanced out the kitchen window after I made coffee and noticed Blackberry in the corn field. Not the invasive weed, but the neighbor's large black cow, who was looking at me from from the edge of the field while chewing. I yelled to Kelly who was still in bed. "There is a cow in the corn", I shouted. "Shut up" he responded in annoyed disbelief thinking I was just trying to wake him up. "No seriously, there are two cows in the corn, no there are three cows in the corn" I said as I approached the window and my view widened. He was dressed before I even finished the sentence. I called the neighbors and Kelly convinced the cows to hit the road. The damage could have been much worse. I would estimate it at about four nice steaks and few packages of ground beef. They also sampled the zucchini and melons but they seemed to favor the corn. I don't typically feel like we live in the country but this morning I did.
We do have some corn from a different field that is ready to harvest and you will have it in your boxes this week along with some other summer treats.
Lettuce
Zucchini - All you can eat…help yourself.
Cherry Tomatoes
Slicing Tomato - This one is a little iffy but I am hopeful. You might have bell peppers instead.
Corn - This is a small planting. The planting at our house, even after this morning's incident, will hopefully produce a heftier harvest a little later in the season.
Green Beans - Thanks to a farm share member I had the best green beans the other night. I am not sure I made it exactly how she does but it was delicious. Chop up some tomato and garlic and put them in a bowl with some olive oil and salt. Stir the mixture and let it sit while you prep the green beans. Remove the stems of the green beans and slice them into three pieces. Blanch until they reach the point at which you like to eat your green beans. Drain and toss into the tomato mixture. Add a little chopped basil and or parsley. I liked how the slicing tomato gave off a lot of juice but cherry tomatoes would make for a prettier presentation.
Poblanos - Cauliflower for those of you who received poblanos last week
Garlic
Papalo - Add On Veggie Only
Papalo
Two years ago this week Kelly and I got married in our back yard by our friend Chad with his wife and kiddo sharing a front row seat with our friends Josh and Mellissa, from Newuakam Valley Farm, serving as our witnesses. It was low key and we all sat around our dining room table for tacos and chile rellenos afterward. Melissa brought one of the best salsa I had ever had. It was made with plums from their farm and seasoned with papalo. I had not only never had papalo, I had never heard of it. Apparently it is eaten daily in Bolivia and is native to South America. It can be found growing wild in Mexico and in Texas and Arizona. It has a distinct taste. Despite my love of the plum salsa I am a little unsure about it at the moment. Our plums are almost ready and I will give it another go when we make tacos for our anniversary. What should you do with it? In Puebla it is eaten on a sandwich called a cemita and according to the internet often found in vases in restaurants so that customers can add it to their food. I would suggest using it the way you use cilantro in salsa but use far less. It can also be used in guacamole.
Week 9
When I picked zucchini this morning for a co-op order I noticed that it is about time to call it quits on the first round of cukes and zukes. The plants are starting to look a little tired and the plants are producing some funny shaped fruits. We also pulled down all the peas last week and got a lot of the trellising removed. Although we are still planting things we have turned a corner. The stand looked beautiful this weekend with some tomatoes, peppers and lots of flowers on it but the fields are giving us a glimpse into the future…summer is fading in some ways.
As far as your boxes go, we have a lot of summer ahead of us so don't let me get you down!
Carrots
Lettuce - Lovelock, it is a nice Batavian style mild lettuce with a good crunch.
Cherry Tomatoes
Japanese Cucumbers - When we first started growing these we didn't know how pick them. We just came up with our own opinion and went with it. Then, Hiroko, a customer originally from Japan, set us straight. For a while we continued to pick them our own way, always picking a few slimmer ones for her. Then this year we started picking them smaller and then we started to waffle back and forth which is kind of where we are now. In Japan and Korea they are picked more slender than the ones in your box today. The problem is they are fairly perishable and the slender ones go soft even quicker than the larger ones do. I think they taste great at the size we started picking them or we wouldn't have decided on that size but I feel like it is a little bit like when your neighbor gives you that giant zucchini and you think to yourself - don't you know better. Someone knows better than we do and we can't decide if we should give in or just do it our own way. They do taste great skinnier but they go soft in a New York minute.
Potatoes - Satina, gold skin, gold flesh
Walla Walla Onion- love these sliced and grilled on a burger or a sandwich
Cauliflower or Poblano Pepper - We were not sure if we would get heads of cauliflower this week for everybody so we are going to save ourselves some stress and split it into two weeks. Some of you will get cauli this week and some next. The week you don't have cauliflower you will have poblano peppers. They aren't a bit like cauliflower but they are yummy.
Salad Mix - Large Only
Pursalane - Add on Veggie Only
Here is an easy traditional way to use your not so traditionally picked cucumber. Sunonono Salad is great served nice an cold and garnished with sesame seeds.
What to do with your poblano peppers other than make chile rellenos.
The pobalnos we have eaten have been on the spicy end of the poblano spice range.
Rick Bayless has a great potato salad recipe with a poblano mayonnaise. What the blogger doesn't mention is that your olive oil should be mild or use veggie oil and that it is best eaten before you refrigerate it. The blogger likes it with bacon which I am sure is awesome. I love it with grilled salmon and a salad. If you don't want to make your own mayo you could just jazz up some regular mayo with some roasted poblanos.
Ian, who some of you see on Wednesday, mentioned that he and his partner made a poblano cream sauce. Sounds good - I think you could make really rich with just heavy cream or a little lighter with a mix of stock and cream or even stock and milk if you thickened it a bit. I need to experiment.
Roasted pobalnos are great on both chicken and steak tacos or in a breakfast burrito. They add a little smokiness, a little heat and a lot of flavor
Add on Veggie - Pursalne
Yes, we are giving you a weed but not just any weed. It is high in Omega-3 fatty acids and many people extol it as a super food. I am kind of sick of that word and I mainly like it because I think it tastes good. Of course things that taste good and are good for you are hard to beat. It grows almost anywhere which is probably why I found recipes and traditional food lore about it from countries all around the world.
