More Green

It's summer, as evidenced by the first pinch of basil and mature garlic heads in the share. we still have lettuce, beets with greens and kale as well. The garlic is a porcelain type called Siberian. Porcelains have few and large cloves - the heads are mature, but not yet cured. They will keep on the counter for months if not used. The wrappers will dry around the cloves if you let it store, or you can just use it now. The lettuce is Blushed Icy Oak, the beets are Kestrel, and the kale is Rainbow Lacinato. We're giving out the first of the basil pinches - Genovese type. We have to pinch the basil early to encourage it to bush out, there's not much at this point, just a taste, but we'll have more later with a little luck.

Irrigation

Today's share looks pretty similar to Monday's, the main difference is that the lettuce is Lolo Divino instead of Plato II. This is a beautiful variety of lettuce and really adds great loft to salads. I'm not completely sold on the flavor so I'd love to get feedback, I'm considering dropping it from our rotation.

Instead of a photo of the share I'm putting up a photo of the main work of the day - setting up and irrigating. While the surface looks, and is quite dry, there's actually a good bit of moisture in the soil. We're still being a little cautious so that we don't get behind, and laying out all the drip tape takes a little while for new beds. Most of the plants are loving the heat, tomatoes look great, cucurbits are all germinating and coming along, new beans are up, and the popcorn went in today.

First summer/Monday share

This is our first Monday share for the summer season and it includes a bit of Five Color Silver Beet (chard for those of us in the US), a garlic scape, Plato II romaine, and a Finale fennel bulb. For those of you unfamiliar with garlic scapes, read back a bit in the blog. They're basically the flower stalks from hardneck garlic, and can be used pretty much as you would use garlic itself, with very similar results. Fennel is another vegetable unfamiliar to some, but delicious. It's often seen sliced very thinly across the grain and added to salads with citrus. I like it cut in thick slices and braised for an extended period, but use it how you like. The leaves can be added to salad as well. Chard of course is similar to spinach, a good all purpose cooking green, and the ribs are equally delicious, although they need a bit more cooking than the leaf itself.

Big Planting Day

All thirteen of the beds pictured in the foreground got seeded or planted today. Winter squash, pole beans, celeriac, scorzonera, salsify, melons and lettuce went in, some a little later than we hoped, but it's really the first time we're having warm, dry weather in a couple of months now. Only four or five more beds and we'll be all caught up with the planting schedule. Today was also the start of irrigation season, and Thursday we'll have to add lines to these new beds as well.

Final Spring Share

From SHF CSA

For some reason yesterdays post was lost in the ether, so I'll try to recreate here...

An exciting final share for the spring this year. We've got Red Iceberg lettuce, Yellow Stone carrot thinnings, fresh Siskyou Sweet onions and their tops as well. The tops are very sweet and tender, good either raw or cooked. Even with all of this cold wet weather we're plugging away at getting the bulk of the year's crops planted. If we wait any longer for warm sunny days there won't be any time for the plants to mature for their late summer and fall harvests. For that reason we again borrowed the BCS tiller and made a few passes, doing an initial prep on about 20 beds in an hour and a half that would have otherwise taken us a couple of days or more. I'm hoping this is the last time we have the BCS out.

By the way, the end of the spring season means the summer season starts next week! We have lots of shares available as well as free sample shares. Let everyone know and sign up for a few yourself!

Super Greens Share

Lot of greens today in a slightly larger than usual share. We had some extra romaine, Plato II is the variety, so we decided to give a bonus head - perfect for a little Caesar Salad. There's bok choi as well from an experimental planting that Kji put it. The leaves have been a bit ravaged by the slugs which have been prolific with all the rain. Kji says the stems are the important part anyway so not to worry. He also says the garlic scapes will be "killer" with the choi. I believe he's expecting you to cut them up and stir fry the whole mess. Scapes, for those of you who haven't had them before, are the tender flower stalks of hard neck garlic varieties. They have that same garlic flavor and you can eat the whole thing. They can be cut up, or roasted or grilled whole until very soft. Garlic only flowers at this time of year so the next couple of weeks is the only time you'll see them around. The first of the Kale is also in the shares this week, a bit of Frank Morton's Rainbow Lacinato.

Farm Event, Free Samples, Summer Is Coming...

From SHF CSA

First - an Open House
This Sunday we'll be out on the farm helping move a greenhouse, giving tours, cleaning up and maybe even helping to build a wood fired oven? Please come see the farm in it's spring glory, have a picnic, and lend a hand if you're so inclined.

Sunday, June 13 - 11:30 - 3 (or so)
email us for directions


Second - Free Sample Shares!
The CSA isn't full. We'd love to get the word out and we have enough for all the shares so we want to distribute that produce as well. So, we're offering free two week sample shares while supplies last. All you have to do is sign up - same as for a regular share and we'll deliver shares for two weeks for free. Just say you want to take advantage of the free two week sample, it'll be the same share as a regular share. It's that simple.

Please pass this on to anyone you know who eats vegetables and feel free to take advantage of the offer yourself, even if you already have a share.

A big thank you to all of the spring members who have been supporting the CSA and to all of you who have already signed up for summer, fall and winter shares. The less time we have to spend tracking down new members the more time we can put into growing the best vegetables possible.

Spring to Summer Transition
One other little note, spring is almost over. With it I hope the rain will also dissipate. This means that the spring shares are ending in two weeks and the summer shares will start. If you haven't signed up for the summer season yet please do it soon.

We hope to see you out on the farm this weekend and you're always welcome to visit any Monday or Thursday.

New Vegetables

The shares are shifting a bit as we near the end of spring. Today's share has the first carrot thinnings, a sweet onion, and another head of Pirat butter lettuce. The onion is a Siskiyou Sweet variety and we've harvested it young, with the flower stalk. All parts are edible raw or cooked, but the flower stalk is best cooked.

The fields are incredibly wet right now but we did manage to get all of the tomatoes planted, finally. Below is a photo of the last of six rows we planted. This one is Moscovich. We'll have four others this year as well.