Hello CSA members,
Week five is on the way with above average temps that will be roasting us in the fields in Southeastern Wisconsin. We will plant all our sweet peppers and quite a few spicy ones this week after I got all the pepper beds shaped last Monday. This year there will be 8 types of sweet peppers being grown and about 8 of hot peppers also including some heatless habanero’s, poblano, jalapeño, and shisito. The heat drove our strawberry crop to come in fast this year and they have done really well this year but they are coming to an end this week although there might still be some at farmers market for all you market shareholders or folks that may want an extra pint. We will have to maintain the health of these plants the rest of the year pruning and feeding them to prepare for another good fruiting next season. We pruned all our tomato plants for the third time this week and are preparing for the fruit to come very soon I think! I’m guessing about 2-3 weeks until there is enough for shares. This week we have new crops to harvest including kohlrabi, green onions, fennel, lettuce, zucchini, beets, and garlic scapes. The weekly crop list for shares will be……
Green onion/ Scallions: These sweet and mild green onions can be used in their entirety any way you like to flavor and garnish your meals.
Garlic Scapes: These curly flowering shoots of the hardneck garlic plants are great minced up and used like regular garlic or i wrap them in foil with some oil and put them on the grill for a nice garlicky asparagus like side.
Zucchini: The first of the zucchini so they are smaller but tasty and we will get everyone a few of these babies this week 🙂
Fennel: This is a early summer delicacy I always look forward to. The bulb is the best part and is crisp and sweet with an anise flavor. the stalk and frond can also be eaten and I like to use the whole plant however possible. Think about the fronds as an herb like dill and the stalks can be chopped up and cooked with other veggies. The bulb is great in coleslaw with cabbage or kohlrabi also or can be roasted with beets, and other veggies.
Sugar Snap Or Purple Snow Peas: These sweet pods are picked at peak for best flavor. If we run low on sugar snap we will be substituting some striking purple snow peas. These peas are good raw but really shine cooked and actually hold their beautiful deep purple color when cooked.
Kohlrabi: Kohlrabi is a tender and crisp cabbage apple. Thats how i like to describe it… its good raw or cooked and is a member of the brassica family. raw the texture is crisp and the flavor is sweet but cooked it becomes more mild and softer. I’ve used it shredded for slaw, cubed for sautéing, and sliced raw for snacking. We grow three varieties of kohlrabi with different colors like purple, white, and green. I think they all taste pretty similar and CSA members will get a a random choice of variety on these this week.
Chioggia beets: These candy striped beets are sweet and don’t bleed like red beets, the tops are tender and can be cooked like swiss chard or spinach and the flavor is enhanced when cooked but the beet roots contain the most sugars. Lots of other vitamins for your body in the beets and they are considered a superfood.
Curly Kale: This frilly kale is tender and rich, great for salads or sautéed. One of our favorites at home is kale chips but the kale also goes well with rice or beans in many dishes.
Joi-Choi: Chinese type cabbage is good for raw salad with a sesame dressing or in stir fry, steamed, sautéed, or grilled.
Lettuce Heads: The last of the spring Romaine or butter lettuce will be going out this week. It will be too hot the rest of the summer to grow any decent lettuce so enjoy the last of these crispy spring heads this week for your salads. I made a really good caesar salad this week with the romaine and some grilled chicken and a garlic scape spring onion dressing.
Thats it for this week everyone. Thank you for being CSA members and I hope you enjoy the veggies! If we have room in the shares we may add swiss chard this week but its also similar to the beets greens so we will only add it if there is room. -Kyle
