Week 21

The last week!

All farms experienced an increased interest in CSAs last year.  We increased our membership substantially last season and decided that we liked having a larger CSA.  I thought we might have a lot of turnover with so many people trying the model for the first time last year.  I was really pleased with how many people signed up again this year.  Next year is going to be a lot different for us.  We won't have our house here in Olympia and will need to find some more drop off sites.  If you think you have a good spot (your home, your friend's home, your church, your business, etc) to host a drop off and are interested in some more info let me know.  I will acknowledge I received the email and then get back to you at the end of our market season to discuss it more.  You need to have shade/protection from the weather and it needs to be easily accessible.  If you have any thoughts about the CSA and want to share them, please feel free to drop me a line.  

I hope you all enjoyed the produce.  We make mistakes and sometimes miss bad spots or don't realize that something doesn't taste as good as it should, but we try really hard to do a good job and it is our hope that you know that when you open your box and when you eat your veggies.  We appreciate all your support. There were a few bumps in the road but I am happy with how the season turned out.  I don't need to see 110 degrees again, but we learned a bit about how to deal with that kind of heat pressure.  Farming is a humbling experience, but the having to adapt is part of the challenge and we enjoy the puzzle. 

The market credit for skipped boxes seemed to work out okay and we will continue to do some form of that in the future as a way to offer a bit of flexibility.  We will be at market at least a few more weeks, so if you still have credit please stop by and use it up.  

Enjoy the cozy days ahead.  We wish you all a wonderful winter.  We can't thank you enough.  

Carrots

Leeks

Pink Turnips - These are not as mild as the white bunched turnips but they are milder than a traditional purple top turnip.  This is a new variety for us but typically they are pretty sweet when cooked.  I don't peel them.

Russet Potatoes

Butternut - Pumpkin mochi are adorable and much better than the pumpkin pudding I made last night.  It didn't really sound good to me, but I still made it.  I mostly made it because I bought some fun Moderntone sherbet cups at a yard sale and pudding seemed like the perfect choice.  I love trying new winter squash recipes.  

Frisee - Bitter greens aren't for everyone.  There has been an increased interest in them in the last few years and I have noticed that there are more people enjoying them.  I like to compare them to PNW IPA.  Your taste buds can learn to like them.  This site has a great run down on frisee and a nice graphic on flavor pairings.

Spinach - Large Only

Week 20

 Next week will be the last week of the farm share.  We are entering clean up mode.  All of our hoop houses will be taken down and brought to Rochester.  I feel like we have already brought a lot of stuff down and yet looking around it doesn't appear we have done anything!  It looks like we might have a frost in the next week which will put an end to many crops.  Lots of those crops are near done anyway, but a frost is a satisfying end to it all.   Some years we continue to scrap around looking for a handful of cucumbers long after we probably should have called it quits.  

Carrots

Collards - If you didn't try these earlier in the season when we gave them to you, I encourage you to give them a try.  

Daikon - Are you unsure what to do with a giant radish?  This will be our first harvest out of this planting.  Later inn the fall daikon tends to be quite mild but I am unsure if that will be true with these ones.  If you find them to be stronger/spicier than you would like the easiest thing to do is to peel it.  That is true for all radishes but easier to do with daikons.  One of the farm share members who loves daikon shared a few ideas as to how to use them. 

- Finely cut or shred the daikon and mix it with mayo, ponzu or soy, sesame seeds, tuna or crab and top with some crushed nori.

- Cut into chunks and simmer with pieces of chicken, beef or pork in a sauce that has mirin, sake and soy sauce.

- Cut into thick matchsticks and saute with dashi, soy sauce and sesame oil.

Also if you have a dish, like a stir fry or a curry that you like to make to use up a bunch of vegetables in your fridge, daikon would make a great addition.  It is pretty mild when cooked and has a nice texture.  If you have a go to coleslaw recipe, daikon can also be a great addition to that.  It is also the radish used to make quick pickled carrots and radishes on a bahn mi, something I find fun to make at home.  

