This spring hasn’t really felt very springy with temps in the 80s for the past few weeks, but it is spring, even as we turn our focus towards summer. We’ve been pretty busy out here on the farm. This week and the next couple will be extremely busy as we try to plant, plant, plant. The last frost date for our area is May 15th, after which we generally don’t get freezing temperatures. So all the tender plants need to get planted: basil, field tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash, cucumbers, sweet corn, winter squash, along with a huge array of flowers. This year’s spring crops have been a little bit of a disappointment for us, due to the extreme cold snap we had back in March. But things are growing and more diversity will start showing up in your boxes next week. But we have great hopes for the summer crops!
Out here in Big Sandy Mush all the cattle farmers are mowing hay and baling, and moving cows from the winter pastures on the valley floor to the summer ones, up on the mountains. There’s a lot activity all around us this time of year.
The Rhubarb in the boxes this week comes from Double Tree Farm in Madison Co. Cathy Guthrie is one of Vanessa’s oldest friends and we occasionally trade different things back and forth. In this case we got about 50# of Rhubarb and Cathy got a bunch of tomato plants. Cathy’s farm is also the place where we make the sorghum molasses in the fall.
From left to right: Broccoli, two beds of lettuces, beets, carrots, sunflowers, summer squash and cucumbers (under the hoops)
Ideas for Cooking
This year we have a guest contributor for the cooking section. Long time working member, John Lloyd, has put together some great recipes and commentary.
BUYING TIPS
Buy and use organic food products. Did you know that most everything was organic until 1947? That’s when herbicides were introduced on a large scale. We are fortunate to have our CSA boxes of good quality, organic produce and fully stocked farmer’s markets.
Follow these links for recipes:
SALAD DRESSING FOR THIS WEEK – BALSAMIC