Category Archive

In your box this week:

1. NEW!  Sweet Corn! Happy Summer!
2. NEW!  Potatoes! Reds and Yukon Golds.
3. NEW!  Tomatoes! These are heirloom varieties, and have tender skin.  Be careful with them.  It’s best to store them at room temperature.  Some of them are going to be ready to eat today or tomorrow, and some of them may need a couple more days before they are at their full ripeness.   We pick them this way on purpose, otherwise they are likely to go bad on us throughout the week, or you would need to eat them all immediately upon getting your box home.  It is advisable to just take a couple minutes right when you get home and divide them up into piles– “to use now” and “able to wait.”
4. Cabbage -OR- Kohlrabi
5. Broccoli
6. Zucchini / Summer Squash
7. Cucumbers
8. Onions
9. Beans

It’s a FULL 3/4 bushel box this week, the first of the season.  A classic Minnesota box too, one full of crops you probably grew up eating.  All you need are some brats and you have a perfect backyard party!  It’s been a hot couple of days, but lovely too.  Working member Maggie and I stuck it out throughout the heat of the day yesterday, weeding, harvesting, mowing and sweating.  (We  didn’t sing any rounds together like we have on other days, it was just too hot.)  This morning we had less than half of the crops left to harvest, and we started early to avoid the heat.  It was lovely to dig potatoes and watch the fog burn off the pond while the sun rose higher.  We had a couple of Sand Hill Cranes fly low over our heads, and a little later a Bald Eagle was circling nearby too.  We actually finished with the harvesting by 9:30am!  Definitely a new record!  We spent the rest of the morning packing the boxes, and then hosted some special guests for lunch.  I arrived in Minneapolis a little earlier than usual, so went down to the kiddie pool in Powderhorn Park and sat in the shade with my feet in the water.  In the end, it was a really nice few days!  As usual, it is an honor to grow your food, and we hope you enjoy it.

Sincerely,
Chris.

In your box this week:

1. NEW!  Tomatoes: two little balls of sunshine — it’s the start of tomato season!
2. NEW!  Carrots: Try eating the greens too!  (cooked)
3. NEW!  Beets:  With these too, you can eat both root and (cooked) leaves.
4. NEW!  Rat-tail Radish:  The seed pods of the radish.  Eat them raw.
5. NEW!  Basil:  Best stored room temperature in a vase.  (Wet leaves turn black in the fridge.)
6. Beans
7. Broccoli
8. Cucumbers
9. Zuchinni / Summer Squash
10. Arugula & Mizuna greens
11. Hakurei Turnips: LAST of the year!
12. Mint:  It’s too hot to boil water for tea.  Just stick a few sprigs in your water bottle and you’re good to go.
13. Thyme
14. Coriander: The fresh green seed balls of cilantro.  Keep them in your fridge, since they aren’t ripe enough to dry for winter storage.

These are the Rat-Tail Radishes. They are a variety of radish from India, bred for the crunchy edible seed pod instead of for the root like other radishes. The seed pods are best when eaten raw, but before they get fat and bumpy they can be cooked too. You can eat the flowers as well (they were part of your edible flower mix last week.)

Three beautiful varieties of Beets!

Welcome to August!

In your box this week:  

1. CUCUMBERS!
2. KOHLRABI! Eat it like an apple, shred it for slaw, eat it cooked or eat it raw!  More vitamin C than an orange!
3. Zucchini / Summer Squash
4. Arugula & Mizuna mix
5. Broccoli
6. String Beans (Green and Yellow)
7. Cauliflower
8. Cabbage
9. Onions:  eat the green leaves and the bulbs
10. Cilantro/Coriander: enjoy the leaves, flowers, and the green seed balls (which are the fresh coriander)
11. Edible Flowers:  in a bag.  A mix of gem marigolds, radish flowers, oregano flowers, and a few nasturiums too.
12. Chamomile: Pop off the flower heads (yellow middle, perhaps with white petals still attached) and make some tea.
13. Hakurei Turnips:  Next week is probably the last week for these, so enjoy the roots and leaves while you can!

When warned about the caterpillar damage on the cauliflower, CSA member Tonya said, "Worms don't weird me out, CHEMICALS weird me out. I am happy to share some of my cauliflower with those little guys." Thank you, Tonya, for your graciousness when faced with less-than-perfect cauliflower!

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A summer evening with CSA members past and present. Many thanks for the lovely company last week to Amy (blue), Tri (standing), Reid w/Lillian, Duane, Tonya, and Kat.

Kat and Max, former CSA members (but still current friends!). Max had been playing hard with his tricycle, and arrived at the table ready for the serious business of eating corn.

Lillian and Reid, current CSA members, laugh and smile at all my funny jokes. This was Lillian's second day crawling, and her dad teared up a little when he told me that it was her first day playing under the table during dinner!

