Welcome to the first week of the summer farm share season! It's been a roller coaster of a spring, with early April heat and late April chills; more than a month with no rain; light frost last week and 95° as I write this! But the crops have been growing nicely throughout, aided by timely planting and improved irrigation capacity this year. We have lots of nice produce for early shares this year!
A couple of notes about these weekly Farm Happenings newsletters. We will start off each one with a blurb about goings-on at the farm - the successes, the struggles, and the purely factual - written by Dana or a member of the crew. Sometimes they'll be elaborate and other times quite succinct, depending on the time we have available.
This will also be the place we will give commentary on some items going into boxes (see below) when we feel additional explanation or guidance is required. Since each member's share is unique and this newsletter is generalized, we won't be getting too much into item-by-item descriptions.
Extras: We will, at times, have surplus produce available and list it for sale as an "extra." These are items outside of your normal share that would be paid for separately. And we have quite a bit this week! In addition to produce, we stock an assortment of products from local makers, many of whom buy our crops for their products. Consider adding some hot sauce, salsa, kimchi, or raw honey to your order. We price these lower than what you would typically find at your local co-op or grocery store since our main goal isn't profit - it's to support these local food makers and add value to your CSA shares.
Farm News: We enter the season with much changed since last year. A deer fence constructed last fall has been a game changer, allowing lettuce, peas, beets, sweet potatoes, and other deer favorites to grow unchomped. We made major field layout changes (from N-S to E-W) largely to accommodate a more efficient irrigation system. This has made for some extra rigmarole and some unanticipated side effects, but overall it seems to be a nice change.
While we have also felt the much-reported "labor shortage" during our hiring efforts this year, we have a stellar core crew working with us this year in Sarah, Haley, Justin, and Kara. Haley leads the harvest team, Sarah the wash & pack team, and Justin has become our point person on equipment operation and irrigation work. We will welcome two part-time folks over the next two weeks and are keeping our fingers crossed another full-time crew member can join us before July. But if anyone you know might be interested in working with us this season, we are still looking for one more person to join the crew!
Notes on items in this week's share:
You have until Sunday at 2pm to make changes to your share.
- Salad Mix: Our standard salad mix, these mixed lettuces are aren't the flimsy, juvenile variety that's the industry standard. We find this more mature mix has a more substantial mouth feel and better shelf life than young mesclun mixes. This particular planting ended up with a higher percentage of green leaf types, so won't have as much color diversity as our usual. But I personally think the green leaf has the best flavor, so...you'll enjoy.
- Arugula: This week's crop is "adolescent," larger in size than baby, but still tender enough for fresh eating. You can wilt or lightly sauté them to cut the spice - we often cook it with eggs or pasta. Since it looks like a bumper harvest, we'll include 25% more weight per bag as a bonus. There is a small amount of flea beetle holes in the leaves, but we prevented the lion's share of this customary spring insect damage by excluding them with row cover.
- Spinach: This spinach is quite tender and still clinging to some spring sweetness, despite the current heat. Eat it raw or lightly sauté.
- Salad radishes: A nice moderate amount of heat (per sampling at the time of this writing). With a week of 90°+ weather coming, they might pick up a bit more spice. Great on your spring salads, or sauté in butter and salt for a real treat (which cuts the heat, as well). Don't forget the greens are edible, too!
- Bunched carrots: What a treat - fresh carrots on June 1st! These high tunnel-grown carrots are generally slender and tender, decently sweet despite having matured in warm weather. These are nice fresh-eating carrots. The greens are packed with nutrients and edible by adventurous eaters, but a bit bitter to the average palate.
- Asparagus: This will be our primary asparagus week of the CSA season. Since our planting is insufficient to fill all our CSA shares, we will supplement our crop with asparagus from a organic grower in SW Wisconsin - Stewart Holliday of JNS Organic Asparagus Farm. It will be delivered shortly before packing shares next week.
- Spring garlic: These young garlic plants have mild garlic flavor and can be used like scallions. Trim off the base/roots and the dark green leaves, then slice up the main stalk or throw it on the grill (right next to your asparagus!).
- Microgreens - Spicy Mix: This zesty microgreens mix is comprised of several varieties of mustard greens. It A great addition to sandwiches, salads, and egg dishes.
- Rhubarb: Just a "swap in" item this week. It won't get put in anyone's shares automatically, but you can swap it for a different item, or purchase it as an extra. Next week it will appear in more shares.
[**Remember, each member's share is unique, so the items above may not all appear in your share.]
Hot Sauce/Salsa Add-on Share subscribers should receive a separate email with their choices for this week. Harvie will automatically choose a sauce or salsa for you, but please customize and choose the one you want - there are about a dozen options!
Kimchi Add-on Share subscribers will receive a pint of their chosen spice level in their shares.
Mushroom Share subscribers - the first delivery will be next week, June 16-17. Stay tuned for details about that!
Thank you for joining us this season!
Best,
Dana, Karin, Sarah, Haley, Justin, and Kara