Fennel - If the anise flavor of fennel is a bit much for you cooking it can tone that down.  It is great roasted or mixed with other veggies in a gratin.  If the anise flavor repulses you, then cooking might not help enough and perhaps it would make a nice gift for a neighbor.  Like eggplant and beets, I know people are very divided fennel and there is little middle ground to be had.  Unlike eggplant and beets, I do think that cooked fennel can be enjoyed by people who don't really like it raw.  I have only one person in case study and that is Kelly.  He loves it roasted but isn't into it raw.  

Bell Pepper

Spaghetti Squash

Cherry Tomatoes - maybe

Lettuce - Large Only

Week 19

After this week there are two more weeks of the CSA.  There will be collard greens, fennel, baby pink turnips, carrots, leeks and more winter squash to look forward to in the last two boxes.  

Delicata Squash - What's not to love about this squash.  It is a great size, easy to cut and among the sweetest squash out there.  The thin skin can be eaten.  We like to roast rings or half moon slices in a single layer on a cookie sheet but anyway you like to prepare squash will work.  

Napa Cabbage - Some of these will be quite large.  They do keep very well for something so tender.  One food blog I have really enjoyed cooking from this summer is Woks of Life.  I just pulled it up and searched napa and they have a handful of recipes if you feel like something different.  The only one I read was the one for Sichuan Napa and the story with the recipe was brief but interesting.  I have made at least a half dozen recipes and all have been well written and delicious.  My two favorites are probably the beef chow fun and the pad see ew.  They are very similar and the best part of both of them is the noodles.  I have been buying them at Hong Phat.  They are a fresh rice noodle right next to the check out.  They are easiest to work with the day you buy them.  They have the most amazing texture.  It is springy and chewy and tender and I can't get enough of them.  Napa is easy to use.  It is great both raw and cooked.   

Potatoes 

Garlic

Spinach

Cauliflower or Broccoli

Salad - Large Only

Bell Peppers - Large Only

Week 18

Cauliflower or Broccoli

Lettuce

Kale

Turnips

Shallots

Tomatoes

Bok Choy - Large Share Only

Cucumber - Large Share Only

Next week we will start including winter squash in your box.  We will kick it off with delicata!

Week 17

The rain is coming...maybe.  The percentage doesn't seem that high, but the amount listed is almost an inch and a half on Friday.  We have the winter squash on drip irrigation which means the dirt around the squash is very dry.  If it rains hard they will get really dirty with the splash dirt and require a lot of labor to clean up so we are going to do what I am referring to as the great pumpkin push this week.   Everything but the butternuts seem ready to come out of the field.  We were going to just give slicing tomatoes this week but decided to do cherries as well in case this is the last hurrah.  The field plants are showing some signs of disease.  The rain may expedite their demise or we may get a couple more weeks of picking.  You almost never know!

Poblano Peppers

Carrots

Beets

Tomatoes

Cabbage

Zucchini - Large Only

Potatoes - Large Only

Week 16

 Last Sunday we hauled some irrigation pipe that we bought from a farm in Littlerock to our new place in Rochester.  On Thursday we picked up the last of the pipe and  pulled up some carpet as well.  I am starting to feel pretty excited about our move in the fall.  We have a lot to do farm wise to be ready to start seeding in January.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of our season winding down though and I am looking forward to thinking more about our new set up and starting that process.  In truth, we should probably already be doing it but it is hard to find the time.  

We had BLTs, corn and homemade onion strings Saturday night because summer isn't summer if I don't fry something at least once.  Did anyone else notice it was unusually warm?  I had thought I might make a second round of cantaloupe ice cream (pureed melon, sugar and half and half) because the first batch I made earlier in the week was a little sweet but so good.  I lost my momentum/motivation and I just settled for a couple slices of melon which was still a great way to finish off our summery meal.  Melon season is so brief on our farm but with just one variety still picking it is also a relief not to have to squeeze the extra harvest into our normal schedule.  

