Week 6; July 31, 2014
What's in the box?
Red Cabbage
Green Beans and Dragon Tongue Beans
Head Lettuce
Collard Greens
Red scallions
Basil
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Bell Pepper
Tomatoes (cherry or slicers)
Summer Squash/ Zucchini
Cucumbers
Red Cabbage
Green Beans and Dragon Tongue Beans
Collar Greens
Basil
Red Scallions
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Green Top Carrots
Cukes
Summer Squash/ Zukes
Notes on the box...
We put carrots in Single Shares only this week, but full shares will have them next week. To help your carrots keep longer, be sure to remove them from their tops. Store the carrots in a plastic bag in the crisper. They are so sweet and bursting with flavor, I'm sure they will be eaten as a snack. Of course, they are also great in stir fry, roasted, shredded in coleslaw, etc. But you can't beat them enjoyed all on their own as a snack. The tops are edible and we have finally actually found a good recipe that uses carrot tops! See the recipe section for Carrot Top Pesto! Carrots are a crop that are usually grown with lots of specialized mechanization on a large scale. This makes carrots pretty dang cheap in the store. At our scale, we spend SO MUCH time growing these lovelies for you! You wouldn't believe the amount of time that goes into hand weeding, harvesting, bunching, and washing these guys. We hope that you can taste the difference!
Peppers and tomatoes in Full shares only this week, but hopefully both next week as more ripen. Think warm thoughts! It's almost August and the tomatoes are JUST coming on. It's pretty late! Lets hope for a late frost this season so we all get our fill of these beauties.
Recipes...
Collard Greens with Butter Beans
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Notes from the field....
It dried up! Now we are irrigating. But it's really hard to complain about this weather. I mean, we could use a little rain and yeah the cool temps are slow to bring on the summer crops but... really, it could be 90+ and we could have had hail storms and pest infestations, but we don't. We lost a good amount to plants drowning, but now it seems to be dried out and some plants might hopefully bounce back. I'm counting our blessings, this is a beautiful Summer. We hope everyone has been eating all their vegetables and having a great time doing so. We love hearing from you, send us pictures, post comments good or bad. Let us know you actually read this; we spend quite a bit of time coming up with the recipes, taking pictures, and writing all this stuff to give you a window into our farming lives and where your food is coming from! We don't always respond right away, but comments mean a lot to us. It lets us know you care.
Fall extension shares
We are hoping to have some of our fall extension shares listed on our website soon, as we start bringing in and getting a grip on fall crops. This will bring your harvest out to Thanksgiving, adding another 4 weeks on with some fantastic cold sweetened greens, brussels, savoy cabbage, spinach, plus all the standard root crops and onions that store well packed in a bigger box. A perpetual Thanksgiving with many crops that will hold well into Jan-Feb if stored properly. We will let you know as soon as they are available.
Fantastic garlic add on share
We also will be offering a one time garlic add on to your box. Normally we'd like to just give you the garlic, but here is why we are doing the add on... Last year we moved the farm and had to leave our garlic crop (that was planted in the fall of 2012) behind. This was years of seed saving that allowed us to be able to give everyone an abundance of garlic. Some were really nice heirloom varieties that were gifted to us from friends over the years. We were so bummed to have to leave it behind! But it was lost. So last fall we bought 100 lbs of seed garlic. That was all we could find or afford as seed garlic prices are very high due to a disease that spread across many midwestern garlic growers in 2011-2012. So our hope is that we can take the money we get from the add on garlic share to help buy more seed garlic (on top of what we save) this fall so that everyone will get garlic in the box next year and we can continue to build up our seed stock again. Sign into your account to add garlic or just send us an email and we can do it for you.
Don't forget about the farm events coming up. Summer cookout on August 16th at the farm. We will be grilling and hope you bring a dish to pass. There will be farm tours and plenty of time and space for kids and adults to explore, sample goodies straight from the field, get to know your farmers, breathe some fresh air, and get the wiggles out! We’ll plan on dinner at 6 PM, You can come a little early to explore the farm (around 4 or 5) and feel free to camp out overnight if you’d like. Please let us know if you plan on attending! We are on google maps, just search for Turnip Rock Farm Please RSVP so we know how many people to expect!
Our Harvest Party will be September 20th. Another potluck! Mark your calendar! pumpkins to pick, and fall colors.
green house of towering heirloom tomatoes, just waiting to ripen...
No one feeling picture day while bunching carrots! Except for the carrots. They were pretty photogenic.
Hats by Herban Outfitters. It's fashionable to look like you don't carrot all!