You have two kinds of pursalne. One is a cultivated variety that I ordered seed for and planted in tidy rows. It is the lighter of the two, has bigger leaves and grows more upright making it easier to harvest. I am not sure it tastes better. I kind of think the leaves of the weed taste better but the stems of the cultivated variety taste better. I thought it would be fun to give you both. What I like about pursalane is that it has a great texture and a lemony flavor.
Up until today I always ate it raw and almost always as a little snack as I was walking around the field or weeding something. Lots of weeds are edible but pursalane is the only one I bother with. I knew that it was used in Mexican cooking (called Verdolagos) and have wanted to try a pork dish I came across in a magazine a long time ago. The flavor reminds me a little of nopales, the cactus eaten in Mexico and often served with tomatoes. I quickly grilled some whole - just a a little oil and a minute on a hot grill. I then chopped it up, minus the bottom stem, with some grilled onions, tomatoes and garlic and a drizzle of olive oil. I think it could make a great salad or a great salsa this way with a little hot pepper added. I also made the pork dish I had once read about with from a recipe I got from Rick Bayless. You can find a very similar version here that is adapted just slightly from the original recipe. Bayless also suggests making it with out the pork. We really enjoyed it.
I haven't made either of the salad recipes below but they are both very easy and both similar to the salad I made with tomatoes and onions.
Pursalane Salad with Parsley
Pursalane Salad with Cucumber
I realize that I send this post out very close to when you actually receive the unusual item and if you prefer to plan in advance or don't like to make do and improvise in recipes this is probably inconvenient. I thought it might be helpful if I tell you that the next two add on vegetables you will receive will both be herbs. One is papalo, a mexican herb and the other is shiso, an herb used in Japan.
Happy Eating.
When I picked zucchini this morning for a co-op order I noticed that it is about time to call it quits on the first round of cukes and zukes. The plants are starting to look a little tired and the plants are producing some funny shaped fruits. We also pulled down all the peas last week and got a lot of the trellising removed. Although we are still planting things we have turned a corner. The stand looked beautiful this weekend with some tomatoes, peppers and lots of flowers on it but the fields are giving us a glimpse into the future…summer is fading in some ways.
As far as your boxes go, we have a lot of summer ahead of us so don't let me get you down!
Carrots
Lettuce - Lovelock, it is a nice Batavian style mild lettuce with a good crunch.
Cherry Tomatoes
Japanese Cucumbers - When we first started growing these we didn't know how pick them. We just came up with our own opinion and went with it. Then, Hiroko, a customer originally from Japan, set us straight. For a while we continued to pick them our own way, always picking a few slimmer ones for her. Then this year we started picking them smaller and then we started to waffle back and forth which is kind of where we are now. In Japan and Korea they are picked more slender than the ones in your box today. The problem is they are fairly perishable and the slender ones go soft even quicker than the larger ones do. I think they taste great at the size we started picking them or we wouldn't have decided on that size but I feel like it is a little bit like when your neighbor gives you that giant zucchini and you think to yourself - don't you know better. Someone knows better than we do and we can't decide if we should give in or just do it our own way. They do taste great skinnier but they go soft in a New York minute.
Potatoes - Satina, gold skin, gold flesh
Walla Walla Onion- love these sliced and grilled on a burger or a sandwich
Cauliflower or Poblano Pepper - We were not sure if we would get heads of cauliflower this week for everybody so we are going to save ourselves some stress and split it into two weeks. Some of you will get cauli this week and some next. The week you don't have cauliflower you will have poblano peppers. They aren't a bit like cauliflower but they are yummy.
Salad Mix - Large Only
Pursalane - Add on Veggie Only
Here is an easy traditional way to use your not so traditionally picked cucumber. Sunonono Salad is great served nice an cold and garnished with sesame seeds.
What to do with your poblano peppers other than make chile rellenos.
The pobalnos we have eaten have been on the spicy end of the poblano spice range.
Rick Bayless has a great potato salad recipe with a poblano mayonnaise. What the blogger doesn't mention is that your olive oil should be mild or use veggie oil and that it is best eaten before you refrigerate it. The blogger likes it with bacon which I am sure is awesome. I love it with grilled salmon and a salad. If you don't want to make your own mayo you could just jazz up some regular mayo with some roasted poblanos.
Ian, who some of you see on Wednesday, mentioned that he and his partner made a poblano cream sauce. Sounds good - I think you could make really rich with just heavy cream or a little lighter with a mix of stock and cream or even stock and milk if you thickened it a bit. I need to experiment.
Roasted pobalnos are great on both chicken and steak tacos or in a breakfast burrito. They add a little smokiness, a little heat and a lot of flavor
Add on Veggie - Pursalne
Yes, we are giving you a weed but not just any weed. It is high in Omega-3 fatty acids and many people extol it as a super food. I am kind of sick of that word and I mainly like it because I think it tastes good. Of course things that taste good and are good for you are hard to beat. It grows almost anywhere which is probably why I found recipes and traditional food lore about it from countries all around the world.
You have two kinds of pursalne. One is a cultivated variety that I ordered seed for and planted in tidy rows. It is the lighter of the two, has bigger leaves and grows more upright making it easier to harvest. I am not sure it tastes better. I kind of think the leaves of the weed taste better but the stems of the cultivated variety taste better. I thought it would be fun to give you both. What I like about pursalane is that it has a great texture and a lemony flavor.
Up until today I always ate it raw and almost always as a little snack as I was walking around the field or weeding something. Lots of weeds are edible but pursalane is the only one I bother with. I knew that it was used in Mexican cooking (called Verdolagos) and have wanted to try a pork dish I came across in a magazine a long time ago. The flavor reminds me a little of nopales, the cactus eaten in Mexico and often served with tomatoes. I quickly grilled some whole - just a a little oil and a minute on a hot grill. I then chopped it up, minus the bottom stem, with some grilled onions, tomatoes and garlic and a drizzle of olive oil. I think it could make a great salad or a great salsa this way with a little hot pepper added. I also made the pork dish I had once read about with from a recipe I got from Rick Bayless. You can find a very similar version here that is adapted just slightly from the original recipe. Bayless also suggests making it with out the pork. We really enjoyed it.
I haven't made either of the salad recipes below but they are both very easy and both similar to the salad I made with tomatoes and onions.