Lettuce

Radishes 

Persian Cucumber

Tomato 

Yellow Onion

Herb Choice

Eggplant - Large Only

Mizuna - Large Only - tender enough to eat raw in salad but also can be briefly cooked

Week 15

The first box of September!   It is the month that starts with what is often the peek of tomatoes and ends in the harvesting of winter squash.  

The threat of rain last week pushed us to get a lot of onions out of the field and curing.  We grow fewer onions than we use to, so it isn't quite the push it use to be, but still a huge relief to get it done.  We have a nice charge of shallots this year which you should see in your box in the next week or two.  

Corn - yellow

Cucumbers 

Rainbow Chard

Garlic

Carrots

Tomatoes - slicing or cherry and the reverse next week.

Green and Purple Bell - Large Only

Red Daikon - Large Only white flesh, with greens

Have a great week.

Week 14

You may have been surprised by the melon in your box last week.  I wasn't sure we would have enough.  Kelly was in Montana last weekend and I was keeping watch on the melons - basically just hoping that they weren't ready to pick.  They waited.  I was thankful.  I was excited that Kelly got to see his family, particularly his grandparents.  He floated the Missouri with his brother, his stepdad made them ebelskiver and they got takeout from some places they have been eating from for 40 years.  It was nostalgic and relaxing.  I particularly love that Kelly's dad bought my dad's 1938 Ford Delux after my father passed away and Kelly got to cruise that around Helena while he was home.  

While Kelly and I have weathered the pandemic just fine thus far but we both feel like we have lost valuable visits with family.  We are not alone in this of course, but it is difficult sometimes. 

I know we have many beautiful days ahead of us but the seasons are changing.  I can feel the shift.  I love these few weeks of late August and early September.  They can be gruelling weeks on the farm but the changing light, the cooler nights, the bounty make it worth while.  In the next couple weeks we will begin to bring onions in, plant cover crop and prepare for the dark and rainy days ahead.

Cherry Tomatoes

Potatoes

Zucchini

Lettuce or Salad Mix

Shishito Peppers - Large Only

Bell Pepper - Small Only

Cantaloupe - Large Only

Watermelon - Small Only

Week 13

 Lettuce - Lilttle Gems or Bavaivian - crunchy ribs, both hold up to creamy dressings and lots of toppings

Carrots

Kale - Red Russian 

Garlic

Tomatoes - Many of you will get New Girl, a smaller red tomato.  

Eggplant 

Persian Cucumbers - Large Only

Cantaloupe - Small Only

Watermelon - Large Only

If we are short on eggplant some people might receive shishito peppers and eggplant next week.  

Week 12

Last year I made this simple and delicious soup during corn season. I loved using the corn cob stock and decided I would make some risotto with corn stock instead of chicken stock.  I didn't end up getting a chance last year before local corn was done for the season and it has been on my mind ever since.  Last night I adapted a recipe from the New York Times and really enjoyed it.  There is a lushness to risotto made from homemade chicken stock that this didn't have, even with a bit of heavy cream, but the flavors were lovely.  I also grilled some green beans and chopped and tossed them some diced tomatoes and olive oil.  Soup and risotto might not be at the top of your list this week with the high temps, but I think corn is the ultimate summer food no matter how it is prepared.

Corn - White corn was always my dad's favorite so I chose this variety thinking of him.  We have two successions of corn this year and hopefully we will have some yellow corn in September. 

Cherry Tomatoes

Zucchini

Cauliflower or Green Beans - whatever you didn't have last week

Red Onions

Radish - Radishes aren't heat lovers but I seeded some right after the last hot spell in part because a customer has been raving about a quinoa and black bean salad from the cookbook Naturally Nourished that you top with a radish salsa.  If the radishes look horrible we will sub something else or perhaps you will have a few radishes and a few carrots.  Update - The radishes look horrible so there is also a head of lettuce in your box along with a small bunch of ugly radishes.  They aren't pithy and the eating quality is still good but while they have survived the heat okay they have been attacked by symphylans.  We first spotted them in a different field a couple years ago.  They are difficult to manage/control.  Fortunately other than a few red daikon radishes in the same bed there aren't any other root veggies in that field.

