What’s in the Box:
Cherry tomatoes, purple haze carrots, red or yellow sweet onions, summer squash and/or zucchini, english cucumbers, cauliflower, kale, basil, sunflower shoots, celery, and garlic.
What’s going on at the farm:
Hot and dry has been the theme around here this last few weeks. Lot’s of vacations for crew members this month but hiring some new experienced help this week too. trying to keep up with the harvests and getting the fields ready for fall planting and the weeds that flew up from all the previous rain has been a challenge to say the least but I’m hanging in there like a champ. Garlic will be coming in next week and all our onions are nearly ready for harvest after that. In total there are over 30,ooo of them to bring in with the garlic and leeks which will be coming soon! We’ve been working hard on digging our carrot crop over the last week too which is pretty large and awesome this year. This weeks carrots are a specialty carrot called purple haze, its rumored this was Jimmy Hendricks favorite carrot 😉 cherry tomatoes and Cauliflower are new this week and celery is new for some of you but here is the weekly run down. Of course remember to check out those Local Thyme recipes for suggestions this week too.
Cherry Tomatoes: These sweet cherries are just perfectly colored, sweet and meaty. We have an assortment of 6 types. (canadianpharmacy365.net)
Purple haze carrots, one of my favorite carrots because of their gorgeous two tone color of purple with a bright orange core…. these babies will store if you like as we cleaned them and snapped the tops off immediately but they are sweeter and crisper the sooner you enjoy them.
Kale: This week your kale could be curly, lacinato, or red curly, we like to pick an assortment weekly to stay on top of keeping the plants trimmed back.
Sunflower shoots are great as a salad green with a little tomato cucumber and carrot. I also use them on sandwiches or garnishing dishes tacos or pizza too!
Sweet onions are back and they are good with everything and sweet enough to enjoy raw! You could get red cippiolini, yellow sweet, or red torpedo onions in your share this week.
Zucchini and summer squash are still pumping out and these staples of summer are great in any dish you could create and even baking projects like zucchini bread, muffins, and cakes maybe even with the carrot for a carrot zucchini cake!
English style cucumbers are the only type of cucumber I grow anymore as they are sweeter, have smaller seed cavities, and thinner skin then their waxy american counterparts which can get bitter. A fresh cucumber and tomato salad with mozzarella and basil is one of my favorite things in the summer.
Cauliflower: We’ve got three colors of heads including white, cheddar, and purple. most people will be getting white as they are the most consistently large and solid heads we’ve got but you could get a cheddar or purple head. They hold their color when cooked too and are fun, but similar taste to the white.
Basil and Garlic are the last few finishing touches on our boxes this week and there are so many ways to use these with your veggies. I hardly think you all need the suggestions but I think these will round out the box very nicely for the week.
Thank you all again for being great CSA members and I hope you enjoy the food!
-Kyle
