What’s in the Box:
Strawberries, purple and green kohlrabi, romaine lettuce head, spinach, sunflower shoots, chioggia beets with greens, bak-choi, curly kale, pea shoots, oregano or mint bunch.
What’s going on at the farm:
Strawberries are here! Our currently-producing plants are in their third year and we are just starting to get berries this week so expect a few in your share. We don’t have a lot of them coming in as of yet but I think it’s safe to say they are a favorite so we are going to try and get everyone some right away! Our peas are flowering heavily and beginning to set pods but we are waiting for them to be as full and sweet as possible, which should be within 10-14 days. These two crops alone keep us very busy, as they require many hours of picking by many hands, require many pieces to make a harvest, and need to be harvested every other day. On the farm we are still planting though and seeding. We started winter squash this week and I made beds for it after tilling in the spinach and salad greens fields this last week. Seedless cucumbers, and melons were potted up into large pots and tomorrow we will be planting an array of hot peppers and prepping for your CSA deliveries this week! We are also pruning and basket weaving indoor and outdoor tomatoes which are setting fruit rapidly. Weeding all 25,ooo of our onions, and weeding the carrots, kale, and greenhouses for the second time this spring this week. A planting of green and edamame beans is in the near future as well with these warmer days and nights that are coming now.
Strawberries: Need I say more? Enjoy!
Pea shoots: Great mixed with chopped romaine lettuce or spinach for salads or they can be lightly sautéed, but they cook in a minute flat.
Sunflower shoots: Crispy, nutty, and healthy addition to salads, smoothies, soups, or on top of any dish you can imagine.
Chioggia beets: Chioggia (kee-oh-ja) beets are new to some of you this week and are delicious sauteed and my favorite way, roasted. Remember to use the greens on your beets as well. They are very tender and tasty and should be used just like swiss chard. I love the rich flavor when they are sautéed with olive oil and find the taste resembles spinach and chard combined.
Curly kale: kale is also in the box this week and makes fantastic sauté greens or kale chips
Spinach: Still distributing spinach from our huge spring crop! Try to use this up quickly and cook it all up in one dish, not expecting an extremely long shelf life on it since it was harvested and stored last week but its still delicious and holding in my fridge well enough to be used for cooking and salads. We harvested over 1,000 lbs of it this last week so plenty more coming your way for spinach pie (spanakopita), quiche, or just blanch it quickly for a minute in boiling water and press the excess water out, put it in a ziplock and you’ve got frozen spinach to use later!
Bak-Choi: Great for stir fry or grilled with a little foil wrap and some soy/teriyaki marinade with whatever your grilling!
oregano, chive, or mint bundle: whatever we can get this week for herbs is whats on the menu, and basically i’m going for something new but yet the mint and oregano both are lacking a little so we’ll see how much I can clip from them and i’ll go with what I have.
Kohlrabi: Kohlrabi is short for “cabbage apple” and this crisp, sweet bulb is great cooked in cream and your favorite seasoning or used raw, sliced, or grated in salads or as a snack. I think the green might be slightly fruitier and the purple slightly spicier but they are very similar and both crisp and delicious.
The weather trend was above average temps this last week and it looks like some pleasant weather will make for healthy growth for our summer crops like peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, melons, etc… and keep us sweating in the fields as we keep on working hard to bring in the harvests and control the weeds. More tomato pruning to do this week too. Our crop is looking great shooting up over 6 feet and setting fruit well. Looks like we will have our first ripe fruits in just a few weeks! June came in with a nice heavy unexpected rain last night just in time for a dry week of berry ripening ahead as we approach summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Other crops we have coming in include summer squash and zucchini, green top onions, sugar snap peas, cabbage, golden beets, romaine lettuce, garlic scapes, carrots, chard, and more coming soon.
Enjoy!