Parsley - Large Only

Week 11

 Week 11

I had a gentleman buy some arugula on Saturday and tell me he was using it to make a salad like the one he had in Lucca, Italy 20 years ago.  It has arugula, pine nuts, shaved parmesan and a balsamic vinaigrette.  He was excited to find our arugula as the baby arugula in the store just isn't the same.  I think that is something most of us do, at least I know I do it.  Rarely do I take a vacation without coming home and trying to recreate a dish.  It isn't just about the dish, it is also a way to remember a great trip.  Sometimes the recipes stick around (spam musubi, chicken pho) and I make them at least a couple times a year.  Other times they only get attempted once.  

If you get a purple cauliflower, please flip it over and admire the underside of it.  Maybe it is just me, but I love the stem ringed and purple and the pretty little leaves edged in purple. 

Have a great week. 

Arugula

Cauliflower or Green Beans - This week Wednesday will get Cauli and Thursday will get green beans.  Next week it will be the reverse

Cherry Tomatoes

Cucumber - traditional slicing style

Small Head Lettuce

Basil 

Garlic - Large Only

Week 10

Anyone wondering where the cherry tomatoes are?  Me too.  I am hoping we have enough to put them in boxes next week.  We have been harvesting them for a couple weeks now, but they just haven't taken off enough to give enough to fill all the shares.  The corn is looking good - probably two weeks out!

Potatoes 

Rainbow Chard  

Sweet Onions

Head Lettuce

Carrots

Broccoli or Kale - Last Monday when we went to harvest we realized that with some of the issues we have had following the heat dome, it might be best to spit the broccoli up over a couple weeks.  As a result some of you got broccoli last week.  If you did you will get kale this week.  If you got kale last week, you can expect broccoli this week.  

Zucchini - Large Only

Week 9

Kale 

Salad - I thought the salad of baby lettuces tasted great last week so we are going to do it again!

Persian Cucumbers -  Here is a short piece in the LA Times about the rise of this style of cucumber from 2011.  It was very interesting to me and probably somewhat interesting to those who garden and like to grow cucumbers.  The rest of you might want to skip it :).  We grew these for the first time probably about 10 years ago.  The seed was given to us by a friend's dad who is from Iran.  They didn't really catch on with us though and we didn't grow them again until about three years ago.  They are great.  They are excellent in smashed cucumber salads which I am a big fan of - the New York Times has a good recipe but there are many out there.  

Beets

Carrots

Head Lettuce - Large Only

Have a great week!

Week 8

We discovered more things this week that took a little hit from the heat.  Hopefully that is the last of the surprises.  The weeds, on the other hand, seem to be thriving.  We have enough crew to get almost everything planted and harvested, but we are going on year two of not being able to manage the weeds the way we should because we are short on labor.  

Last week's big projects were getting all the garlic out of the ground and getting the weeds under control in the winter squash.  It is always such a relief to have all the garlic pulled and in the barn.  This week we have a big round of fall crops to get transplanted and need to seed our final round of carrots.  

Salad Mix

Zucchini/Summer Squash

Garlic

Potatoes - gold skin, gold flesh this week.  

Herb - Dealer's Choice

Snap Peas if they are available and if not Carrots

Cherry Toms - Large Only 

Week 7

There was lots of talk of last week's heat at market this week.  Pretty much every farm took some sort of hit, from shellfish to berries.  In retrospect I made a poor decision to transplant out some cabbages, kale and broccoli mid week, about 1200 plants.  They were in small plug flats, 128 to a tray.  The greenhouse that we keep our seedlings in has no climate control, poor ventilation and even with the shade cloth on it is stuffy and hot.  At a little over three weeks from seeding they were more than ready to go out.  I doubted hanging onto them for another week would do them any favors.  The cauliflower, which seems to be the most sensitive to transplant, we held on to and didn't transplant.  I thought if we just watered the heck out of them they would do better in the ground than the start house.  I was wrong.  The cauliflower, while a little long in the tooth was fine, but we lost a lot of the stuff we transplanted, probably more than half.  We won't feel that loss until the very end of August and September.  We have another planting seeded three weeks after that one that typically would overlap slightly so we should be able to weather it okay.  

