This week's food

This week's Saturday CSA shares will include lettuce, collard greens, green onions, chard, shiitake mushrooms, sugar snap peas, cutting celery, mint, and a choice of salad mix or golden beets with greens (we only have a few beets, so arrive early if you're a beet fan).

Wednesday's share will be the same, barring mishap or miracle--except you'll be back to parsley instead of celery, and whether we get any more beets depends entirely upon the weather. (Beets like it cool, with plenty of rain, in case you've got a line to the weather gods.)

Hot and dry...

I've mentioned "loopers" several times, usually along with the words "kale" and "squishing."  Oops.  Falsely accused.  Those velvety green caterpillars are imported cabbageworms, and our other major Brassica-chomper, emerging now, is the cross-striped cabbageworm.  I doubt the caterpillars care what name I squish them by, but I thought I'd set the record straight.

Our 500 sweet potato plants are in the ground, along with four more beds of potatoes, the first major wave of Genovese basil, and more lettuce.  We're waiting somewhat anxiously for rain; the basil and lettuce transplants have had to be watered (by hand) twice now to get them through the heat.  The plants that were in and mulched before the last rain are doing great; we hope it'll rain this weekend, so this batch can look as good.  All this transplanting has left the greenhouse--now a shade-house, with shade fabric over its roof--looking downright empty.

More food thoughts from members and customers:  "We saute all our greens together when we get home, and put them in the fridge--they take up less space cooked."  "We eat lettuce in bed, instead of chips!"  "We had the kale sauteed in olive oil, with red pepper flakes and vinegar." "He's into juicing now--he just crams everything in there and RRMMM!--and drinks it."

Speaking of liquid veggies, the recipes page now includes my green breakfast smoothie.  I am not kidding, folks, this stuff is great.  I have had one for breakfast every day for weeks now, with no regrets.  If you don't feel like messing with the olive oil and red pepper flakes, this is a great way to eat some greens.

And if you're fascinated by loopers and their ilk, check out Garden Insects of North America by Whitney Cranshaw--it's at the library.  More bugs than you can shake a stick at.



This week's shares

In the boxes tomorrow: Lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, green onions, turnips, shiitakes, and Italian parsley. Wednesday's shares will have the same, except maybe cutting celery instead of parsley, and also the first golden beets!

Sugar snap peas are coming soon! And I have heard rumors that the arugula is sizing up, too... We'll have our last bunches of asparagus for sale at market tomorrow--come early if you want some!

Work week

The weather this week has been perfect for working, and this time of year there's plenty of work to do.  We transplanted 400 pepper plants into the garden early in the week, plowed and tilled, planted basil in the greenhouse and bush beans in the ground, and started to get caught up on the weeding (don't worry, there is no danger of our actually getting caught up).  All the tomatoes--almost 300 of them--went into the garden last night, and today we're mulching them and the peppers.  And our sweet potato slips just arrived, ready for planting!

I've been enjoying our CSA members' and market customers' comments on how they prepare our veggies.  Samples: "We will eat anything that can go in a burrito."  "I chop everything up into a big salad for the fridge, and then I take that to work every day."  "Burritos with kale and chives!"  "She said 'No, the lettuce is for the soup!' I thought we would have a salad--but the soup was good."  One family enjoyed the squash pie recipe from the website, and we have at least one new fan of turnips.  It's good to know there are some delicious meals being eaten out there.

CSA:  It looks like I'll be posting the "what to expect" note on Fridays, after we've picked for Saturday, so stay tuned.  A couple of housekeeping notes:  If you find a small water bottle in a cloth or paper sack in your box, that's the ice we forgot to take out.  Please bring it back, and we'll reuse it.  Also, if you take home a box and want to collapse it to save space during the week, that's fine; take a look at the photo to see how to undo the bottom flaps, so as not to damage them.  We want these to last all season.  And, Wednesday folks:  Pickup is from 5 to 6:30.  I will fix the no-longer-accurate time that has lingered on the website--sorry for the confusion!

This week's share, and cooking notes

Oops!  I thought I had posted this Friday!  Sorry--still getting the hang of the technology.

OK, here is what you'll find in your box this week: Shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, spinach, collard greens, lettuce, Italian parsley, turnips with greens, and green onions.

If you aren't familiar with collard greens, you are in for a treat. They are sweeter than kale.  I haven't put turnips in our recipes collection yet (and am posting from dial-up land today, so I won't). Sean's favorite way to eat turnips is boiled and mashed, with butter, salt, and pepper; mine is added to vegetable soup. They are also good quartered, oiled, and oven-roasted. The greens are also good--just cook them like kale. The prickles on the leaves go away when they are cooked. The spinach is not washed (it gets all bruised and torn if we wash it) but fear not; our soil is not sandy, and the leaves are nice and big. Just swish them well in a sinkful of water. Spinach and parsley are both really good in a hearty lentil soup, by the way. Turnips, too. And shiitakes. OK, now I'm hungry....