Pursalane Salad with Parsley
Pursalane Salad with Cucumber
I realize that I send this post out very close to when you actually receive the unusual item and if you prefer to plan in advance or don't like to make do and improvise in recipes this is probably inconvenient. I thought it might be helpful if I tell you that the next two add on vegetables you will receive will both be herbs. One is papalo, a mexican herb and the other is shiso, an herb used in Japan.
Happy Eating.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Week 8
What a beautiful day! While you can't get ahead when watering you can at least go into the heat spell feeling like you are not behind and we spent the last couple days making sure everything, particularly the fall brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, kale, broccoli) that were transplanted on Thursday were well watered. The heat will be stressful for some plants but much less so if they go into it healthy. You are all getting cherry tomatoes but before pump your fists in the air with excitement let me say that what we pick will be divided between everyone if it is only five tomatoes per person (I hope not, that would be sad) then you can enjoy them on the way home and look forward to next week. They didn't pick as well as I thought they would on Friday (about five tomatoes per person if pick-up had been that day) but I am hoping, desperately, for a better yield tomorrow. Even without a bounty of tomatoes you have a nice summer box. We have had a lot of nice meals in the past week. It is the season of good eating. Hope you have a chance to enjoy the warm evenings and some good food.
Carrots - Purple Haze, great raw or roasted
Zucchini- We marinated some slices in a lot of garlic, lime juice, olive oil, salt and cumin and grilled them along with some onions and green pepper. We then chopped it all up with some cherry tomatoes and tossed it in a bowl with some steamed potatoes and the left over marinade. We used it in some veggie burritos and it was so good.
Green Beans
Onions - The Italian Tropea are ahead of the Walla Walla Sweets this year, as they are suppose to be, but often aren't. They are on the mild end of the onion spectrum and are great grilled or in salads.
Cherry Tomatoes
Bell Pepper - purple(tastes like green) or green
Broccoli - We roasted some of this the other night and it was extra tasty. I sliced slender pieces with just a bit of floret and a long stem, tossed them in oil with some salt and roasted at 400 degrees.
Herb - most likely a choice of mint, basil or parsley
Kale - Large Only - From a new planting and pretty tender - good raw or cooked.
Winter Squash Leaves/Tips - Veggie Add On Only
Squash Leaves -
There are a lot of things in the garden that other cultures eat that many people don't even consider when gathering food from a garden. I saw a blog post several years ago about Hmong farmers market vendors in Seattle selling squash leaves. That post was my inspiration for including these in your box. You can find the recipe here at the original post written by a Thai chef, Pranee, who is based in Seattle and teaches cooking classes in the Seattle area and occasionally in Olympia. The recipe given is great. It is fast and easy - greens, coconut milk, water and salt. The broth is very salty. I thought it was too salty on its own but enjoyed the saltiness of the leaves. You should trim off the bottom part of your stem but save the lower leaf. The upper stem, the little squash buds and the all the leaves are edible as is. Some of the lower stems on mine where fine and some where really tough and stringy so to be on the safe side I am just telling you to get rid of the lower stem. I could tell as I was harvesting them that some where more tender but I couldn't figure out why.
After doing a bit more research I discovered that winter squash leaves are popular in African dishes and are often used interchangeably with collards, sweet potato leaves or cabbage (hmm, do you still have one in your fridge?). I started looking at recipes from Malwai but then found several others from other countries. They all contained similar ingredients: greens, onions and tomatoes. Many also included ground peanuts or a bit of raw peanut butter (I got the impression that was cheating a bit but contributes a similar flavor and is easier). It appears the squash leaves used in most African dishes are larger, full sized leaves that are peeled. I assume that the flavor is the same and your tips would do the trick. Heifer International has an easy recipe on their website. I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I only had a handful of leaves left so I made a mini version. I liked it a lot and think it would be great with rice or you could do a little research and serve it with the traditional corn mush it is often eaten with in Malwai.
Finally, it appears there is an Scillian dish that uses the leaves/tips of a zucchini/gourd looking thing called a cucuzza. I didn't try preparing the squash leaves in this way but if you want to check it out you can google tenerumi. You can find a recipe from Saveur magazine here.
Squash leaves can be scratchy. I didn't find them to be bothersome after being harvested and washed but you all have seen my hands! I suspect yours might be a little more sensitive.
Happy Cooking.
What a beautiful day! While you can't get ahead when watering you can at least go into the heat spell feeling like you are not behind and we spent the last couple days making sure everything, particularly the fall brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, kale, broccoli) that were transplanted on Thursday were well watered. The heat will be stressful for some plants but much less so if they go into it healthy. You are all getting cherry tomatoes but before pump your fists in the air with excitement let me say that what we pick will be divided between everyone if it is only five tomatoes per person (I hope not, that would be sad) then you can enjoy them on the way home and look forward to next week. They didn't pick as well as I thought they would on Friday (about five tomatoes per person if pick-up had been that day) but I am hoping, desperately, for a better yield tomorrow. Even without a bounty of tomatoes you have a nice summer box. We have had a lot of nice meals in the past week. It is the season of good eating. Hope you have a chance to enjoy the warm evenings and some good food.
Carrots - Purple Haze, great raw or roasted
Zucchini- We marinated some slices in a lot of garlic, lime juice, olive oil, salt and cumin and grilled them along with some onions and green pepper. We then chopped it all up with some cherry tomatoes and tossed it in a bowl with some steamed potatoes and the left over marinade. We used it in some veggie burritos and it was so good.
Green Beans
Onions - The Italian Tropea are ahead of the Walla Walla Sweets this year, as they are suppose to be, but often aren't. They are on the mild end of the onion spectrum and are great grilled or in salads.
Cherry Tomatoes
Bell Pepper - purple(tastes like green) or green
Broccoli - We roasted some of this the other night and it was extra tasty. I sliced slender pieces with just a bit of floret and a long stem, tossed them in oil with some salt and roasted at 400 degrees.
Herb - most likely a choice of mint, basil or parsley
Kale - Large Only - From a new planting and pretty tender - good raw or cooked.
