It was a long, hot week last week. The crew was moving and lifting heavy bales of hay around the farm to mulch between beds much and the week and it about wore everyone out. But the mulching is basically completed for the season (still the sweet potatoes to go) and we’re moving on. We have more sunflowers, lettuce, and more melons and flowers to plant either Wed. or Thursday. The first beds from spring are ready mow and to clean up (still waiting on a part to fix the mower!). It will feel really nice to have mowed down all the old beds that are now a bit weedy, put away drip lines, and any row covers used to protect the early spring crops.
We did a bunch of trellising early this week. The peppers are now strung, along with the pole beans, some tall flowers that need support, got it, and the field tomatoes are all strung up, though they have grown so fast, they need to strung again. This years’s garlic is looking great. We took off all the remaining scapes, along the plants to concentrate their energies on making big bulbs! I pulled a couple of plants yesterday, they weren’t ready yet, but the bulbs were getting quite large. The garlic will probably stay in the ground another 2 weeks before we start to harvest it all.
We have a new intern on the farm; Matthew from Spokane, Washington. He’ll be with us for about a month until he returns to his regular life. We’re happy to have him on the farm for this short period of time, helping get us through some busy times.
The boxes we use for the CSA shares are waxed and are not recyclable, but we do reuse them. So PLEASE remember to BRING THEM BACK next week.
Ideas for Cooking
Our interns have been roasting the beets lately. With about a half hour left in the roasting process they add a little brown sugar and cinnamon. They claim to have been eating this over ice cream, it is so sweet, but this has not been verified!
The beet greens are great sauteed with some onions, a little vinegar, and try adding a little dash of freshly grated nutmeg as Suzanna did yesterday at lunch. Delicious.
There is a big bunch of broccoli in your box. In addition to being good in sall the usual way, have you ever tried it roasted? And the leftovers cold the next day in a salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar and some salt and pepper?
Try cutting the zukes in half length wise and roasting them. Add a little olive oil over the top, some salt & pepper, maybe some cayenne. Roast them at 375 for about 45-60 minutes. So good and also delicious cold the next day.