In all farm shares this week, we have.....
Lettuce- I think you'll be getting the first head of Bergam's green in the farm shares....our always popular green leaf lettuce. This is just an amazing lettuce, with great flavor, beautiful crinkly green leaves, big heads, and it holds up great in the fridge. I think this is the perfect lettuce!
Swiss Chard- Our second planting of kale and chard is coming on quickly, so we are ready to pick the last of our early Spring planting and move into the new beds. This variety of chard ("Bright Lights" is the name of the Australian variety) produces a beautiful rainbow of different stem colors...red, yellow, pink, white, purple and everything in between. Chard is my favorite braising green for early Summer, as its mild sweet taste is great with a lot of the other crops that are on this time of year...
Carrots- Our Spring carrots are quickly growing to be beautiful full sized roots. Our little babies are all grown up! Well, not quite, many are still a little on the small side, but they now have their delicious main season flavor and crunch. https://www.happyheartedkitchen.com/salads/moroccan-carrot-quinoa-salad
Broccoli- Finally! As I've written, it's been a rough Spring for the broccoli. We are now in the midst of seeding the new starts for Fall broccoli that we will harvest in September and October, and I'm hoping that goes a bit smoother. The good news is, our first big planting is finally on and the heads are beautiful. Hopefully it was worth the wait!
Radishes- Radishes are back in the share this week, but a different variety. These "Rudy" radishes are the more familiar round, pink radish. They are a bit juicier and have a little bit more kick than the French breakfast radishes.. as a farmer, an advantage of these ones is that they hold up a little longer in the field during the long days of early Summer, too. At Prima (where I work sometimes in the evenings when I'm not on the farm) we have been serving radishes like this sliced in half with some nice sea salt and fancy butter. Easy to make at home!
Garlic scapes- Garlic scapes are the flowering stalk of hardneck garlic varieties. Our first scapes were in the large shares a few weeks ago, but now we are in the thick of scape season with several more varieties producing these delicious stalks. The whole scape is edible and delicious...they are easy to chop up and saute with greens (your chard, broccoli, or both) or stir fry with a mix of veggies. Not quite as strong as grocery store garlic, but much more zip than the fresh garlic that was in your first share. Try them out! They are really delicious.
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/06/the-crisper-whisperer-what-to-do-with-garlic-scapes-recipe.html
Scallions- I can't believe how fast these scallions grew from their time of planting. Our whole allium field (onions, garlic, leeks and shallots and scallions) is a big success story right now, everything is looking really good. There was a very sweet but annoying Killdeer mother who decided to make a nest in our scallion patch. Killdeers are a black and white wild bird about the size of a robin who for some reason like to make their nests on the ground in farmed land, and then freak out if you come anywhere near the nest. Fortunately, her babies were born and the family has moved on, so we can harvest your scallions without disturbing them.
And in the large shares...
Summer squash- The first zucchini is on! The Orchard Kitchen got the first flush last week, but with Vince and Tyla on vacation this week I will have enough to put some in all the large shares!
Use this recipe for any veggie that you can slice up with a peeler!
http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-the-no-chop-too-lazy-to-really-cook-summer-saute-244665?li_source=LI&li_medium=RelatedRecipes
New potatoes- This is exciting....our first potatoes of 2017. They are still very small and very new, so treat the delicate skins carefully! They cook in much less time than larger, cured spuds. We will see how it goes harvesting these and hopefully get more in all shares before too long!
https://www.thespruce.com/what-are-new-potatoes-2216908
More broccoli! Larger heads of broc in the large shares!
Well, I think we have weathered the storm and survived the craziest part of the season. Mid June just gets totally insane, when there are still large plantings that need to go in the ground, plus the weeds are growing out of control along with the grass, irrigation, and then harvest starts! Especially this time of year, with the incredible first flush of strawberries we have had. I don't keep detailed records, but I feel like we were getting many more berries than this month in recent years. This will be the first share without any berries, but don't worry, they'll be back! Our day neutral plants continue to produce well into August.
While this has not been a wonderfully warm Spring as we've had the last two years, it has been nice that we haven't been launched into irrigation quite so suddenly, and the crops all seem to be doing well, if a little behind where they were are this time last year. With some of the big Spring projects now behind us, we will be transitioning into more harvest projects...we may even begin harvesting and drying our earliest garlic varieties later this week!
The farm stand HAS jumped very suddenly out of its winter dormancy and now seems to be hopping all the time. The Orchard Kitchen will be closed for the next two weekends so the Nattresses can celebrate Vincent's upcoming 50th birthday and get some down time now that their girls are out of school. I will be glad to have some extra time to get caught up around the farm, but happy that they'll be back before July for the Summer bounty!
Hope you're enjoying your shares! See you soon!
ETP
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