June Twenty-Second
The Summer Solstice brings long days, warm nights and moderate temperatures. Nothing welcomes the summer months like strawberry harvest! We have been picking our berry patches with fervor and loyalty making sure to keep up with the every-other-day picking with as much persistence as we can manage as to make sure none of those sweet berries go to waste! How wonderful it is to be eating the tender buttercup lettuces, sweet strawberries and even the crunchy kohlrabis and salad turnips to keep our meals refreshingly local.
We have about a half acre of strawberries on the farm this year. If you have trouble imagining what a half acre of strawberries might look like, imagine half of a football field covered in tiny little red berries glowing in the sunlight and blanketing the ground with succulent red globes. Strawberries are a very time-consuming harvest, but we know that everyone loves to eat them and they are a true jewel to find in your CSA box when you open it up.
A strawberry patch will produce well for about 3 years. Our current management plan is to always have a fresh a strawberry patch that is no more than two years old. Strawberries produce well from about mid June through early July, so we are hoping for three good weeks of Strawberry offerings in our CSA boxes, but we’ll see what happens, maybe longer, hopefully not shorter! Strawberry plants are mowed down in mid to late summer and then covered with a blanket of straw before winter sets in to protect the plants root system from the harsh winter. In the Spring we rake back the mulch off of the plants again so the plants can begin sending out new growth and making blossoms that ultimately yield the season’s fruit.
Remember that this Saturday we are hosting our You-Pick Strawberry Harvest, Farm Tour and Potluck. Bring out the kids, the Frisbee and a dish to pass to the farm on Satuday from 2-6pm. We want to share this wonderful experience of strawberry heaven with you. We have more berries than we are even able to pick, so we would love your help! We are selling them for $3/lb for the U-Pick and will also have extra berries available for purchase on Saturday. It’s a little like being in a Rainbow fantasy-land out there and the weather will be fine for your adventure spirit. The fields are looking great and we would love to show you around your farm!
This week we plan to begin trellising tomatoes, keep up with the strawberry harvesting as well as the beginning of zucchini and summer squash harvest. This week also marks the beginning of our Summer broccoli that is always a hit. With such warm temperatures, many of these harvests need to happen every other day which makes for a very full week managing the harvesting and weeding of something every day. But there is so much excitement (and a little exhaustion) that comes along with this bounty. We can watch the diversity of our CSA boxes shift somewhat now from tender Spring greens to some of our favorite summer time fruits! Welcome Summertime!
Sooo….What’s in the Box????
Lettuce Heads X 2– We had one Red Leaf Buttercup lettuce per member and one Green Leaf Romaine head lettuce per member this week. Lettuce keeps best in a plastic bag in the fridge to preserve moisture. 
Kohlrabi X 2- We harvested both purple and white kohlrabi this week. Both kohlrabis are white on the inside. We noticed that the kohlrabis have a mild sweet flavor this season! Remember that the leaves of the kohlrabi are edible and can be used like kale.
Salad Turnips- Our Salad turnips were planted a little too close together so they are all a little on the small side this year. We have a thick stand of salad turnips. These little guys are a very smooth texture and are wonderful coined onto a green salad. The turnip greens are edible if you can find yourself a fun recipe.
Yellow Summer Squash or Zucchini- For our first Summer Squash/Zucchini harvest of the season, we were able to pick enough squash to give everyone one squash. This is a nice beginning to what will be an bountiful harvest. The plants look like they’re ready to start cranking!
Strawberries- Yes! Strawberry Quarts! Fresh, ripe Strawberries are extremely perishable, so be sure to eat these guys up asap. If you must wait to eat them, be sure to keep them in your refrigerator as cool as possible as strawberries do not keep well at room temperature.
Dill- A small bunch of dill this week. Dill is wonderful on fish, in potato salads, in egg salads, in soups, and even minced up and tossed with green salads. If you have a little extra dill, lay it out on a dehydrator tray or on a try in your oven on low heat overnight until it is dry enough to crumble into a jar. Dill is wonderful dried and used in small amounts in any dish that may call for a bit of dill.
Green Garlic- This is the last giving of green garlic. Next week we will have garlic scape bunches for everyone. Do you know what a garlic scape is? Get ready to find out next week if you don’t already know what it is!
Peas- A very small first giving of peas, but the plants needed to be picked none the less. We can expect at least two or three times this amount of peas for next week.
Green Curly Kale- A most excellent green curly kale harvest this week! The leaves looked beautiful and were also very crispy and tender as well! Kale keeps best in a plastic bag in the fridge to preserve moisture.
Celeriac Root or Broccoli in some boxes- We had some over-wintered celeriac roots. These are a very ususual vegetable that is a specialty cultivar of celery plant. The roots are cultivated to grow large. Celeriacs are great peeled and boiled and mashed with potatoes. Celeriac can also be grated raw into a slaw, egg slad or potato salad. We only harvested 20 broccoli for our first harvest and put them in boxes until we ran out of them. More broccoli for all boxes next week!
Recipes
Kale Mushroom and Dill Triangles
No-Bake Strawberry and Cream Cheese Pie (Jillian’s Favorite!)
Layered Lettuce Salad (grate your kohlrabis on this salad and layer in your coined salad turnips as well!) Get creative with this one!
