August Third

I want to take a minute to celebrate you!  The home cook! I want to celebrate your daily practice of preparing nourishing food for your families using fresh, local, organic vegetables.  Your decision to source your vegetables from an organic vegetable CSA farm is applaudable and has far-reaching effects that go beyond your kitchen.  Your not only supporting a small scale diversified organic family farm, but your putting in serious time and dedication to wash, process, sautee, blender, bake and steam all of these veggies.  Bravo!

I believe that the creative energy your putting into these veggies also supports your community. Your showing your children, your partner, and your community that home-cooked meals matter and are worth your time and energy.  Your showing your community that the source of your food matters when you choose to buy it from a farm that practices stewardship and a respectful relationship to the land, water and an a balanced ecosystem.  Your proving to yourself that even though your busy, you know you have time for what is important for your body and your mealtime routines. 

I have three small children myself and I know they love it when mom is in the kitchen.  My children feel loved by me when I’m in the kitchen creating aromas and flavors that create a nostalgia that lasts a lifetime for them.  They bob in and out of the kitchen, sometimes offering to help chop and peel and stir whatever is in the pan.  They nibble at my diced cucumbers and carrots.  They show excitement for the expectant meal that nourishes not only their bellies, but their hearts as well.  They see how busy I am, but they also see how important it is to me that we eat home-cooked meals prepared with fresh, seasonal ingredients. 

I love to think of you all out their with your meal plans. I think of you all in your kitchens chopping and dicing.  I imagine the hundreds of meals and salads and soups and casseroles and fritattas made with all of these nourishing greens.  I wonder what dishes excite you.  I wonder if your kitchen is as messy as mine.  I wonder how you pull it off, because every day at our house it feels almost like a miracle that these veggie-loaded meals make it onto plates and into tummies amidst the chaos of farm life.  I wonder if your fancy in your plating or do you have guests over to share your veggies with and do you brag to them about your CSA boxes? 

You aught to be bragging!  I’m so proud of you!  Especially in an age of convenience and sound bites and flashing screens and dinging phones and deadlines, who has time for cooking?  But then again, who doesn’t have time for cooking?  If the home cooked meals go away, there is so much else that is lost.  Not just the calories and the food, but the shared meals with families.  The time spent together cleaning up the mess, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, straightening the chairs.  The time you get to yourself with a glass of wine and your veggies and a cutting board and your playlist.  The meditative, slow cooked meal is important, by golly and we all must rally to save it! 

What’s in the Box?

Celery-  Gorgeous Celery by my standards!  I have to tell you that local celery is difficult to grow!  It’s also much different than store-bought celery which mostly comes out of California.  Local celery is generally much greener and has a stronger celery flavor.  We leave much of their greens on for you to use in your stocks, soups, or juice them up if you’re a juicing person!  Local celery generally is less succulent and juicy than Cali celery which is heavily irrigated.  We do our best on this unusual local item and are happy to share it with you today! 

Red or Green Cabbage-  Most members received a green cabbage this week.  I hope you’re not cabbaged out yet.  We had one more succession that was ready to be harvested.  I hope you got the color you love most! 

Onion- We’re very happy to be sharing full sized white onions with you this week! 

Beets-  These are the first of our field beets for this season.  Will store best in a plastic bag in the fridge. 

Cucumbers-  2-3 cucumbers per member this week.  We have another succession of cucumbers coming on that will be here next week.  Did you know that cucumbers prefer a 50 degree storage temp?  A fridge is too cold and the countertop is too warm, so we recommend eating them up so you don’t have to worry about storing them! 

Zucchini and Summer Squash-  3-4 per member.  Also prefers 50 degree storage, but they don’t last long at our house.  We find ways to sneak them into to just about everything. 

Swiss Chard-  Swiss Chard is in the same family as spinach, so we wilted down their greens and made our favorite spinach stuffed shells recipe.  The stems of swiss chard add a nice veggie crunch to any stir fry or frittata. 

Green Leaf Lettuce-  We’re thrilled to still be offering lettuce in the heat of the summer here.  For your sandwiches, tacos, salads and however else you eat your lettuce!     