Winter Squash Leaves/Tips - Veggie Add On Only
Squash Leaves -
There are a lot of things in the garden that other cultures eat that many people don't even consider when gathering food from a garden. I saw a blog post several years ago about Hmong farmers market vendors in Seattle selling squash leaves. That post was my inspiration for including these in your box. You can find the recipe here at the original post written by a Thai chef, Pranee, who is based in Seattle and teaches cooking classes in the Seattle area and occasionally in Olympia. The recipe given is great. It is fast and easy - greens, coconut milk, water and salt. The broth is very salty. I thought it was too salty on its own but enjoyed the saltiness of the leaves. You should trim off the bottom part of your stem but save the lower leaf. The upper stem, the little squash buds and the all the leaves are edible as is. Some of the lower stems on mine where fine and some where really tough and stringy so to be on the safe side I am just telling you to get rid of the lower stem. I could tell as I was harvesting them that some where more tender but I couldn't figure out why.
After doing a bit more research I discovered that winter squash leaves are popular in African dishes and are often used interchangeably with collards, sweet potato leaves or cabbage (hmm, do you still have one in your fridge?). I started looking at recipes from Malwai but then found several others from other countries. They all contained similar ingredients: greens, onions and tomatoes. Many also included ground peanuts or a bit of raw peanut butter (I got the impression that was cheating a bit but contributes a similar flavor and is easier). It appears the squash leaves used in most African dishes are larger, full sized leaves that are peeled. I assume that the flavor is the same and your tips would do the trick. Heifer International has an easy recipe on their website. I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I only had a handful of leaves left so I made a mini version. I liked it a lot and think it would be great with rice or you could do a little research and serve it with the traditional corn mush it is often eaten with in Malwai.
Finally, it appears there is an Scillian dish that uses the leaves/tips of a zucchini/gourd looking thing called a cucuzza. I didn't try preparing the squash leaves in this way but if you want to check it out you can google tenerumi. You can find a recipe from Saveur magazine here.
Squash leaves can be scratchy. I didn't find them to be bothersome after being harvested and washed but you all have seen my hands! I suspect yours might be a little more sensitive.
Happy Cooking.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Week 7
On Friday evening we got a text from some friends in Portland asking if we were in the mood for some company on Saturday. They offered to come a different weekend if that was better. Honestly, it wasn't a great weekend. Our house was riding a fine line between not so tidy and embarrassingly messy, well, okay, no it wasn't, it was embarrassingly messy. I wasn't really sure when we would fine time in less than 24 hours to clean it but sometimes company is good motivation and I love a deadline. I work myself into a frenzy, spin in circles, get a little irrational and some how in spite of myself, still manage to get stuff done when there is a deadline. That is also a little how I am feeling about the fun vegetable. I have had a couple failures, frantically ordered some random seed and am hoping for the best but here we are at week 7 and you folks need some veggies! It feels a little scattered but I have faith it will work out. It still feels fun to me to be growing new stuff but I have to admit I am feeling a bit of pressure. Next week we should have your first installment. I do hope we get some heat…the lima beans aren't real impressed with what mother nature has dealt them and neither are a couple other heat loving crops.
One thing that is enjoying the cooler weather is the snap peas. The ones in your boxes are out of the third planting. The first two plantings typically do pretty well but the third one sometimes barely produces enough to cover the labor of putting up and taking down the trellis. I am thrilled we are getting some good harvests off it. People often ask how the weather is affecting the crops. Most of the time something is happy regardless of whether the temperature is above or below average. At the moment the peas are happy and the melons are probably going to be later this year than last year. Regardless of the weather we should have some cherry tomatoes for you next week along with beans and maybe some fresh onions. There will be a few pints of cherry tomatoes on the trade table this week.
Carrots
Beets - A farm share member asked about beets last week and I thought you know it is time for beets again. We haven't eaten any in a while and I am looking forward to having some tomorrow evening. If the cooking time deters you I would recommend cooking them a night or two before you need them. After dinner give them a quick peel and throw them in the fridge. Once cooked they also freeze nicely.
Head Lettuce
Japanese Cucumber
Caribe Potatoes - After not having this variety of potato for a few years I am excited to have it back. The past couple years we haven't been able to get it and in its place we have grown a potato with a blue skin and a gold flesh called Peter Wilcox. PW is a nice potato but my heart still belongs to Caribe which has a bright purple skin and a white flesh. It tastes as good, is early and is gorgeous. Plus the farm Kelly worked on in Maine grew it when we were there and it has some nostalgia for me. We roasted some on Saturday when our friends came over and I tossed them for the last couple minutes of cooking with garlic, parsley and scallions. I should probably move on but I just can't get enough of that combination.
Snap Peas - later gator - last round.
Cabbage - Last week we decided to for go the cabbage to the large shares in favor of cauliflower. This week we have cabbage for everyone.
Parsley - Large Only
On Friday evening we got a text from some friends in Portland asking if we were in the mood for some company on Saturday. They offered to come a different weekend if that was better. Honestly, it wasn't a great weekend. Our house was riding a fine line between not so tidy and embarrassingly messy, well, okay, no it wasn't, it was embarrassingly messy. I wasn't really sure when we would fine time in less than 24 hours to clean it but sometimes company is good motivation and I love a deadline. I work myself into a frenzy, spin in circles, get a little irrational and some how in spite of myself, still manage to get stuff done when there is a deadline. That is also a little how I am feeling about the fun vegetable. I have had a couple failures, frantically ordered some random seed and am hoping for the best but here we are at week 7 and you folks need some veggies! It feels a little scattered but I have faith it will work out. It still feels fun to me to be growing new stuff but I have to admit I am feeling a bit of pressure. Next week we should have your first installment. I do hope we get some heat…the lima beans aren't real impressed with what mother nature has dealt them and neither are a couple other heat loving crops.
One thing that is enjoying the cooler weather is the snap peas. The ones in your boxes are out of the third planting. The first two plantings typically do pretty well but the third one sometimes barely produces enough to cover the labor of putting up and taking down the trellis. I am thrilled we are getting some good harvests off it. People often ask how the weather is affecting the crops. Most of the time something is happy regardless of whether the temperature is above or below average. At the moment the peas are happy and the melons are probably going to be later this year than last year. Regardless of the weather we should have some cherry tomatoes for you next week along with beans and maybe some fresh onions. There will be a few pints of cherry tomatoes on the trade table this week.
