Welcome New Families to the Late Spring Season farm share.
Just a reminder that your Harvie account has a multitude of recipes to explore so please take advantage of that or send me your favorite recipe to share with other members.
Also make sure you set your preferences as this is an integral part of customizing your box with items you like.
This week in your box:
Lettuce: You have a choice of two different varieties this week. As I thin the lettuce rows so the heads can grow larger, you can enjoy these adorable mini heads with tender leaves. Choose from Dragoon Romaine or red leaf Red Cross lettuce.
Cilantro: The cilantro season comes and goes very quickly. It’s a cool weather crop and starts to bolt as soon as the weather warms up. So enjoy your cilantro while we still have it. I will grow more later in the summer and fall.
Braising Mix: Our premium house braising mix is absolutely delicious. You can add these greens to any green salad, pasta salad, sandwich, or incorporate them into any main entre. This mix is packed with nutrition and flavors from a combination of red mustard, mizuna, tatsoi, kale and arugula. Our first cut has more green leaves whereas our second cut will have more red mustard since they don’t all grow at the same rate. Tatsoi is a green mustard.
Sugar Snap/Snow Peas: We love picking peas in the cool morning. The past week’s hot weather requires us to provide a shade curtain for the peas to keep them sweet and growing into late spring. Our bees love lingering on the sweet pea flowers too. We pick the peas every other day to encourage more fruit and ensure freshness. Enjoy.
Swiss Chard: If you are just joining us this week as a farm share member, I’ll share my favorite way to use Swiss Chard. I like to peel the leaf off the stem, chop and add it to my scrambled eggs in the morning. Mix in a little onion, herbs, and top with cheese. Alternatively, I often substitute chard for spinach in vegetarian lasagna. One farm share member said she uses the leaves to make as wraps or stuffs them like cabbage rolls.
Here’s another great recipe from farm share member, Cindy. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/148889/sauteed-swiss-chard-with-parmesan-cheese/?printview
Kale: If you are just joining us this week, I’m repeating my recommendations for picking out kale. I have many folks tell me they don’t like kale so I ask what has been your experience? Most folks simply buy what’s available at the grocery store and usually get very large, tough leaves, so here are some tips for picking out the best tasting kale.
1. The smaller the leaf, the more tender and sweet it will be! It doesn’t even compare to the giant kales leaves bundled at the market. I encourage you to try it when you visit the farm.
2. Kale harvested in cool weather seasons tastes entirely different than during the hot summer seasons. As the weather warms, kale becomes bitterer.
3. There are green and red varieties of kale. The red stemmed kale is bitterer than green or white stemmed kale.
4. Don’t try to eat the stems (except baby kale). They are really stringy and tough so remove the leaves from the stem before eating (unless it’s baby kale).
5. If you don’t like it cooked or raw, try making kale chips. Tip: Make sure you massage the leaves in some olive oil. You must break down the leaf tissue for perfect kale chips.
Beets: Beets are becoming more popular again. While the red beets are producing now, the orange Touchstone Gold beets are my favorite and coming in the months ahead. Top your salad greens with sliced, pickled beets, goat cheese, glazed nuts and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. You can eat both the greens and the root. Mmmmm
Turnips: Some folks have never tried turnips. If you like radishes, you will most likely like turnips. These salad turnips are much milder than the normal spicy ones commonly chopped and dropped into stews. Don’t forget you can sauté the tops and eat them too.
Spinach: I’ve harvested the first round of spinach this week and it’s absolutely delicious. I’m afraid the slugs got the first harvest so I had to cut those leaves off for the chickens. As a result, the spinach is in limited supply for a while longer while it grows back.
Cranberry Beans: I hope you have an opportunity to try the cranberry pinto beans before they are all gone. These are dry beans harvested last fall and dried to use in soups and stews. They are small, pink and purple pinto beans that mash into a very nice bean paste of you like to make dips or refried beans too.
Micro greens: I still have a few more bags of the mild and spicy microgreen mixes left, in addition to broccoli shoots, and my own “Farmer’s Blend” which is a little of all of the above. This will be the end of the microgreens for a while (with the exception of sunflower shoots) as the seed suppliers are out of seed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The mild mix is made up of mildly flavored brassicas like mizuna, cabbage, kale, and kohlrabi. The spicy mix is a wonderful complement to the mild mix and is made up of green and red mustards.
