I hope you had a fun and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend! Kaden and I have so many great vegetables ready for harvest this week. I can't wait for you to see what is in your share!
This Week
All types of squash, plus cucumbers are really producing heavily this week! We have been picking every day, trying our best to have them all be uniform and tender. If you receive a crookneck squash as part of your yellow squash, it is the variety, OG Crookneck. This squash dates back to 1588 and were developed by Native People's! They are not as large as many squash, but I think they taste great and are such a connection to the past through food. Lots of leafy greens are on this week, including some beautiful collard greens. The stir fry mix is replaced with the braising greens mix. That will consist of turnip greens, collard greens, and kale. A lot of radishes all were ready at the same time, so we have the soras, rainbows, and French breakfast radish. This is probably the last week for the French breakfast radishes!
Next Week
We have been debating about adding green tomatoes to the inventory. I would like to harvest all of the first fruit sets off each plant, so that the plants can grow more. Some are just starting to blush, so it shouldn't be long before we have some slicing tomatoes! Bell peppers will be ready to harvest soon, and we will be adding jalapenos, hot peppers, and eggplant very soon!
Farm Update
Summer temps are here, which means we are transitioning to a new variety of vegetables. As of right now, we are a little behind on lettuce plantings (germination issues in our last planting) and we have to maintain enough for our restaurants and stores. We will be able to offer mesclun mix each week, but for a few weeks there will not be any lettuce mix available. It's the time of year were we focus on microgreens as a salad green, so the sunflower and pea shoots will in the inventory if you will want fresh greens to eat raw. This time of year is very challenging to grow leafy greens, especially lettuce. Lettuce can only be harvested between 6-8 AM, and the irrigation must be spot on, in addition to, Kaden and I deploying and removing shade cloth daily. At this time, we have so much on our plate that it's hardly feasible to grow 40 lbs of lettuce every week.
You are lucky to get any cucumbers, because I have been eating so many of them! I have a vegetable peeler that turns the fruit into "noodles", and cucumber noodles are one of my side dishes. In a bowl, I like to mix a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar and olive oil, salt, pepper, sesame seeds, a LOT of fresh dill, and and a drizzle of honey with the cucumber noodles.
It's less than three weeks before I leave for Washington D.C. on June 19. I will not be back until the 22nd, so Kaden will be running the farm shares by his lonesome. To make that easier on him, I wanted to give you an advanced heads up that the delivery week of June 23rd will be a limited inventory week. You can expect crops like potatoes, squash, collards, microgreens, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes, and all of our root vegetables. There will not be as many leafy greens, or herbs that week.
We need some rain so badly! It's been two weeks and counting since a drop has fallen on our farm. Every year, I look forward to chanterelle season more than any other part of the year. I love being out in the woods with my friends, on the forage for my favorite mushroom. I had really high hopes that we would have a good season. We are 20 or so inches above the average rainfall, but with no rain for three weeks, I think the season could be over before it starts. I have been keeping an eye on the NOAA rainfall totals, and the rain for the past few weeks looks like a horse shoe to the east, west, and south of NELA. I really want to harvest more than 100 lbs this year for us to dehydrate and jar for the farm shares. If the weather changes and we do find some, I will do my best to have fresh mushrooms in the farm shares.
Community
The Strauss Little Theater in Monroe has invited Current Farms to co-host a concert on June 10, featuring the Arkansas singer-songwriter, Dylan Earl! I personally think Dylan Earl is the best underground country musician in the US. Emi and I have been to a lot of his shows in the past few years. He's such a great guy and I am grateful to also call him by BUDDY! After a show in Fayetteville, I was reserved to camp at a beautiful establishment called "Cowpatty's Campground" but Mr. Earl offered me a camp spot next to the tomatoes in his backyard ha! This is his first show in Monroe, and he kindly asked the Strauss Theater if Current Farms could be there with a jam/veggie pop up. Here we are, co-hosting the event! It's going to be a fun time, and Kaden and I would love to see you there!
