Welcome to CSA Week 8 everyone! 

This is Adrian, your friendly permaculturalist, here to guide you into an abundant future... Just kidding. I'm just here to introduce myself and tell you about this week's CSA happenings. In 2008, I traveled in Mexico and worked on small farms as a way to experience local cultures and travel on the cheap. That experience sparked my interest and introduced me to organic farming and permaculture. In 2009, as a farm intern, Wellspring was my first year-long farm experience. I then traveled some more, worked on a few more organic farms and off-grid homesteads before coming back here to Wellspring to farm, run the tree crop nursery, and do permaculture design for clients; a very integrated way of work in my mind. FYI, if you're unsure what permaculture is, just think of it as ecologically inspired and design-heavy agriculture, and if you want to know more, take one of our Intro to Permaculture workshops.  

Adrian in the nursery with all of his children...aka baby fruit and nut trees!

This week was the week of beans! This cool-ish summer has been great for the beans to set fruit. Once the temperature is above 90 f, beans will drop their flowers and not fruit, but since it has been in the 70s (besides Tuesday), they are thriving. By Friday, we will have picked over 450lbs this week, 2.2 of which should be in each and every box. Some of those 450lbs will be going to local restaurants or to the chefs to use in their dishes for our annual fundraiser, The Taste of Wellspring, this Sunday, July 27th. Hope to see you there! 

In other farm news, we have had Weyker Trucking out here excavating and bringing in fill for our new greenhouse. They excavated one of our ponds a few years back and did a great job, so we thought we would hire them again! We purchased this greenhouse last fall in hopes of putting it up right away, but with the early winter and deep frost, we had to hold off until now. This greenhouse will help us expand our organic seedling production and produce healthier seedlings for the farm, our annual seedling sale, and local stores. It will also help with the tree crop and medicinal herb nursery by allowing us to start cuttings and graft earlier in the year, thus allowing for more growth throughout the season. If you're interested in having us grow something for you, whether it's your grandmother's old apple tree you want grafted or your favorite herb that you want to grow and tincture, we can do it! Now go enjoy those beans.

The following recipe is best made just before serving time. But you can make/prep this ahead of time by cooking the leeks and dill first and setting them aside. Instead of cooking the green beans in the skillet, blanch them in a pot of boiling, well-salted water for about a minute. Drain the beans and dunk them in a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and place the beans in a bag or bowl in the refrigerator until ready to use. When ready, combine the components - you can do it at room temperature, or heated quickly in a skillet or pan.

4 leeks, well washed, root end and tops trimmed, sliced lengthwise into quarters and then chopped into 1/2-inch segments (see photo in main post)

1/3 cup fresh dill, well chopped
3/4 pound green beans, tops and tails trimmed and cut into 1-inch segments
extra-virgin olive oil
fine-grain sea salt

In a large thick-bottomed skillet of medium-high heat add a generous splash of olive oil, a generous pinch of salt and the leeks. Stir until the leeks are coated and glossy. Cook, stirring regularly until a lot of the leeks are golden and crispy. I stir every minute or two in the beginning, and more often as they brown using a metal spatula. All in all it takes me roughly 7 - 10 minutes to brown the leeks. At this point stir in the dill, and then stir in the green beans. Cook for a couple more minutes - just until the the beans brighten up and lose that raw bite. Turn out into a bowl or onto a platter and serve immediately. If you want to prepare these green beans ahead of time - read the head notes.

Serves about 6.