LOGISTICS
- Each week you have Monday and Tuesday to customize your share online or Reschedule your pickup. We harvest on Wednesday, so we need to know before then.
- If this is your first visit to the farm, text or call Ilene at 301-461-6575 when you arrive so I can guide you.
- Reminder: Cross off your name in the Veggie Shed, shut frig windows, and match your items exactly with your list (Curly Kale is different from Russian Kale). Help your kids do these things too if they are helping you collect your produce.
- Having trouble setting your preferences? Reach out, I can help you.
- If we've offered more than you want to take home, feel free to leave an item in its bin. We donate surplus to the food bank.
SPRING IS FOR GREENS
Early season harvests are full of succulent greens, so enjoy your salads and stir-fries. Find a couple favorite dressings and sauces. I might make a lemon-tahini dressing this week, but my go to is often a sweet sesame-soy salad dressing. I like it on napa cabbage slaw with shredded carrots and chopped tatsoi and chopped scallions. I’ve also been making a greek style salad, with lettuce or napa, slivered turnips, scallions, feta and olives.
VEGGIES THAT SCOOP
Napa cabbage and bok choy make great wraps and edible spoons! Big napa cabbage leaves can wrap a burger, a saucy rice dish, or something sweet and sour. Bok choy is a great spoon for hummus or any dip or rice. What will you scoop?
YOUR GARDEN, NOT YOUR GROCERY
The farm is more like your garden than your grocery store. You are receiving selections of our harvest, straight from our fields. Sometimes they are harvested in pristine shape; those are beautiful days! Sometimes they are big, sometimes they are small, just like from your garden. Sometimes a few bugs have munched on a leaf; so be it. A grocery store would peel back a leaf with the tiniest hole in it. This is one of the reasons why you get much bigger heads of lettuce at the farm: we are not peeling it back to perfection. Also, we are not ordering replacements if things don’t work out (because we don’t order anything, we are growing it all). We just plant a lot of different things and if one or two don’t work out, there are other crops that thrive. Just like your garden.
HOW TO RINSE YOUR GREENS
If there are little garden aphids or a slug on your greens, remember that it’s straight from the garden and that bugs are better than chemicals. Sometimes they make it home with you. Just give the greens a generous rinse. Use a big bowl with room for leaves to float. Add a little salt to the water. Rinse several times if necessary.
RECIPE CONNECTIONS
- Harvie has personalized recipes in your customization email linked with each delivery.
- If you’d enjoy a real actual hold-in-your-hands cookbook to inspire you, I highly recommend Recipes from America’s Small Farms by Joanne Lamb Hayes and Lori Stein. I really like how it is organized and the prep tips at the start. My asian slaw came from the Coleslaw Collection, three different flavors. This book features vegetables that CSA’s tend to offer. Yes, even kohlrabi!
- We have a nice collection of recipes on the farm blog, https://blog.houseinthewoods.com/category/recipes/. Check out this one for spring crops which includes our ever-popular turnip fritter recipe, contributed by Mareena Wright probably 15 years ago. Our blog is searchable so just put in the veggie of concern and some ideas will pop up for you.
- Join our farm Facebook group called House in the Woods Farm and Friends. This is a great place to post some photos and share your own foodie creations, ask questions, and read tips and ideas from others.
