Week 5

This morning we walked around and checked in on some things that we suspected should be close to harvest.  We uncovered the cauliflower this morning in hopes that it might be ready for this week's CSA, but it is still a week or two out.  Field cucumbers should start picking tomorrow and the zucchini is finally taking off and looking nice.  We also have a new variety of chard that we hope to put in your boxes next week.  The rainbow chard is pretty, but I am on the lookout for one whose flavor leans a bit more towards spinach. 

This morning when we went to load cabbage out of the walk-in at the house the temperature was reading 26 degrees.  It doesn't look like we lost any cabbage, but I am not sure what the situation will be tomorrow.  If it is freezing we will turn it off before we load it, which will keep everything cool enough.  Fortunately we just got a larger walk-in at the farm up and running this week and the older small walk-in is also still running so the cabbage has a place to go while we sort the situation out.  Don't be concerned if the walk-in is turned off. 

 Happy Eating!

Carrots
Lettuce - Hopefully little gems for everyone
Snow Peas
Cabbage
Scallion
Cucumber
Basil - Large Only
Broccoli - Large Only

Week 4

We started pulling garlic this week.  Those of you who pick up on Monday will see the start of it hanging in the metal building.  This starts the transition of that building from soil and fertilizer storage to curing and storage spot for garlic, then onions, then squash.

We had a lot of enjoyable meals this week.  It started out with a charred snap pea and burrata salad that reminded me how good snap peas can be when lightly cooked.  I seared them in a hot cast iron, but would like to grill them next time.  I was a little on the fence about whether I liked the mix of raw and cooked peas, but it does make for a more interesting texture.  The mint and lemon zest really iced the cake.  I also made a golden coconut broth with crispy tofu a great vegetarian food blog.  I increased the miso and tamari while decreasing the water a tad to make a richer, more savory broth.  The crispy tofu is easy and fantastic.  I used roasted zucchini and snow peas.  Typically when making that kind of dish I just add the veggies to the broth, but cooking them separate worked great.  One of the points of making that dish was to make extra rice for this crispy rice bowl with ginger scallion vinaigrette that we discovered over the winter and can't stop eating.  It is just so easy and really adaptable.  In the winter we used shredded daikon and carrot, but last week we used carrots, cukes and raw peas.  I love it the fried egg, but we have also topped it with salmon and grilled chicken.

Carrots
Beets
Potatoes - The plan was to give everyone the white and pink potato Warba last week and the red skinned potato Cheshire this week but we culled more Warba than expected and a few of you ended up with Cheshire.  Kelly and I both think it is the tastier of the two and you will all be getting it this week.  It has a deep yellow flesh, occasionally streaked with red and a waxier texture.  We sold out of them at market yesterday and so I dug a few this morning and snapped this pic.  I just love it when all the potatoes stay attached to the plant.  In general they aren't as big as the Warba but they are plentiful.
Zucchini
Snap Peas 
Garlic
Lettuce - Large Only

Week 3

Even during the busy season I find a bit of time to look at cookbooks and food blogs.  One blogger/cookbook writer who I like a lot is Andrea Nguyen.  She has written several Vietnamese cookbooks, but her blog is a bit more diverse in its recipes.  The other day I stumbled on an entry from 2017 that talked about Joyce Chen.  Chen, who was born in China, opened several restaurants in Boston in the 60's and 70's, had a cookbook, a cooking show briefly on PBS and a line of stir fry sauces.  Despite my New England upbringing and my childhood admiration for Julia Child, who filmed her cooking show on the same set as Chen, I had never heard of her.   Her story is interesting and I am excited to have a cookbook to keep my eye out for when I am in used bookstores.  My collection of cookbooks is bordering on absurd, but every time I pull one down thinking I should pass it on I change my mind.  I just love them and the history they contain.  I ended up making the recipe for Peking meat sauce noodles that Nguyen adapted from Chen's cookbook.  It was incredibly savory and great for this time of year.  I adapted it a bit myself and used frozen udon noodles mainly because I like any excuse to eat them.  I love how thick they are and I love the springy/chewy texture.  The recipe was great because it calls for both radishes and radish tops.

