What’s in the Box: Sugar snap peas, zucchini, summer squash, english cucumbers, basil, red Russian kale, green top onions, green cabbage, carrots (bi-weekly only),
What’s going on at the farm: Things are heating up on the farm as we head into summer. June is an incredibly busy month and we are still trying to get out plantings in to the field which was watermelons this week. We also transplanted up our winter squash this week to go out in the field in two weeks. We also have started some other fall crops in the greenhouse this week and still pulling weeds like crazy by hand and cleaning up all at the summer crops and beds that are now emptied out from our early broccoli, kohlrabi, carrot, and beet crops, which are finished for now. Our cucumbers are back this week and these mini english cucumbers are fantastic any way you slice it 🙂 They have a thin skin and are never bitter so everyone here really enjoys this variety and it is a common household snack for us in the summer. The rest of our spring carrots will go out to bi-weekly members this week and are coming to you topped and bagged to keep their crispness. Red Russian kale is back and is an excellent sauté green which brings a lot of nutritional value and rich dark greens flavor. It is also good for soups, smoothies, and kale chips! We are thinning and pulling green onions out this week too and these green top onions can be chopped and used just like scallions for your dishes, tops and all. Zucchini and summer squash is coming in faster this week too and plenty of these early summer veggies to use for roasting, grilling, and many other dishes with this versatile veggie. This will be our last week of spring with the sugar snap peas too as the pods and vines are slowly loosing quality this week and that crop will also be removed from the field. To do this we have to cut thousands of feet of trellising and pull steel posts and then mow the crop before incorporating it into the soil to add the beneficial organic matter and decompose it properly. Soon all these spaces we are working so hard to clear out will be planted into crops for fall including the winter squash, romanesco cauliflower, and napa cabbages are some of the plantings we have planned for the next two weeks. Also fall carrots, pole beans, green beans, and summer mustard greens are on the planting schedule. I hand weeded all of our purple carrots this week which was a 6 hour job. With all man hours added up we had over 50 hours of labor put into just pulling weeds this week. All that hard work should result in some gorgeous peppers, tomatoes, garlic, eggplant, beans, cabbages, onions, leeks, fennel, celery, and carrots coming your way soon! Enjoy all the early summer crops and we’ll keep busy trying to keep up with everything out here as we head into the second quarter of the CSA season and the official first week of a long and beautiful summer comes to a close. Enjoy the veggies everyone!
