CSA Newsletter

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has a variety of lettuce, endive, salad and braising greens, sorrel,  young cilantro, green onions, radishes, sun chokes, asparagus, and strawberries as we have them.

Field Notes.  We have been getting plenty of rain.  A couple years back during several drought years, Ken joked that he forgot how to grow if we got adequate rain; this year may be the test!  It is so nice to see the crops and green manures look lush.

This has been a week of fencing - the bear fence, expanding the geese and pigs, and the cucumber fence in the garden.  Setting up fences takes time.  It is odd how many different jobs are involved in growing food - it is not just planting some seeds and harvesting!  

Ken has been cultivating all three growing spaces to stay ahead of weeds.  The heat loving plants have been doing well.  Our cool weather this week slows them down, so we will have to wait and see what the weather brings.Cool weather makes for great greens and all the brassica family like bok choy and Napa cabbage.  With heat the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and the members of the nightshade or solanaceae family thrive.  But even the nightshades prefer temperatures below 90; that is when they drop blossoms.

From the Kitchen. Endive is an early season favorite.  Each year I think of a friend who told me that she and her friend got together and their  favorite meal was endive with a creamy dressing and spaghetti with tomato sauce.  That would be a tasty combination!  Endive can also be cooked if it seems to have stronger or more bitter flavor than you like.  I often add rinsed chopped greens to hot pasta and toss before adding a sauce.

Strawberries - a power house of flavor and nutrition.  I eat them when I know their source - Why? Strawberries are often sprayed repeatedly with chemicals.  For more information check the Environmental Working Group's list of the Dirty Dozen - the fruits and vegetables with the highest chemical residues.  These in your box have no chemicals - organic or otherwise.  Rinse, eat and Enjoy!

'Til Next Week, 
Judith

Heat Loving Crops in the Mobile High Tunnel

With the lettuce and other greens out, the mobile high tunnel is filling up with heat loving crops like tomatoes and peppers.  

We are monitoring to keep temperatures at optimum for those crops - too cold means limited growth, and too hot means blossom drop and no fruit.  It feels a bit like Goldilocks and seeking that "just right" situation!

Strawberry Season Starts

Ken is doing some experimenting with fruit in the greenhouses.  

The strawberries in the greenhouse are ready to pick while the ones outside the greenhouse are just blooming

And we get the ones with blemishes - bird pecks, slug bites, etc

Flowers - Wild and Otherwise

So much is blooming right now!  The most fragrant is this wild apple - it has the tiniest fruit- just large enough to hold four seeds.  Ken thinks it is hawthorn or apple.

And the iris have begun!  this one from my friend Lesa..

and this from Janette

and the first of the Siberian iris, possibly my favorite flower.

Peonies from my mother are in the bud

And fragrant valerian is also in the bud

For wild flowers we have geranium

lady's mantle and false Solomon's seal

and annual self seeding daisies

CSA Newsletter

Back road to the mobile high tunnel

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has asparagus, lettuce, salad and braising greens, radishes, green onions or chives, bok choy, sun chokes and parsnips

a flower often planted for bees in Europe

Field Notes.  Ken is busy!  Many crops are going in this week  - like the curcurbit family such as cucumbers, melons and squash.  The zucchini is already in the garden.  Ken has been transplanting hot weather crops - tomatoes and peppers are in the mobile high tunnel.  Out in the field the onions and garlic look great.  And Ken has also been planting flowers for insectaries for beneficial insects and pollinators.  And in his "spare time" he is picking asparagus, pulling greens and radishes for farm sales, and doing all the animal chores.  No, I have not been lying on the sofa eating bon bons!

 With the rain the mosquitoes are hatching.  One evening they were so pesty that Ken wore his bee suit and leather gloves!  I have dug out insect repellent for the first time in years.  Although the mosquitoes may seem annoying, we are so glad there is moisture, and we just work around the weather.

Monday the wildlife damage person brought us a fence for the bear.  Ken has not encountered the large bear a second time, but as strawberries are just starting to ripen we are glad to have a way to keep the bears out of the greenhouse.  I netted the strawberries this weekend to protect them from the birds.  Many birds eat insects when they are laying eggs and feeding young, but once their young start to fly, they all are very happy to peck holes in strawberries!  Strawberries will appear in your CSA boxes as we have them.

Joy choy

From the Kitchen.  Bok choy is here.  I always get excited when the bok choy is ready - it is the first of the really solid food after the radishes and salad turnips.   It is in the category of what I call bonus vegetables - two delicious parts.  I usually cook bok choy briefly.  I separate the stems from leaves and cook stems a couple minutes and add the green leafy part just as I turn off the heat so it wilts and turns bright green. 