Both Max and Lillian have in the past enjoyed the title of youngest CSA member.  The current winner is Heidi and Brian’s new baby girl born a couple weeks ago — congratulations again you two!  However, you better get a trophy made for that kiddo while you can, because fellow CSA members (and beekeepers) Jim and Thea have a baby on the way any day now.  

I remember back years ago when Adina announced her pregnancy with Kian, and how touched I was by the thought of OUR food growing and nourishing this little developing person.  This feeling continues with each new baby that joins our CSA  — I feel so lucky, and I take my job of providing healthy, safe, and nutritious food very seriously!  I feel honored that our vegetables are helping these little people get a good start on life.  (To be honest, I feel honored to feed all of you, no matter how old you are…)

We are excited to offer several new crops into the boxes this week.  We have shifted into the next chapter of the CSA season with the introduction of beans, cauliflower, cabbage, and zucchini.  We do have more salad greens planted, but it will be a while before they are ready to harvest.  Coming soon will (hopefully) be carrots, kohlrabi, chard, cucumbers and beets.  Our sweet corn is just starting to tassle, so that means that the ears of corn are not far behind.  And the tomato plants are laden with green growing fruits.  Oh summer!

In your box this week:

1. Zucchini / Summer Squash: This is your big chance to really enjoy and savor these, the first zucchini of the season!  Soon enough they will be a constant companion in your fridge, so this week be sure to appreciate them in their new and novel loveliness!  [FYI, we refer to these interchangeably as zucchini or summer squash, no matter what color they are.]
2. Green and Yellow Beans: Two pounds this week to get you started.  Try blanching them (boil until lightly cooked) and then having them cold in the fridge as an easy snack for at home or work.
3. Cabbage: This beautiful little cabbage is a savoy variety called Alcosa.  If you can’t get to it right away, it will keep well in a plastic bag in your fridge.
4. Cauliflower! If the sun hits the cauliflower while it is ripening, it can turn it a yellow or even purple color.  So if you notice any extra color on yours, you can thank the sun!
5. Coriander: usually you see these when they are riper as little dried brown balls.  Coriander is the seed of the Cilantro plant, and these green little balls add a bright fresh cilantro taste to your dish.  Or, you could just eat them plain instead of breath mints!  Because these haven’t fully ripened on the plant, it is best to keep them in your fridge and use them fresh (as opposed to trying to dry them).
6. Chamomile: pop off the flower heads (yellow middle, white petals) and steep in freshly boiled water for tea, hot or cold.  Add mint and/or sweetener if desired.
7. Broccoli:  the head, leaves, and stalks are all excellent for eating.  Try shredding or chopping the stalk for a simple slaw.
8. Hakurei Turnips: If you are eating the lovely leaves (raw or cooked), they will last longer in your fridge if you cut them off the white root.  (I often snip off the roots and throw them all back into the same bag.)
9. Bok Choy: Our working member Maggie and I were talking about how the caterpillars found the Bok Choy during the past week, and I was telling her about how plants produce antioxidants when they are getting attacked, and it changed how Maggie thought of the holes in the Bok Choy.  She thought it might make a difference for you too, and requested that I pass it along.  So this week while you are eating hole-y Bok Choy, you can rest easy knowing that there were in fact no pesticides used on it, and that it is actually HEALTHIER than last week’s Bok Choy that didn’t have holes!  And as fellow CSA farmer Greg Reynolds says, “Holes don’t taste like anything!”

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With our usual harvest helper Natalie out of town this week, we’d like to thank our other working member Maggie and our volunteer Tony for stepping in and helping out with the harvest and other projects yesterday and today.  Last year when Tony volunteered with us we coincidentally did the same job as today — pruning and staking the tomatoes.  He is quite adept at it, and I hope we can turn this into an annual tradition!

We were a bit worried about the strong storm that blew through on Saturday night, but we are grateful and happy to report that we had no major damage.  We were without electricity for the night, and there are a few crops that blew over a bit, but they will be fine.  The rain gauge had almost two inches of water in it, but with such strong winds there is no telling how much rain we actually received.  The folks in the towns just south of us seem to have gotten hit harder, and as I drove the veggies down to Anoka this afternoon I noticed quite a few trees blown down along the way.

We would love to hear how you are using the harvest.  For example, CSA member Lana is a doula, or birth assistant.  She used the chamomile from last week to make tea for a mother who had just given birth to twins.  She then dutifully held the babes while the mother tried to get some rest.  (I’m sure they had to twist her arm!)  It’s poignant for me to know that our chamomile was used in such a delicate and loving moment.  Thanks for sharing, Lana!

Have you found (or made up) an awesome recipe you’d like to share with the other CSA members?  It doesn’t have to be as monumental as a birth story– a tasty meal idea would be perfect!  Just leave it in a comment and we will paste it into a new post.