Broccoli or Cauliflower-  Most members received a broccoli this week.  We also filled in with cauliflower for those who did not get broccoli.  Broccoli prefers to stay very cold.  Store in a plastic bag in the fridge. 

Garlic-  This is the Chesnook variety which is a purple stripe hardneck variety.  We love that it has large cloves mixed.  Fresh garlic like this will have a thicker membrane around each clove.  It isn’t fully “cured” which is why we are giving it with some of it’s stem still attached.  Fresh garlic is fine on the countertop until the new year.  It may start to sprout after the new year in a warm kitchen.  For long term storage garlic prefers “cold, dark and dry” like the fridge.    

Next Week's Best Guess:  Celery, Cucumbers, Zucchini,Summer Squash, Onion, Garlic, lettuce, watermelons, sweet corn (hopefully!), cherry tomatoes and or asian eggplant?, carrots, maybe broccoli.  

Recipes

 Swiss Chard and Onion Fritatta from Williams Sonoma

Easy Egg Salad Recipe with Celery from Mom's Dinner

Mediterranian Celery Olive Salad from Ally's Kitchen

Cheesy Zucchini Rice from Buns in My Oven

July Twenty-Seventh

I felt a slight shift on the farm this week when I heard the cicadas sing for the first time.  Their whining, buzzing sound that only comes on the hottest of summer days to begin with.  I am also noticing more monarch butterflies and flys!  The cool nights and the shadowy evenings reminded me of fall for a brief moment as I took notice of the shortening days.  We revel in our summer nights wearing tank tops and running barefoot, but I was briefly made aware of their scarcity in the shadowy, cool Sunday night.  Suddenly the dark by 8:50pm feels early! 

Summer cannot be called a summer until we have tasted sweet corn and melons and tomatoes.  Our favorite summer crops are yet to come, but as we are so ready for them, they cannot arrive soon enough!  We noticed that our farm dog/puppy, Leche, has been harvesting melons out of our melon patch.  He hunts for the biggest, sweetest melons and then picked one right in front of us while we were harvesting kale this morning.  I had to take it as a training opportunity and scold him for his stolen melon.  It looked like he got the message with his lowered head and sunken posture.  Later we had to repeat the same training when he picked an unripe tomato right off the vine.  Thief!  We also noticed that the racoons or other wild animals have discovered our melon patch and are sampling as well.  I guess it’s time to start picking melons soon!

Farmer Adam finished putting up the sweet corn fence this week as well.  We need to keep four lines of electric wire put up around the sweet corn patch to keep the racoons out.  They have already been in sampling unripe ears.  Historically, the electric fence does a very good jop at keeping the out as long as the wires aren’t shorted out by grass or tipped over corn on the electric wire. 

We’re also very excited about our tomatoes this year.  The tomato patch looks amazing, y’all!  The plants look big and healthy.  We also are experimenting with putting landscaping fabric down between the rows.  Farmer Adam has been spraying an Omri approved organic fungicide called Copper that will prevent the tomatoes from getting blight.  Tomato Blights have been a huge problem for us in previous years that cut our yields significantly.  With such a healthy tomato patch, we’re in for a pretty bountiful tomato harvest here in a few weeks!

The packing shed smelled of cucumbers, carrots and basil this afternoon as we were washing up the morning’s harvest.  These nostalgic smells instill a seasonal rhythm that I experience with my senses.  I smell the carrots and cucumbers and basil and corn pollen and melons and experience Summer.  I hear the cicadas and the sounds of the children playing in the yards and I experience summer.  I see the Monarchs and the big blue skies with the high, puffy, storybook clouds and I experience summer.  How I long to taste all of summer’s sweet, juicy offerings to feel that summer has completely washed over me. 

What’s in the Box?

Celery-  Gorgeous Celery by my standards!  I have to tell you that local celery is difficult to grow!  It’s also much different than store-bought celery which mostly comes out of California.  Local celery is generally much greener and has a stronger celery flavor.  We leave much of their greens on for you to use in your stocks, soups, or juice them up if you’re a juicing person!  Local celery generally is less succulent and juicy than Cali celery which is heavily irrigated.  We do our best on this unusual local item and are happy to share it with you today! 

