Welcome to week 2 of the 2024 Farm Share
If this is your first week, welcome! Please give last week's newsletter a read here for a review of some important information and some insights into the veggies we are currently harvesting.
It's time to customize your share! The customization window closes Sunday at midnight.
In this weekly newsletter, I'll be giving you an insight into what is happening on our farm, and sharing some recipes, tips, and tricks for getting the most out of your veggies each week.
On The Farm:
This week we were tackling a lot of the weeds. With all the rain we've had, they are growing quite happily and they naturally outcompete the veggies we are growing. There are three stages of weeds: white root stage (aka, those don't look too bad), rescue stage (aka, oh no, we have to weed these RIGHT NOW) and no going back stage (aka, the weeds won). Our job is to prioritize which beds will get weeded first. It's always a toss up between white root and rescue. Of course ideally they'd all be at the white root stage when we weeded them, but the juggling act of growing 30 different vegetables on this scale means, inevitably, not everything gets done on time.
We are really loving our new greenhouses, especially watching peppers and cucumbers grow inside them for the first time ever! And our tomatoes already have green tomatoes. Alex's guess is 2 weeks until the first red tomato (it's a running joke around here that whenever Alex is asked when something will be ready, it is ALWAYS 2 weeks)
Tip Of The Week: Reuse your salad mix bags to store your veggies, and remove the leaves off roots.
We chose ziplock bags for our salad mix because although they are plastic, they are reusable. And conveniently, much of your produce is best stored in a plastic bag in the fridge, which you can reuse your salad mix bags to do. Another thing that you should do is remove the leaves/tops off any root veggies you get. While the leaves remain on the root, it will be drawing energy from the root, causing wilting. So when you get your produce home, remove any leaves (aka kohlrabi leaves, beet leaves, radish leaves, carrot tops) and then store the veggie in a plastic bag. You can also store the tops in a separate plastic bag and chop them up for adding extra nutrients to whatever it is you are cooking up.
What's Fresh This Week
Bok Choy (last harvest til fall), kohlrabi, beets (limited), radish, kale, rainbow chard, garlic scapes (limited), mini romaine, sugar snap peas (new!), sprouting broccoli (very limited), spring onions, green cabbage (new!), parsley, cilantro, and dill.
We went for a field walk today and we were completely elated by our early cabbages and sugarsnap peas. We've never had such an early harvest of either.
We are also pretty excited about our sprouting broccoli which we tried for the first time this year. We were ready to give up on broccoli, which takes up a lot of space and time and is very finicky about when you harvest it and how it is stored. Instead we decided to try broccolini, which makes more (smaller) broccoli sprouts over a longer harvest window and is less finicky. Today we discovered it was ready and we loooopvef the flavour. The variety we are growing has a crisp sweet stem and leaves which you can also eat! Because we were just trying it out we don't have enough for everyone to get a try, it'll just be first come first serve during customization. But we are growing triple the amount of beds in the fall!
Recipes:
Cabbage Recipe:
Moldovan Cabbage Salad
When I visited Moldova for the first time, where Alex’s family lives, sunflower oil and dill were the aromas that I carried home. This salad is a simple creation that highlights the flavour of quality ingredients. It uses our fresh cabbage, dill, and local cold-pressed sunflower oil from Crump Family Farm. Makes one large salad.
Ingredients
1 cabbage
1 bunch dill
1 tsp salt (more to taste)
A good lug of sunflower oil
Method
Chop the cabbage and the dill.
Add the salt and sunflower oil.
Massage with hands until the cabbage releases its juices and becomes soft. Enjoy!
Bok Choy Recipe:
Bok Choy on the grill, try it!
https://pinchandswirl.com/grilled-bok-choy/
Kohlrabi Recipe:
I wanted to find a recipe for kohlrabi to share with you that was not kohlrabi slaw, or fritters - though both are excellent ideas. In the searching I found this interesting traditional hungarian recipe! If someone makes it, please send me a picture and a review!
https://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2022/02/hungarian-stuffed-kohlrabi.html
Also, today Alex made lamb meatballs today and told me that he put a whole kohlrabi in! Instead of mixing the meat with egg, he used kohlrabi grated very fine. I had no idea it was in there. And they were amazing!
We hope you enjoy the veggies! Thanks for being supporters of our farm.
Your farmer,
Kim
