It's Watermelon time!! We love this time of year for the watermelons. (Because the weather usually leaves a bit to be desired!) We sweat and build muscle getting these babies out of the field and into our walk in cooler (remember we are a human powered farm -- no assistance from a tractor during harvest!). And then after a long day of working in the heat we get to eat cold watermelon. That - plus hearing how you all enjoy eating what we grow - makes it all worth it. :)
We PROUDLY grow Watermelons with seeds inside them, because fruit should have seeds! (That's how they reproduce!) We grow mostly melons that have pink flesh and a smaller number of melons with yellow flesh. We eat the seeds - we just swallow them. Try it!
Hanging out at the bottom of this email evvvvverrryyy week is a list of our Storage Tips for various vegetables. There are some gems of info in there! The most salient points this week are: -> Keep Tomatoes and Eggplants OUT of the fridge. (Eggplants have the shortest shelf life of anything we grow. Eat them soon after getting them from us.)
Eggplants will feel softer/less firm after a few days at room temp, but they are still very fine to eat.
July harvest is beautiful and delicious! Our meals are a constant combination of roasted/grilled vegetables and salads, plus protein from a friend's farm and some bread or rice. Oil and Salt and Garlic are our best friends to make our meals complete... and vinegar.
We grow flowers because they make us smile in the summertime! When it's so dang hot, yellow sunflowers and pink snapdragons make us happy. They lift us right up. Plus the watermelon in the belly helps, too.
And despite the mid-summer heat that most lettuces don't like, we've found the right varieties and the right strategies to get them to grow most of the summer. So, our "Salad Mix" harvest yields go down this time of year, but we have crunchy and delicious heads of Lettuce to make up the difference. (PRO TIP: The heads of Lettuce are more tasty than the Salad Mix this time of year. It's reflective of how well suited (or not!) the different plants are for the heat that this time of year brings.) This is what one of our lettuce field looks like as of last Friday: 
During some parts of the next few weeks we'll have the leaves of these lettuce heads to offer you, separated from the intact head. This is due to how some plants grow this time of year and how we need to manage certain plants for adequate air flow.
Vegetable prep suggestions:
- SOAK slices of Eggplant in oil, maybe oil + Vinegar, for a few minutes or a few hours. Then roast or grill. Top with a combination of soy sauce, sriracha, and garlic.
- Do the same with Summer Squash! We grow the varieties in which the seeds stay very small even when the squash is bigger than may look ideal. Slice them up, soak them in oil with garlic and salt, and roast in the oven or cook on the grill.
- Dice up Tomatoes and toss with olive oil, garlic, and salt. Maybe also Balsamic vinegar. Put on top of Salads or simply enjoy as its own side dish.
- Use Lettuce leaves as wraps/boats for any assortment of fillings: tunafish, chicken salad, tofu "chicken" salad, egg salad...the list of options is loooong.
- Same for cooler(s) at pick up locations with any cold items that aren't vegetables (tomatoes, eggs, fermented vegetables, etc...)
- Preparation ideas and recipe suggestions are in your email. Also check out our Pinterest Page for lots of recipe ideas, organized by vegetable.
Vacations:
If you will be gone and can't pick up a particular week's share you can reschedule that week's share for a different week in the Harvie software, or you can have a friend or family member pick up for you. Just forward this email to them so they know the details.
Janet, Dan, and the whole Broadfork crew (Julie, Mia, Natalie, Sophie, Magda, S., Zach, and the farm kids)
