Lettuce Rejoice!
Sep 29, 2022
For the Love of Bees
Administrative Details:
This is the second to last share of the summer season.
Remember to sign up for a winter share if you want the veggies to keep coming! Sign up here:
https://www.harvie.farm/profile/firmly-rooted-farm
If you’ve reached out with a question, I will get back to you asap. We have been a little short staffed of late and I’m behind on emails.
What’s in the Box?
It’s officially fall and the veggies know it! This week we are featuring cooking greens including Swiss chard, kale, and red cabbage.
I LOOOOVE minestrone with hearty greens, you could give it a try: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/river-cafes-winter-minestrone
I also hope that you will fall for fennel. I enjoy fennel most when it is raw, sliced thinly and paired with other crisp shaved things like tart apple, and parmesan.
Lots of folks like fennel braised or roasted; it is often served with fish or in pasta.
https://www.loveandlemons.com/what-is-fennel/
It’s time to get serious about winter squash: this week we are offering pie pumpkins (these make excellent soup as well as pie), and carnival acorn squash. Carnival is a mini squash with edible skin much like delicata.
https://thishealthytable.com/blog/roasted-carnival-squash/
On the Farm:
I love bees. Well, I love bees when there is one bee, maybe two, but in a swarm they make me awfully nervous.
On Sunday I found myself far to close for comfort as I helped Brian split his hive in some sort of organic varroa mite management technique that I can’t even begin to explain to you. We moved the original hive 10’ to the east, set up a new hive where the original hive had stood, and then the goal was to locate the queen and isolate her for a day before returning her to her colony.
At first I stayed a few feet back. In this game of ‘where’s Waldo’ I was not adept. Every few minutes I pointed and said “is that her?.” Nope, it was always a drone. After 45 minutes of searching Brian found her and it was time for me to hold the frame while he picked her up with his bare hands. Read that part again: with his bare hands. I can tell you we were both a bit shaky, but then it was done and we three, plus a couple thousand bees were mostly unscathed.
There’s never a dull moment over here.
That’s all for now, happy eating until next time.
Farmer Tamara
