Not quite enough zucchini to go around either. I'll keep track of who got zucchini this week and alternate to the rest of you next week.
"Chef Shain" has been experimenting with new salad dressings lately. Most are from books he has been reading. I love one of his latest creations and posted the recipe here.
We picked our first cucumbers today. One for me. One for Shain. It won't be long now and these plants will start producing enough for us to put in the CSA shares. We also picked a few ripe romatoes. It's good to see these crops getting closer to full production. I'm hoping they will take off like our squash plants (that are currently generating about 125 squash per week!).
Other crops you can look forward to in the near future: golden beets, shell peas, and Italian parsley.
We've stopped watering the garlic now. It's time to let it cure in the ground a little and then we'll dig up all the rows and hang the plants in our shed to continue drying. Garlic is a lot of work, but SO worth it!
We started digging up our carrots this week. They were planted in greenhouse 7 the first week of May and are finally ready to harvest. They are late by at least two weeks. The carrots are just one of the crops we plant early in hopes for an advanced harvest but their growth was delayed by this year's cold and dark spring.
We are LOVING the spinach! The variety of spinach we grow is called Tyee. We love it for the FLAVOR and that it will usually give us a few week's of harvest before going to seed. We hope to have more again next week. Our spinach is picked one leaf at a time by a crew of workers in the earlies of our work hours before it gets too hot. It's one of the more time consuming crops we grow and a personal favorite.
Over the past year, our family has made a significant switch in our eating habits. More plant based and experimenting with raw food recipes. Shain feels great and is hooked! Since he's the main cook in this house, Eli and I are along for the ride. We'd love any recipes you have to share with us and the rest of the CSA. I'll start by adding this raw kale salad recipe.
I'm short on words again this week due to us taking a few days away from the farm over the weekend. This is another healthy improvement in our lives. We appreciate those who help us here on the farm each and every week, especially Andy & Christine who watch over the farm when we leave. This kind of support is so appreciated!
Good News - The spinach crop has rebounded! The nice big leaves were shredded by a hail storm a few weeks ago, but the plants pulled through this stress and have given us new growth for a beautiful harvest this week.
More Good News - As I've mentioned several times, we plant many of our crops in succession to ensure a continous harvest throughout the season. This is especially true for salad greens. "The storm" wiped out two of our plantings that we were either harvesting from at the time or would have been ready to harvest that coming week. The next planting, which was just a few inches tall, was questionable. We've been watching these little greens and hoping for the best. We've gave them considerable attention this week (lots of weeding!) and they look so much better! We'll be back to having salad mix again this coming week!
Bad News: I am very sorry to report that the snap peas did not fare so well. Sadly, the plants are damaged beyond making it worth our time and efforts to harvest for the CSA.
Crops that are very close to being ready for harvest - beets, carrots, fresh garlic, and cilantro.
Zucchini - enough for everyone!
*There is a great article on NPR today about garlic scapes. Here's the link. Yummy looking recipes too. I roasted our last share of scapes for a 4th of July picnic and they were a hit. Very simple to do. Wash. Cut to bite size pieces (about 1 inch). Drizzle with olive oil (just enough so they won't stick to the baking sheet). Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss. Roast in an oven at 350 for about 20 to 30 minutes, tossing every 10 mintues or so. They are ready when tender and easily poked with a fork. Left over roasted scapes were used to make the next batch of hummus. Wow! The scapes are just about done for the year. We gave a huge handful to everyone this week but there are still more on the plants. I'm not sure they'll still be good to harvest next week, so enjoy these. They store for weeks in the fridge in a plastic bag (top left open for circulation).
**If you read the farm update I posted yesterday, you'll know our salad greens were recently destroyed in a severe storm. We cancelled all our salad orders and told everyone it would be a few weeks before we'd have salad again. Then on Tuesday, as we were harvesting the Japanese turnips, I noticed an old row of salad still growing right beside the turnips and asked Shain what he thought about taking another cut for the CSA. These two salad varieties are well over a foot tall now and were ear marked as chicken food but they passed our taste test and all the workshares agreed that a big leafy salad is better than no salad.
Shain has been taking the camera around the farm in early mornings as he does chores. These are two of my favorite pictures.
Rows of Swiss chard and onions on a beautiful sunny morning, July 3rd, greenhouse 4.
Kale is ready and will be in the shares next week!
On the afternoon of July 5th, we headed into town for an afternoon of holiday fun. One vehicle split off to make purchases for that evening's birthday party while a second larger vehicle, loaded with 5 cousins under the age of 13, headed staight for the icecream shop. We met up a short while later at the park and then travelled togehter to the local movie theatre. When we exited the building a few hours later, the skies were dark, winds were blowing strong and it was starting to rain. We knew right away that getting back to farm was an urgent matter.
Shain made it home first and he immediately went to work taking care of our animals and closing greenhouses. Within just a few minutes, the winds were extreme and the heavy rains had turned to hail.
My group needed to make a quick stop in town and within those few minutes the storm had really picked up. As I drove the 10 miles from Afton to Smoot, there were several times I had to slow down considerably just to see the roads clearly and keep the vehicle safely on the road.
