CSA Newsletter May

Greetings from the Garden! This week's box has salad greens, braising greens, spinach, French Breakfast radishes, chives, parsnips, sunchokes, gobo, and shallots.

Field Notes. The greens are most happy. They do great in cool damp weather. We have to be careful on sunny days that they don't get too hot! We opened hoopettes so the plants all got rain and as Ken says, "They went to town!" Spread the word as we could have more CSA members.


Ken has been planting out in the field. The biodynamic calendar has the next couple days as fruit days, so Ken may be planting peas and tomatoes. He then moves on to the leaf days when he will clean out some of the hoopettes and plant new crops.

From the kitchen. Gobo or burdock root is a traditional Japanese spring tonifier; it is said to clean the liver and blood. We usually cook ours kinpira with carrots. I also add a bit to soups and stews and we cut long strips and toast in the oven at lowest heat setting until they are dry enough to snap. Then we cool and store for grinding into a root tea with dandelion, chicory and dock or elcapane roots.

The Osaka mustard has begun! It is a zippy green that I roll and cut small ribbons to add to salad. If you find it has a bit too much zip for you, wilt it. Both arugula and mustard lose their punch when heated. I also saute and onion, add braising greens like mustard or mizuna to wilt and then add vinegar, lemon juice or a dressing and serve.

Claytonia looks like lily pads. It is a mild green and we use it both in salad and braised. It is also fine in soup. We like soup in the morning as it is nice to start the day with warm food.

The first of the spring planted roots - French breakfast radishes are here. In the cool weather radishes are mild, and we often add the nice green tops to salad or braising mixes. Ken runs them in the blender to make a green goddess salad dressing.

This Saturday and Sunday is the EARTH ARTS spring tour. We will be here at the farm with vegetables and pottery for sale. Hope you can stop by. The wildflowers are starting to bloom - nice time to walk through the woods out to see the field.