Hello CSA members! Week five is on the way with higher temps that will be roasting us in the fields in Southeastern Wisconsin. We will plant a few spicy peppers. 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. We will have to maintain the health of the new field we planted for 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 or fourth 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 purple kohlrabi,chioggia beets, and fennel 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.
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.
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.
Pea Shoots: These mild sweet pea flavored greens are so good for salad or they can pea tossed with pasta stir fry or put on sandwiches, tacos, or burgers easily.
Swiss Chard: There are multiple colors and varieties of chard in our mix, its great as a substitute for spinach in recipes so use it as you would spinach for cooking or even in salad sliced thinly.
Thats it for this week everyone. This is the last week of spring on the farm but it def feels like summer is here with the higher temperatures and humidity. This week we are taking out the old strawberry field despite the heat and trimming blossoms off the new plants and many other tasks growing micros, trellising tomatoes, and lots of weeding and mowing. Thank you for being CSA members and I hope you enjoy the veggies!
