First of all I want to give a special shout out to those members who made their way to their pick-up location last week to pick-up their share despite the repeated announcements that the season starts the week of June 19th. We appreciate your enthusiasm!
The season starts this week — June 19th.
We are still looking for help this season. Wouldn’t you rather be working here instead of your lousy desk job? Maybe it is time to rethink your life choices. Who wants to work in a cubical with artificial light and the smell of microwaved leftover fish when you could be outside in the occasional fresh air (thanks Canada), and bright sunshine? Think about it then contact me once you made the right choice!
Farm News
With the first week of the harvest season we add yet another task to the ever increasing list of tasks – harvesting the veggies. And washing the veggies. So two new tasks to the list of tasks. Plus I just discovered the potato beetles have hatched so add spraying for potato beetles to the ever increasing list. Did I mention we are looking for another worker?
When we harvested the basil today we noticed that the plants were not all the same basil. In fact, it seems like we have a mixture of many different basils. It could be that the source basil plants cross pollinated or the basil seed was mixed somewhere in the supply chain. In any case, I think there will be some very interesting pesto flavors this season! Let me know what you think of the mix of flavors.
Other than all the farming we’re doing, we’re also getting the place cleaned up and ready for harvesting. We bought a pressure washer this year to wash all the bins we have. If we count all the storage bins of various types we have over 300 bins. Doing the math, if it takes us two minutes per bin to wash it would take 600 minutes or 10 hours of bin washing, which seems to be how long it took. Prior to the pressure washer it took us just as long but with 3-4 people scrubbing them. I like the pressure washer approach.
Anyway, enough jibber-jabber for this week. Let’s move on to the next section of this newsletter!
What will we have this week?
This is the section where I make my best guess as to what will be in this week’s offering. I don’t want to use the term “share” since you may not receive all these items in your share — whether on-farm or at a drop site. Since we are a farm we don’t have unlimited availability of all the items on the list. Also by growing vegetables (and I suppose this could be a factor in other businesses) the amount of an item will vary over the course of its season. Typically it is a bell-shaped curve but since we do succession planting the curve could be a number of different shapes. So I try to put “hints” into the description of an item to give you an idea of whether to expect to find that particular item in your share or in the pick-up tent.
For example, if I use no descriptor, like “there will be broccoli”, it usually means there is enough for everyone but on a rare occasion possibly not. Though for delivery shares you will likely see it in your box.
If I use the word “few” or similar it means you probably won’t see it in your delivery box but may come across a few in the pick-up tent (but then again you may not). Do not count on getting something labeled “few”.
If I say there is “lots and lots” of something or I mention said thing multiple times, it will be in your share in a quantity that may surprise you. This is the time to get out the cookbooks and find a recipe that uses a lot of that item.
If I use the word “some” there is a chance the delivery boxes will get it or the tent will get it but probably not both. The following week it will probably say “some” again for that item and for that next week the item will be available for the group (delivery or on-farm) that didn’t have it the last week. We keep track of where items go so that we ensure everyone has an equal chance at each item over the course of the season.
I’m sure I use other descriptors at times and much like reading the Federal Reserve Quarterly reports you’ll have to interpret their meaning. Anyway, I hope this makes sense. If not, and you want clarification now, send me an email and I can give it another shot. Or, you can just go through the season and realize it really doesn’t matter. No matter what I say in this section you will still get a bunch of delicious, fresh veggies. So, what will we get this week?
Lettuce, green garlic, green onions, bok choy, zucchini, some Swiss chard, some basil, very few broccoli, and probably some other things I’m forgetting.
Recipe of the Week
I figured for those new to the CSA business this week I would focus on two items that you may not be familiar with: green garlic and garlic scapes. Green garlic is an immature garlic plant. Garlic scapes are the top part of a hardneck garlic plant. Both are garlicky but usually more mild than garlic cloves. They can typically be used as a replacement for garlic. But they can also be used in ways where garlic cloves may be too strongly flavored. One of our favorite things to do with either is to take a couple scapes or one green garlic and grind it up in a food processor. You can use the whole green garlic plant with the roots cut off but we find the leaves can be hard to process so we remove them; your food processor mileage may vary. Be aware that when the garlic bulb starts to form it also starts to form the “paper” that separates the cloves. At this point it might not grind up as nicely but I think most of what is going out today should be fine.
Once sufficiently ground-up we throw in a block of cream cheese and process it until the garlic and cream cheese are well combined. Then use it as a spread on crackers or bagels or wherever you want a creamy, garlicky treat! Though I haven’t done this — and some day I should — I suppose you could do the same but substitute sour cream for the cream cheese and make a nice garlic dip.
Answer to last week’s brain teaser
We got one right answer from member Samantha who said it is better for you to wait to put the butter and sour cream on until after you take out the garbage. That way they don’t melt and run off the potato before you have a chance to eat them. Also with this method the potato will cool down faster since the difference in temperature between the hot potato and the air is greater than the difference between the hot potato with the butter and sour cream added and the air. The greater the difference in temperature the faster the heat transfers between the heat source (the potato) and the heat sink (the air).
That is all for now. As always, do not hesitate to send in questions, comments, jokes, etc.