Hello CSA Members!
It’s been so hot out this year and almost no rain to speak of but we finally got some this week. The plants and our bodies were withering a bit due to the hot temperatures. The dryness made for a good strawberry season but hot days of picking. The berries are coming to an end now and it looks like a little break from the heat is coming with some possibly wetter weather. The first Cherry tomatoes were found this week so we are getting really close to tomato season! This week we picked a lot of berries and harvested a lot of beets and other early summer crops for your shares and did a lot of weeding. We will do the same this week and prepare the fields to put in our cantaloupes and watermelons for summer and hopefully get some green beans planted. This week also is summer solstice and marks the longest days of the year! I hope everyone gets out and enjoys some outdoor activities this week after getting energized with some healthy veggies! Heres the list of crops for this week.
Curly Kale: Our curly kale is very tender and rich in vitamins. Good enough to eat raw as a salad massaged with some oil or used as a saute green
Green Onion: Another round of scallions will be harvested this week to keep the onions flowing. These mild green onions are good raw or cooked.
Fennel: Our fennel is ginormous. It’s an italian vegetable and although the bulb is the best part the stalks and fronds are edible and can be used also. I like to thinly slice the bulb for coleslaw with kohlrabi, or roast it with beets, or saute it for pasta dishes. It can be roasted, grilled, sautéed, and eaten raw. The anise flavor is more prounounced raw but I love the fresh flavor of it.
Beets: Chioggia beets are a specialty beet that is white with red stripes on the inside and doesn’t bleed like a red beet with good balance in flavor of sweet to earthy. The greens are good sautéed like spinach or swiss chard.
Purple Snow Peas. These purple snow peas are good raw or cooked! The pod is rich in antioxidants and the peas are sweet. This pea gets sweeter when cooked and the purple color won’t fade away like many purple veggies do when they are cooked. Some people may receive sugar snap if we run out of these.
Kohlrabi: We have purple, white, and green varieties of kohlrabi and everyone will get a random choice with larger boxes getting more bulbs. These “cabbage apple” are good raw or cooked, i like them as a slaw or fresh snack.
Swiss Chard: This saute green is great in place of any recipe you would use spinach in. I like it best in a frittata in the morning with some scrambled eggs.
Basil: Fresh basil tops good for stir fry, pasta dishes or whatever else you like.
Thats our list for this week folks, I hope everyone has a great fathers day weekend. I will be working and then doing a little grilling with family so cheers to all the dads out there! -Kyle
