Full Share:  Salad Mix, Spinach, Braising Mix, Carrots, Radish, Bok Choy, and either Haikurei Turnips or Beets

Partial Share:  Salad Mix, Spinach, Braising Mix, and Carrots

Hello CSA Members!

It seems the rain, and spring for that matter, have subsided, and we are headed right into summer next week.  While it will be nice for the muddy mess that are our fields to dry out a bit to allow for planting, I was really enjoying not having to irrigate for the past few weeks.

Today I was reminded of one of the most frustrating parts of being an organic  farmer….pests.  Wire worms to be precise.  Every year, we plan our production, we order seeds, we amend the soil, we time our greenhouse planting, we till and shape beds in the fields, we dodge hairy weather, we get things planted and watered and covered.  And then we wait for the bounty, so that we can turn all this hard work into great food for ourselves and our communities.  But pests don’t seem to buy in to this idea of hard work reaping such benefits.  They just come along and help themselves to whatever crop it is that they prefer.  And unlike airborne  pests, which are easier to manage, soil born pests are the worst.  Why?  Because there is very little one can do to get rid of them.  And it is amazing how much destruction they can do.  For instance, you know all those red radishes piled up on our market stand and gracing your CSA box?  Often times, that only accounts for about 50% of the radishes we pick. Behind the scenes,  the other 50% are culled because they are riddled with wire worm damage and are inedible.  And while that is bad, nothing is as bad as looking out at a lovely bed of Hakurei turnips, expecting to pull the white globes of perfection from the soil, instead only to find wire worm destruction. And the image of all  those piles of turnips on market stand suddenly fade to the question of whether we should even bother harvesting or just plow the whole bed back into the ground.  Traumatizing stuff, I tell ya.

So what’s my point?  Full shares may or may not be getting Haikurei Salad turnips tomorrow, depending on how many good turnips we can harvest.   But not to worry, if the turnips are no good, we will fall back on our secret weapon….the beets that we planted in the high tunnels back in March. Oh, and did I mention there will be carrots in the shares this week? For those of you who are not up on harvest dates, carrots are typically a crop that is ready in early to mid-July.  But if there is any thing we’ve learned in our 9 years of farming, it’s that people like our carrots and they can never get them soon enough, so we have done our best to speed up the process.  Thank goodness for growth hormones.  Just kidding.  These carrots were actually seeded in a high tunnel back in the beginning of March….yes, when the ski season still had over a month remaining.

Everyone will be seeing braising greens in their share this week as well.  What to do with them?  Well, if you ask me, I’ll just tell you (repeat after me) just saute them in a cast iron pan with a little olive oil and sea salt.  I actually just did that and added it to a quesadilla for dinner.  But I also did a little research and  I found a  blurb on the thekitchn.com, which pointed out the high nutritional value of these greens, but what was more interesting were the recipe ideas on the bottom of the page.   Braising green tacos? How about Braised greens with bacon? And while mussels don’t really fit into our local food recommendation, I have to say the recipe for Linguine with mussels and greens sounded delicious.  Actually, it calls for dandelion greens, but any greens will do.  OK, I confess, I have an ulterior motive.  I had a friend and CSA member ask me the other day for an organic solution to the dandelions in their lawn.  And I had no answer.  So, now I have found a way for him to eat his way out of this conundrum.  See, Anthony…I have your back.

Enjoy the beautiful weather this week, and thanks again for supporting local agriculture.