Week 1

Talk to me for 10 minutes and I think my motivation for farming is fairly obvious - I love food.  I love reading about, talking about it, preparing it and just simply admiring it.  Yesterday Kelly had some new potatoes at Oly market.  The only thing more special to me than a new potato is a perfect pink tomato.  We don't usually have new potatoes this early.  We took a day trip to Ellensburg at the end of February to pick up some potato seed and got them in the ground in early March.  I was pretty excited to dig and eat them, but I don't think most of the people who bought them understood they were special.  One person who did was Mike, the chef from Our Table, who now has a food cart at the market.  Around 11am I received a text from Kelly with a picture of a beautiful salad that featured sliced early tomatoes from Humble Stump's heated greenhouse, sliced apricots from Eastern Washington, mint, cucumbers and raw new potatoes from us.  It was so beautiful.  We don't focus on selling to restaurants, but working with Mike is great.   He also loves food and we love having food vendor at market who uses so much local produce.  His food cart is worth going to the market for even if you need nothing else.

This is a busy couple weeks for us.  In addition to the CSA, the Chehalis market starts on Tuesday.  Fingers crossed, peas and field carrots will be ready for harvest at the end of the week (and in your boxes next week).  The Wednesday stand will start next week.  Those of you who pick up on Wednesday will not see our yellow sign at the end of the road this week, but we will be at the farm with your CSA boxes. 

The picking will be slim on the trade table - mostly just more of what is in your boxes.  Variety is pretty limited at the moment but more selection is just around the corner.


Red Leaf Lettuce - BIG!  This is the best time of year for growing lettuce.  The heads are large, beautiful and also tender and sweet.  The variety you are getting is also the one we grow for the Olympia Food Co-op.  It is the one lettuce that I feel always (well almost, there is no always in farming unless you include that something will always have a bad year at some point) does well for us. 
Cucumber - These are out of an unheated greenhouse.  Cukes are another much awaited item and I love that we have them super early.  I came across a  recipe for a brown rice salad with cucumbers and avocado this winter which looked great and I moved the piece of paper with the recipe on it around a 100 times waiting for cucumbers to be ready before I had a chance to make it last week.  It was easy and great - the peanuts and lime zest really made it for me.
Radishes 
Curly Kale -  This is a variety we haven't grown in several years.  At some point two kinds of kale seemed to be enough and we dropped curly kale, but enough customers have asked about it that it seemed like it was time to grow it again.
Cabbage - Another veggie I am excited to eat in the spring. 
Cilantro/Herb Choice 
Garlic Scapes - If you aren't familiar with these they might look intimidating,but they are easy to use.  They can be grilled or broiled whole, made into pesto, compound butter, chopped and used like garlic.  Raw they have a strong garlic flavor but cooked they are more mild than a head of garlic. 
Salad Mix - Large Only