Lettuce
Carrots
Snap Peas
New Potatoes - These potatoes will not store for long.  They should be used soon.
Cucumber
Radishes - Radishes aren't just for salads.  They can be roasted or sauteed as well.
Strawberries - Large Only

Week 2

Last week was a hustle.  We had a bunch of flats that NEEDED to be transplanted and the first week of CSA and Chehalis always stresses me out a bit.  I was bummed snap peas weren't picking yet, but also a little relieved.  On Friday afternoon, about an hour after the crew should have gone home we threw the last shovels full of dirt on the row cover we use to get the winter squash off to a good start and called it  a week.  Everything that needed to get planted did and I went to bed Friday night incredibly relieved.  A former employee came in on Saturday and he and Kelly tied up some loose ends and got the drip irrigation set up for the squash while I went to market with another crew member.  This week we will plant out melons and our second succession of peppers.  It is unusual to have two successions of peppers in this part of the world because they are a heat loving crop.  We started doing it last year so we would have green bells for the co-op for a longer period of time.   We have a couple new melons in the mix that I am excited about.  However, melons can be risky so I seeded larger amounts of two of our reliable favorites for your farm shares.  Lettuce and salad get planted out every week and they are on the agenda as well.  Field zucchinis are pretty close and these next couple weeks will see more time spent harvesting and less time transplanting as all of our longer season warm weather crops will be out by the end of this week.

I hope you all made some good meals with your boxes last week.  This box will be pretty easy to eat without even turning on the stove if you are so inclined.

Carrots 
Cucumber - These are out of a hoop house. Field cukes are about a month out.
Broccoli
Peas - Snap or Snow - Hoping to get as many of you snow peas as possible but if there aren't enough there may be some snap peas as well (large share) or instead of (small share) snow peas.
Salad Turnips -  These are milder than radishes and are great raw or cooked.  For some people the greens are the best part so please give them a try.
Strawberries - I hope I don't regret putting them on the list.  They are a maybe and I might be being optimistic.
Salad Mix - Large Only

Week 1

The farm is looking great from the road.  Way better than the weedy corn we had up front last year. That was kind of embarrassing, but August is tough sometimes.  Up close there are a few small problems, but all and all we are off to a good start.  We have a great crew and each day we cross a ton of tasks off our list.  Of course we are constantly adding more to the list, but we are doing a pretty good job of keeping plants healthy and keeping the weeds down. That is successful farming at its core.

We look forward to seeing all of you and we hope you are all looking forward to a season of good food!

Red Leaf Lettuce
Lacinato Kale
Scallions
Garlic Scapes
Green Cabbage
Radishes
Something Green - Large Only - I know, so vague!  

We love making pizza with the garlic scapes and kale.  It can go two ways.  Blend the scapes with nuts and oil and spread on the dough.  Top with mozzarella, dollops of ricotta and tons of chopped kale.  Or you can make the pesto with the kale and put chopped scapes on top of the pizza.  Scapes can also be grilled or roasted.  We use them in the place of garlic a lot this time of year because last year's garlic is long gone and it feels so wasteful to pull the green garlic before it is sized up.  Hope you enjoy them.

Week 20

We did our best frost hustle on Friday, but there is only so much one can do at this point.  We double covered a few things in the field and harvested extra of some other things, but I think it is okay to say good bye to some stuff.  It is time.

We had some excitement on the farm this past week.  We dug sweet potatoes and harvested lemon grass. We have grown a very small amount of sweet potatoes for ourselves the past few years.  This is not sweet potato growing country and we planted them in a hoop house.  We have had a little success, enough to keep trying, but also a lot of culls and damaged potatoes.    This year we tried a few heirloom varieties that we have never tried before and planted enough to have some to sell.  At first glance they look really good.  We put them in crates and rigged up a curing chamber for them which has a higher temp and higher humidity than we could provide otherwise.  They will cure until the beginning of November and then hopefully they will still look nice when we wash them and taste sweet.  A freshly dug sweet potato isn't very sweet. The sugars develop in the curing process.  The idea for lemongrass came from reading a CSA blog for a farm in Oregon.  It also had to be grown in a hoop house.  The house at our house has a weird, narrow bed that runs up one side of the house.  It can be difficult to justify growing things for fun in the house because it is prime real estate but organic lemongrass is hard to find.   It did really well and fit in the narrow bed that probably would have just been left empty.  We are putting a little bit of it in the boxes this week.  Below are two of my favorite recipes that use lemongrass.  I have also been making lemongrass tea with the leaves.  Lemongrass freezes great if you wrap it tightly in plastic.

