With the rain falling right now I suddenly have time to write a newsletter.
Even with it being Independence Day week there are no changes to this week’s pick-up/delivery schedule. If you won’t be picking up your produce at your usual place and time please let me know so we can plan accordingly. If you pick-up at a drop site and won’t be able to get your produce this week you have a few choices: 1 – send someone else in your place, 2 – come out to the farm during our usual open hours (T, Th and F from 3:30 – 6:30 and W from 9:30 to 11:30 am) on a more convenient day, or 3 – have us not send your box. For on-farm pick-up, if you can’t make your usual time you also can switch to another time, send someone else in your place or forgo this week’s produce. Please let me know ASAP if you need to make a change.
Farm News
So far two weeks with minimal issues. Can we keep it going? With this week being the 4th of July week there is bound to be problems. I’m hoping they are easily resolved.
I was talking with my son Alex the other day as we were harvesting kale. He said to me, “Rebecca said that farming is all about efficiency. I think it is about doing as much as you can with as little work as possible.” I’m not sure who is right. They both make solid points. It seems to me that there is always something to do on the farm and never enough time to do it all. The to-do list is never ending. Then to overlay weather — and nature — on top of it increases the challenges. Plus don’t forget about equipment breakdowns which both add to the workload and reduce the efficiency. The result is we are always trying to do more with less — with varying amounts of success. So is it efficiency or trying to do more with as little work as possible? I think it is a toss up.
All-in-all the farm is doing pretty well. We are a couple weeks away from the first sweet corn — it started tasseling this past week. It’ll be a week or so until we get broccoli, probably two weeks for cauliflower and cabbage. Eggplants may be on the horizon soon. The tomatoes in the hoop house look abundant but still green; not sure when they will start turning. Same with the cherry tomatoes in the field. Beans are a ways off — they haven’t started flowering yet. Carrots have nice tops but no big roots yet. I’m not sure about potatoes, since they grow underground I have to dig up a plant or two to see how they are doing. I suspect I won’t do that until the week of July 9th at the earliest. The cucumbers are ramping up. We might have some this week but more likely only enough for quality control testing.
The winter squash and pumpkins are growing fast. I was hoping to do one last cultivation before they started growing into the aisles. Unfortunately during the three days it took to repair the tractor the plants tripled in size. That’s what happens when we get hot days and plenty of moisture. Same with the potatoes. They are too tall for our tractor to drive over so no more cultivating — or maybe I have to get a bigger tractor. I was able to cultivate the third planting of corn yesterday. It was my last chance before it too got too big. The first two plantings are far too tall. With today’s rain everything will be getting even bigger — including the weeds.
What will we have this week? Good question, with the high heat and the deer we may soon be out of lettuce. We lost at least a third of our outdoor lettuce to deer. They take one bite from each head. How inconsiderate. Then the heat caused about another third to bolt before it was large enough to harvest. Maybe having fewer heads of lettuce is a welcome respite. We’ll also have bok choi, green onions, zucchini/squash, kohlrabi, some radishes, maybe beets, maybe a few cucumbers (see above), some snow peas, some snap peas, (both are cool season crops and have been negatively affected by the hot weather), kale and some Swiss chard. There might be other things I’m forgetting so don’t be surprised if you find something else.
A Efficient Recipe for all that Zucchini/Summer Squash
Here is a quick idea for when you are inundated with zucchini or summer squash.
Step One: Cut zucchini in half lengthwise.
Step Two: Coat lightly with olive oil
Step Three: Grill cut side down until soft.
Step Four: Eat as much as you care to while still hot.
Step Five: Cool and cut the remaining zucchini into bite size pieces.
Step Six: Mix cut zucchini with Italian dressing and feta cheese.
Step Seven: Store in fridge until you are hungry again, then eat it as a cold salad.
We typically grill a bunch of zucchini then make this salad with the leftovers. It is delicious and easy to make. Plus it uses up lots of zucchini!
An Easy Recipe for Bok Choi
People have asked me how to make the bok choi. Here at the farm we are always looking for efficient recipes, or at least recipes that take little effort for maximum effect. One is our recipe for bok choi.
Ingredients
As much bok choi as you have
Whatever other items you have, like green onions and garlic scapes
Soy Sauce
Crunchy noodles (optional)
Cut bok choi into bite sized pieces. Cut white part of onions into small pieces and green part into larger pieces. Chop garlic scapes. Stir-fry starting with the white part of the onions. After a couple minutes add the garlic scapes. After another minute or two add the bok choi and green part of the onions. Once everything is cooked to your desired consistency add soy sauce to taste. Throw on crunchy noodles (optional). Another of our members does this with oyster sauce instead of soy sauce.
Hopefully we will have FlowerShare this week! The bouquets may be small and short this first week.
The current plan is for salmon to be here the third week of July.
No other shares are this week.
As always, let me know if you have any questions, comments, jokes, etc. I’d love to hear from drop-site members as to how the season is going. I get to talk to on-farm members weekly but rarely do I here from our other members.