Spinach!

The spinach is beautiful this week!  Spinach is a tricky crop to grow so we're really happy to have such a beautiful bunch for the shares this week.  There's also a head of emerald oak lettuce, a couple of french breakfast radishes, and a stalk or two of the beginnings of our broccoli raab harvests.  The raab is a little like a mustard, I like these quickly sauteed with a bit of olive oil and coarse salt and used as an accent on pasta or soup or any other dish.

We're seeing our first crop loss due to slugs.  They've decimated a planting of fennel, but fortunately I think we'll still have enough. Other than that things are looking really beautiful now that we're getting a little more sun and warmth. I'll post a few more photos soon.

Big Plants

From SHF CSA

On Monday we realized we'd been babying the tomato plants a little too long. They've outgrown the mini greenhouse and really need a bit of hardening off before we set them out later this month, when we hope it'll actually warm up and dry out a bit. So now they're in the unheated section of the still not quite completed hoop house, which means they get a little breeze through the vents that haven't been completed and the door panels that haven't gone up yet.

Small picture

This week a small picture, but actually the share looks pretty large to me. Arugula, green garlic and lettuce are all featured. If you haven't had green garlic before you can use the whole thing, greens and all. It's a bit like the scallion compared with a regular onion. Use it in soups, sauces, omelettes, etc. Spring arugula is tender and makes a great salad with just a bit of sharpness. I like it with fresh cheeses, like chevre and slightly sweet dressings.

We've been giving out slightly larger portions of a few crops in the shares this year for a few reasons. Basically we have extra, mostly because we're undersubscribed. We've debated how to handle the extras, and in the end we've been giving some of that to the members who have signed up, wanting to see it used. We're also looking for other outlets at this point and a bit of it has been going as sample shares, or into small commercial kitchens we know. If you know someone who would like a sample, and might actually be convinced by a sample to become a member let us know and we'll hook them up.

If you're wondering why the small photo, I'm actually in Philadelphia today visiting old friends and attending my 20th high school reunion. Usually I take a photo of the share on my phone, upload it and some text to the blog after we finish with harvest. I find that pretty amazing! Even more amazing this week, Kji harvested all of the shares solo, and now has texted me the photo, which I then pasted into an e-mail that posted to the blog. We might be small and hand scale, but we're certainly not low tech.

More spring greens

Week two of the spring share and we're rolling along with the greens and radishes. This week's bags have small bunches of mibuna and mizuna which are excellent raw in salad, and they also hold up to tossing in with warm grain salads. We have thinnings from flashy lightning and blushed butter lettuces, also perfect for salads or sandwhiches. The first two plantings of radishes came on strong in the plastic tunnel so there's a decent sized bunch. Radish greens are edible but shoul be cooked first to rid them of their slightly hairy texture. The roots are quite mild in the spring and can be enjoyed either fresh or cooked. They give nice color to salad or pair well with butter and salt on a baguette.

Today we're dodging rain showers, trying to catch up on one more lettuce planting, and mowing grass which is growing prolifically right now. I'll try to post more photos soon. Also, we still have shares available so let everyone know.

First Spring Share

Looks like a great first share this week to kick off the spring season. Due to the late start we have a few extra radishes. There's a leek, which will have particularly flavorful greens, two types of lettuce and three types of mustard greens. The mustards are very mild salad types. The frilly one is called gold frill, the long thin rounded one is mibuna and the serrated leafed one is mizuna. The larger of the two lettuces is flashy lightning which was grown in the new hoop house, and there's a little cosmo savoy lettuce that was seeded outside very early. Next week we should have more of these greens, and maybe a new itm or two. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the kale and collard raab which is very sweet and can be eaten raw, or even better, lightly cooked.

First harvest next week!

From SHF CSA

Crops are growing, and looking, good. We've got greens that should be a nice size by next week and they will appreciate some thinning. The garlic and onions that came through the winter look great. And, our first transplants from the greenhouse are ready to go out. Kji's been holding down the fort while I've been traveling the last week (I'm posting this from BC where I'm traveling this week). I stopped by on Monday to check things out and make him pose for a few photos. It poured in the morning but dried out enough by afternoon to seed carrots so we're doing pretty good.

From SHF CSA

New Drop Site

From SHF CSA

We're adding a new drop site to the list - back in SE, but not quite as far SE as last year's site. This one will be in the neighborhood of 17th and Alder. Let us know if you're interested...