Full Share: Salad Mix, Garlic Scapes, Carrots, Lacinato Kale or Chard, Spring Onions, Cauliflower, and Mosquitoes

Partial Share: Salad Mix, Carrots, Garlic Scapes, Rainbow Chard, Spring Onions, and Mosquitoes

Hello CSA members!

Given the veracity and sheer number of mosquitos at the farm, we are thinking we should do a U-Pick CSA for the week! 🙂 Just kidding, but it’s tempting! As is the idea of retiring to Mexico. Farming never fails to be a humbling experience, and after a slow start to the season, flooding, and crop losses, now we get to deal with biblical quantities of mosquitos for the next few weeks. And by biblical, I mean swarms of them biting you all the time, not just one or two here or there. I’m talking long sleeves and long pants, with full bug suits over that, and rubber gloves so they can’t bite your hands, and even then it is marginally bearable for ones sanity. There are literally 150 mosquitos on the screen door next to me as I write this, and it’s impossible to even come inside the house without bringing about 40 hitchhikers with you. I think I’ve been bitten more times today inside my house compared to when I was out working in my full gear setup. Those years I worked in Alaska are helping me cope a little, but I’m wondering if I’m going to have a farm crew or a wife by the end of the week. Good thing I started doing yoga this year.

On the bright side, and it’s pretty hard to see it from here, the wet weather seems to really be helping the corn. There is a saying in farming…if you want to have a good crop, it needs to be “knee high by the Fourth of July”. And this holds for the entire country, not simply the cold climates of Montana. This 4th of July, our corn is already up to my chest! No lie, it is one of the few crops that seemed to really only the 10 inches of rain we got a few weeks ago.

We keep getting people coming up to us at the farmers markets asking us why there aren’t more farmers. Well, this week it should be pretty evident why people choose an easier path. Good thing we’re stubborn.

As far as the CSA goes, the carrots will be back the week, and the Garlic Scapes are ready! For those of you new to garlic scapes, they are specialty that is only ready about 2 weeks a year, and can be diced up and cooked just like bulb garlic (they are from the same plant after all). You can discard the pointed whip end above the Taj Mahal looking bulge, and use everything below that.

Well, time for me to don my get-up so I can go close down the high tunnels. Boy, I’m sure looking forward to August. See you at CSA!

Todd