Carrots
Beets - A farm share member asked about beets last week and I thought you know it is time for beets again. We haven't eaten any in a while and I am looking forward to having some tomorrow evening. If the cooking time deters you I would recommend cooking them a night or two before you need them. After dinner give them a quick peel and throw them in the fridge. Once cooked they also freeze nicely.
Head Lettuce
Japanese Cucumber
Caribe Potatoes - After not having this variety of potato for a few years I am excited to have it back. The past couple years we haven't been able to get it and in its place we have grown a potato with a blue skin and a gold flesh called Peter Wilcox. PW is a nice potato but my heart still belongs to Caribe which has a bright purple skin and a white flesh. It tastes as good, is early and is gorgeous. Plus the farm Kelly worked on in Maine grew it when we were there and it has some nostalgia for me. We roasted some on Saturday when our friends came over and I tossed them for the last couple minutes of cooking with garlic, parsley and scallions. I should probably move on but I just can't get enough of that combination.
Snap Peas - later gator - last round.
Cabbage - Last week we decided to for go the cabbage to the large shares in favor of cauliflower. This week we have cabbage for everyone.
Parsley - Large Only
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Week 6
We reached a couple milestones in the season this week. We pulled most of our garlic and I picked my first cherry tomato of the season. Just as it seems like it takes forever to get the first ripe tomato, it also seems like forever before we are actually picking pints of cherry tomatoes. We push to have a lot of things early and strive to be the first among our fellow farmers to have certain vegetables (carrots, cukes, cabbages, peppers). We do it mainly because we like to have a nice selection but this year it has been to our advantage at farmers market where I think we have gained some customers by having vegetables that other farms don't have yet. However when it comes to tomatoes we never succeed, mainly because we don't prioritize the space in our greenhouse to starting them early. I settle for eating my single sungold and admiring the Facebook pages of other farms who are picking a few pints. Hopefully with our new greenhouse we will be able to change that for next year. I want to be the first with everything (insert evil laugh here)!
Radish - It is hard to believe that this is the first box where everyone gets radishes since they are usually such a spring staple. The season got off to a warm start but the weather lately has been very radish friendly. We don't usually grow summer radishes but thought we would try a little experiment this summer and seed them a few times - so far, so good.
Romaine Lettuce - These have a little sizing up to do - some of you will have two smaller ones.
Zucchini Medley
Garlic
Scallions - Scallions aren't around long and they look so nice right now that you are getting them two weeks in a row. That will do it for the season. I have a scallion dumpling recipe and I am in danger of missing scallion season and not trying it nor have we had scallion pancakes year this year. I better get cooking. Bunched onions should only be a couple weeks out.
Carrots
Broccoli - Small Only
Cabbage - Large Only - Most of these are big. I wish they were smaller, most people like smaller cabbages. It might be a good time to try making stuffed cabbage rolls. They work great with the big leaves and are delicious. Or maybe a small batch of kraut, or maybe now would be a good time to get a pet bunny…just joking.
Summer Turnips - Large Only
Snap Peas or Beans - Large Only, Choose One
We reached a couple milestones in the season this week. We pulled most of our garlic and I picked my first cherry tomato of the season. Just as it seems like it takes forever to get the first ripe tomato, it also seems like forever before we are actually picking pints of cherry tomatoes. We push to have a lot of things early and strive to be the first among our fellow farmers to have certain vegetables (carrots, cukes, cabbages, peppers). We do it mainly because we like to have a nice selection but this year it has been to our advantage at farmers market where I think we have gained some customers by having vegetables that other farms don't have yet. However when it comes to tomatoes we never succeed, mainly because we don't prioritize the space in our greenhouse to starting them early. I settle for eating my single sungold and admiring the Facebook pages of other farms who are picking a few pints. Hopefully with our new greenhouse we will be able to change that for next year. I want to be the first with everything (insert evil laugh here)!
Radish - It is hard to believe that this is the first box where everyone gets radishes since they are usually such a spring staple. The season got off to a warm start but the weather lately has been very radish friendly. We don't usually grow summer radishes but thought we would try a little experiment this summer and seed them a few times - so far, so good.
Romaine Lettuce - These have a little sizing up to do - some of you will have two smaller ones.
Zucchini Medley
Garlic
Scallions - Scallions aren't around long and they look so nice right now that you are getting them two weeks in a row. That will do it for the season. I have a scallion dumpling recipe and I am in danger of missing scallion season and not trying it nor have we had scallion pancakes year this year. I better get cooking. Bunched onions should only be a couple weeks out.
Carrots
Broccoli - Small Only
Cabbage - Large Only - Most of these are big. I wish they were smaller, most people like smaller cabbages. It might be a good time to try making stuffed cabbage rolls. They work great with the big leaves and are delicious. Or maybe a small batch of kraut, or maybe now would be a good time to get a pet bunny…just joking.
Summer Turnips - Large Only
Snap Peas or Beans - Large Only, Choose One
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Week 5
I was about to write that new potatoes are the vegetable I look forward to the most but as I was about to start typing I wondered how many times I have said that about other vegetables. I am always enamored with whatever I haven't eaten in months. I am the same with flowers. Daffodils are my favorite, followed by lilacs and so forth. However, I think that new potatoes still get me more excited than anything else in the garden. I even contemplated buying some from another farm a couple weeks ago. I dug some last week and then we ate them three nights in a row. One night we had some as an appetizer and then I prepared them a different way with dinner. I know, I am crazy about potatoes. In New England new potatoes, peas and salmon are all traditional July 4th foods. When the Northeast had wild salmon runs and most people had a garden all three timed well with the 4th. These days it is not as common of a meal but when Kelly and I lived in Maine many folks would search out new potatoes and peas at the farmer's market for the 4th of July. New potatoes are great steamed and tossed with some butter or olive oil and some fresh herbs. My favorite way to prepare them is to cut them in half, steam them until tender and then pan fry them so the cut side gets nice and crispy. I usually just season them with salt and pepper but last week I tossed a bunch of chopped parsley and minced garlic in the pan for the last 30 seconds and then placed the potatoes crispy side up on the plate and topped with with parsley and garlic mixture. Most new potatoes in the store are not really new potatoes. They are just small potatoes(often red) or a thin skinned variety. A true new potato can be any color it is just a potato that hasn't fully matured. As a result it is often smaller, has a barely there skin and tends to be waxier and hold its shape better when cooked. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Carrots
Lettuce
Cucumber - Last week the small shares had a traditional slicing cucumber and the large shares had a slicing cucumber and a Japanese cucumber. This week you will all have a Japanese style cucumber. They have a thinner skin, a smaller seed cavity and a crisper flesh.
