Full Shares: Salad Mix, Beets, Carrots, Spring Onions, Radish, Curly Kale, Romaine, and Green Garlic

Partial Shares: Salad Mix, Radish, Carrot, Spring onion or Green Garlic, Chard, and Baby Bok Choy

Hello CSA members!

It’s seems it’s either hot, dry and windy out at the farm, or cold, dry and windy….bottom line, it’s dry and windy. Sort of like my sense of humor at the moment. I know farmers in the Pacific Northwest are really struggling with drought already this year, and so here’s hoping there is some rain in our forecast so that we don’t fall into that same pattern. I know we would all love a summer without a lot of wildfire smoke, so let’s hope for the best.

So far we’ve been managing to keep up with irrigation, and with all the heat last week, the plants are really growing fast. And by plants, I mean all of them, including the weeds. At this point, we are hustling to finish up our main plantings of the season. Last week we were able to get all the summer squash, peppers, eggplant, and corn in the ground, and tonight i finished up beds in preparation for winter squash, so that by the end of the week the main planting season will be done. After that, it’s just smaller succession plantings of things like salad mix, radishes, arugula, and baby bok choy.

In the share this week you will find the first beets of the season. While they are wonderful roasted, my favorite is to simply grate them raw onto a salad (no need to peel them). Combine that with some grated carrot (also no need to peel these), some salad mix, and a tasty dressing and you are all set! The first huge romaine lettuces are ready, so it’s time for a caesar salad this week? Or maybe burgers on a lettuce wrap bun?

The only item that might seem unusual to you is the green garlic. This is the first year we’ve ever grown it. It’s the same garlic that we grow for bulbs, except that it is spring planted to be eaten like a green onion. You can see in the photo that all you need to do is peel it down a bit and cut off the leaves. At that point, if you have concerns about vampires, you can eat it raw, or, if you like people to hang out with you, you can dice it up and sautés it to add to almost any meal.

Well, it was a late evening getting beds prepped, so I think I’ll leave it at that. I hope you have all been enjoying the fresh vegetables, and we thank you for supporting local agriculture. And for Whitefish members who forgot to pick up last week, I apologize that I took your shares back to the farm after saying I would leave them at store. This week they will remain at the store for certain 🙂

See you at CSA!

Todd