Julia, Jason & Lindsey in the greenhouse getting’ things in order.
Welcome everyone! Thanks for choosing Full Sun Farm as your CSA this season. This is our 16th year offering CSA shares and our 20th growing produce and flowers at Full Sun!!! We hope that you all enjoy the quality and diversity of produce this season and always know that we’re doing our very best. We have a great crew this year: Julia, from Charlotte, via U. of Chicago, is back with us for another year of learning and hard work!; Lindsey, form Michigan, arrived in March and is fitting in wonderfully; Jason is here from many life adventures, most recently growing wine grapes in California; and Jessica, a pastry chef from L.A. is exploring a totally new world of growing food and the mountains of WNC! They are a great crew and are making the season run very smoothly thus far.
Looks to be a rainy day for your first box pick up. Rain is always a little bit of a bitter sweet pill for farmers. It’s been dry, in general, this spring. This is good in some respects. It’s easier to work up the fields with our tractors when the ground is dry, weeds grow much more slowly, and we can always use our irrigation system to water the crops. But using the irrigation system uses gasoline, which costs money to run, and the crops always respond much better to rain than they do water from irrigation lines. So we like it to rain, just enough for our crops to grow, then we want it to stop, so we can continue to use our tractors in the fields to kill weeds, plant more plants, and ready more ground to plant into. But, of course, it never rains just the right amount. We’re hard to please I guess.
It’s been a really warm spring so some crops are moving along rather quickly, while others are not happy with the heat and are struggling. But overall the farm looks great. The greenhouses are full of tomatoes which are about two feet tall and growing fast. The fields are full of crops like potatoes, onions, beets, lettuces, summer squash, cucumbers, garlic, kales, swiss chard, broccoli, kohlrabi, sunflowers, zinnias, and lots more. In the next week or so we’ll be planting eggplant, peppers, basil, beans, and more summer squash, cukes, etc, etc. Always a lot going on around here…
Please return your CSA box next week. These boxes are waxed and are not recyclable, but we reuse them. So PLEASE remember to bring them back next week.
Ideas for Cooking
(We want to thank long time CSA member John Loyd for providing ideas and inspiration in this section!!!)
“Tickle the earth with a hoe, it will laugh a harvest.” Mary Cantell
Greetings… each week we’ll try to give you recipes that correspond to what is in your box. Sometimes that won’t happen, and you will need to copy and save the recipe for later use. The recipe is something that can be modified according to your likes and dislikes and taste, so changes are cool.
Did you make a dish using what’s in you box that you really like? Please consider sharing it with us. My email is jloyd126@gmail.com.
THIS WEEK’S SALAD DRESSING
Oil and vinegar – Mixed three or four to one, vinegar to oil, and adding a bit of salt and pepper… this dressing is good on greens of all kinds and roasted, grilled or steamed vegetables.Southern chef Frank Stitt and James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef Award winner, mixes heritage tomatoes, if in season, mozzarella and basil with red wine or sherry vinegar and high quality olive oil, malden salt, fresh pepper.
To make, splash on the vinegar, add salt and pepper and drizzle with the oil.
More recipes (click on link)