Scallions
New Potatoes
Snap Pea - These won't be around much longer.
Broccoli - Large Only
Rainbow Chard - Large Only
Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend.
I was about to write that new potatoes are the vegetable I look forward to the most but as I was about to start typing I wondered how many times I have said that about other vegetables. I am always enamored with whatever I haven't eaten in months. I am the same with flowers. Daffodils are my favorite, followed by lilacs and so forth. However, I think that new potatoes still get me more excited than anything else in the garden. I even contemplated buying some from another farm a couple weeks ago. I dug some last week and then we ate them three nights in a row. One night we had some as an appetizer and then I prepared them a different way with dinner. I know, I am crazy about potatoes. In New England new potatoes, peas and salmon are all traditional July 4th foods. When the Northeast had wild salmon runs and most people had a garden all three timed well with the 4th. These days it is not as common of a meal but when Kelly and I lived in Maine many folks would search out new potatoes and peas at the farmer's market for the 4th of July. New potatoes are great steamed and tossed with some butter or olive oil and some fresh herbs. My favorite way to prepare them is to cut them in half, steam them until tender and then pan fry them so the cut side gets nice and crispy. I usually just season them with salt and pepper but last week I tossed a bunch of chopped parsley and minced garlic in the pan for the last 30 seconds and then placed the potatoes crispy side up on the plate and topped with with parsley and garlic mixture. Most new potatoes in the store are not really new potatoes. They are just small potatoes(often red) or a thin skinned variety. A true new potato can be any color it is just a potato that hasn't fully matured. As a result it is often smaller, has a barely there skin and tends to be waxier and hold its shape better when cooked. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Carrots
Lettuce
Cucumber - Last week the small shares had a traditional slicing cucumber and the large shares had a slicing cucumber and a Japanese cucumber. This week you will all have a Japanese style cucumber. They have a thinner skin, a smaller seed cavity and a crisper flesh.
Scallions
New Potatoes
Snap Pea - These won't be around much longer.
Broccoli - Large Only
Rainbow Chard - Large Only
Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend.
Monday, June 27, 2016
Week 4
What a crazy week. We had a couple crew members out of town and it has been hard to keep up. We have been doing a lot of harvesting and not enough weeding. We capped off our busy week with a wedding yesterday. It was fun to get out of our everyday clothes and relax a bit.
We have some extra help this week and that should help us get the weeds under control. Hopefully new potatoes are about ready to be dug…maybe for next week's box (pure speculation). We did get the peppers uncovered this week and are happy with how they look.
Box looks like the perfect box for the nice weather that is in store for us. Enjoy the sunshine and the veggies.
Lettuce - a pretty red oak leaf
Carrots
Snap Peas
Zucchini - green and yellow
Cucumbers
Raspberries - if you didn't get raspberries last week they will be in your box this week.
Spinach - Large Share Only
What a crazy week. We had a couple crew members out of town and it has been hard to keep up. We have been doing a lot of harvesting and not enough weeding. We capped off our busy week with a wedding yesterday. It was fun to get out of our everyday clothes and relax a bit.
 |
| We filled all the containers we grabbed for pea harvest on Friday and had to go back for more after lunch! |
We have some extra help this week and that should help us get the weeds under control. Hopefully new potatoes are about ready to be dug…maybe for next week's box (pure speculation). We did get the peppers uncovered this week and are happy with how they look. Box looks like the perfect box for the nice weather that is in store for us. Enjoy the sunshine and the veggies.
Lettuce - a pretty red oak leaf
Carrots
Snap Peas
Zucchini - green and yellow
Cucumbers
Raspberries - if you didn't get raspberries last week they will be in your box this week.
Spinach - Large Share Only
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Week 3
I've noticed in the past few years that food magazines have become much better at focusing on recipes that use vegetables that are in season. As someone who grows food I really appreciate that. I looked through a few pages of the new Food & Wine and there were recipes for both kale and snap peas that caught my eye. A customer asked what I like to do with snap peas on Saturday and I had nothing to say. I said " I don't know, I usually just eat them raw". Sure I throw them in salads and spring rolls and maybe chop a few up for a curry or stir fry but I don't have a go to snap pea dish. In general, the idea of cooking them doesn't really appeal to me. They just seem so good as they are. The truth is I hardly even ever take any home - they mostly just serve as farm snacks. That isn't to say I don't eat my fair share. I eat a lot them. There are often a few peas in my pocket! I am attaching links to the recipes that caught my eye in the magazine. The kale one is a grilled pesto. Kale pesto is a winter staple in our house but I imagine blanching the kale and then grilling it (which sounds kind hard) gives it a completely different flavor. It includes a pasta recipe that I will not be making anytime soon but the way time flies, winter and hours spent cooking are just around the corner. The other is a snap pea salad that will involve a little adaptation of the recipe as we are done with green garlic. However, the garlic that is in your boxes today isn't cured down and while it doesn't have the same flavor of green garlic it still has a nice fresh taste and would be a fine substitute. If you still have your garlic scapes you could do a mix of the two. I like that it uses dill and mint and raw snap peas.
Last week you had garlic scapes off of our last garlic to send out a scape and the last to mature, Chesnook. This week you have recently harvested garlic(some last Friday, some Monday) off the the variety that was the first to scape for us, Bangkok Red. It is one of the prettiest garlics we grow. There is still a lot of moisture in the head so don't store it in a plastic bag/container. It will do best just sitting on your counter.
