THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Bunched Carrots, Fresh Lorz Softneck Garlic, Scallions, French Breakfast Radishes, Hakurei Turnips, Curly Kale, Rainbow Chard, Summer Squash, Arugula, Mustard Mix, Spinach, Purslane, Rosaine Red Little Gems, Rouxai Oakleaf Lettuce
U-PICK
Albion Strawberries - 2 pints
Sugar Snap Peas - 2 pints
Herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Dill, Italian Basil, Thai Basil, Purple Basil, Oregano, Marjoram, Parsley, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Vietnamese Coriander, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Lemon Verbena, Lemon Balm, Shiso (limited), Chamomile, Cilantro, Tulsi, Mints!
Flowers galore!
HARVEST NOTES
Sugar Snap Peas: The ripest and the sweetest sugar snap peas are the ones that have filled out to about a quarter inch or more in thickness. These will first be found lower on the plant, and as the weeks go by they will ripen higher and higher up. Leave the thin ones for your future self of next week!
Purslane: Purslane is a formidable weed in farms and gardens but is also a beloved culinary green in Mexico and somewhat of a delicacy North of the border. Purslane has a lemony flavor and succulent texture and contains more omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable plant. How to eat it? It can be added raw to any salad or side, or check out this post at Mexican Food Memories for some recipe ideas.
Dill: Dill is definitely popping in the garden above the ornamental amaranth. We’ve been enjoying it sprinkled on just about everything. Try it sprinkled on your salad or atop sliced French breakfast radishes on toast spread with chimichurri sauce.
MOONFRUIT MUSHROOM FARM
Well we couldn’t be more excited to that our neighbors will be selling their fresh, forest grown, Moonfruit Mushrooms in the barn at CSA pick-up. Early birds will get the shrooms! Here’s a message from the mushroom magicians themselves:
Hello CSA members!
We are Moon Fruit Mushroom Farm and are excited to announce that we will have fresh shiitake for sale at Green Valley Community Farm CSA starting this Saturday the 27th! Let us tell you a little bit about our farm.
Ryath Beauchene and myself, Cory Brown, both have a deep affinity for fungi not only because they are delicious and medicinal, but also because they play very important roles in terrestrial ecosystems. Our first year was all about shiitake (Lentinula edodes). With the help of our friends and community, we inoculated almost 200 logs with shiitake spawn at the beginning of 2019, and now those logs are healthily fruiting. We have another 150 shiitake logs getting ready for next year and reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) on the way as well.
We believe in imitating the natural processes of forest-grown fungi for maximum medicinal and nutritional content. We are neighboring to the north of the CSA vegetable farm, which means we walk to deliver these beauties to your goodie bag!
We will be setup as a separate booth at the CSA pickup barn this Saturday 27th and Tuesday 30th. Cash only for now, thank you!
Look forward to meeting you.
Yours,
Moonfruit
REVOLUTION BREAD RETURNS TUESDAY
Our baker is OK and fresh bread and other goodies will return this Tuesday! Huzzah!
FARM ORIENTATIONS
If you, or a member of your share, hasn’t been oriented to the farm yet. Please find one of us farmers in the barn the first time you arrive and we’ll show you the ropes!
FARMER’S LOG
SPRING in the WAKE
This week — Wednesday evening to be exact — our crew planted the last Poblano pepper plant and let out a great “huzzah!”, having at that moment finished the great planting push of Spring 2020. We then pushed off and set sail into a different season on the farm…
Indeed, April, May and June were the usual full-throttle charge of building and planting — of shaping and trimming the timber, of mending and rigging the sails; of planting-planting-planting faster than we ever thought we could, to stock this here soil borne ship full to the brim for the journey ahead. We sit now, bobbing proudly on the poop deck atop a fully planted behemoth, Spring in the wake and all eyes on the horizon.
* * * * *
What lies before us now is the rhythmic, daily life at harvest; visiting various ports of call and collecting the fruits of Spring’s labor; keeping the ship clean and relatively free of weeds; executing our weekly planting responsibilities; resting when we can; and charting the truest course possible to our final destination: The Great Harvests of Fall.
