This Week in Your Box …..
Sweet Italian Basil: Replace lettuce with basil on your sandwiches, make a bruschetta appetizer with tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese, or put it in the blender with olive oil and your favorite nut for homemade pest. SO good!
Try the Basil – Strawberry Smash Cocktail/Mocktail. There are lots of other drink recipes here too using herbs and flavors from the garden. I think I’ll try the blueberry lavender fizz next.
Romanesco: It’s finally here and absolutely beautiful. If you haven’t tried it before, now is your chance. Romanesco is a cross between cauliflower and broccoli and is typically a bright green, pointy head. Sometimes it has a nutty flavor but it definitely has more flavor than cauliflower. The heads have a beautiful rosy tint this month because of the onset of the heat.
Jalapeno Peppers: These little hotties are ready to eat. I’m not a pepper lover so you’ll have to let me know how they taste. I grew them at the request of last year's farm share members.
Shishito Peppers: The Shishito pepper is a mild, sweet pepper from Japan. It has a wrinkled appearance and is best sautéed with a little olive oil and sea salt. Add it to any meal . . . even your breakfast burritos.
Broccoli: A few more heads left in the broccoli row.
Bunching Onions: Here comes another succession of purple and Parade white green onions!
Summer Squash: I hope ya’ll liked the Y star scallop squash last week. The summer squash continues to produce consistently. 8 ball zucchini, Desert zucchini, yellow crookneck and Y-star yellow scallop squash
Cherry Tomatoes: LOTS of cherry tomatoes this week. The red Jasper cherries are perfect for salads and the Gold Nuggets are a bit bigger which work well on shish ka bobs or sliced in half for salads/appetizers.
Cucumbers: Choose from both the Marketmore green and/or Lemon cucumbers. The Armenian cucumbers are taking their sweet time.
Red Beets: Red Ace Beets
Swiss Chard: I love how the stems change color during summer. The red stems turn a magenta pink. I continue to battle with the bugs in this row. The cucumber beetles, ear wigs and slugs are all doing a lot of damage so I’m cutting off more leaves for them than for you.
Carrots: I harvested the last of the Parisienne carrots this week and there are some long Napoli carrots too.
Strawberries: My Albion ever bearing strawberries are simply a power house producer. It is possible to have these strawberries all the way into October, but the extreme heat prevents flowering so there will be highs and lows of production.
Extras:
- EGGS! Jumbo egg prices are increasing August 1st due to increase of carton and certified organic feed.
- Flat of 30 medium - $9
- Dozen Med - $4
- Dozen Lg - $4.50
- Dozen XL - $5
- Jumbo - $6
- Garlic Scape Pesto: I hope you enjoyed our homemade Garlic Scape Pesto. This is an 8 oz. container of pesto made with garlic scapes, basil and cashews. We have a few more tubs left.
- Fresh Organic Lavender Bouquets wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with a silk purple bow from Brambleberry Hollow (our honey provider) and owner of our on-farm bees. This is organic, culinary lavender so you can eat it or craft with it.
- Baking Zucchini. All 1.25 to 2 lbs. in size. Perfect for baking, shredding or stuffing.
- Organic Strawberries by the pint.
- Organic Soothing Hand Salve. Perfect for those irritated, chapped skin from hand washing.
- Organic Dried Basil made from our own Sweet Italian Basil. ·
- Organic Dried pepper flakes made from our own mixture of poblano, red and green bell, padrone and paprika peppers
What’s Happening on the Farm?
It was certainly a very hot and challenging week. I am so thankful for my super farm helpers, Jane and Judy, who continue to show up despite the daunting daily “To Do” lists. This week’s heat reminded me of when I farmed in Davis, CA. I worked a three acre school farm by myself. I had to call my agriculture advisor, at UC Davis, every two hours to check in when it was this hot to make sure I hadn’t passed out in the field somewhere. On one occasion, a farm worker had a stroke in the middle of a sunflower field across the street from my farm and no one found him until the next day. I suppose this is something people don’t think about when they are shopping for their food.
Before I started farming, I always wondered why the farm workers wore long sleeves on the hottest days of summer, but now I know why. First, it gives one extra protection from the sun and prickly/scratchy foliage. Corn foliage will slice you up with a million “paper cuts” and squash bushes will leave you stinging with scratches. Some days I just wear my homemade “sock sleeves” on my arms. I just cut the toe off of some holey socks and pull them up my arms. Sure, you can go buy a UV, quick dry shirt from REI for $140 . . . I just don’t see the point when my sock sleeves work fine. This way I don’t have to wear a long sleeve shirt all day. Second, long sleeve shirts absorbs sweat and weirdly helps to keep one cooler. I use a wet cooling scarf around my neck in addition to a hat that shades both my face and back of the neck. These are essentials for summer farming.
The triple digit heat this week fried all the greens except the Swiss Chard and kale. Even with shade cover and continuous watering, the heat prevailed and brought an end to the spinach, arugula, and lettuce. It was really a struggle to put together a salad mix for last week’s delivery. I literally crawled down the one row, on my hands and knees, where I had planted lettuce to grow under the shade of the cauliflower leaves and was scrounging to find a lettuce head that hadn’t bolted in the heat. Luckily I had enough to share it with everyone who ordered it and a little extra for those who didn’t get spinach or the red salanova lettuce.
Saturday I started ripping out all the greens and will replant now for a fall harvest.
I’m watching the cantaloupes carefully too as I suspect they are almost ready to start picking.
Does anyone have kids or grandkids who would like to help dig up potatoes?
Thank you all for your continued support of Daily Blessings Farm.
Blessings,
Carrie
