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Dear Common Thread CSA Members,
Yay, we have completed our first week of CSA and all members have received some food! Its a busy time of year on the farm since the harvest has begun and we are still doing a lot of planting and preparing ground for planting. We are also working on trellising tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers; putting up deer fencing; weed control; and seeding fall crops in the greenhouse.
Thanks to the generosity of our members we have been able to subsidize shares for 11 low income member households this season! We have just allotted the last of our funds but we continue to have requests for sponsored shares and we have just started a waiting list, so it's not too late to donate - there are a couple of families still hoping to participate.
Escarole looks a bit like lettuce but it's leaves are tougher than lettuce and have a a bitterness to them. We like to sautee them, or grill them. Cut them in half and apply some olive oil and salt to the outside before laying them on the grill. It is also good in soups, the classic one being white bean with escarole.
The scallions are ready! They make a lovely garnish but they can also be sauteed to provide the oniony flavoring in dishes.
We tried a different variety of bok choi this year. We were looking for a smaller variety but the one we have turns out to be very small and to go to flower very quickly. So we are handing out some flowering bok choi this year. Unlike with lettuces, which get bitter when they start to flower, bok choi is still tasty when flowering.
Most of the pick your own crops are looking promising at this point. We've planted many of them in the field to the south of the barn this year since we want to give several of the field sections right behind the barn a rest this year. The berries aren't looking great though unfortunately. The strawberries were badly effected by rodent damage over the winter and the raspberries seem to have been badly effected by that late cold snap in April (the thermometer on the farm read -1 on the morning of April 5th!). We only do enough berries for a taste anyway but we were hoping for a bigger taste than we're likely to get. The herbs are doing well though, the cherry tomato plants are growing well, the first round of flowers has been in for a few weeks and the second should go in this week. The peas are several weeks away and the bean plants have emerged.
CSA member Revee shared these two recipes that she made this week along with some photos of the tasty results...
  Enjoy your veggies this week!
Yours in the field,
Wendy and Asher
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