Tom Kha Gai - For most of you this will involve a trip to an Asian market.  Hong Phat on College typically has both galangal and kaffir lime leaves.  Galangal looks a bit like ginger but larger and smells of pine.  Neither is very expensive and both can be frozen and saved for another dish.  They also happen to carry my favorite brand of fish sauce - Red Boat.  It has been a while, but I have also bought lime leaves at the halal market on Martin and at the store on the West side across from Mud Bay.  I make my own stock so I don't bother with the stock reductions she mentions and it always tastes great.

Congee with Pork Meatballs - I make this same dish without the meatballs and sub leftover chicken or turkey as well.  The fried garlic is tasty but fried shallots and shallot oil are great too.  It is my favorite winter comfort food.

If you find yourself in need of fresh vegetables, we will be open on Wednesday for one more week and then on Saturdays from 9am until 3pm until the last Saturday in November.

I thanked you last week but I will say it again.  We really appreciate you supporting our farm.

Spinach - So good!
Butterkin Squash - Cute to look at and good to eat.  If you are really missing a squash that we normally give (we have given acorns, kabochas, pie pumpkins in the past) we should have a few of all of them on hand if you want to trade.
Rutabaga - This old fashioned veggie is actually very easy to use.  Cooked it reminds us a bit of broccoli stems.  It is great just steamed (takes a while to cook) and mashed with butter.  I usually roast everything and roasted rutabagas are good (they taste a little stronger roasted), but I enjoy them steamed and mashed best.  They go great with other root veggies and potatoes in hash browns or a gratin
Pepper
Lettuce 
Rainbow Carrots
Lemongrass
Zucchini - Large Only

Week 19

 I am sure that if you have learned nothing else about me, you have figured out that food runs my life.  What I eat, how I prepare it and who I share it with mean so much to me.  This carries over into our farm.  I feel so appreciative that you trust us enough to grow food for you and your families.  I hope you all enjoyed the vegetables we packed for you each week.  When you pull something out of your box and admire it or comment on how you are looking forward to eating it, it thrills me.  Honestly, it provides both Kelly and I with so much satisfaction.  We would still love farming without that part, but it makes the hard days easier to swallow and the good days better.   

As most of you know, this is our last year at Shincke Road and while we do know we will still be farming and selling vegetables next year we don't know exactly what it will look like.  The farm share is one of the big question marks.  Having you pick up the farm has been convenient for us, but it has also just felt much more personal than stashing a bunch of boxes on a porch.  Personally handing you your vegetable has been more satisfying than I think either of us realized when we chose to only have on farm pick-up.   However, change is inevitable and not necessarily bad.  We will keep you posted on our decision and welcome your input if you have ideas about the future of the farm share.  

Thank you all so much for supporting local agriculture.  Every year has its challenges and you may not realize it, but you have weathered them us and helped make our farm a success.  

I am including a few squash recipes.  We have hosted a farmer squash potluck a couple times where everyone brings a dish with winter squash in it.  Farmer potlucks, particularly those held in the slow season, always have great food.  Among my favorites are the empanadas I made last year.  The recipe, which I can't find in its entirety on the Internet, was from a vegan cookbook called Vedge.  I have a favorite empanada dough that isn't vegan so I used that.  The sauce, a green romesco  will make you a fan of green peppers.  The filling uses about one and a half pounds of cubed butternut, tossed with oil, salt, pepper and a half teaspoon or so (I like both of those spices a lot and used a little more) of both ground cumin and coriander.  Roast at 400 degrees until tender and then mash while still warm.  Let it cool and then fill your empanadas.   I have experimented with vegetarian dumplings and pot stickers over the years and these winter squash dumplings are the best I have had.  I like to fry food when people come over and  pakoras are usually a hit.  While it isn't a traditional choice, they are fantastic with very small pieces of delicata and kale.  Other delicious dishes I don't have the recipes for include some black bean and squash enchiladas, some cheese, squash gougres and squash gnocchi which were bit heavier than potato ones but still yummy.  Just cooking a squash and eating it with some butter is fantastic but if you feel like doing something different, there are a lot of options out there.  

Head Lettuce - Small Share
Baby Lettuces - Large Share
Russet Potatoes 
Daikon Radish - We are planning to leave the greens on these because for once we can.   Usually we see horrible aphids on them and it was a pleasant surprise to lift the cover and not see aphids.  
Cherry Tomatoes - Just a half pint for fun...field cherries are not usually a thing this time of year.  
Yellow Onion - These should keep really well.  If you still have a sweet onion that we gave you, use that first, its days are numbered.  
Butternut Squash
Kale