Week 2; July 11, 2013
What's in the box?
green onions
zucchini or summer squash
lacinato/ dinosaur/ tuscan kale
broccoli
salad mix
sugar snap peas
herb pot with sage, thyme, and mint
sugar snap peas
green onions
summer squash or zucchini
lacinato/ dinosaur/ tuscan kale
salad mix
salad turnips
herb pot with sage and thyme
Notes on the box:
The Sugar Snap Peas should be rinsed before eating. These are not shell peas that you would have to take out of the pod. The shell of the sugar snap pea is edible and so delicious! This variety is supposed to be “stringless”, but they can be “stringed”. To string them, pull the longer end with the blossom toward the opposite end. A little string will come off. If you don’t want to do this, don’t worry about the string. It’s not so stringy that it can’t be chewed. You can chop the peas if you don’t want to leave them whole.
You can eat the tops of the salad turnips. They are nice chopped and added to the salad mix or you can saute them. They are pretty mild for turnip greens. The turnips themselves are so sweet and nice sliced and added to a salad. Sorry that we didn't have enough for full shares, too.
Broccoli is the first of the season and is small. The sudden temp changes made it "button up" or "head up" while the plants were still small. But it's really nice and tender and I encourage you to chop the whole thing, stalk and all, and sautee, steam, stir fry, or roast it! It's also wonderful chopped very fine and made into a broccoli slaw.
All the veggies this week will store best in your crisper. The kale may benefit from being placed in an open plastic bag to preserve the moisture longer.
Herb identification:
Herbs can be potted out or kept in a sunny window and watered regularly. They will get much bigger if you pot them out. If you leave them in the pot, just pinch off several leaves at a time and add the fresh herbs at the end of a recipe to let the flavor come out. Sage can also be added earlier in recipes (it's often fried) and thyme is nice if you add the whole sprigs to a soup and then take them out before serving.
Recipes...
A link to 5 ways to eat sugar snap peas from the Kitchn Blog.
A link to Salad in a jar. This is a GREAT lunch option and a great way to have your salad but not have it all mushy by lunch time. Feel free to experiment and substitute widely! Ever tried raw zucchini or summer squash in a salad? It's really good! After the endless Winter and slow to arrive veggies, we have been eating tons of veggies raw. So refreshing and satisfying! How we love the SUNSHINE!
On the farm...
Pea pickin' Ben
Packing shed this week:
THE WORLD'S MOST PERFECT WEATHER!
On Tuesday night we got exactly an inch of good not too fast, not too long rain after a good dry hot spell, perfect. In that dry spell we got some first cutting hay done (156 small round bales), an old 15 acre corn field planted down to grasses, and small grain for grazing this fall, plus lots of fall plantings of broccoli and cabbage. Some areas of the farm it was the first time we were able to work the soil because it has been too wet. Now we are basking in the nicest weather in the world. Low humidity high 70s low 80s. My man Paul Huttner put the stamp on it, according to his models we have the nicest weather in the world. So take that, California. Plus I just want to take this opportunity to say nice things about the weather, and keep a balanced perspective and count our blessings. At the start of the day today, I had a broken down delivery van and a walk in cooler on the fritz, but by the end we had 255 packed CSA boxes and everything up and running.
In the fields...
Potatoes are blossoming, the nicest looking potatoes we have ever grown plus the weather has been very favorable for them. Plus there are very few to no potato beetles! Potato beetles love to eat eggplants more than potatoes, but this year may be one of the few years we actually get an eggplant crop. Those potato beetles will have found us by next season without a doubt!
We have tiny cucumbers on the vineSmall heads of cauliflower peaking out behind the leaves
Little heads of cabbage wrapping up
Lots of beautiful melons, tomatoes, peppers, all starting to set fruit.
Some good sized heirloom tomatoes sizing up in the greenhouse growing inches taller everyday.
Spring is nearly over (well, technically it's been over for a couple of weeks) and summer is looking delicious.
It has never been that on the second box we are delivering summer squash and zuchinni, but here it is. We might just be skipping over a lot of the spring crops and head right into the summer.
A new farm means new soil.
I just wanted to mention quickly what this means to us and for you, this season. The field where we are planting in this year has been in a hay crop for two years and hasn't been sprayed in that time, That is a rare thing to find these days of high corn prices. But that doesn't mean that everything is all good. No matter where any organic farmer decides to put roots down it usually means starting with a dead and/or very depleted soil. We saw some amazing changes over the 5 years in New Auburn with soil building and amending, but we are starting over again. Developing a habitat in the soil for microbes to digest organic matter and turn it into plant food takes time and some good inputs. Adjusting pH and minerals, bringing in more organic matter... It's a lot of work, but building good soil is what we want to do! We are always learning more about it and trying to do it better and better. We feel confident that we will be able to nurture some great soil and habitat out here on the new farm, though it will take some time to get there.... Hopefully you'll notice the changes in the quality of our soil in the quality of the produce you're getting. healthy soil = healthy people. That's what we want to deliver to you!
Next Week:
Peas?
Green onions
Broccoli
lettuce?
more greens
summer squash