Ladies and gentlemen, let the 15th Fresh Earth Farms Hunger Games begin – and may the odds be ever in your favor!
But first a few announcements.
We still have shares available. We can prorate if the person doesn’t start this week. Please continue to spread the word.
Drop site members: Please check the side of your box for a list of the items you purchased this season. A “2” indicates a CoupleShare. A “3” is a FamilyShares. All the other words are self-explanatory. If you believe there is a mistake on your box please let me know ASAP so that I can look into the discrepancy.
Farm News
The 2018 harvest season gets underway this week! To say this Spring was a challenge is putting it mildly. We went from snowy winter to blazing hot summer with no real spring in between. Plants typically do not like that. Plants are either cool season crops or warm season crops. None of them are snowy season crops or blast furnace season crops (except for maybe sweet potatoes or okra). So getting anything to perform well was tough. But we did it!
We were somehow successful growing lettuce. We lost some to bolting (mostly red lettuce) but still have a bunch of green butterhead, green leaf and romaine (plus a few red). Get your lettuce recipes out (and send me some to share with other members).
Speaking of lettuce, our biggest challenge right now is (are?) the deer. They are eating our snap peas and our non-bolting lettuce. Soon they will move onto beets and Swiss chard. We’ll put plastic mesh over the lettuce but trying to cover everything is impossible. So we have to find a solution by making our farm less hospitable. They don’t seem very afraid of humans and barely looked up when my son Alex used his air horn. Every year it gets worse.
Everything that deer don’t like is doing great. The rain really caused the plants to grow quickly. I swear the winter squash plants doubled in size this weekend. Now we just need some dry weather to take care of the weeds that also appreciated the rain.
What will we have this week? This week we will have lots of lettuce. We’ll also have kale, summer squash/zucchini, green onions, green garlic, bok choi, some radishes, some kohlrabi, and some basil. For those new to the farm, this is a list of everything we harvest this week. Typically if I put “some” in front of an item there is not enough for everyone. This usually happens when something is either ramping up or ramping down. With no qualifier it generally means there is enough for everyone to have some. If you don’t get some of the “some” items you will have a chance at them “some”time soon. If we keep it for on-farm pick-up this week, next week we will put it in the delivery boxes and visa versa. It all works out in the end.
CoffeeShare is this week and is monthly.
FruitShare, CheeseShare, and EggShare start next week and will be every other week. IceCreamShare is next week as well but comes monthly.
SalmonShare starts in July (probably later in the month).
FlowerShare starts when the flowers bloom. Could be another week or two.
Recipe
Susan’s Caesar Salad
This is a Caesar salad dressing that doesn’t include eggs. It isn’t creamy and probably doesn’t taste like Caesar dressing but if you like garlic and lemon it tastes great! Plus the romaine stands-up well to the dressing (more delicate lettuce may wilt).
1 head romaine lettuce cut into bite size pieces
1 -2 clove garlic or green garlic crushed
1/2 – 3/4 c olive oil (more if a larger head of lettuce)
1/4 c lemon juice (more if a larger head of lettuce)
a squeeze of anchovy paste (optional)
1/2 c shredded CheeseShare Parmesan cheese (or more!)
a handful or two of Croutons
Freshly cracked pepper to taste
Put lettuce and croutons in a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and anchovy paste. Pour mixture over lettuce and croutons. Add cheese and pepper. Toss and serve.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. please send them my way!