On the happy side of things I ate my first Sungold cherry tomato this week.  

Carrots

Lettuce 

Collards

Cucumbers 

Potatoes - True new potatoes with super thin skins and creamy flesh.  They won't keep long, refrigerate if you aren't going to eat them ASAP.  

Scallions - Small Only

Cauliflower - Large Only

Mystery Item - Large Only

Week 6

I am winging this list a little.  I usually walk around the farm on Sunday after market and confirm that everything I am thinking of putting in the boxes looks good and there is enough of each item - still a bit of a guessing game sometimes.  We got a lot of good stuff done this morning on the farm with Sunday market being cancelled but since lunch I have been hiding in my house.  Kelly just went  back out to turn on water, our only strategy at keeping stuff happy, but I decided to just stay put.  

I am hoping there are snap peas but they don't like the heat and this weather is unprecedented so I have no idea what to expect.  

Lettuce

Zucchini - I just can't get enough of these right now.  Hopefully you feel the same way.  When I pulled up the cauliflower taco recipe mentioned below I noticed this zucchini pasta recipe and that sent me down a rabbit hole of looking on the internet and also in my cookbooks for the Julia Child recipe found here.  We are going to have some sort of mashup of the two on pasta tonight.  I have some of the pearl onions you got last week in my fridge so I am going to include those but love the idea of not squeezing the zucchini in Deb's version. 

Green Stem Cauliflower - A new variety for us.  It has a green stem and is also known as flowering cauliflower.  It is widely grown in Asian countries.  It is said to be sweeter.  I am unsure if it is, but it is early and it is delicious.  It is also a bit unusual looking.  It starts out looking kind of like a normal cauliflower except it isn't self blanched with its own leaves so it isn't bright white. The curds also start to separate pretty early on.  If you have grown cauliflower it is best described as looking like cauliflower that didn't get picked in time.  You can pick it at that point but typically you wait a little longer and let it stretch and spread more.  This is the only planting we have of it and I want to make sure everyone gets one so it will be in slightly various degrees of maturity.  I talked about these cauliflower tacos last year.  It is what we made with the one I harvested Friday.  I loved how easy it was to chop - minor thing but still a bonus.  

Fennel

Garlic - This has not dried down at all.  You can use it right away but store it in open air so the moisture has somewhere to go.

Snap Peas or Something else.  

Scallions - Large Only

 Week 5

Pushed up start time this morning and we are hoping to beat the heat.  Kelly said last night that maybe we should leave when the crew leaves today....ummm, you bet.  Seems like a good afternoon for a little paperwork!  Love the little onions that are in your shares this week.  They are called purplette.  We planted them at a close spacing for bunching and I am really happy with how they turned out.  There is quite a bit of size variation.  The idea was to bunch them at pearl onion size but some are a bit bigger and some are barely there.  

With all the heat, I thought we might be able to do zucchinis and a cucumber but it looks pretty tight so it may be one or the other. 

All our heat loving crops, like tomatoes, peppers, melons, winter squash should have nice root systems and be able to put on a lot of growth this week with the warm weather and long days.  Hope you all are able to make the most of the summer days as well.  

Lettuce

Beets

Carrots

Zucchini or Cucumbers or maybe both

Bunched Baby Onions

Broccoli - Large Only

Basil - Large Only

 Week 4

We always try to give a round of spinach in the spring and in the fall.  We managed to get the large shares earlier and this week the small shares will receive some.  Large shares will get spinach's colorful cousin swiss chard.  

Looks like Juneuary is almost over.  For the most part we are thankful for the additional rain fall.  It is getting us a bit behind on weeding but hopefully we can make some progress later in the week.  

Salad Mix

Carrots

Turnips

Snap Peas

Spinach - Small Only

Chard - Large Only

Snow Peas - Larges plus maybe some smalls.  It might take us a bit but at some point everyone will get snow peas.  

Little Gem Lettuces - Large Only  

Next week we should have cucumbers for everyone and some pretty pearl onions.  