Red or Green Cabbage-  We tried hard to have a red cabbage for everyone, but they were smaller and we had to pick some green cabbages to fill in.  I hope you got the color you love most! 

Onion- We were happy to harvest the first of our white onions this week!  So fresh we left their stems attached. 

Carrots-  1lb bags of carrots for all this week.  We wanted to harvest them with their greens on again this week, but we had a short crew so went with the quicker method this week.  Still lovely and ready to eat! 

Cucumbers-  2-3 cucumbers per member this week.  Cucumbers will continue to crank for it while yet.  We hope you’re loving them as much as we do!  Did you know that cucumbers prefer a 50 degree storage temp?  A fridge is too cold and the countertop is too warm, so we recommend eating them up so you don’t have to worry about storing them! 

Zucchini and Summer Squash-  3-4.  Yep, the zucchini and summer squash are still coming!  We hope you’re finding ways to sneak them into your meals each week!  It’s no problem at our house! 

Red Curly Kale-  Gorgeous bunches of red curly kale for your cooking delight! 

Green Leaf Lettuce-  Smaller heads of lettuce this week, but lettuce is difficult to grow in high summer at all, so we’re thrilled to have it to share with you!  Lettuce this time of year can get a little more bitter, especially if it has been very hot, but we’re finding it’s not as bitter as we have experienced some years, possibly because of the cooler temps and plenty of rain. 

Cauliflower and/or Broccoli-  Everyone received a cauliflower this week, and some people also received a broccoli if the cauliflower was smaller.  We didn’t have quite enough broccoli for everyone this week.  Prefers to be kept very cold, so will need to get in the fridge right away! 

Basil-  Small, cute little bunches of basil.  Basil can be stored like cut flowers in a vase of water to keep it fresh until you’re ready to use it.  Basil will turn black if kept in a fridge. 

Next Weeks Best Guess:  Zucchini and Summer Squash, Cucumbers, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Celery, Onion, Carrots or beets, Chard, Asian Eggplant, Lettuce, Maybe Cabbage

Recipes

Asian Peanut Slaw from Veggie Society

Everything But The....Cream Cheese Celery Snacks by The Skinny Fork

Zucchini Parmesan by Alexandra Cooks

Lemon Basil Gnochi with Zucchini by Gimme Some Oven

July Twentieth

High Summer on the farm feels hot and muggy.  We received a perfect rain last Friday with exactly one inch that fell in the morning.  We were planning on getting some weeding done that morning, but were happy to find a little inside work to stay out of the lightning and thunder and pouring rain. 

I have learned that I tolerate the heat a little better than I have in previous summers for some reason.  I wonder if a person can build up to this kind of thing or if my mental stamina for working in the heat has increased.  I watch the crew power though with their water bottles, sun hats and using their positive attitudes and lively conversation to help endure the sauna.  I’m endlessly thankful for such a hardy crew of helpers that value using their bodies and doing this kind of work. 

Cucumber harvest hit fast and strong this week.  We were able to give everyone 4 cucumbers this week which always feels good.  Cucumber harvest will mellow out a little now until our next succession comes on.  Zucchini and Summer squash harvest is going steady.  The plants will continue to produce generously for several more weeks.  Dust off your zucchini and cucumber recipes!  Farmer Adam is picking broccoli, cauliflower and Romanesco every two days still so that we all have florettes for roasting, steaming or stir-frying all week long! 

This week we are hoping to catch up on some weeding projects that have gotten away from us before we begin garlic harvest next week.  Garlic harvest usually consumes all of the crew time for a couple weeks other than when we need to shift into harvesting mode for cukes, zuccs, and broccoli harvest.  We’re excited because we have an extra big crew of helpers this year to help us get the harvest in in a timely manner. 

My mother took the kids down to my sister’s house this week so Adam and I had a couple days home on the farm to ourselves this week for the first time ever.  I noticed this week how loud the birds are around out house.  How did I not hear all of that ruckus before?   The farm was an Eden of butterflies, birds, and bees that I was able to slow down to see and hear this week.  Such a strange calmness for Adam and I to experience the farm quite and alone in the evenings when the children were away from home. 

