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Dear Common Thread CSA Members,
Week 11... we're halfway through the CSA season!
We harvested LOTS of melons yesterday! We have been growing a small "personal size" watermelon called "Little Baby Flower" that seems to do well even in cool, wet conditions. I think I just ate an entire one at lunch and it was tasty!
We continue to try to work around the frequent rains - we almost caught up with transplanting and the cultivation on Monday before it started raining again. Today we are cleaning garlic and early onions so we can clear out space in the greenhouse for the main onion planting which all needs to be brought in asap.
Many thanks to Shannon Cutting for volunteering in the fields this past week and to Ellen Blum for sharing a picture (above) of her veggies from last week. Our summer crew will start heading back to school and other new adventures starting at the end of this week. Many thanks to Dave, Packard, Phoebe and James for all their hard work and good cheer in the fields this summer!
Some of you may have seen the article, "Don't Let Your Children Grow Up To Be Farmers" that was in the New York Times this weekend. It's a good reality check for those who care about local food: although we've come a long way in building a local food movement, we still have a long way to go for true sustainability. The article definitely hit home for us personally as we work to figure out how to make Common Thread Farm viable and sustainable for us. We've managed farms for 14 years, so you'd think we might have this figured out by now but every farm has its own context with a unique set of opportunities and challenges which we must first identify and then meet. We hope to find ways to both gain efficiency on the farm and to build more support so that Common Thread can thrive. If you have thoughts on ways to do this, we welcome them.
You can find out what the vegetables for the week are by going to our
We have tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro... time to make salsa! There are tons of recipes out there but the nice thing about salsa is that you can make as little or as much as you want and as long as you have tomatoes, use the ingredients you have around.
We're having a great carrot year - very nice after last year when we missed too many winters to plant them and didn't have enough on hand. There are so many ways to prepare carrots... roasted. glazed, carrot cake, carrot soup, carrot slaw, in stews or stir-fries, just cut up raw...
Here's a recipe from marthastewart.com that looks tasty:
Carrot, Apple and Fennel SlawINGREDIENTS
- 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt
- 2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
- 1 tablespoon freshly chopped tarragon
- 1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 3-by-1/4-inch matchsticks
- 1 fennel bulb, cut into 3-by-1/4-inch matchsticks
- 1 Granny Smith apple, unpeeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch wedges
DIRECTIONS- STEP 1
Place the yogurt, white-wine vinegar, celery seeds, salt, and tarragon in a small bowl, and whisk to combine; set aside.
- STEP 2
Place the carrot and fennel matchsticks and apple wedges in a medium bowl. Add the reserved yogurt dressing, and toss to combine. Serve.
I love pureed carrot soups. Here is a simple but tasty looking recipe from simplyrecipes.com:
Carrot Ginger Soup
INGREDIENTS
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 pounds carrots (6-7 large carrots), peeled and sliced thin
- 2 cups chopped white or yellow onion
- Salt
- 1 teaspoon minced ginger
- 2 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
- 2 cups water
- 3 large strips of zest from an orange
- Chopped chives, parsley, dill or fennel for garnish
METHOD
1 Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat and cook the onions and carrot, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften, about 5 to 8 minutes. Do not let the onions or carrots brown. Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt over the carrots and onions as they cook.
2 Add the stock and water and the ginger the strips of orange zest. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until the carrots soften, about 20 minutes.
3 Remove the strips of orange zest and discard. Working in small batches, pour the soup into a blender and purée until completely smooth. Only fill the blender bowl a third full with the hot liquid and keep one hand pressing down on the cap of the blender to keep it from popping off. Add more salt to taste. (You will need more salt if you are using homemade unsalted stock or unsalted butter.)
Garnish with chopped chives, parsley, or fennel fronds.
Wendy and Asher
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