The season continues strongly again this week. After a very brief break in sweet corn (Wednesday and Thursday did not get any last week but do not fear, the sweet corn week is not in sync with the other vegetables week so you will get the same amount of sweet corn) it returned with a vengeance. Well maybe not a vengeance but enough to have a delightful sweet corn feed with your friends and neighbors! This past week’s corn is a variety called Bodacious. We like it because it is tasty and it has a fairly long, tight-fitting shuck. And everyone likes a tight-fitting shuck, everyone except corn earworms. The long, tight-fitting shuck makes it more difficult for the young earwoms to penetrate the shuck to feast on the kernels. This is one of our strategies for combating the corn earworm.
Our garlic harvest project was completed in record time; this season it took us less than one week. Last season we tried using our small Allis Chalmers model G tractor and a beet knife to undercut the garlic prior to pulling it up. The idea was to cut the roots and loosen the soil so the garlic could be pulled up by hand. It wasn’t as successful as we hoped. Last season there was very little rain after the deluge spring rains so the ground was quite hard. The implement had a hard time penetrating the soil so we ended up cutting a few too many bulbs and became overly cautious trying not to get too close.
This season we’ve had enough rain to make the soil a bit easier to penetrate. This allowed us to use the tractor to loosen the soil a bit closer to the garlic. We were still a little tentative and did have a few mistakes where we cut through the garlic bulbs but overall it was successful and reduced an otherwise lengthy process into a fairly quick operation.
One of my favorite recipes this time of year is Voula’s Greek Salad. I have a fond appreciation for this recipe since it is delicious, authentic and comes from a sweet, Greek neighbor in our old neighborhood in California. Her name was Voula, but our oldest son called her Yaya. Everyone should have a Yaya in their lives.
Anyway, at this time of year we have all the ingredients we can grow for this recipe: tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and Greek oregano. Other ingredients include olive oil, red wine vinegar, feta cheese, salt and pepper if you desire. We will include some sprigs of oregano in the deliver boxes; on-farm pick-up members can grab some from the herb section of the pick-up tent. To be honest I don’t really follow the directions very closely. The quantities are more suggestions than absolutes. But with fresh ingredients the taste cannot be beat. And it is even more delicious the next day!
A couple people asked if they can add SeafoodShare and/or SalmonShare this late into the season. The answer is “Yes”! If you would like to add either of these two items just let me know and send in payment at your earliest convenience. The price for the rest of the season (August, September and October) for Large SalmonShare is $230, Small SalmonShare is $ 145, Large SeafoodShare is $250, and Small SeafoodShare is $165.
We also have a great opportunity to purchase wild, line-caught Albacore tuna! This comes from Port Orford Sustainable Seafood, an organization similar to Sitka Salmon Shares where we get our other seafood. By purchasing this seafood you support small, family-owned fishing vessels much like your support for our small, family-owned vegetable farm. If you like seafood and in particular Albacore tuna, please consider giving this a try! The tuna comes frozen in 5 lbs boxes. The price is $85/5 lb share. It will be delivered with the September seafood delivery. Orders due by the end of August. Let me know if you’d like to order a box.
What will we have this week? We will have corn for the Wednesday and Thursday folks. It is also likely that we will have corn for everyone from the third and last planting starting Friday, but as we’ve always said, “We serve no corn before its time.” We’ll also have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, squash (will it ever end?), cabbage, beets, tomatillos (check out the salsa verde recipe), onions, potatoes, some fennel (the last of it), maybe kale, maybe chard, certainly basil, a few eggplants, a few peppers, and whatever else we can find out there. We’ll also try to grab some more herbs for the delivery boxes and the pick-up tent. Oh, and I hope to find a bunch of jalapeno peppers!
No FruitShare though if you would like to purchase Colorado peaches please let me know as soon as possible. Deadline is this Friday! They come in 10lb and 20lb boxes.
No CheeseShare, EggShare, IceCreamShare, SeafoodShare, or SalmonShare, though some people still need to pick theirs up.
MeatShare came on Friday. If you haven’t picked up yours yet please do so this week.
CoffeeShare arrives on Monday.
I think this is all for now. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, etc.