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.

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.