You may have or may not have noticed that this is your second week without head lettuce. That is pretty unusual. Lettuce usually falls into an almost every week category when we plan what goes in your box. The hot weather we had a couple weeks ago caused two lettuce plantings to bolt. Lettuce doesn't like heat but usually we only see mature lettuce bolt. I don't know if the plants were a little stressed to begin with but I was surprised to see not just the oldest planting bolt but also a newer planting. All in all though things look good the fields and we should be back into head lettuce next week.
Carrots
Cilantro
Cabbage
Snap Peas
Kale
Garlic
Salad Mix- Large Only
Grilled Kale Pesto
Snap Pea Salad
Next week we will fully embrace summer with zukes and cukes!
I've noticed in the past few years that food magazines have become much better at focusing on recipes that use vegetables that are in season. As someone who grows food I really appreciate that. I looked through a few pages of the new Food & Wine and there were recipes for both kale and snap peas that caught my eye. A customer asked what I like to do with snap peas on Saturday and I had nothing to say. I said " I don't know, I usually just eat them raw". Sure I throw them in salads and spring rolls and maybe chop a few up for a curry or stir fry but I don't have a go to snap pea dish. In general, the idea of cooking them doesn't really appeal to me. They just seem so good as they are. The truth is I hardly even ever take any home - they mostly just serve as farm snacks. That isn't to say I don't eat my fair share. I eat a lot them. There are often a few peas in my pocket! I am attaching links to the recipes that caught my eye in the magazine. The kale one is a grilled pesto. Kale pesto is a winter staple in our house but I imagine blanching the kale and then grilling it (which sounds kind hard) gives it a completely different flavor. It includes a pasta recipe that I will not be making anytime soon but the way time flies, winter and hours spent cooking are just around the corner. The other is a snap pea salad that will involve a little adaptation of the recipe as we are done with green garlic. However, the garlic that is in your boxes today isn't cured down and while it doesn't have the same flavor of green garlic it still has a nice fresh taste and would be a fine substitute. If you still have your garlic scapes you could do a mix of the two. I like that it uses dill and mint and raw snap peas.
Last week you had garlic scapes off of our last garlic to send out a scape and the last to mature, Chesnook. This week you have recently harvested garlic(some last Friday, some Monday) off the the variety that was the first to scape for us, Bangkok Red. It is one of the prettiest garlics we grow. There is still a lot of moisture in the head so don't store it in a plastic bag/container. It will do best just sitting on your counter.
You may have or may not have noticed that this is your second week without head lettuce. That is pretty unusual. Lettuce usually falls into an almost every week category when we plan what goes in your box. The hot weather we had a couple weeks ago caused two lettuce plantings to bolt. Lettuce doesn't like heat but usually we only see mature lettuce bolt. I don't know if the plants were a little stressed to begin with but I was surprised to see not just the oldest planting bolt but also a newer planting. All in all though things look good the fields and we should be back into head lettuce next week.
Carrots
Cilantro
Cabbage
Snap Peas
Kale
Garlic
Salad Mix- Large Only
Grilled Kale Pesto
Snap Pea Salad
Next week we will fully embrace summer with zukes and cukes!
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Week 2
It rained! Last June I would look at the weather and see a chance of rain, I would hope and I would be disappointed. This year I decided to skip the hope thing and just go straight to pessimism, and everything turned out great. I don't know if that means I should have a better attitude and not get so down or if being pessimistic sets me up for more joy later.
Our first week of the farm share was also our first week of the Chehalis market. Both went smoothly (I think, correct me if there was a problem with your veggies) and we are off and running. We are thankful to have one great crew member returning from last year and some new folks who are getting in the swing of things. We also called in some extra hands this week because we realized that we were getting a little behind. Ian worked the stand on Wednesdays last year and will again this year but for the most part Kelly and I are the face of the farm and I think it gives people the false impression that we do this all ourselves. There is no way we could do this without help. The vegetables in your box were most likely the product of many hands. Take the bunch of carrots in your box. Someone did the tractor work to prep that bed which included adding fertilizer, incorporating it into the soil and then making the bed. That is at least three changes of implements on the back of the tractor and three separate passes through the field to get it ready. Then the carrots were seeded, covered with the white row cover for a little extra warmth since we seed at the end of February. The row cover was pulled off in April and they were scuffled (a type of hoe we like to use) and recovered. A couple weeks later the row cover was removed again and they were hand weeded and thinned on hands and knees and recovered. They were uncovered one last time and scuffled again. They were harvested, and then sorted, sized and bunched. They were then sprayed down, dunked and packed into a box and put in the walk in. They were then removed and placed in each of your boxes. That is a lot of hand labor and we are thankful to have help doing it. If you would ever like to take a peak at what goes on in our fields you should feel free to walk around when you come to pick up your box.
I think we should have one last round of strawberries for you. The first planting of peas went by quickly and we will be skipping a week on those but we will be back into plentiful peas next week in the second planting (hopefully).
Carrots
Beets - These beets have gorgeous greens on them. Don't let them go to waste - they are delicious. You can cook them however you like to cook spinach, chard or kale. I like to sauté them with a little onion and garlic and then squeeze a little lemon juice on them at the end.
Broccoli
Summer Turnips - If you aren't familiar with these you are in for a treat. They are great raw or cooked and you can eat these greens as well. Sometimes the greens can have a bit of a bite and sometimes they are quite mild. Don't be afraid to try one raw. They are nice sliced and added to lettuce in a salad or thrown in soup at the end or you can sautee the turnips and then add the greens at the end. The turnips tend to be mild, juicier than a radish with a little bit of sweetness and just a little sharpness at the end.
Strawberries
Garlic Scapes - The garlic is early this year and we have one last variety that has scapes left on it. By the time the garlic plant starts to shoot up a scape we are suffering through the end of last years sprouted storage garlic and are so thankful to have them. They taste just like garlic but with a fresher, greener flavor. They can be chopped and used like garlic, cut larger and tossed with pasta and other veggies or left whole and grilled or roasted. The also make a great pesto and are fun to pickle. They should be stored in a bag in your fridge. They will keep for at least a couple weeks.
Spinach - Large Only
Scallions - Large Only
See you at the farm stand!
