CSA Newsletter

Watering onion transplants

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has lettuce, spinach, baby beet greens, salad greens like pea shoots and baby kale, braising greens like mustard, baby turnips, asparagus, green onions, dill, chervil and sorrel.

Field Notes.  Ken is busily weeding perennials like strawberries.  Most years he weeds early when it is too wet to do other field work, but this year he fired the pottery kiln.  The weeds are larger and it takes longer, but he is making rapid progress.

Onion seedlings

Ken has also begun planting what I think of as the "one time" crops.  He plants several crops weekly or every other week or a few times per season, but crops in the nightshade family like tomatoes and curcurbit family like squash are planted once in the season.  The onions are now planted.  This is part of why spring is so busy around here.

Tomato plants in mobile high tunnel

Ken also spent time making raised beds in the mobile tunnel.  He had planted greens in the garden before we knew we would have the tunnel done last fall.   He planted some greens in the mobile in late winter, and those greens are in your box today.  Next Ken will continue planting in the garden, field and greenhouses.  He is also continuing to work the soil for the next mobile location for the late season crops.

From the Kitchen. Asparagus.  We have had grilled asparagus a couple times.  That has become our favorite way to cook it, as grilling seals the flavor into each spear.  My second favorite is to saute asparagus in olive oil in a cast iron pan.  I have been making pasta salads with olive oil based dressing, a bit of cooked chicken or our sausage, green onion tops, chopped olives, and sauteed asparagus pieces.  It is a great warm weather supper.

It is a big salad week!  I have been making lots of different dressings.  Each year I get a request for salad dressing recipes.  Ken and I create different combinations of the following: an oil or dairy like yogurt, a sour like lemon juice or vinegar, a bit of something sweet like honey, salt and pepper. One of my current favorites for spinach salad is feta cheese, yogurt, apple cider vinegar, honey, salt and pepper.  Some ground paprika or chipotle is a nice addition. With tossed greens I usually combine olive oil, lemon juice or vinegar, herbs, honey, salt and pepper.  For an Asian variation I use sesame oil, a bit of toasted sesame oil, sweet rice wine called mirin, rice vinegar, tamari or soy sauce for the salty, powdered red cayenne pepper, and a bit of honey and toasted sesame seeds.  The Asian dressing is great on blanched spinach now, and cucumbers in summer.

What a surprise last week - not just turnip greens, but also the baby turnips, too.  I usually braise the greens like a mustard.  The greens are a powerhouse of nutrition.  The turnips, a Japanese variety, really shine when washed, thinly sliced and salted for about a half hour.  The salt brings out the sweetness.  If salt is an issue, just rinse before serving.

And speaking of nutritional power houses, dill is one.  Ken is reading a companion planting book, and the herb section states dill has more vitamins than parsley!  The book also states dill is a spring crop.  Ken has been saying this for years, and was glad to see it in print. Dry or freeze your dill now for those late season pickles.  Summer dill is never as nice.

'Til next Week, 

Bon Apetit!