Week 4 Shares

Our hot summer continues! Hope everyone was able to find some shade this past weekend when we had the 100+ heat index days. We spent the weekend and Monday in Washington DC and Philadelphia on college visits and doing some quick sight seeing. Lots of water breaks and stops at air conditioned buildings!

The heat has the accelerated the blackberry ripening and we started picking this morning! Wednesday shareholders will be the beneficiaries of the first picking today and Thursday/Friday shareholders will start seeing theirs next week.

We dug the first row of red potatoes yesterday, as I have mentioned before, they are one of my favorite crops to grow and harvest. Whether boiled and tossed with butter, salt, and parsley or mashed as in this recipe mashed reds, they are delicious!

The raccoons made their first visit to the sweet corn last night, they "tested" 4 ears but found it wasn't quite ripe yet. Traps are going out tonight!!

This week's shares will include:

Lettuce
Cucumbers
Zucchini/Summer Squash
Radishes
Red Potatoes
Broccoli
Jalapeno Pepper

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Week 3 Shares

This weeks shares will contain:

Leaf Lettuce
Cucumbers
Chives
Zucchini
Turnips
Collard Greens

A portion of this weeks leaf lettuce was supplied from the "farm" that I grew up on which is my dad's garden! He has been growing organically from the beginning, back before most people were even aware of the concept. His current garden site has been in use for almost 40 years and he has built up some amazing soil over that time! Frequently his production exceeds the usage level that he and my mom need, so when he told me he had 100+ heads of lettuce ready for harvest, I told him I had the perfect outlet.

We harvested garlic this week also. It takes a couple of weeks to dry and cure and should be ready for shares by the beginning of August. I was pleased with the results of our planting/weed block process that we used last fall when we put the garlic in. We laid sheets of card board on the prepared beds, used a hole saw to make planting holes in the cardboard, and then planted the garlic cloves into the holes and covered with straw. The result was almost no weeding this spring and much bigger bulbs than last season!

The white and purple bulbs in this weeks shares are turnips. They are a cool weather crop and we do both a spring and a fall planting. If we have a cool start to summer then the spring planting is fairly abundant and helps fill in while some of the other warm weather crops catch up. With our hot summer this season, the spring turnip harvest is pretty light, however if you are a big turnip fan, we should have another harvest in October.

The deer continue to be a pain, they topped both of the first two plantings of green beans and 3 of the 6 rows of snap peas. We added fence height around all the fields and a strand of barbed wire at 7 feet. Knock on wood, but no tracks in the fields since the barbed wire was added two weeks ago! Now we are working on protecting our small orchard, each summer the deer have been eating most of the new growth that the trees put, so we are installing a 7' foot fence around the entire area. Ash posts courtesy of all of the dead ash trees from my dad's place. I have also worked up ground in between the trees to add 4 rows of strawberries as well.

The heat loving crops like the blackberries and tomatoes are sizing up nicely!

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Week 2 Shares

I hope everyone had an enjoyable 4th of July week! We spent a lot of time with family and friends, including a 4 day visit to Munising with my parents and sisters and their families. We received close to 5" of rain at the farm while we were gone, which when combined with temps in the 80-90s, has resulted in the some awesome crop growth (and also weed growth).

Kale just before harvesting for this week's shares.  Leeks and onions to the right — Kale just before harvesting for this week's shares. Leeks and onions to the right

This week's shares will include:

Lettuce
Cucumber
Radish
Zucchini
Broccoli
Kale
Arugula

For those who may not be all that familiar with or know what to do with the last two items, following is a brief introduction along with some suggested recipes.

Kale - Classified as a "Superfood" due to the high levels of nutrients and anti-oxidants. There are several different types of kale: red kale, curly scotch kale, blue kale, and black kale (which is not black, and is also known as dinosaur kale, go figure). To be honest, it is not my favorite vegetable when eaten just by itself, but it is a great addition to salads, and tastes awesome when made into chips, or included in a frittata. Lots of people add it as part of a breakfast or energy shake as well since it has a high level of protein.

Arugula - This green ranks much higher on my personal ratings scale, it has an awesome sharp peppery flavor that adds a great kick to a salad or a sandwich, it is also delicious sauteed as a side dish or included with pasta. It is also referred to as salad rocket, which is pretty cool.

Arugula Recipes Kale Recipes

One more tip - While we haven't seen a lot of cabbage moth flight, I usually soak the broccoli heads in cold salt water for about 15-20 minutes before using, any small cabbage worms that may be in the heads will come out. Unless you want the additional protein, then just skip the step and move to roasting or steaming. :)

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Week 1 Shares

It has been a busy and exciting start to the week! Our first harvests have begun and chickens went from field to freezer yesterday morning. The corn, tomatoes, and peppers have been loving the hot weather, but the snap peas and radishes not so much, which has resulted in somewhat lower yields for these early items. Tuesday's cooler temperatures were a nice break and we were blessed with an unexpected afternoon rain shower that provided about 0.25" of water.

This weeks shares include: