CSA Newsletter

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has red and yellow onions, shallots, garlic, carrots, beets, black radishes, sweet dumpling squash, pie pumpkins, fingerling and red skinned potatoes, celery root, and the last rutabagas.

Field Notes.  Ken continues planting.Although many farms stop planting and harvesting, we are proud of our winter boxes.  And the greens got better from last year - both in volume and variety.  Ken loves this challenge.  We want to provide vegetables year around.

The onions are up.  Each year I get excited when Ken plants them because they are the first planting for the new season.   And they pop up folded and then spring open.  It is like a dance chorus line.  And it is exciting as day old chicks!

Ken is also checking air and soil in all the greenhouses so he knows as soon as he can plant.  He is still formulating his planting plan for each greenhouse to use each for it s best assets

From the Kitchen.  Greens!  As the days lengthen, and there is more sun, the greens are growing, so we have a real mix: lettuce, brassicas, and pungent greens like baby endive.  And soon with more sun and heat, we can move from the small greens to larger.  It is much more economical to plant once, cultivate once or twice, and harvest a full head for that seed.  And a beautiful head of lettuce has more flavor than the baby greens.  I used a yogurt vinaigrette at lunch today.

The cabbage today is a full season cabbage.  I tend to cook these.  I like to saute an onion, stir in some sliced or chopped cabbage to wilt slightly and then make a white, cheese, or cream curry sauce.
We also add chopped cabbage to soups and stews.

We have been cooking squash and pumpkins as they develop a bruise or soft spot.  Ken usually makes a pie, and I toast some nuts in a cast iron pan and then add some butter then cooked squash and once it is warmed I flip the pan to serve so the nuts are on top.  Sometimes I add a beaten egg for more of a souffle texture.

I did not cut the growing tops off some of the roots.  We often cut the top at the shoulder and set the cut side in a dish and grow out greens.  Beets and rutabagas and radishes are all really nice.

'Til Next Month
Judith