What’s in the Box???

Curly Green Kale-  A hefty bunch of green kale to keep you eating your greens. 

Carrots-  Gorgeous bunches of carrots this week with 8-10 carrots per bunch.  We were excited to give them with their green tops on.  Carrot tops are edible if you’re up for a challenge!

Cucumbers-  4 Cucumbers per member this week.  Our kids love to eat these as a snack, but we also love to make cucumber sandwiches and creamy cucumber salad!  Nothing like a cucumber to help you cool off!

Zucchini and Summer Squash-  3-7 per member.  We had a little mis-count and most members received 7 squash, but we were running out towards the end of packing and had to cut the number down.  The plants are still producing generously.  We’re expecting the harvest to slow a little.  Zucchini and Summer Squash harvest will slow down in cooler temperatures and as the plants get older. 

Broccoli-  One broccoli per member this week.  Broccoli is a cool season plant, so it’s a blessing to still be harvesting it in late July.  We know you love broccoli, so we plant a lot of it! 

Lettuce x2-  Lettuce is another tricky one to have in the heat of the summer like this.  We aim for a lettuce harvest every week because everyone loves to make their salads or have lettuce for sandwiches. 

Dill-  The dill is all flowered out.  We thought you might like to use the flowers if you make refrigerator pickles.  The flowers could also make a nice bouquet for your table if they handle the transport okay- we put the dill in the bottom of the box so that the other veggies don’t get pollen all over them.  The fronds can be added to salads of all kinds! 

Beets-  These are overwintered beets that we wanted to give to clean out the cooler before we start harvesting the fresh ones in a couple weeks! 

Fennel-  Fennel are difficult to grown in the heat as well.  Enjoy this rare gem of a vegetable! 

Green Onions-  This is the final green onion harvest of the season. Next week will be able to begin harvesting the fresh bulb onions. 

Garlic Scapes-  This is also the final garlic scape week.  We will be able to send fresh cut garlic next week.  Scapes can be used from the blunt end of the scape up to the nodule. 

Next Week’s Best Guess:  Celery, Cucumber, Squash, Lettuce, Kale, Carrots, Broccoli or Cauliflower?, Red Cabbage?, Onion?, Beet?, Basil or sage?

Recipes

Just Keeps Getting Better Kale Salad by Bon Appetit

Spiced Summer Squash and Chickpea Bisque from Dishing Up the Dirt

Broccoli and Fennel Soup with Sunflower Seed Dukkah from With Food and Love

Asian Cucumber Salad from Lemon Tree Dwelling

Balsamic Roasted Beet Salad with Walnuts and Feta from Walder Wellness

July Thirteenth

In these full summer days of endless to-do lists with the demands of the farm getting heavier and stronger, our bodies begin to feel like they’re moving with less briskness and pep.  All the stored energy from a winter’s rest feel like it was used up already somehow.  The broccoli, zucchini and now cucumber harvests need to happen every two days.  The weed pressure gets more and more intense while the thermostat rises.  Adam and I work around the clock trying to keep the farm functioning like a well-oiled machine.  The children, the yard, the kitchen, the laundry-all need attention as well. 

Sustainability is a buzz word in the world of organic farming.  With the emphasis on soil health we are focused on sustainability.  We’re thinking about the monarchs, the nesting birds, the soil microbes, the worms and critters of all kinds whether we see them or not, we aim to coexist harmoniously.  The plants are happy, the crops look amazing, the CSA boxes are full and we have help.  But somehow the lifestyle for the farmer does not feel quite so.  It’s just that we’re tired.  The kind of tired you feel when you’ve poured all of heart and soul into something because you believe it in deeply.  We’re holding onto our ideals with our teeth, be it foolish or admirable, I still haven’t figured that one out. 

