Full Shares:  Spinach, Salad Mix, Braising Greens, Radishes, Spring Onions, Baby Bok Choy, and a bunch of either collards, kale, or chard.

Partial Shares: Spinach, Salad Mix, Radishes, Spring Onions, and a bunch of either collards, kale or chard.

Hello CSA Members!

Happy Memorial Day!  While we didn’t make it to any parades today, my brother in Connecticut sent me a photo from today’s parade.

America flags lags look really good on colonial houses in my home town (some dating back to 1672, if you can believe that!).

For a holiday that is typically cool and wet in Montana, that sure was a beautiful weekend of weather for May. I know the mosquito populations sure seemed to benefit. Makes me wonder what June and the rest of the summer are going to hold.  Wet, dry, hot, cold……one never knows around here.  But from a food standpoint, we’re still only about 4 weeks into the growing season, so it’s still very much spring.

Things on the farm are chugging along,  although that wind storm last week really didn’t do us any favors both in the soil moisture and farmer sanity departments.   Perhaps the wind blowing off all the row covers in the field was the universe’s way of telling us we needed to look at the weed pressure and soil moisture.  Duly noted.  We spent much of the weekend getting irrigation on the crops that really needed it, and even got some weeding done as well.  We turned in all the old crops in two of the high tunnels, and this afternoon we hooked up the irrigation, laid the weed fabric and got about 800 tomato plants in the ground.

Yesterday, this was 5 beds of spinach. Today it’s 400 tomato plants.

Just a couple important notes on your CSA based on customer comments.  First, every thing in your share has been rinsed or, in the case of bagged greens, washed and spun dry.  So you should be able to eat everything as is without additional washing.  Second, your refrigerator is a huge dehydrator that cools by sucking moisture out of the air and your vegetables!  You never want to put fresh produce straight into the fridge without protecting it from dehydrating.  You can use tupperware, plastic bags, or other recycled containers.  If you are experiencing “witty” produce, this is most likely your issue.  This rule holds for everything from baby bok choy to carrots.

New to the share this week is the Braising Greens mix, which is a combination of baby kales, chards, and asian greens.  It’s best lightly sautéed or in a stir fry, although you hardy types can eat it raw as well.  Typically “braising” means to cook in both a fat (coconut oil, bacon fat, etc.) and a liquid (chicken broth, bone broth, etc.).  You’re basically sautéing and steaming at the same time.  Here are some ideas to help you along.

Thanks again to all who served, enjoy the weather, and we’ll see you at CSA!

Todd & Two Bear Farm Team