What’s in the Box: Sugar snap peas, chioggia beets, kale, zucchini, summer squash, english cucumber, green top sweet onions, basil, sunflower shoots, romaine lettuce.
What’s going on at the farm:
Plenty of rain along with a heat wave this past week has kept our soil and plant growth going strong here as we finish off the first quarter of the season with a sweaty hot week in the field this week with some new but familiar early summer veggies including the first cucumbers, onions
Sugar snap peas: Everyone loves a good sugar snap pea. The pods can be eaten whole with the either raw or possibly in a stir fry. They can be stringed by snapping the stem end of the top off and down the back of the pea to remove a small string-like fiber.
Kale: is also a sauté green which is higher in protein then any other veggie. Try these leaves in your smoothies, stir fries, or perhaps some kale chips seasoned with your favorite spices. We are growing three types of it this year and we may use any of these three varieties in your share including curly, lacinato, or new this year a frilly kale.
Zucchini and summer squash: I basically think of these as the same veggies with different shapes and colors and can be used in almost any dish you could possibly imagine. I like to grill spears of them in the summer brushed with chili and soy sauce marinade. We eat them on pizza which we make a variety of ways and I sometimes use long thin slices of them in place of lasagna noodles to make a gluten free veggie lasagna.
Cucumbers: Right now our cukes are the small mini english variety and they are never bitter and have no spines so there is no need to peel them unless you like the skin removed. These are a favorite for us at home for easy snacks with some salt and/or added to our salads, not to many of these right now but we will try to get everybody one or two if we can. We are also planting another round of these this week. (blogs.20minutos.es)
Onions: These are being thinned out this week and you will receive them with small bulbs and large green tops this week. You can use the tops like scallion minced in to small pieces along with the bulb.
Fresh basil is our herb this week and I’m sure you are all familiar with it. You can make your own pesto, marinade, or add it to stir fry or other dishes to add some great fresh summer flavor.
Sunflower shoots: The nutty micro greens are back with a crunch this week and are great in salads, wraps, or even just as a snack with your other favorite snack items.
Romaine lettuce: This is our last planting of romaine for the spring coming in this week, the heads are less dense then the last two plantings but should still make good salad material.
Chioggia beets: This is the very last of our beets with greens for spring and possibly the year depending how much more room we can generate for fall crops. One of my favorite veggies, these beets don’t bleed like reds and have delicious greens when they are sautéed with a little garlic and olive oil.
On the farm this week we are working towards getting our winter squash, broccoli, and other crops, transplanted and starting crops for the fall season. The longest day of the year is this Wednesday marks summer solstice so we have a small window of thirty days to get all of these things for fall growing before its to late for them to mature. To do this we also have a lot of field clean up going on this week removing open beds and tilling the fields again, and making mulch beds. Basically this is a huge transition period for us and we are going to need some dry weather for the fields which have been receiving a lot of rain lately. Some other crops coming soon include, onions, savoy cabbage. Our summer crops of eggplant, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, and red cabbage, are also looking great and should be coming soon. Thank you all and enjoy the early summer crops!
