An announcement, then some news, then some recipes, then a joke. Typical newsletter this week.
Still taking back pint-sized clam shells.
What will we have this week?
More corn! This time we have a variety called Ambrosia. It is a bicolor corn with much larger ears than the last two varieties. We tried it this weekend and it was quite tasty. We’ll also have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, some peppers, zucchini (it is slowing down so get it while you still can!), cucumbers (way more cukes than I think people want), eggplant (how can we have more eggplant this year than last when we planted far fewer eggplants?), a few melons (seems like some small critters are enjoying them a bit too much), possibly some cilantro, some hot peppers if we get around to harvesting them, onions (there are always onions since most recipes call for onions), some cabbage, some tomatillos, fennel! and probably some other things laying around.
It is an egg, fruit and flower week. Fruit this week is strawberries, grapes, nectarines, peaches and avocados. Might be a good time for guacamole!
Weather Talk
I suppose since weather is such an essential ingredient to farming I should have a section in my newsletters discussing last week’s weather and how it impacted the farm. I think I used to call it Farm News. Anyway, I am sure many of you are anxious to know how last week’s rain affected the crops. Well, let’s start with how much rain did we have. We got 1.75 inches of rain (that’s 4.45 mm for our international readers) — far more than the forecast predicted. And unfortunately we got it on Garlic Harvest Day, which pretty much canceled Garlic Harvest Day.
The good news about the rain is that we had planted some carrots for the fall and they were struggling to germinate. We irrigate carrots with buried drip tape. One issue with drip tape is that it waters a relatively small area. This works fine when plants have roots that can search to find this small area to get their needed water. It doesn’t work as well when the plant doesn’t yet have roots and needs water to start growing some. Since we bury drip tape the vertical water profile through the soil resembles a tear drop. Some of the water migrates to the surface and some spreads out laterally from the tape, but most water heads in the down direction. Typically we see maybe a six inch wet area on the surface of the planting bed so the whole bed surface doesn’t get wet. Fine for rooted crops, not fine for yet to germinate crops (and as an aside, without the whole bed being watered the weed seeds that aren’t in the wet zone don’t germinate!) So this rain spread across the whole bed gave the seeds the water they needed to germinate. I saw a few new plants emerging on Sunday. Hopefully there will be a whole lot more in the coming days.
Now let’s look at the bad news. Since we need to harvest the garlic, having this much rain is troublesome. First, we want to harvest the garlic then dry the garlic for long term storage. Rain is not conducive to drying. Second, prior to the rain we had the opportunity to pull some of the garlic. It pulled really easily. Since the ground was so dry, very little dirt stuck to the bulb. Post rain when we pulled the garlic we got huge clumps of mud on the bulb. This makes for a much longer harvest time and far more staining on the garlic bulb wrappers. Third, with the large amount of rain we got the ground became saturated and the tractor was not able to pull the under-cutter through the soil. We gave it a try on Sunday and the tractor practically got stuck. We’ll give it another go at various times this week. Hopefully we can get it undercut. Then of course there is the pulling and transferring to the greenhouse to cure. Could be a long garlic harvest season.
Let’s do one more positive to close out this week’s edition of Weather Talk. With the rain we don’t have to water the plants. This is especially helpful for those where we use overhead sprinklers, like beans and corn. We’ve been moving sprinklers around to water the various plots so getting this rain relieves us of a couple moves and of course rain water — especially when it is this much rain — seems to make plants grow better than overhead sprinkling.
Recipes of the Week
We’ve grown okra for many years but I’ve only ever made it a couple of times. Both times I made Bhindi Masala. I believe this is the recipe I used. I found it to be very tasty. Now however I discovered another use for okra. We air-fried it in the air fryer and it turned out crisp, tasty and not at all slimy. Here is a quick recipe to achieve air fried okra perfection.
Cut okra into small bite size pieces.
Coat with olive oil.
Add seasoning. Salt, pepper, and anything else you think would be to your liking (cayenne?, cumin?, onion powder?, garlic powder?, you do you).
Preheat the air fryer to 400 degrees for 5 minutes.
Add the okra and cook for 10-12 minutes until crisp but not burnt. Maybe give it a toss halfway through.
Remove and enjoy!
Here is a recipe sent in by our one reader. It is from Cuisinart. Looks like you could use a few cucumbers with this recipe. Maybe double it to get rid of a few more.
Chunky Gazpacho
Ingredients
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 jalapeno (optional)
- 8 scallions cut into pieces
- 2 stalks celery cut into 1"pieces
- 1 bell pepper seeded and quartered
- 2 cucumbers cut lengthwise
- 1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
- 4 cups tomato juice
- 2 tsp salt
- ½ tsp fresh ground pepper
Instructions
- Insert metal chopping blade into processor
- Finely chop garlic and jalapeno
- Add scallion, celery and bell pepper and pulse to medium chop, 5-6 pulses
- Empty processor bowl into large mixing bowl
- Insert slicing blade into processor
- Stand cucumbers upright in feed tube and slice with light pressure
- Add cucumbers, diced tomatoes, tomato juice, lemon juice, salt and pepper to mixing bowl
- Mix well, cover and chill thoroughly before serving
Notes
Here is another recipe from our one reader. Not sure where this recipe originated. The photo he sent me looks like it came from a cookbook. I didn’t know people still used Polaroid cameras.
Stir-Fried Eggplant with Ground Pork and Peanut Sauce
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 T hoisin sauce
- 1 T soy sauce
- 2 T smooth peanut butter
- 1 T peanut oil
- 2 tsp peanut oil
- 6 oz ground pork
- 2 eggplants ends trimmed, cut lengthwise and crosswise into 1/2-inch half moons
- 1 garlic clover minced or pressed
- 1 tsp ginger minced
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 scallions sliced thin
Instructions
- Whisk the broth, hoisin sauce, soy sauce and peanut butter together in a medium bowl.
- Heat 1 teaspoon of the oil in a 12-inch skillet over high heat until shimmering. Add pork and cook, stirring to break up the meat, until thoroughly cooker, about 3 minutes. Transfer to plate and set aside.
- Add 1 tablespoon oil to the empty pan, swirl to coat the pan, and add the eggplant. Cook, stirring frequently, until browned, about 3 minutes.
- Clear a space in the center of the pan and add garlic, ginger, pepper flakes, and remaining 1 teaspoon oil. Cook until fragrant, about 10 seconds.
- Stir in pork and sauce. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the sauce has thickened and the eggplant has softended, about 4 minutes.
- Garnish with the scallions and serve
Joke of the Week
What’s green, slimy and gets audience members to scream, cry and lose their minds on national TV?
Okra Winfrey
That joke is a bit dated. Comes from the Polaroid camera era.
As always, do not hesitate to send in questions, comments, jokes, or anything else you deem would be interesting, fun, helpful, etc.