2016 CSA Week 10 Newsletter

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm.  Welcome to CSA Week 10, one week shy of the half way point.  This is NOT an egg week.

Summer.  We seem to be caught in the grips of summer.  Heat, humidity and almost daily thunder storms have become the norm.  I do think today was not quite as oppressive as the past few days have been.  And the forecast is for some cooler and drier weather coming our way Wednesday and into next week.  Even with the hot weather, I do see some signs of fall!  Yes, fall.  Have you noticed the days are getting shorter?  I already have seen goldenrod blooming.  Soon I will be writing about changing leaves and frost!

A few notes about some items in your boxes this week.  We really like to work with our friends and neighbors to share the harvest.  The beautiful corn and peppers are from our next door neighbors.  They are transitioning their farm to an organic operation and these products are no spray.  We also offered a very limited number of carrots and cabbage this week.  These items, along with some greens, came to us by way of Farmer Neil.  Some of you may remember Farmer Neil.  Neil worked for us for several years.  He now has his own small operation specializing in log grown mushrooms and organic vegetables.  Nothing please Farmer Don more than a past employee using the knowledge gained at Dancing Hen Farm to grow their own vegetables!

On farm, the big news is tomatoes.  It is officially sungold season!  Sungolds, those ever so sweet orange, cherry tomatoes.  A true favorite here on farm.  In fact, all of our field grown tomatoes are finally starting to ripen.  Our kale and chard also continue to look good.  The kale has grown out of its early flea beetle damage and we are harvesting both Red Russian, a flat leaf kale, and the more traditional curly kale.  Our salad mix continues to produce.  Zucchini and summer squash are going strong.  We should be digging another bed of potatoes shortly.  Okra is slowly growing and we are eagerly awaiting a good flush of okra in the coming weeks.  Our second planting of cucumbers is very close to producing and we have our fingers crossed for some broccoli we have planted.

In the kitchen, we are continuing to cook on the stove top and the grill to avoid heating up the house with the oven.  But, I have to confess.  I have used the oven to roast some cherry tomatoes.  To me roasting these small tomatoes really brings out their flavor.  I simply coat them with some olive oil and a bit of salt and pop them in a hot oven.  Once they start to burst and shrivel; they are done.  I like to use these roasted tomatoes (along with all the juices from the pan!) with some fresh basil as a pasta topping.  At least one night a week, we have a large salad for dinner.  The base of the salad is our salad mix and we add all sorts of chopped vegetables and top it all with some type of protein.  This week our protein was poached salmon portions, but, most weeks we use leftover meat from a previous meal.

I am fairly certain boxes are packed for tomorrow morning's deliveries.  It is getting late, time to wind down for today and plan for tomorrow.  Thank you again for your support not only of our farm, but of all local small farmers.