From too much rain last week to weather like an Indian Summer this week. At least the forecast is calling for some warmer temps for our warm weather loving crops. While we've started picking strawberries from the field, the cooler temps and cloudy skies seem to have impeded their ripening. We will start rotating strawberries into shares this week starting with regular shares. If you don't see them this week, you will over the next few weeks. This is our first season harvesting the strawberries, so it's a new crop for us.
Farming is always a gamble. You can do everything right and still loose to bugs and weather. That is one of the reasons we chose a CSA as our marketing model, and grow such a wide variety of crops. It sort of acts as crop insurance, so if one crop fails there are more to take take it's place. A few crops we had to replant already this season due to the weather and pests, but others you don't get a second chance until next year.
All of our winter squash is finally in the ground, with varieties such as butternut, delicata, acorn, spaghetti, red kuri hubbards, and pie pumpkins to look forward to in the fall. Our summer squash is started to form buds, so they should become available soon as well. The first planting of broccoli is growing beautifully, but still not forming heads, but we'll keep looking! Tomatoes and sweet peppers are budding as well, and the cucumbers are climbing their trellises in the greenhouse. We also planted melons (sugar baby watermelon and cantaloupe) in our small greenhouse. They love the warmer temps and we haven't had success with them here in the past, but are counting that giving them a more hospitable growing environment will result in an abundant harvest.
One might think that with all the plants in the ground, that all that's left is to sit back and watch them grow. This is not the case at all. There are daily field walks, seeing what's ready to harvest, looking for bugs and signs of disease and nutrient deficiencies. There is also weeding and trellising, and all the harvests. (we harvest 3 times every week, between Tuesday's CSA and Thursdays and Saturday's markets.) We have simplified some of the weeding chores with specialized tractor equipment, but there is still hand hoeing and good old on hands an knees weed pulling.
While there hasn't been a huge variety of harvest for CSA yet these first few weeks, with some crops set back from the wonky weather, and not ready to harvest, and some having to be reseeded, there is plenty to look forward to, and some great greens in shares this week. And some crops are only available in the early weeks, so enjoy them while they're here!
This week's share contents:
Small Shares: Asparagus, garlic scapes, lettuce, swiss chard, radishes (french breakfast or cherry belle)
Regular Shares: all the contents of the small shares and braising mix (a mix of brassicas including mustards greens, tat soi, red bok choi, and chinese cabbage) (please be advised that this may change to mustard greens for Thurs and Sat shares) and Green kale. Strawberries will start rotating into regular shares this week. So if you don't get them this week, you can look forward to them in the coming weeks.
Garlic scapes. Some of you may be excited, as this is a once a season crop, some may be wondering what the heck they are. They are the flower buds that form on the hard neck garlics that need to be pinched off to create big dense bulbs of garlic. They can be used in place of garlic in any recipe; we used some last night in our mashed potatoes. They have a bit more of a milder flavor than garlic cloves and can be roasted whole with your asparagus. Here are some more ideas of how to use your scapes. Garlic is one of our favorite crops. Planted in late fall, it provides from early spring in the form of garlic greens, then later as scapes, and then later as green garlic and then stores well into the winter. I use garlic in almost every meal I cook, as it adds flavor and it's health benefits. In one recent study raw garlic was even found to kill cancer cells in petri dishes overwhelmingly better than any other vegetable. Garlic respells bugs, an oil infusion can help settle ear aches and other other ailments.
We hope everyone has been enjoying their shares so far and are looking forward to filling their fridge with this week's. A reminder that we love when folks share recipes. Please feel free to share recipes you try and love in the blog comment section here or on our facebook page. The recipes we share are just a few of many possibilities, and we're certain that you'll find more. Sharing will help other CSA members make the most out of their CSA.
Farming is always a gamble. You can do everything right and still loose to bugs and weather. That is one of the reasons we chose a CSA as our marketing model, and grow such a wide variety of crops. It sort of acts as crop insurance, so if one crop fails there are more to take take it's place. A few crops we had to replant already this season due to the weather and pests, but others you don't get a second chance until next year.
All of our winter squash is finally in the ground, with varieties such as butternut, delicata, acorn, spaghetti, red kuri hubbards, and pie pumpkins to look forward to in the fall. Our summer squash is started to form buds, so they should become available soon as well. The first planting of broccoli is growing beautifully, but still not forming heads, but we'll keep looking! Tomatoes and sweet peppers are budding as well, and the cucumbers are climbing their trellises in the greenhouse. We also planted melons (sugar baby watermelon and cantaloupe) in our small greenhouse. They love the warmer temps and we haven't had success with them here in the past, but are counting that giving them a more hospitable growing environment will result in an abundant harvest.
One might think that with all the plants in the ground, that all that's left is to sit back and watch them grow. This is not the case at all. There are daily field walks, seeing what's ready to harvest, looking for bugs and signs of disease and nutrient deficiencies. There is also weeding and trellising, and all the harvests. (we harvest 3 times every week, between Tuesday's CSA and Thursdays and Saturday's markets.) We have simplified some of the weeding chores with specialized tractor equipment, but there is still hand hoeing and good old on hands an knees weed pulling.
While there hasn't been a huge variety of harvest for CSA yet these first few weeks, with some crops set back from the wonky weather, and not ready to harvest, and some having to be reseeded, there is plenty to look forward to, and some great greens in shares this week. And some crops are only available in the early weeks, so enjoy them while they're here!
This week's share contents:
Small Shares: Asparagus, garlic scapes, lettuce, swiss chard, radishes (french breakfast or cherry belle)
Regular Shares: all the contents of the small shares and braising mix (a mix of brassicas including mustards greens, tat soi, red bok choi, and chinese cabbage) (please be advised that this may change to mustard greens for Thurs and Sat shares) and Green kale. Strawberries will start rotating into regular shares this week. So if you don't get them this week, you can look forward to them in the coming weeks.
Garlic scapes. Some of you may be excited, as this is a once a season crop, some may be wondering what the heck they are. They are the flower buds that form on the hard neck garlics that need to be pinched off to create big dense bulbs of garlic. They can be used in place of garlic in any recipe; we used some last night in our mashed potatoes. They have a bit more of a milder flavor than garlic cloves and can be roasted whole with your asparagus. Here are some more ideas of how to use your scapes. Garlic is one of our favorite crops. Planted in late fall, it provides from early spring in the form of garlic greens, then later as scapes, and then later as green garlic and then stores well into the winter. I use garlic in almost every meal I cook, as it adds flavor and it's health benefits. In one recent study raw garlic was even found to kill cancer cells in petri dishes overwhelmingly better than any other vegetable. Garlic respells bugs, an oil infusion can help settle ear aches and other other ailments.
We hope everyone has been enjoying their shares so far and are looking forward to filling their fridge with this week's. A reminder that we love when folks share recipes. Please feel free to share recipes you try and love in the blog comment section here or on our facebook page. The recipes we share are just a few of many possibilities, and we're certain that you'll find more. Sharing will help other CSA members make the most out of their CSA.
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