I do not wish to sound like I am complaining, because I really dislike complaining.  Everything we have going in our lives, we asked for and created for ourselves.  We dreamed for, invited and built this life brick by brick.  I actually feel lucky and blessed to be here.  No one makes us do it other than me, the mad-woman behind the scenes who thought this was all a really good idea.  I’m just mad enough to continue believing that it is a good idea and to hit the restart button every year.  My amazing, hardworking husband obliges me and together we jump in with both feet. 

The truth it, it is a good life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  The rewards are much greater than the sacrifices.  But I guess it helps a little to share the fact that it’s really, really hard with you.  I write these newsletters like a journal entry in the quite of the evenings when the children are sleeping and mommy has a little time to herself after a busy day on the farm.  I sit here wondering what to write about and these are the words I find myself typing. 

But sometimes, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, I sneak out to my flower beds for a little while.  I have some Lillys, Echinesia, Gladiolas, Irises, Poppys, Calendulas, a few Zinnias and this year I tried to start some Daisys.  The Daisy’s are still pretty little and I’m not sure if they’re going to take off.  I really want Daisys.  They possess a simplicity that is so contrasting to my life, I feel drawn to them.  I feel guilty when I’m weeding my flowers when there is so much weeding to be done in the fields and I know Adam is out there trellising tomatoes.  But the children play in the yard when I’m weeding flowers and we’re together in a way.  I feel guilty when I’m farming and I’m not with my kids.  I feel guilty when I’m with my kids and I’m not farming.  I have learned that I cannot escape some level of guilt wherever I am.  So I just go weed some flowers for a little bit when I can afford to.  It nurtures me in a different kind of way.  Maybe I will learn to let go of my guilt in these flower beds and trust that I am doing enough. 

What’s in the Box?

Green Cabbage- This is a variety called Quickstart.  An early season cabbage that isn’t quite as dense as a storage cabbage.  It’s a little lighter and airier of a cabbage, but crispy all the same! 

Cucumber-  The very first cucumber harvest of the season!  I was SO excited for cucumbers this year!  Just one thes week, but be ready for more next week!  

Zucchini and Summer Squash-  4 squash per member.  We tried to give everyone two zucchinis and two summer squashes, but you may have received three summer squashes and one zucchini.  Time to dust off all of those zucchini and summer squash recipes because the squashes are rolling in heavy these days!  Zucchini pancakes, zucchini fritters, zucchini bread, zucchini ricotta roll ups!  Sub summer squash in almost any zucchini recipe. 

Broccoli or Cauliflower-  Either a broccoli or cauliflower per member this week.  I hope you got the one you love to eat the most!  

Romanesco-  Success!  We have been attempthing to grow romanesco for a very many years with varying success.  We usually time it so that we get a late season harvest and then it never matures in time to acutally share with you!  This year we shot for a summer harvest and hit it on the bullseye!  

Fennel-  Fennel is in the same family of plants as celery, carrots, dill and parsley.  It has a lovely licorice flavor that is wonerful when eaten raw.  Use a mandolin and shave fennel thinly raw onto salads.  When fennel is cooked it generally looses its licorice flavor and will caramelize like an onion, so it can be snuck into just about and dish!  Remember to cut out the woody core in the center by the base.  The frawns can be used for garnish or nibbling on while you’re cooking for fun! 

Kohlrabi-  Two kohlrabi per member.  We tried to give everyone 1 purple kohlrabi and 1 while kohlrabi, but towards the end of packing we had only white left and some folks received two white kohlrabi.  We’re coming to an end on kohlrabi season. 

Green Onions-  One bunch of green onions per member.  The green onions can be used from the tip of the whites and most the way up into the greens.  Use as much of the green onion as you like! 

Red Leaf lettuce-  These red oakleaf lettuces are so special!  It takes a couple extra minutes to clean up, but such a lovely texture and color on the plate! 

Collard Greens-  Your challenge for the week!  If you eat meat, time to thaw out some bacon.  They’re AMAZING cooked in broth and then fried with a little bacon.  But if meat isn’t your thing, stem the until they’re pliable and use them as a wrap. 

Next Weeks best guess:  Summer Squash, zucchini, cucumber, kale, broccoli and/or romanesco, carrots, celery, bunching onions, garlic scapes, fennel, lettuce.