3rd Week June Newsletter

The rainbow carrots you've been getting started to matthew's left in this picture.

This week we hit a milestone of the year in our kitchen. The last few pounds of onions from last year are now in the onion basket on our counter top. Its a good thing that the onions for this year have green tops now and are getting big enough that we can snitch a few to eat, because we hate to buy onions if we don't have to. They spend the winter being slowly taken out of the coolness of our pantry and eaten and now, the bag is finally empty. And those last few onions are still nice and hard, hooray for storage food!

With these hot, humid days all of the insects and other bugs have emerged and are out all over the farm. As we are out planting or weeding the deer flies circle our heads and occasionally deliver their painful bite. The lightning bugs have been lighting up the nights for a couple weeks now. Many species of butterflies we see flitting through the air and the dragon and damsel flies are evident at the pond and in the field. Down at the soil level we see many slugs sliming their way around our crops (luckily for us they've not done much damage to the vegetables yet - mostly because its been dry and they thrive more in wet conditions) And spiders - spiders of all sizes and shapes are crawling around and in the soil - from spindle-legged Daddy long legs to hairy wolf spiders to tiny goldenrod spiders. And of course every gardener's favorite friend - the earthworm. There's lots of them. And I'm always amazed every time I take time to look around by the diversity of bugs. But I guess that's a sign we're doing something right as we have tried to create a system of farming that harbors many different classes and species of animals. The only insect that we would really like to see less of right now are the flea beetles. If you've been missing our spicy greens mix or radishes (we lost some beds of these) or have been upset by the "holey" arugula, the flea beetles are the reason. They are tiny, black and they hop around like fleas. And though we have kept these crops covered with row covers, they have still found a way to eat them. We presume they were already living in the soil under the row covers!

On Sunday June 22 you'll get a great chance to come inspect all the various forms of insect (and other) life here at the farm for yourself. Yes its time for another CSA/work day. We'll start at 3:00 with weeding (or should we say WHEEEding!) for approximately 45 min (we don't want to push our luck with asking anyone to weed longer than that - we want you to actually want to come). Then around 4:00 we will have a really fun farm scavenger hunt for everyone to play. After scavenging we will have a potluck dinner. We also want to give people a chance to pick orchard bouquets of flowers (from the lovely flowers thriving in the orchard, daisys, clovers, purple vetch and buttercups) and take a peek into the nest that someone has built in one of our little apple trees, on last peek it had three little blue eggs with black spots on the end in it, not sure who it belongs to, since i haven't seen anyone sitting on it yet. Please RSVP by Saturday evening if you will be coming and let us know the number of participators for the scavenger hunt. Come see the veggies you helped plant! Or other items of interest that you've read about here. We'll be sending an email out, too.

This week's vegetables:
Peas - snow or snap
Lettuce heads
Scallions
Garlic scapes
Chard
Spicy greens mix



Next week's (expected) vegetables:
Salad greens
Peas
Kale
New Potatoes
Summer Squash
PYO Green Beans!



Recipes:

Garlic scapes are the buds of a garlic plant, that would make a flower if left on the plant. We take them off and eat them because they are delicious -- and if they were allowed to flower, the garlic head would be much smaller. The whole thing is edible, chop it up tip to tip and use it like you would any kind of garlic. We like to either throw it in the food processor to chop it, or use scissors and cut it into stir fries, or any recipe that calls for garlic.

Here is a recipe that we really like, we freeze it and enjoy it year round...

Raw Scape Pesto
Garlic scapes make a pesto that is a pretty green color and a knock-your-socks-off rich garlic flavor. If this pesto is too strong for your taste, add mayonnaise or sour cream to dilute by 1/1 or even 2/1.
½ lb. scapes (chopped into 1" sections)
1½ c. olive oil
2 c. grated parmesan cheese
1-2 cups of walnuts, pine nuts, sunflowers, or almonds

In a blender, combine the ingredients. Can be used as a cracker or pizza spread. Can be frozen in plastic ice cube trays and used later - this applies to the other pestos, dips, and dressings as well. Once they are frozen solid, put them in a freezer bag, use all year for making bruschetta, with pasta or pizza.

ALSO, garlic bread: 2 or 3 cubes thawed works nicely on toast for a quick garlic bread.




Creamed Swiss Chard
Serves 4-6
1 small onion (peeled and finely chopped)
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups heavy cream
2 1/2 pounds Swiss chard (1 bunch should work)
1/4 cup finely grated aged parmigiano-reggiano cheese
Salt and white pepper to taste
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

1. Melt butter in a medium, heavy-bottomed pan and add the onion; cook until the onion is translucent -- about 4 minutes.
2. Add heavy cream and reduce by one-third over medium heat or until the cream coats the back of the spoon.
3. Meanwhile, wash the Swiss chard and remove the stems. Bring a gallon of lightly salted water to boil.
4. Add the chard leaves and cook for 3-4 minutes. Drain. Press out the excess moisture from the leaves and roughly chop the leaves.
5. Add chard leaves to the cream mixture. Simmer for 3-5 minutes or until it has the consistency of thick soup.
6. Add the parmigiano-reggiano cheese, salt, white pepper and nutmeg. Serve immediately.
Recipe by Chef Patrick O'Connell from npr.org


Got an inch of rain overnight last night that the forecast didn't even let us know to expect, so things are looking really nice right now! The tomatoes that people helped plant at the last CSA day are now well over knee high and some have little tiny tomatoes starting on them, and don't worry, those guys won't need a recall when their ready for you! We hope you have a great week of good eating, and we look forward to seeing you on sunday! liz