Reimann Family Farm

http://www.ReimannFamilyFarm.wordpress.com

July 7, 2008

Week #5

 

In Your Box This Week:

  1. Hakurei Turnips—eat the sweet mild roots & the greens raw or cooked. The leaves will store longer if you cut them off the roots.
  2. Pea Pods—so bittersweet! We really, really hoped for a lot of pea pods this year, but only about 10% of our 250 feet of peas germinated. So here is a meager appetizer for you to savor from our first planting, and please help pray for better growth in our late second planting!
  3. Green Onions—the continued thinnings of our regular big onions. We will continue to do this for at least 2 more weeks.
  4. Broccoli—three different varieties mixed together. We were hoping for bigger heads, but we think they got too cold this spring after transplanting.
  5. Lettuce Mix—Wow, ¾ of a pound! This planting of lettuce is getting old, and so will have a stronger taste. The next planting of lettuce should be ready in a couple weeks. This is a braising mix, which means you can eat it raw or quick sautéed.
  6. Spinach—aaah, spinach! Last week you were too small and this week you are already going to flower! (Tricky weather.) You can eat the leaves & flowers, but you might enjoy picking them off any thick stems first. Eat raw or cooked, the easiest way being to just throw it in with the lettuce mix.
  7. Arugula—the bag is labeled. Arugula is a spicy green that you can eat raw or cooked. Many people like to throw it in with the lettuce mix.
  8. Oregano—it really is best before it flowers, so this is probably the last harvest while it is in its peak. We’ll try for another during tomato season too (for your sauces).
  9. Lemon Thyme—Add some to your salad, or throw in a sauté, or dry.
  10. Chamomile—Throw some of the flower heads into boiling water to make chamomile tea. We know this is new to some of you, but isn’t it sort of nice that part of using up your CSA share means you HAVE to relax with a cup of tea?  Also, try it cold as iced tea.

 

FARM UPDATE:

Our website has updates and a growing list of recipes to inspire you, so check it out when you have a chance.  This week at the farm we experienced the annual coming of age.  Now instead of baby plants getting established, we have young adults sprinting to maturity.  The season of June greens will slowly be giving way to more variety in July.  You are already seeing it with the broccoli (the flower of the plant), and the turnips are noticeably bigger this week too.  You will soon receive in your box green beans and zucchini.  And after that the tomatoes, carrots, and beets will start appearing.  To balance out our pea pod failure, we are predicting a huge crop of green and yellow beans.

Next week for greens you will probably get baby pac choi and kale or chard, since the rest need more time to re-grow after today’s harvest.  You will also get more green onions, and probably more turnips and broccoli.  Depending on the weather, the cilantro will be ready for its first harvest soon too.

Bug update: those turnip beetles from last month came and left within a week, so that was good.  There is another beetle that descends on us annually at this time of year, but it seems to like annoying us with fly-bys and landing on us more than noticeably devouring any crops. Our major arch enemies the squash bugs are in the egg laying stage, so we are preparing for them.

If it does rain as predicted this week, give thanks for it instead of seeing it as an inconvenience.  Things are getting really dried out up here and we could really use it!  The plants do fine with our drip irrigation, but they really love a good old fashioned rain.

Otherwise this week and next we will focus on finishing up most of our weeding and mulching work, and after that we will spend the majority of our time on harvesting. (Especially the beans—thanks Carol & Darwin!)

 

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