When I arrived home, I noticed mounds of hail in the yard where it had piled off the roof. Tree branches were scattered on the ground and there were large water puddles everywhere. Shain and I quickly checked on animals once more and closed up the remaining greenhouses. I didn't realize it at the time, but the worst of the storm had already passed. The damage was done. We both knew from experience that this strom had caused some significant damage to our crops. Sadly, there wasn't anything else we could do at that point but go back in the house and continue with the birthday celebrations.
This is what salad greens look like after a severe storm. Completely flattened and shredded. Still, we always hold out hope that with a little time and sunshine the greens could pop back up and be salvageable.
This is what the salad greens looked like a few days later. No improvement. Hundreds of row feet of salad greens gone. A complete loss.
Shain thinks the most recently planted salad greens (currently about 1 inch tall) will probably grow up fine. He is planting more salad today or tomorrow.
The garlic also took a beating. It's hard to tell from this small picture, but many of the leaves are broken and ripped. I was surprised to see so many of the scapes broken off and laying on the ground. That could only happen with some very strong winds. The garlic plants experienced some stress last week, but they are strong and will pull through.
The potato plants are okay.
The cilantro and parsley are probably okay too. So far, it looks like only minor damage.
The snap peas, which were just about ready to pick, are flattened. The outside peas are heavily damaged. The underside appears to be good, but it's hard to tell if anything will grow after all that stress. And there aren't any blossoms left on the vines to form new pods.
Our spinach looks pretty bad. The medium to larger leaves are full of holes. I'm hopeful the plants will have some new growth we can harvest again.
It's storms like these that make me very grateful for our 7 greenhouses. We were very relieved that there wasn't any significant damage to any of our outside structures. Just one hole in one greenhouse and some stripped screws in a few door latches and hinges.
There were only a few "inside" crops that were damaged by the heavy rain/hail/wind. Some of the onions growing at the end of greenhouse 4 were toppled and ripped up before Shain could get the ends closed.
Also, one outside row of crops in greenhouse 4 received significant damage from elements that were blowing in at an angle. This isn't of great concern to us because this was and "extra" row where we planted our "left over" Swiss chard, kale and cabbage starts. We have more of all these crops growing just a few feet away inside this same greenhouse.
Toppeled leaves (above) the morning after the storm. A few days later (below) the leaves are upright again but you can now see how they are full of holes from the hail and rain.
Well, that's my report. I've spent a few somber days thinking about it all but we are ready to move on. Shain has ordered more seeds and will replant favorite crops that still have time to grown and harvest before it freezes. There is still a lot of great food growing here on the farm and much work to do. Best to turn that frown upside down and get back to it.
We cut the last of our first crop of Romaine lettuce heads for this week's share. They've been growing down a row with our tomato plants in greenhouse 6. It was just about perfect timing on this little trial of ours. The lettuce heads were plenty big enough to harvest, the tomato plants need more room to grow, and it's too hot for lettuce to be inside this greenhouse any longer. We have another row planted elsewhere on the farm and it will be interesting to see how they grow in the heat of summer.
*It will take a while before the zucchini plants are growing enough fruit for all our CSA members at the same time. We'll give them to some of you this week and others next week. I will keep track and try to make it as fair as possible. The same will happen for the squash and cucumbers when they are ready.
It is nice to be able to start harvesting the spinach this week. I know it's a favorite for many of you. Like some of our other spring plantings, the first and second crops are both ready at the same time because of our crazy weather. We'll keep harvesting it each week until it bolts from the heat.
Speaking of garlic. If you are new to EverGreen Farm, it's possible you are also new to garlic scapes. Here's what they look like while still growing on the garlic plant. The garlic "scape" is the curly part of the center stalk. Breaking off the scape allows the plant to focus it's energy into the garlic bulb growing below ground, instead of forming a tall "hard neck" stalk and eventually going to seed.
I've posted several recipes for using garlic scapes here. You are sure to find many more on the internet. Our favorite ways to use garlic scapes is when making stir fry, pesto, or humus. The scapes are only available for a few weeks, but we have a LOT of them. So we'll be giving you big handfulls each week until they are gone. If it's too much all at once, they are very easy to preserve. Just chop into small pieces and freeze or dehydrate.
Are you enjoying all the greens? Because there's more a comin'! I'm happy to say we will start harvesting the kale and Swiss chard next week, though we usually alternate back and forth between the two from week to week.
An important task that was accomplished this week was putting out all the cages for the tomatoes and cucumbers growing in greenhouses 5 & 6. We've seen some significant improvement and growth in the tomato plants. Many have blossoms. Some even have very small tomatoes. Yeah!
I need to give a big THANK YOU to Forrest (another one of our awesome workshares) who kept working on this project until it was done. I came over just as he and Shain were finishing up and noticed the temperature in the greenhouse where they were working was 112 degrees! Now that's dedication!
Thanks for working with us on the early pick up this week. We will enjoy our few days off. Next week's delivery will be on Wednesday, July 10th.