Red bok choy

I like bok choy cooked with onion of any type and one of my favorite additions just before serving is a little umeboshi vinegar - sweet sour and salty.  I also make an Asian dressing I use on everything from spinach to grilled asparagus to bok choy.  It is sesame oil, a little toasted sesame oil, a bit of honey, some mild vinegar, tamari or soy sauce and some powdered red pepper and toasted sesame seeds.

Beet thins are a versatile green.  I like to add the tender leaves to salad for sweetness and color.  They are great in stir fry or braising mixes.  Once we thin a few times the beet roots with tops are not far in the future!

'Til Next Week, 
Judith

Spring greens continued - Bok choy, Sorrel and Radicchio

This week we have some new greens, and people have thanked me for blog posts with photos and recipes, so here goes!  First we have radicchio, an Italian green.  most people know the Verona type that looks like a red cabbage with white ribs, but we grow a Treviso type.  It is a spicy green, and like arugula it is great with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, goat cheese and toasted nuts.  It mellows with cooking.  I often toss pungent greens with hot pasta to tone them down.  Radicchio is great grilled.  Martha Stewart tops grilled radicchio with balsamic vinegar and shaved hard cheese.

Sorrel also known as French Sorrel is a lemony herb, more robust lemony flavor than the mellower lemon balm.  I rinse, chop and place in a skillet of olive oil and melted butter  to seal the flavor.  I then add it to fish, vegetables or wherever I would like some lemon flavor with the bonus of green color ( and a local source for the flavor).  Sorrel is often added to egg dishes and cream soups and to stir fry just before serving in place of lemon grass ( a tropical plant).

Bok choy is an Asian green that is flexible!  I most often combine it in a saute with onions and red radishes, carrot cut in matchsticks, or salad turnips.  I cut the ribs from the leaves and cook the ribs a minute or two and add the greens just before serving. 
My favorite is to add just a bit of umeboshi vinegar, a salty, sweet and sour condiment.  I also like making a combination of sesame oil, a dash of toasted sesame oil, some sweet wine like Mirin or sherry and some tamari or good soy sauce and top with toasted sesame seeds.

CSA Newsletter

salad turnips

Greetings from the Garden! This box has Romaine, red lettuce and other salad greens, braising greens, radishes, salad turnips, green onions or chives, gobo (burdock root), celery root, beets, potatoes, and asparagus.

Field Notes.  The heat has arrived.  After a slow spring, we have had some rain and heat.  Many things are catching up.  For example the asparagus was slow to start, but we are getting larger than usual harvests each time Ken picks.  If you want additional asparagus or have friends looking for asparagus, send them our way!  

Fence is similar to this poultry netting

We have been promised a new electric fence specifically to keep the bears out of the field tunnel and the strawberries there.  The wild life damage woman agrees with us that two bears walking through the bulb onion crops are a nuisance and she has ordered fence and trap before they continue to damage crops.  This is encouraging after the USDA "bear guy" told us on a phone message and in person that bear"walking through your garden" did not constitute a nuisance!  

Strawberries blooming and starting to set fruit

I was steaming last week, but have calmed down now that action is starting before we lose crops. 

Ken has been clearing the mobile high tunnel of greens and planting the heat loving crops.  He is also planting heat loving plants in the field tunnel as well.  He cleared spaces and cultivated the entire garden and transplanted seedlings into that space. As crops come out, new ones go in.

The pigs are now in a large new space south of the garden.  Their first job is to clear the area just south of the garden and then Ken will improve the fence.  Ken is considering their next move, and I will keep you posted

From the Kitchen.  Asparagus is a great side dish!  I have brought a simple meal out to Ken in the field a couple nights last week.  One night I fried up a couple pieces of bacon, and boiled some pasta.  I removed the bacon and chopped for a garnish.  I pan grilled the asparagus in the bacon fat.  For a pasta topping I sauteed green onions, added some cream cheese and removed from heat.  once the pasta was done, I drained and tossed with chopped dandelion greens - any salad or braising green would work.  Then I added some brined red peppers to the pasta and topped it with the chopped bacon.

Another night was pasta with a mushroom sauce from mushrooms we had dried last summer and green onions.  There was a side salad with wild violets as a garnish.

Home made mayonnaise is great on asparagus.  Check recipe books, but it is basically beaten egg yolk with a bit of salt, pepper, honey, and either a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar.  Then using an electric beater, drizzle in about a cup of oil - I like olive, walnut, sesame or sunflower.  Then once the oil is incorporated, add one more tablespoon of either lemon juice or vinegar.  with our eggs, it is a bright yellow color

And with the egg whites I make macaroons for a treat for Ken

'Til Next Week, 
Judith