The weather on the farm this week has your farmers on a bit of a nervous and cautious alert. While it might be customary for us to check weather.com and weather.gov, one followed immediately after the other, once a day or every-other day during a fair weather sprint, we’re back to checking the radar maps and hourly weather graphs about twice each morning, at least twice over the lunch hour, and several times throughout the evening. You could call us nerds, but really we’re just mildly paranoid with due cause.
The last three years on the farm were flood years. We picked the grandest time to get into farming, let me tell you! In 2008 we had major Spring flooding in June, in 2009 we had ongoing flooding in July and August when FIMA declared our area a national disaster, and last year was simply non-stop rain that created perfect conditions for the roots of our crops to rot out and the leaves of our plants to all become diseased with blights and mildew. Thankfully, because we are a ridge-top farm, we have better drainage than a valley farm has and were able to keep our CSA boxes full all season, but with a bit lower of quality standards than what we might typically uphold.
So on Saturday night, with no warnings of sever weather on the map, we had 3.5 inches of rain and a pretty wild lightening and thunderstorm. Sunday morning we awoke to a couple nice pools of topsoil at the bottom of our hill and a tree that was struck by lightening on the farm blocking the road. Another inch of rain on Monday night while we await more “severe weather” on Tuesday. Nails all bitten off, we sleep with the window cracked open a bit like a nervous mother sleeping with her door cracked worried about a coughing child in the next room.
On a brighter note, the fields are looking quite nice. The best they’ve ever looked in fact! We’ve managed to keep up with our weeding and planting schedules so far this year and it’s really showing! We have over a dozen worker shares that come at different times during the week to help us fight off the weeds. This time of year the fight is always the toughest. Today, being the longest day of the year, we expect that with our plants getting a bit bigger, waning daylight and *hopefully* waning Spring rains, we may begin to win the battle after too long.
Unfortunatly a positive attitude doesn’t always keep the red off your radar map and the weeds from germinating in your fields but it can keep the creases off your forehead and the worry from your mind. Hail the sunshine!
Kohlrabi- A funny name for a vegetable, I know! You may have received a purple or a white kohlrabi. They’re the same thing on the inside. Peel the tuff skin off the kohlrabi with a pearing knife and eat the white crunch flesh raw with some ranch dip or sprinkled with salt or lemon. Their texture is similar to an apple, but their flavor is closer to cabbage…sort of…but more mild. This is usually a new veggie for some folks. They can also be added to a stir-fry and cooked once peeled. The greens to kohlrabi can also be used. Strip the greens off of their spine and use as a cooking green like you would spinach, kale or chard. It’s great when added to soups, stir frys or quiche.
Snap Peas- This is our first giving of spring peas. They’re coming on slower than what we would like to see, but we thought we would at least share with you what we picked for this week, even though it’s a small amount.
Lettuce- Lotts of lettuce this week! Everyone received at least two to three heads of lettuce! We tried to give everyone a red and green leaf variety for mixing it up a bit. Because of all of the heavy, pounding rains this week the lettuce is a bit more ripped up than usual and also more dirty on the inside! We even found a couple little earthworms in a few heads we were using in our kitchen! With this kind of rain, these are the things we see. So be sure to wash your lettuce good this week as it may be a bit more dirty than usual and even though we soak and wash them, we can’t get them 100% clean. But they’re sooooo tender, succulent and yummy this time of year!
Kale- Kale is also a new one for many folks. Kale is a cooking green in the same family as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and kohlrabi (the Brassica family). It’s one of those greens that we highly suggest that you become good friends with this summer. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover and really try to get to know kale better! It’s one of those greens that is off the charts as far as it’s anti-oxident and chlorophyll levels. Doing a very quick google search I found 2 great websites that promote the extensive health benefits of Kale!!! 9 Health Benefits of Kale, and Worlds Healthiest Foods. We’ll do our best to provide you with some of our favorite recipes for kale and you will receive several different varieties of kale this summer. This week you probably received either a green curly kale or a purple curly kale. Yum!
Spinach- Our final picking of spinach for this spring! A smaller giving of spinach this week, but we were happy to still have it this late in the month of June! Spinach is a cool-weather loving plant. So we’ll have to say goodbye to this delicious spring green and look forward to its return in the fall! It is still very tender and sweet!
Garlic Scapes– These are the tiny little shoots that come out of the top of a garlic plant. The scapes are the garlic plants effort at making a seed pod. We snap them off shortly after we see them coming on to encourage the garlic plant to put more energy into making a nice sized garlic bulb beneath the ground rather than making seed pods above the ground. Each plant makes 1 scape each year. What’s wonderful is that they are edible during a season where our stored winter garlic from the previous year is long gone and it will still be a bit longer until we have the real deal. The most desireable part of the scape is from the bottom of the scape up until the lime-green nodule. The whole thing is edible, but the tops are a bit more chewy. Have fun using it like you would use garlic!
Dill- A modest giving of tender spring dill! Dill is wonderful in egg salad, creamy greens soups, and potato salad! If you can’t use the whole bunch of dill while it’s fresh, you can always hang it upside down in your kitchen to dry out and then put it in a jar once it’s dried to use it in cooking.
Strawberries- These yummy red berries need very little introduction! They are one of the other very few items that we buy to help fill our CSA boxes in the early spring along with Asparagus. You should see them in your box again next week, weather permitting! Fresh Strawberries don’t keep well, so eat them up quick!
Kale, Mushroom and Dill Triangles
Kale with Red Beans, Cilantro and Feta Cheese
Sour Cream Veggie Dip (for your Kohlrabi)
Home Made Oriental Salad Dressing (farmer Jillian’s favorite!) for all of those salad greens
One member sent me her Quick and easy Recipe Idea:
In a pan of boiling water cook Orzo
while orzo is cooking heat Olive Oil in a large pan add: add onion and stalks of Pac Choi and swiss chard (roughly chopped)- season with ‘Canadian Steak Sesoning’ or ‘Montreal Steak seasoning’> which is a combination of coursely ground black pepper, sea salt, garlic
stir until onions are starting to get golden
season again with red pepper and ginger
add: tops of Pac Choi and swiss chard (also roughly chopped), can of tomatoes (or roughly chopped fresh)
add cooked orzo with some of the cooking water (pasta cooking water adds a little starch which makes it kinda creamy)
I also added shredded beef, but would still be excellent w/o it.
Tracy Mullaney
