In all shares:
Buttercrunch bibb lettuce- These heads of bibb lettuce are a little smaller in size, but have a great sweet flavor and soft, tender leaves with a nice dense head. A great all green lettuce for salads and more. Bibb lettuce is great to eat, but of all the lettuces, holds the worst in the field, so when it's ready we need to harvest it in a hurry.
Beet bunches- Getting into the first of our beets, and while the roots aren't quite full sized yet, these smaller roots have really nice flavor and are easy to use...they don't need to be peeled, try just quartering them up before roasting, steaming or sauteing them. The tops are edible too and similar to Swiss chard for use in the onion recipe below!
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/roasted-baby-beets-231298
Walla walla sweet onion bunches- A great late Spring crop, fresh sweet onions are juicy and mild. The whole plant is edible once the roots are sliced off, and the tops can be used like scallions as a garnish, put on sandwiches or stir fried.
This recipe sounds delicious, but our onions are still baby sized, so you may need to halve it:
http://www.foodreference.com/html/grilled-onions.html
Strawberries- More of our delicious strawberries in your shares this week! I can't believe how many pints we sold through the weekend...the rain didn't seem to do too much damage last week, fortunately, so we should have more nice fruit this Wednesday with any luck...
Small Shares Only:
Baby pac choi- After putting the last of a previous planting in the large shares last week, we're already into a new bed with some nice baby pac choi, so I figured it was the small shares' turn to get some. Look for the recipe in last week's blog! The pac choi grows and matures so fast, I feel like we just put these plants in the ground a few weeks ago...
Hakurei turnips- Another crop that was in the large shares last week, the small shares will get a bunch of hakurei turnips this week. These turnips are best eaten raw, or ever so lightly cooked. They are sweet and juicy, with a crunch a little like a radish but much less spice. Give them a try!
Large Shares Only:
Broccoli- While our broccoli was set back a bit by cold weather and pest problems, it is finally getting in gear and I'm hoping we'll have our first decent harvest of heads this week. I plan to have broccoli through June and July, mostly take August and early September off when it's really hot and dry, and then Fall broccoli goes from mid September through October, so hopefully there should be much more broccoli to come.
Arugula- A peppery bunch of arugula in the large shares, great for a spicy salad, or the spice quickly vanishes if it's lightly sauteed or blended up into a pesto or dressing.
http://www.foodiecrush.com/how-to-make-arugula-pesto/
Baby carrots- The first carrots are starting, and they are fun and cute at this smaller size. Already sweet and flavorful, but not quite as crunchy as the larger carrots...but this is Vincent's preferred carrot size for the Orchard Kitchen.
Kohlrabi- The vegetable from outer space, kohlrabi bulbs are actually in the brassica family, along with broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, arugula, radish, turnips, pac choi, mustards, and so many other crops we grow on small farms here in the Pacific northwest. None of those others have the sweet crunch of kohlrabi, though! Kohlrabi is almost like a cross between broccoli stems and a juicy apple. Sliced thin and served raw with a dip or dressing, it is refreshing and delicious. Or try putting it in a salad, slaw, or lightly stir fried.
Well, it is surprising and interesting to see how our unusually cold Spring has changed things up a bit. The two crops that seem to be the most set back/delayed from their usual harvest window are not the two I would expect....the peas and broccoli. Normally I think we'd be close to hitting our peak with those crops, and instead we'll just start harvesting them this week. It's odd, because those are cool season crops that I wouldn't have thought would be as affected as the squash, cucumbers, basil, tomatoes....but those crops all seem to be doing great, and the squash and cukes are even ahead of schedule. Go figure. Meanwhile, other things seem to be right on time.
The farm is certainly not a controlled scientific experiment, though, and there are all kinds of variables I can't really take into account...for example, with the broccoli, my favorite Spring variety was backordered with the seed company this Spring, so I tried a new one which seems a bit slower to head up. When my favorite came in ("Castle Dome") I switched to use it instead, but the germination and vigor seem off even now, and I'm just beginning to suspect there could be an issue with the lot of seed, which does happen surprisingly frequently.
It is always interesting to see how everything plays out, though, and one way or another we always seem to have plenty of food. Starting the share a week later than last year is interesting, too...while it's been nice because a lot of the crops have started a little bit late, and it certainly made the Spring planning less stressful, we have now just started the farm share and the early Summer crops are ready or right around the corner! There are many nice Spring crops (like the fresh garlic, pac choi, and kohlrabi) that I like to fit into the early shares before we get into our mid Summer mountains of produce, and it feels like there won't be many chances to do it. Anyways, hope you're enjoying your first of many farm shares now, and looking forward to the second.
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