ON IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SHIP
In the Winter of this year, we convened over hot tea to discuss what improvements needed to be made to this vessel to complete a circumnavigation of this magnitude . Aye, the water system would need to be upgraded. Cold storage greatly increased. The nursery greatly expanded. An additional First Mate brought onboard. And various new tools and armaments acquired as well as aesthetic and sanitization improvements.
We started with the water system…
The month of March saw the addition of the two 5,000 gallon water tanks you see to your left as you drive in. These batteries more than triple the amount of fresh water available to our crew at the beginning each work day to keep our plant babies happy and healthy during the journey. We then essentially retired our old sprinkler system and replaced it, and other aspects of the old system, with an arsenal of new, modern sprinkler heads, conveyances, and gadgets allowing for lighter, more careful, and expansive application of irrigation water. (We think we are noticing a difference in how plants look already and the crew is much relieved.)
With the plan to be dealing in more cargo than ever before we turned next to the nursery and cold storage. We knocked down the walls of the old cold-frame protecting outside seedlings from deer, and erected a new one, triple the size. It now stands nearly empty, but recently hosted the lush peppers and other nightshades on your way to the farm strawberries — all now planted.
We then relocated the old trailer-cooler astern and erected a shiny new cooler box on the starboard side of the barn — to be brought online this weekend. (This project was greatly assisted by CSA members and neighbors Michael Crivello and Scott Kelley.)
We brought a master carpenter and CSA member Ryan Bundrick to craft the beautiful arbor welcoming you to the garden — a figurehead that will also provide posts for a soon-t0-be-installed human sized gate. We threw the old gate overboard.
The grizzled pirate Jared Sutton helped us address COVID concerns by installing the new hand washing station welcoming you to the barn.
ON PROVISIONING THE FIELDS
Simultaneous to the above, April, May, and June saw the most of the soil prepped, amended, shaped and planted from a crop plan honed from the logs, charts, misadventures and discoveries of our last 3 quests.
What you see before you in the fields now is (most of) the next 5.5 months of harvest (mostly planted in 1 month, thanks to our crack crew). We will visit new winter squash and potato varieties; the sweet waters of sweet corn and watermelons; the isle of Poblano; the sea of sunshine will shimmer into Spinach leaves and onion bulbs and Striped Armenian cucumbers will play in the bow waves.
A few notes thus far….
We are very happy, now in our fourth year here, with the fertility we are seeing in the soil — expressed in the rich green, almost turquoise blue hue of happy leaves. The soil raining from the fresh carrots this morning was rich in mycelium.
We have successfully avoided the doldrums of Planting-too-Early. Much of our nightshades, melons, and corn we kicked back a few weeks in the schedule. All of them seem glad and we are seeing signs for abundant shishitos and heirloom tomatoes. We also seem hot on the trail of our Moby Dick… eggplant. Old members will notice the early season absence of Beets and Cruciferous heading crops like broccoli, all of whom suffered greatly in the doldrums of Planting-too-Early. We will rendezvous with them soon…
We seem to have discovered a great school of Strawberries, having finally found the right spot and time to throw our nets — Mid-December and on that nice sandy slope.
Our first catch of Garlic, our Lorz soft neck, was a great boon. Big bulbs lie curing in hull and will provide at least 11 weeks of nourishment. We thought we had lost our Metechi hardneck garlic to a bad case of rust (a fungal disease with really no organic control) but we took a look inside a few this week and it seems they may indeed pull through to create bulbs.
To the relief of all, we have taken the fight to the gopher and rodent pirates in the greenhouses and garden by hiring two mercenaries, Meeko and Goose, formerly Forgotten Felines. It is unseemly to cavort with pirates but necessary to protect the cargo.
Suffice to say, we are lucky to have new First Mate, Kate Beilharz, who is keeping the crew in tip-top shape and has an almost personal vendetta against untidy tomatoes.
I must leave it at that for now. The stays on the mainsails of the Sugar Snap Peas have failed and the peas are threatening to drown us all. Help!
See you in the fields,
David for Kayta, Anna & Kate
