Full Share:  Beets, Carrots, Radish, Green onions, Mustard greens mix, kale, spinach, and cilantro

Partial Share:  Beets, Carrots, Radish, Bok Choy, Mustard greens mix, and sprig of cilantro

Hello CSA members!

It’s usually around the 5th week of the CSA season that some CSA members realize that living in Montana has some tradeoffs when it comes to growing ones own food.  Specifically, that the difficult growing climate here means the corn and tomatoes they dreamed of actually aren’t ready until August.  And that greens, due to aforementioned difficult climate, are the most well suited to Montana.  And for some, they also realize that greens have not traditionally been a large part of their diet up until this point in their lives, and this presents the dilemma of what to do with all of them before the next share arrives.  Can one really have salad mix for breakfast?

So, rather than preach to you about the importance of eating your greens (hopefully, your mother has already done that at some point in your life), we have taken it upon ourselves to try to diversify our CSA contents with non-green items to keep both the greens lovers and the “not so much” crowd both happy.  Did I mention that’s not an easy task given the difficult climate?  “Give the CSA members more of what they want” was a note i made to myself this past winter. And this year, I think we have made some strides.  Alas, your Week #5 share has beets.  And carrots.  And radishes.  And onions.  And Cilantro.  None of which really qualify as a green (although beet greens are delicious, and radish tops make a killer pesto.)  As a farmer, it’s been a fun challenge to try to grow more mid-summer crops earlier in the spring.  We may not succeed at this every year, but with how warm the spring has been so far (record temps of 92 degrees predicted for tomorrow), this was a good year to make the attempt.  One thing to note on the mustard mix….they are delicious, but the bugs like them as well, so there are a few holes.  We felt it was within a reasonable threshold, so we hope you agree.

With this heat, it’s also hard to remember that it is still spring.  The average last frost date for this part of the valley is June 10th.  And if you came to look at the farm, you would still see lots of white row covers for that reason.  Speaking of the farm, we’re really excited by how it looks this year.  The construction is over, the landscaping is maturing, the cover crops are growing great with the rain we’ve had, and in general it’s just a beautiful spot

View of the farm from the Spencer South trails

What’s my point with all of this?  I have no idea. My brain is completely fried.  It was hot out there today!

One quick management note.  If you need to make any changes to your account, request a pickup location change, vacation hold, etc., please do so by sending us an email at info@twobearfarm.com     We’ve had some issues as of late with folks replying to our blog, or to our CSA software, and not having those messages get back to us.  So, if you use our primary email account, that will improve the experience for all parties!

Oh, and Silo would like you to know that today is the annual shake a skunk day.  It’s a bit of a ritual for him and the farm….kind of like the summer solstice, but smellier.

Post skunk bath….

Thanks again for your support, and try to keep cool out there.