Week 5 CSA News

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm! 

Welcome to Week 5 of our 2019 CSA!  WEEK 5 IS A CHICKEN WEEK!!!  So, if you purchased a chicken share, please be sure to check for a cooler at your drop site.  Our site hosts are not able to store your chicken for you.  Week 5 is an egg week.  Remember ordering of our CSA begins every Thursday at 6 pm and ends on Sunday at 6 pm.

I am sitting on the back porch still enjoying the coolness of the morning, but I fear the coolness will be short lived as the hot and muggies are on their way with highs in the 90's predicted into the first part of next week.  Highs in the 90's and overnight lows in the 70's are not great for the farmers, but our summertime veggies will be loving life.  And, I must say "Wasn't this past weekend just beautiful!"  I know I spent as much time as possible outside enjoying the low humidity and sunshine.  

 

As I have reported in recent newsletters, our fields are looking good.  A bit weedy, but crops are growing nicely.  Our tomatoes are large and healthy and we have fruit on the vine!  We are still a few weeks from tomato harvest, but it is encouraging to see the plants setting fruit. Eggplants are also looking good and like the tomatoes are also setting fruit.  Our chard and kale continue to look healthy and produce well.  Zucchini and summer squash harvest is in full swing, so get your recipes ready!  The other night Farmer Don brought me a beautiful bulb of fennel  and a tomatillo (the gifts a farm wife gets  - be still my heart!).  We will allow both of these crops to size up a bit more, but look for them on the choice list soon.  We are harvesting small numbers of beans currently, but have large plantings which should be ready in several weeks.  Cucumber harvest has started as well, with pickling cucumbers being the first to be ready.  Don't let the name fool you, picklers are also good for eating fresh, although the skin is a bit tougher than slicers, so you may want to peel them.  Sweet and purple basil is beautiful  and harvest should continue of these herbs for quite a while. 

As many of you already know, my most recent health issues have caused me to leave a full time off farm job.  This has been quite an adjustment for both Farmer Don and I, as I cannot remember the last time I did not have a full time job.  Farmer Don would tell everyone I worked 2 full time jobs; one off farm and then on farm for him in my spare time.  Farmer Don is now intent on keeping me busy and involved in the farm.  Most recently he has decided I can take over our seeding of fall crops and has set up an efficient work station for me on the back porch.  Although this seeding is a huge task and I am not nearly as efficient as Farmer Don and his farm  helpers, it has felt good to have my hands in the dirt again.  So, I will be spending time in the coming days and weeks trying to convince only one tiny seed to fall into each cell of our seedling trays!  I will keep you posted about my new on farm job.

In our kitchen, simple and quick is still ruling for farm dinners.  Last night we had a large salad consisting of a mix of greens and topped with an assortment of fresh veggies and some leftover chicken.  I have started to do some preserving as well, with freezing some berries.  My next task will be some simple freezer pickles.  I use a recipe from one of my canning books, but this web recipe is very close to the one I use  (https://www.amish365.com/freezer-pickles/)  

Like this recipe, I do not add any pickling spices to my freezer pickles, as I remember reading somewhere that freezing the spices could result in off tasting pickles.  I find these pickles are good as a topping to salads, atop burgers or pork sandwiches or stand alone as a small side salad.  And as a bonus, they are super easy to make!  As always, stay tuned as to how my freezer pickles turn out!

So, I have literally been writing this newsletter for over 12 hours!   More like 48, if you consider the versions I started over the weekend and never finished!  So, I will end here, with a promise to try and get newsletters out in a more timely manner in the future.

Thanks to each of you for reading and as always thank you for your support of our farm.