Romanesco: This vegetable is often overlooked because it is so strange and unfamiliar to most people. It is, however, one of my most favorite veggies. Romanesco is a lime green pointy shaped cross between cauliflower and broccoli. Some say it has a nutty flavor. I like it steamed but you can put it in your ricer too and stir it into pilaf, stir fries, or mash it into something like mashed potatoes. The head sizes varied a lot this week so I’ve listed it twice. One as small and one as medium sized.
Arugula: This is my first cut of arugula for those of you who love the spicy bite in your salads or on sandwiches/wraps or appetizers.
Extras: Please feel free to add any extras during the customization period (Sunday night to Tuesday at 8pm). My eggs are organic and soy-free. I currently have a waiting list for over 15 dozen, but farm share members get first pick before the waiting list is served. Here’s what’s available this week:
- Lg Dozen Eggs
- XL Dozen Eggs
- Bagels from the Painted Rooster Bakery. These are organic but not gluten free. They are baked Wednesday and I get them hot out of the oven, then package them for you. They come as a 4-pack.
- Jalapeno Cheddar
- Cinnamon/Raisin
- Blueberry
- Sun Dried Tomato Parmesan Cheese
- Soothing Skin Salve: I make my own skin salve from organic beeswax, organic olive oil and certified therapeutic essential oils. This particular salve has been a saving grace with all the extra hand washing going on during the pandemic. The blend has all skin healing properties from plants like Helichrysum (straw flower), Melaleuca (Tea Tree), and Lemon Grass.
Here are a couple tips for those of you picking up for the first time:
- When you arrive at your pick up location, look for the box with your name on the label. Transfer your produce, including the plastic liner bag, to your own reusable grocery bag. This reduces handling of your food. I cannot reuse the plastic liner so I recommend you reuse it at home. Leave the large plastic tub behind to be repacked next week. The plastic tub is sanitized before every use.
On-Farm Pick up (Thursday or Saturday)
- The gate to the farm will be open from 3-7 pm. As you enter, please turn left and park along the fence. You can then walk up to the green tent where you’ll find your produce box.
- As long as you remain outside and can maintain a 6 ft. social distance, I’m not requiring masks at this time.
- Feel free to inquire about what’s growing or ask for an escort if you’d like to visit the chickens.
True Juice Pick up (Friday)
- Please introduce yourself upon arrival and let the staff know you are there to pick up your produce box. They will show you were to find your box.
- True Juice provides their store as a pick up location at no charge and as a courtesy to our farm’s members. Please extend your thanks to Chris and his staff. They are promoting your wellness and totally awesome folks! Try a smoothie or grab lunch to go.
Home Delivery (Friday)
- I typically make deliveries between 8:30am and 1pm. Please provide any additional instructions I might need (i.e. gates, dogs, where to leave the box, etc.) in advance.
- After the first week, be sure to leave the empty farm tub for me to pick up each week when I drop off your full box.
What’s Happening on the Farm ?….
Whew! All of a sudden it feels like summer is here. Although the hot days gave me a shock, the summer crops tripled in size. The summer squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, potatoes, and watermelon are all growing like gangbusters.
Many people continue to ask if I reuse egg cartons. Generally speaking, the Oregon Dept. of Agriculture prohibits the reuse of egg cartons, and the Covid-19 Food Safety Standards are strictly enforcing this policy to avoid any transfer of pathogens between locations. So, unfortunately at this time I cannot accept them.
Would you like to see how sweet potatoes are planted? Sweet Potatoes grow from “slips”. I will be planting them in the next week so let me know if you’d like to help. Hopefully they’ll be ready in the fall.
This is already a long letter, being the first of a new season so I’ll wrap up things here. I look forward to meeting some of you this week on Thursday when you pick up your box. Let me know if you have any questions….best to call me as I’m in the field all day long and not in the office so much anymore. 530-304-3754.
Blessings,
Carrie