In Your Box This Week:

1. Pea Pods
2. Broccoli
3. Hakurei Turnips
4. Bok Choy
5. Kale
6. Arugula/Mizuna Mix
7. Cilantro – Inspired by this cilantro, while Natalie and I were harvesting today we were brainstorming the spring rolls we could create from this week’s box.  Yum!
8. Garlic Chives
9. Oregano
10. Chamomile – Use the yellow flower heads (+ petals is fine) to make tea.  Drop flower heads into boiling water, add a sweetener such as honey if desired.  (Also, try it cold on a hot summer day!)

In your box this week:

1. Hakurei Turnips
2. Pea Pods
3. Broccoli
4. Rainbow Chard
5. Garlic Scapes
6. Mint
7. Thyme

The new banner image above is a line-up of this week’s harvest, a perfect typical example of what’s in-season in late June.  Natalie and I had to do double-duty to get everything picked and packed in time, since both my dad (Darwin) and my grandma (Vangie) were enjoying lake time up north this week.

Natalie and I knew we would have to keep our energy up during Monday’s harvest, so on Sunday night we made a pan of my grandma’s “Blond Brownies.”  (You can find the recipe in the Trinity Lutheran Church cookbook from a few years back.)  As we finished harvesting each of the morning crops we took a quick break to dip brownies in coffee.

We were also pleasantly surprised when my dear old friend Todd arrived in time for lunch and to help finish up the last few things of the afternoon.  Todd just finished two years teaching at an international school in China, and is about to head out for another two year contract at a school in Jakarta.  If you live in Anoka, you might remember him as the much beloved orchestra teacher at the just recently closed Sandburg Middle School.  Personally, I remember him from our time playing on the Yellow Bananas soccer team at Titterud Park in the second grade.

We had a really lovely harvest day weather-wise, starting out with stocking hats and hoodies and ending in tank tops.  We have been grateful for two consecutive nights of a gentle 1/2″ of rain, especially when other Minnesota CSA farms have really been hit hard by recent bouts of severe storms.  Our hearts and well wishes go out to those less fortunate.  The plants are starting to make their transition from seedlings to “Plants of Maturity and Substance.”  We watch this process in awe, like proud parents watching their babe’s first steps.  All too soon the broccoli will be taking driver’s ed and the arugula will be writing its senior thesis.

In your box this week:

1. PEA PODS!
2. Broccoli: we could give you more of the tasty and nutritious leaves this week because Darwin & Vangie weren’t there to veto them.  Natalie and I love the greens!  Sometimes when we pick your broccoli, we pick off the bigger leaves and eat them for our lunch!  This week we sautéed them with the garlic scapes, green onions, and lemon thyme, and put them on toast with scrambled eggs.  Yum!
3. Green Onions: We needed to thin out some of our storage onions, so we decided to wait until this week when they are big enough to double as a harvestable crop too.  You can eat everything except the stringy white roots on the bottom.
4. Hakurei Turnips:  raw or cooked, eat the white roots and the leaves.
5. Lettuce Mix: This week the lettuce mix also contains Arugula, Mizuna, and Spinach.
6. Garlic Scapes: Enjoy them as modern art, and then chop these garlic stems and flower buds up and sauté like regular garlic.
7. Oregano: taller stems and larger leaves than the thyme.  Both bunches of herbs can simply be hung upside down to dry in a drafty but not super sunny location.
8. Lemon Thyme: the little bunch, with the little leaves.  (The one that smells lemony.)  Try just cutting it up into your lettuce mix.  Or into your broccoli leaf sauté!

Happy Summer Solstice!

We hope you spent the evening munching on veggies while enjoying the beautiful sunset today.  The hakurei turnips have especially been enjoying the rain and long days of sunlight this week — they are huge!  The chickens too have grown a lot, and while they still look like awkward teenagers, they have quite a few of their adult feathers now, and some of them are even learning how to use the ramp from the coop down to the “grazing” area.  The excitement of the weekend was discovering the first broccoli heads ready to pick, the first couple pea pods ready to eat, and the first tomato plants setting fruit with green tomatoes about the size of grapes.  And so we are officially starting to move out of the “spring greens” stage of the CSA season, and the boxes will (hopefully) get progressively heavier as we can start harvesting fruits and more roots in addition to leaves.

