We're nearly at the finish of the winter season. This time of year is often called "the hungry gap". The time between fall storage crops and spring crops. Fortunately our high tunnels help us fill that gap but it's a challenge to get the timing right to keep the gap filled. This week we'll be clearing out some kale to make room for other crops in the high tunnel. It's hard to make the call to tear tasty crops out but since they've been growing all winter, they're wanting to flower. We'll salvage all the good kale leaves, cut the plants off at the ground, add some compost and some organic soil amendments and seed or transplant right where they were, maybe in the same day!!! High tunnel space is precious. It's amazing how much faster things grow there compared to outside even this time of year. We've been planting outdoors little by little and things are greening up out there thanks to the rains and sunshine, but still most of the outdoor crops are slow growing seedlings.
So what do we have this week in the hungry gap? Lots of greens mostly. If you are feeling overwhelmed with greens, remember the trick to blanch and freeze them. After chopping and blanching, you can fill ice cube trays and freeze "green cubes" that are great to throw in nearly any soup or sauce to get your greens in throughout the summer. The thing is, greens love the cool weather of spring but do not love the heat of summer. Though we do our best to keep up salad and greens throughout the year, August will find us very low on green leafy things, so now is the time to stock up on the green stuff!!!
Only one more winter CSA pickup after this week. The last pickup will be April 22 and 23. We hope you've enjoyed the season and very much appreciate your support. We've already been contemplating some exciting changes for the 2022 winter season and you'll be the first to know about those when we're ready to set that up. If you want to make sure you don't miss out for next year just go to your Harvie account and click on the "my profile" dropdown and go to "auto-renew settings" and make sure your autorenew is set to "ON". We'll be communicating about when that will run and all the details about the next winter season as we get a little closer to that point. But to make sure you are in, just make sure you have that set to "ON" and you will be good to go. By contrast, if you're thinking the winter CSA isn't your cup of tea, please switch that to "OFF". We try to explain the limitations of the winter CSA in regards to what we can actually grow through the winter in Missouri, but you don't really know until you've experienced it yourself. If greens aren't your "thing" then the winter CSA is probably not a good fit, and that's totally ok (although the greens are just about the healthiest veggies you can eat:).
This week's bread shares:
Artisan: Asiago cheese
Sliced: Great Grains
Have a great week!
Dave and Sheri