It rained! Last June I would look at the weather and see a chance of rain, I would hope and I would be disappointed. This year I decided to skip the hope thing and just go straight to pessimism, and everything turned out great. I don't know if that means I should have a better attitude and not get so down or if being pessimistic sets me up for more joy later.
Our first week of the farm share was also our first week of the Chehalis market. Both went smoothly (I think, correct me if there was a problem with your veggies) and we are off and running. We are thankful to have one great crew member returning from last year and some new folks who are getting in the swing of things. We also called in some extra hands this week because we realized that we were getting a little behind. Ian worked the stand on Wednesdays last year and will again this year but for the most part Kelly and I are the face of the farm and I think it gives people the false impression that we do this all ourselves. There is no way we could do this without help. The vegetables in your box were most likely the product of many hands. Take the bunch of carrots in your box. Someone did the tractor work to prep that bed which included adding fertilizer, incorporating it into the soil and then making the bed. That is at least three changes of implements on the back of the tractor and three separate passes through the field to get it ready. Then the carrots were seeded, covered with the white row cover for a little extra warmth since we seed at the end of February. The row cover was pulled off in April and they were scuffled (a type of hoe we like to use) and recovered. A couple weeks later the row cover was removed again and they were hand weeded and thinned on hands and knees and recovered. They were uncovered one last time and scuffled again. They were harvested, and then sorted, sized and bunched. They were then sprayed down, dunked and packed into a box and put in the walk in. They were then removed and placed in each of your boxes. That is a lot of hand labor and we are thankful to have help doing it. If you would ever like to take a peak at what goes on in our fields you should feel free to walk around when you come to pick up your box.
I think we should have one last round of strawberries for you. The first planting of peas went by quickly and we will be skipping a week on those but we will be back into plentiful peas next week in the second planting (hopefully).
Carrots
Beets - These beets have gorgeous greens on them. Don't let them go to waste - they are delicious. You can cook them however you like to cook spinach, chard or kale. I like to sauté them with a little onion and garlic and then squeeze a little lemon juice on them at the end.
Broccoli
Summer Turnips - If you aren't familiar with these you are in for a treat. They are great raw or cooked and you can eat these greens as well. Sometimes the greens can have a bit of a bite and sometimes they are quite mild. Don't be afraid to try one raw. They are nice sliced and added to lettuce in a salad or thrown in soup at the end or you can sautee the turnips and then add the greens at the end. The turnips tend to be mild, juicier than a radish with a little bit of sweetness and just a little sharpness at the end.
Strawberries
Garlic Scapes - The garlic is early this year and we have one last variety that has scapes left on it. By the time the garlic plant starts to shoot up a scape we are suffering through the end of last years sprouted storage garlic and are so thankful to have them. They taste just like garlic but with a fresher, greener flavor. They can be chopped and used like garlic, cut larger and tossed with pasta and other veggies or left whole and grilled or roasted. The also make a great pesto and are fun to pickle. They should be stored in a bag in your fridge. They will keep for at least a couple weeks.
Spinach - Large Only
Scallions - Large Only
See you at the farm stand!
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Week 1
I feel like we should have started the farm share about two weeks ago. In my mind it should be a struggle to fill your boxes the first week or two. It should be filled with greens and spring treats. Instead, Kelly and I had a difficult time narrowing it down today. The warm spring has put the farm into fast forward. We are already knee deep in strawberries and peas, we have had carrots for a few weeks and we started selling cucumbers and zucchini last week. At the same time I don't want to cut autumn short (you know you love rutabagas) and I think that 19 weeks is a good amount of time for all of us. Anyway, that is something to contemplate during winter but if you have an opinion let me know.
We hope we have a great season ahead of us. As a farm, we made some changes over the winter. We signed up to go to a farmers market, we certified organic and we added some seed crops. We are growing a little more ground this year and have a bigger crew. After a couple years of minimal change - same size, same markets, same labor hours, same crops, it feels a little uncertain around here. It isn't that Kelly and I thought to ourselves, "ya know, we have this so dialed in and have so much free time, we should switch things up". We will never master growing vegetables but things did feel a little routine and the time seemed right to explore some new things.
I feel like we should have started the farm share about two weeks ago. In my mind it should be a struggle to fill your boxes the first week or two. It should be filled with greens and spring treats. Instead, Kelly and I had a difficult time narrowing it down today. The warm spring has put the farm into fast forward. We are already knee deep in strawberries and peas, we have had carrots for a few weeks and we started selling cucumbers and zucchini last week. At the same time I don't want to cut autumn short (you know you love rutabagas) and I think that 19 weeks is a good amount of time for all of us. Anyway, that is something to contemplate during winter but if you have an opinion let me know.
We hope we have a great season ahead of us. As a farm, we made some changes over the winter. We signed up to go to a farmers market, we certified organic and we added some seed crops. We are growing a little more ground this year and have a bigger crew. After a couple years of minimal change - same size, same markets, same labor hours, same crops, it feels a little uncertain around here. It isn't that Kelly and I thought to ourselves, "ya know, we have this so dialed in and have so much free time, we should switch things up". We will never master growing vegetables but things did feel a little routine and the time seemed right to explore some new things.
 |
| The beets we are growing for seed just started to pollen. If you look closely you can see it on my fingers. It has a strong, floral smell which is hard to miss when you walk by it. |
 |
| The second seed crop we are growing is a beautiful purple stemmed kale. The tops are above our heads and thick with flowers and bees.
Boxes look delicious!
Carrots
Head Lettuce
Rainbow Chard - Chard can be steamed or sautéed. The stems and leaves can be eaten. The stems take a little longer to cook. You can remove the stems and stuff the leaves or add it to soup. It is related to spinach and beets. If you pull up a mature plant the root looks like an ugly beet. If you look at the leaf of a beet you can see the resemblance.
Snap Peas - plump and sweet - great raw or cooked
Snow Peas - just a few for a stir-fry, curry or a snack. The one and only planting of snow peas is almost done picking and I wanted to get you a few before they disappeared. Next year we will have to put an additional round in the second planting of peas.
Strawberries
Radishes - Large Only
Thanks for being a part of the farm share and supporting local agriculture. Cheers to a season of good meals.
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