Full Share: Basil, beets, baby red potatoes, Graffiti purple cauliflower, lacinato kale, parsley, cucumbers, summer squash, and broccoli
Half Share: Basil, beets, baby red potatoes, lacinato kale, cucumbers, summer squash, and broccoli
Hello CSA members!
It’s week 10, which marks the midway point in your journey through the farm season. We hope you have been enjoying it! This week you’ll start to see some color show up in your share. That said, this week is also a bit of a wildcard. Given the hot weather, fertility differences in the field, and plants utter indifference to the “days to maturity” number on the seed packet, certain crops are ripening at varying rates relative to their peers. This makes it hard to get all the same crops into all 200 of the shares in a given week. So, what we typically do is phase certain items in by delivery location. For example, Whitefish might get purple cauliflower this week, but no tomatoes, and Columbia Falls gets the opposite. Then next week, we switch it around, so that over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, all the shares end up getting all the same items. So, don’t be surprised if your share this week includes (or does not include) some of the items listed above. Not to worry, there is ample yellow squash to go around for everyone.
As for the farm, we are starting to really catch up on some of the major weed areas, and it is beginning to feel a bit more under control. We have tilled in a lot of the spring crops at this point and have seeded them with hairy vetch and sorghum sudan grass to help build organic matter for next year, The corn is shoulder high and beginning to tassle, and the potatoes are the best crop we have ever had in the past 8 years.
A view of the barns through the corn
It is a veritable sea of 3 foot tall potato plants (30 rows of them 180 feet long) out in the new field, some in flower, others finished. And today we dug the first to rows of red potatoes to see what was there….and they look great.
A sea of spuds
We sampled them tonight and they were tender and delicious. If you’re not familiar with all the different types of potatoes, you will get the full tour this season, as we have nine different varieties out in the field. But here’s the key. These are what is referred to as “new” potatoes, which means fresh out of the ground rather than out of storage. What this means is both the skin and flesh of the potato are super tender, and you do not need to peel them. In fact, we highly encourage you to eat the skins on all the potatoes we give you, as we feel that is the best part. The reds are a classic oven roasting style potato or pan fried if you don’t want to run the oven in this hot weather, and are often seasoned with butter and rosemary. This week you’ve also received lacinato kale, which is also often called Dino or Tuscan kale. This variety is often found served in massaged kale salads. If you’ve never tried this technique, here’s a simple run down.
It’s late, and we have a big day of harvest and share packing tomorrow, so I’ll leave it there. See you at distribution!
Two Bear Farm Crew