In your box this week:

1. BROCCOLI!  Just a little taste, but it’s a start!
2. Radishes:  Probably the last you’ll see of these.  When asked most members said they think radishes are OK, but not amazing.  So we will most likely not plant another section of these.
3. Bok Choy:  Another beautiful harvest of Bok Choy this week.  Have you tried Amy’s asian salad recipe from last year yet? YUM!
4. Garlic Chives and Garlic Scapes:  The chives look a lot like grass but taste like garlic, use them raw or cooked.  The scape is the hard curly stem; it is the flower of the garlic plant, and we cut it off so that the plant will continue to focus energy on those lovely bulbs down below the mulch.  Chop up the scape and sauté it just like you would with garlic.
5. Hakurei Turnips:  They look like white radishes.  But they are sweeter, and have a creamier texture.  They are so good!  Eat them like an apple, slice them into a salad, or grill them with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  The turnip greens are also very good (and nutritious) to eat raw or cooked.  Cut them up raw into the salad mix, or sauté them with butter or bacon, or cut them up small to hide them in spaghetti sauce or quiche or hotdish.  So many options!
6. Salad Mix:  Already washed once, this week’s mix contains many colors and varieties of lettuce, plus the peppery arugula, the mustardy mizuna, and the new this week spinach.  There may be some spinach flowers mixed in too– don’t worry, they won’t hurt you.
7. Kale:  A mix of Red Russian and Dino/Lacinato varieties.  Steam it, saute it, put it in hotdish, but be sure to enjoy this the most nutritious of vegetables.

In your box this week:

1. Perennial Bunching Onions – last week for these, time to let them regrow for next year already.
2. Rhubarb - we hope you enjoyed this spring treat, it is also the last week for rhubarb too.
3. Red Radishes and white Icicle Radishes – the Icicle Radishes were a surprise that seeded themselves, and we have now weeded most of them out of this year’s cauliflower and broccoli patch.  So this is most likely the last of the Icicle Radishes this year.
4. Oregano
5. Lemon Thyme – don’t know what to do with this?  Just use a scissors and snip some off in little pieces into your bag of lettuce mix.
6. Lamb’s Quarters – probably the last of the Lamb’s Quarters, depending on the weather.
7. Bag of Mixed Greens – Lettuce, Arugula, Mizuna.  We’ve been getting a lot of rain, which bounces dirt up onto the leaves.  We washed and spun it once for you, but you may want to wash it again before eating.

It was a great rainy weekend.   The first broccoli heads are forming, the peas have blossoms, the garlic is starting to make scapes, and the bean plants are noticeably larger.  Dave taught Maggie and I a new round to sing while we worked through the rain on Saturday, and then on Sunday we had a wonderful time at my niece Alyssa’s 5th birthday party.  On the chicken front, today at the end of the day we had a young chicken figure out for the first time how to use the ramp that connects the coop down to the enclosed free-ranging area.  We are hoping that means the rest of them will figure it out soon too!  Oh, and in a lovely moment of sunshine on Friday evening, everyone except Grandma joined in on a little batting practice in the driveway.  The past week has been a good mix of garden work and fun family time away from the garden.  If we get a few days of sun this coming week, I think the plants are ready to pop; instead of little seedlings flopping in the breeze they will soon be established and mature vegetable plants, busy studying for finals and making post-graduation plans.

We hope you are enjoying your first boxes of food, and please do contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Chris

(On behalf of everyone here at Reimann Family Farm.)

Welcome to the 2010 CSA season!

This week’s harvest:

1. Rhubarb: a classic rite of spring. Traditionally used for desserts or sauce, but also valued by our CSA members in a savory chutney. (Click “rhubarb” in the left column to find the recipe.)

2. Bunching Onions: these perennial onions are tall, fragrant, and tasty! The white bottoms, the green tops, and even the flowers are edible, raw or cooked.

3. Radishes: two kinds–the traditional red globe variety and the spicy white icicle variety. The greens are edible too, but are probably more palatable when cooked.

4. Bok Choy: Enjoy both the crisp stem and the green leaf. Traditionally used in stir fries and sautes, but last year CSA member Amy shared a great recipe for asian bok choy salad with wasabi peas. (Click on “bok choy” in the left column to find the recipe.)

5. Lamb’s Quarters:  This wild green is covered with white or pink powder and can be eaten like spinach, raw or cooked.  It is loaded with nutrients–especially Iron, Vitamins A & C, and Calcium.  Pick leaves from the thicker stems (the thin tender stems at the top are fine) and add to salads, egg dishes, soups, etc.  (The internet offers lots of ideas and recipes.)  In a couple of weeks this plant won’t be as tasty, and so will be treated like any other weed and added to the compost pile.  Enjoy its flavor and nutrition while you can!

6. Lemon Thyme:  You’ll know which one it is when you smell it.  Cut up the little leaves and tender stems and add some flavor to salads, eggs, meat, fish, soups, spreads, or even sorbet!

7. Oregano: High in potassium, iron, and calcium, the Oregano is at its best flavor right now before it flowers.  We will give you quite a bit of it while it is at its peak, so you may want to freeze or dry it for using later– like during tomato season!  To dry it, just hang it upside down out of direct sunlight.  It’s best if you put it somewhere that will get some air movement so that it doesn’t mold. (I hang mine in a corner of the kitchen or hallway, and walking by it a few times a day seems to be enough.)