Here are this week’s announcements!
The season starts this week. Please plan accordingly.
For those on-farm members who test positive for COVID: If you’d like to still get your veggies please contact me via email or text and let me know you plan to pick-up a prepacked share this week. Then on your normal pick-up day drive around the driveway circle to the pick-up tent and let me know who you are. I will retrieve your produce and place it in your vehicle. No need to exit your car. Having a mask on would be a nice touch as well. Feel free to contact me if you have questions.
Also for on-farm members: You don’t need to be here right at the start of the pick-up time. It is like open office hours. Come anytime during the time: T, Th and F 4:00-6:00 or W 9:30-11:30 am.
Farm News
Though we got a bit of rain last night, it seems like this season is replicating last season with the heat and lack of rain. I still have nightmares from last season of having to constantly move hoses and sprinklers and connect drip header lines to underground water spigots just to keep the plants alive. I feel like we are reliving this nightmare this season. Despite what the weather people say, we have not had enough rain this spring. As Yogi Berra used to say, “Its like deja vu all over again”.
Other than that, there is a lot of stuff happening on the farm this week including but not limited to sweating, perspiring, glowing, dripping, wilting and sweltering. We also are harvesting, washing and giving out produce for the first time this season! Because of that I don’t have a lot of time for a long newsletter so maybe I will end the farm news section and move right into the “What will we have this week?” section!
What will we have this week?
For those new to the farm I have to give you some guidance on this section of the newsletter. In this section I outline most of the items we have available for distribution. You will not receive everything on this list. Some items may be in abundance. Others may be quite limited. I try to let you know which by using special descriptive words. For example, if I write “lots of lettuce”, there will be a lot of lettuce and everyone will get some — and quite possibly in the case of lettuce more than one. If I write “some peas”, there will not be enough peas for everyone. We may give them out just to the delivery boxes with none for the pick-up tent. Or we may keep them in the tent and the delivery boxes will not get any this week. We keep track of everything we send out and everything we put in the on-farm pick-up tent so that we ensure everyone has an equal chance at getting all items despite their random availability. If I mention an item more than once, e.g. “We have lettuce, bok choy, peas, bok choy and green onions” it mean you will get a lot of the item mentioned multiple times.
It isn’t that important for you to fully grasp this arcane language but it helps for delivery members to know that something that is listed may not be in the box. It also helps on-farm members know that they do not need to pick up lettuce at the store this week.
Why don’t you list exactly what the delivery boxes get each week? How hard can that be? Harder than you think! We try to keep the delivery boxes consistent between the two delivery days but sometime Mother Nature decides she’s in charge and what we thought would be available on Thursday is out of stock once Thursday arrives. We do keep track so that the next time that missing item is available we will put it in the Thursday boxes and not the Tuesday boxes. Same with the pick-up tent. I guess you could say this unpredictability is part of the charm of being a member of a CSA farm!
Suffice it to say that we take equitability seriously — probably way too seriously for most people. But there is always the one or two of you who need everything to be perfectly equitable — and you know who you are. So be assured everyone will get their fair share.
So with all that, what will we have this week? Lots of lettuce, lots of bok choy, lots of green onions, lots of green garlic, some Swiss chard, a few small bunches of kale, some chives, and some oregano. There may be some peas but there may not. Depends on how many the deer and ground squirrels left behind.
We have CoffeeShare this week. No flowers, ‘shrooms or eggs yet.
Recipe of the week.
Here is this week’s recipe. It is a simple recipe that uses a few of this week’s veggies, which is just the type of recipe we love!
Bok Choy with Green Onions and Green Garlic
Ingredients
1 Large, 2 Medium or 4 Small Bok Choi – chopped
Several Green Onions – chopped
One to several Green Garlic/Garlic Scapes – chopped
High Heat Oil
Soy sauce to taste
Crunchy noodles (optional)
Directions
Break off bok choy leaves from head. Chop bok choy into bite size pieces. No need to separate leafy part from thick part. Cook green onions over medium high heat until just tender. Add garlic. Cook a few minutes but do not allow garlic to burn. Add bok choy. Cook until tender. When serving add crunchy chow main noodles and soy sauce to taste.
This seems like just the right amount of newsletter. As always, do not hesitate to contact me with questions, comments, tasty bok choy recipes or anything else you think would be helpful.
This week’s joke of the week:
What do you call Chinese cabbage that composes music?
Bach choy.