Week 3

Week 3

Carrots

Lettuce

Green Cabbage

Snap Peas - We had snap peas, burrata and prosciutto on Saturday as an appetizer/post market snack.  I quickly cooked the peas in a very hot skillet until they had a bit of char and were warm but still crunchy.  We were ridiculously hungry which would have made anything delicious but the sweet and salty combo with the burrata was so good, as was the different textures.

Scallions 

Garlic Scapes - These can be made into a pesto, chopped into a stir fry, grilled, roasted and used countless other ways.  They have a fairly pungent garlic flavor if used raw but become quite mild when cooked. 

Beets - Large Only

 Week 2

This Tuesday is opening day of the the Chehalis market.  With a high of 87 predicted it is hard to know what to expect.  Washingtonions can be counted on to come out in some drizzle to get vegetables, but I have a feeling that the afternoon might be pretty quiet on an 87 degree day on a downtown street.   We hope to get peppers in the field on Monday, kill mad weeds on Tuesday while Kelly is at market and then get our winter squash in on Wednesday and Thursday.  The field zucchinis, cucumbers and tomatoes should all handle the heat well and with last weeks rain I am expecting to see lots of growth this week.  Your peas last week were from a hoop house but we should be getting into the field planting this week.  They won't love the heat but it won't be around for long.  

Head Lettuce - Either a red butter lettuce or a green oak leaf - both have a similar texture

Radishes - Don't like radishes?  Consider roasting or sauteing them.  I usually cut them in half or quarters and go about 15 minutes at around 425. They are still pretty firm at that point which is how I like them, but you may wish to cook them several more minutes.

Broccoli

Kale 

Zucchini - These are out of a hoop house and I think with the warm weather we should have enough for everybody.  If not some of Thursdays pick up may get peas instead and zukes next week.

Carrots - Small, but yummy

Salad Mix - Large Only

Cilantro - Large Only

 Week 1

Welcome to our 12th Farm Share season!  We had five members our first year.  We still have one member from that first season and many of you have been with us for close to 10 years.  Wow!  Time flies. 

My love for farming comes from my love of food.  The little things like the first pea of the year still get me excited.  I have an entire meal planned around one cucumber(the lamb shawarma recipe from the Jerusalem cookbook, cucumber salad, pickled turnips and pita) that is growing in a hoop house.  We normally remove the first few fruits from the plant but I left one cucumber on one of the plants so I could have an extra, extra early cucumber.  The plants that were pruned properly should have cucumbers for you all before you know it.  Every time I walk around the farm checking on crops and making harvest lists, I think about the meals I am going to cook.  I hope that you get the same pleasure when you look in your boxes each week and enjoy planning meals around the produce you receive.   

Head Lettuce

Rainbow Chard - Today a customer emailed me a picture of the sushi they had made with the rainbow chard they bought at market yesterday.  It was so beautiful.  They included the stems which made it very colorful.  It appeared to be cooked and I assume seasoned with something.  I am very intrigued.  

Salad Turnips - Often mistaken for white radishes at market, these turnips can be used the same way but are milder and juicier.  They are also great sauteed or roasted.  When we first have them in the spring, I use them for everything, salad, quick pickles, curry, fried rice, soup and so on.  They cook very quickly and I prefer them to be lightly cooked.  Longer cooking seems to bring out a stronger turnip flavor.  They do not need to be peeled.

Bok Choy - Choy is my favorite early spring vegetable.  This is our fifth and final planting of it.  

Kohlrabi - You can peel and slice this and eat this raw.  It has a great crisp texture.  It can also be cooked.  

Snap Peas - Edible pod!!!!!!

Spinach - Large Only

Baby Fennel - Large Only This planting of fennel was an experiment.  I planted it really early and wasn't sure if it would size up or if it would have to be sold as baby fennel before it bolted.  Baby fennel it is!  Like larger fennel, it is great cooked or eaten raw.  

In the next couple weeks you should see carrots, kale, cabbage,broccoli from the field and zucchini from the green house in your boxes.