So many veggies to choose from!
This week I was blown away by all the vegetables that arrived at the pack on Thursday. The gardens are blossoming, folks. The harvests are varied, and our Harvie carts are overflowing with options.
On Monday, while Michael held things down in the washroom, Erin and I went all around the farm to tackle one of two harvest days of the week. We clipped loose the kohlrabi, snipped up the bok choy, pulled up beets (beets beets), and I was taught how to gather three new players on the Hawkins lineup: turnips, cabbages, and scallions. Woohoo!
Like bringing a three year old to a wedding, we do our best out here to bring you vegetables that are on their best behavior (little polo shirts, haircuts, and all), sometimes finding necessary compromises along the way. Each vegetable goes through its own process of being “dressed up” before we feel that it is as beautiful as it can be to be presented to you.
This is one of my favorite things about working out here. Treat your veggies how you’d like to be treated, right? Each veggie has its own relationship with the ground it comes from, having its own unique way of posturing its way out of the soil. The cleanup process might require a bit more washing for one vegetable, and more trimming for another. Certain vegetables can basically be pulled up from the ground, bunched and lightly rinsed, while others require a more extensive process of washing and examining for lingering critters.
A good example of this was the wash this week. Michael led me through a basic session of washing all the greens for the better part of Tuesday. Not only are we washing vegetables in a giant tub called “The Bubbler” as well as drying them out in a rigged up washing machine on permanent spin cycle. We’re also spot checking each load for critters (such as fireflies) so they don’t make their way into your pretty green leaves. We’ll talk more about the washing process and critters later. For now, let’s talk about vegetables!
It was the moment that Farmer Myron of Berry Hill came into the pack room carrying a big basket of fennel that I was held captive by all of our beautiful vegetables. Their freshly washed fronds glistened green in the sunlight, drawing my attention to all of the new players on the tables around us. Each one of them nearly distracted me from the pack. I was grateful for the team we had present, and how well we worked together that day.
From RiverRidge Farm we had the season's first few handfuls of dazzling red onions, plump little eggplants, sturdy zucchini, and pint sized cartons of cherry tomatoes. We had some stumpy little leeks provided by Joyfield Farm. New from Hawkins were sleek looking scallions, sweetheart cabbage, some soft, flirty looking turnips and four new leafy green options including arugula, spinach, baby kale, and baby asian greens. Berry Hill brought the fennel, as well as sunflowers provided by Myron’s niece, Grace. Woohoo!
And all the herbs were in the fullest display yet! Thanks to RiverRidge, Hawkins, and Denny Farms, you can expect to see thyme, rosemary, sage, basil, cilantro, dill, parsley, apple mint and chamomile available when you are making selections for your shares in the coming weekends.
Just when I thought there couldn’t be any more new things this week, Erin and I made our way back to the farm on Thursday to find ourselves harvesting our first round of Italian garlic. Bulbs are buried in the dirt and require a fork to be unearthed. It’s hungry work cleaning garlic, let me tell you. Snipping garlic from their stems and peeling down their layers leaves a trace of garlic that sticks around. So make sure you have a snack handy while you’re harvesting your garlic, home gardeners. Garlic should be available next week, and will probably be featured on a pizza in the near future, so be on the lookout for harvest specials for future Hawkins Pizza Nights!
Good luck choosing your groceries this week!
-Alex
