Welcome to Week 2! Happy Father’s Day! and Happy Summer Solstice!
Week 2 was not an egg week. Egg weeks are odd weeks, so Week 3 will be an egg week.
Rain, rain, rain. That is the weather topic of late. I think Wednesday this week was beautiful and dry, but it seems daily rains are the norm recently. It is hard to believe we are still under a drought watch. Bill brought us over 2 inches of rain last weekend and the forecast is for another 2 inches this weekend! Now in all honesty our fields are wet and our crops are starting to show some effects of too much rain. We will need to monitor closely for disease. And boy does the rain make the weeds grow!!!!
Hopefully everyone has figured out the routine for the CSA. Remember ordering opens on Thursday night at 6 pm for the next week’s boxes and closes Sunday night at 6 pm. That means ordering for week 3 is open now. Please remember all items are available on a first serve basis and each week some items will be limited in number. Don’t worry if you forget to pick items, you will still get a box, a farmer’s choice box. Sometimes farmer’s choice boxes get some items not on the pick list. Farmer Don is estimating harvests almost a full week before we actually harvest. For this reason, there may be items ready for harvest he did not anticipate being ready. Also please be aware, that we occasionally will need to make substitutions if items are not ready for harvest as anticipated.
We are busy as ever on farm. We are continuing to plant daily. We are almost done with the main planting of our summer crops. There are still some pepper and eggplants to go in the ground. Many crops we plant almost continuously throughout the growing season. In fact we have one field we are ready to turn over and completely re-plant for a second time this year. This field had some early greens and cover crops growing. Now it is ready to be tilled and replanted with a different crop. I took a walk through our large unheated production greenhouse yesterday and was happy to see lots and lots of flowers on the sungold tomatoes. Sungolds are always a favorite! I will be watching closely for the first fruit to appear! I will have to really be on the lookout if I want to get the first ripe one, as Farmer Don is way better than me at finding the first ripe fruit. Speaking of which, I have been watching our wild blackberry bushes carefully for ripe berries and had even found a few to eat. Then yesterday, Farmer Don comes across the yard with at least 2 cups of berries cradled in his shirt tail. It seems he has a secret stash I didn’t even know existed!
Animals are busy on farm as well, both friend and foe animals. Our pigs now have a bigger pasture to romp and play in. The pigs love the rain, as it keeps their wallowing areas filled with water and mud. Pigs wallow in the mud to control their body temperature, keeping them cool on hot summer days. Our second batch of meat birds are now on pasture and looking good. The laying hens are providing us with an abundant supply of eggs. These hens spend their days roaming the farm eating bugs and vegetation and at night they return to the barn and coop to their roosts to sleep the night away. Unfortunately their nights have not been peaceful, as they are being visited almost nightly by a hungry predator. We are fairly certain this is a raccoon. Whoever the predator, it seems to have a good appetite, taking almost a chicken a night. Speaking of nightly visitors. Several weeks ago, we noticed a beautiful tiny baby deer in our orchard. We knew Mommy deer was close by. Now it seems Mommy and baby have found our veggies and are visiting the chard and lettuce beds nightly. Like the raccoon, they also seem to have a healthy appetite and from the amount of chard and lettuce which has been eaten, we are thinking they are hosting a nightly dinner party for their friends and relatives!
In the kitchen this time of year we are often looking for quick meals. We rely heavily on leftovers, often cooking several chickens at once to be eaten cold all week. We also eat lots of salads. A favorite of Farmer Don’s is an Asian slaw featuring napa cabbage. I generally just throw together a dressing for this, using very little oil, just a few drizzles of sesame oil. I am thinking the recipe/ration would be around: 3TBS of rice vinegar, 3 TBS of lime juice, 1 TBS of soy sauce, 1 TBS of sweetener, a bit of fresh chopped ginger, a shake of red pepper flakes and a drizzle or two of sesame oil. I also tend to thin the dressing by adding just a bit of water. Whisk everything together, taste to adjust the flavors and pour over some thinly chopped napa cabbage. I usually also add some thin sliced onion or scallions.
Please remember to treat your share boxes gently. Slide, rather than pull the flaps open. Don’t forget to return share boxes to your sites so we can re-use them. We also re-use egg cartons and blue/green berry or portion boxes. These items can also be left at your pick up site.
Thank you again for your support.
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