THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Salad Mix, Assorted Lettuce, Bel Fiore Chicory / Radicchio, Rainbow Chard, Fennel, Kohlrabi, Romance Carrots, Walla Walla Sweet Onions, Heirloom & Slicing Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Poblano Peppers, Summer Squash & Zucchini, Olympian Cucumbers, Sarah’s Choice Cantaloupe, , Crimson Sweet Watermelon, Bintje Gold Potatoes
U-PICK
Please remember to check the u-pick board for updated weekly limits before going out to pick
🌟NEW Flambo Shelling Beans: See Harvest Notes below for tips
Albion Strawberries: Please check the u-pick board for this week’s limit
Cherry Tomatoes: No limit
Frying Peppers: Shishitos & Padrons | See week 4’s newsletter for harvest and preparation tips
Hot Peppers: Buena Mulata, Habanero, Ali Limo and Jalapeño Hot Peppers | Check u-pick board for limits
Tomatillos: Check u-pick board for limits
Herbs: Dill, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Vietnamese Coriander, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Lemon Verbena, Cilantro, Tulsi, Various Mints, Catnip, Chamomile, Purple Basil, Genovese Basil, Thai Basil
Flowers!
HARVEST NOTES
Flambo Shelling Beans: Shelling beans are like your pantry dried beans — but fresh off a plant. They harken back to another age when old grandmas sat on stoops shelling beans. But why? Like other vegetables, fresh beans, (like, really fresh) are a revelation compared to the old dried beans. To cook your shelling beans…
Remove the beans from their shells: slice off each end of the pod, and pull the pod apart at the seam, or use the tip of a knife to break the seam.
Give the beans a rinse then add to a large pot. Cover with at least two inches of water and add salt and aromatics (crushed shallots or garlic, bay leaf or oregano, and dried chili).
Bring to a boil on the stove, then reduce the heat and simmer until tender. Check occasionally by taking out a few beans and trying them – they should be smooth and creamy without any resistance when you bite. This can take anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes depending on the size and age of the beans.
When tender, remove from heat and add salt to taste. Let the beans cool in their liquid, then drain (you can reserve the liquid as a broth). Add to pastas or salads, sauté with onions and garlic, or serve on their own with a little olive oil, or freeze for use later! Bon appetite!
Bulk Tomatoes: We’re still in peak tomato season. See last week’s Newsletter for tips on a way to easily prep tomato sauce for storage.
Bel Fiore and Radicchio Chicory: These beauties are back. Check out CSA member, and cookbook author, Sarah Kate Benjamin’s wonderful summer salad recipe below using Bel Fiore Chicory.
TOMATO CREW 2022
We’re well into peak tomato season and it’s high time we introduced you to our tomato crew this year. This is a dream team assortment of varieties we’ve grown to love over the last 6 years — plus a new trial (Valencia). We hope you fall in love with one of them this year. Tell us which is your favorite!
Top row, left to right: Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Striped German, Big Beef | Middle row, left to right: Speckled Roman Sauce Tomato, Green Zebra, Valencia | Bottom Row, left to right: Brandywine, Goldie, Cherokee Purple
Cherokee Purple: A classic, super productive heirloom tomato particularly good for BLTs
Striped German: Arguably the prettiest tomato we grow. Smooth, often huge, mellow, and fruity flavored.
Green Zebra: A delightful, tart and acidic, miniature tomato. Ripe when yellow-green and slightly soft to the touch.
Big Beef: Like jeans and a t-shirt: A classic red beefsteak.
Aunt Ruby’s German Green: Green turning to yellow when ripe, this tomato is our all-time favorite. First introduced by Ruby Arnold whose German immigrant grandfather saved the seeds. You'll know Aunt Ruby's is ripe when it gives just slightly to the touch.
Brandywine: The quintessential pink heirloom, “rich, loud, and distinctively spicy" according to Johnny's Selected Seeds
Goldie: David’s personal favorite. A very mellow tomato. A good Goldie (dark orange when ripe) will taste like flowers and melons and go down smooth and sweet.
Speckled Roman: An exceptionally delicious sauce tomato with a psychedelic dream-coat. Excellent for fresh eating as well.
Valencia: A new trial this year. Valencia is a Maine family heirloom with a meaty texture and bold flavor that could make a nice addition to sauce or canned tomatoes.
SARAH KATE’S RADICCHIO SUMMER SALAD
On days when it’s just too hot to cook, a big salad usually does the trick for dinner. While crisp lettuce is a mainstay for all of your salad needs, its bitter cousin chicory is worth giving a try. Yes, chicories tend to be on the bitter side, but that bitter is actually good for you. Bitter greens are cooling to the body and help you digest and assimilate your foods better. So, if you’ve been wondering what to do with the Bel Fiore or Sugarloaf Chicory, you’ll want to make this quick and easy salad. And don’t be shy with the fresh herbs either. Grab your favorites to toss into the dressing or sprinkle on top just before serving.
Ingredients
For the dressing
1 cup yogurt
½ cup crumbled feta cheese
1 clove garlic, grated
¼ cup freshly chopped dill
1 tablespoon freshly chopped fennel fronds
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
½ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
For the salad
1 head Bel Fiore or Sugarloaf Chicory (Little Gems work too)
½ cup breadcrumbs
2 radishes, thinly sliced
Add all of the dressing ingredients to a blender or food processor and combine until smooth. Taste and adjust for more honey or vinegar.
Gently tear the salad greens into large pieces and add to a mixing bowl.
Toss the greens and radishes with a few tablespoons of the dressing, depending on how dressed you like them.
To serve, add half of the dressed salad to a serving bowl and top with half of the breadcrumbs. Repeat and finish with a drizzle of dressing and a sprinkle of fresh herbs if you’d like.
For more recipe inspiration, check out Sarah Kate’s weekly recipe newsletter here and get access to over 45 seasonal recipes.
WINTER SISTER FARM CSA SIGN-UPS NOW OPEN!
The hottest tickets in town are now on sale — Winter Sister Farm’s 2023 Winter CSA program is now open for registration! Winter Sister Farm, right next door to us, was started by our dear friends Anna and Sarah Dozor. Their CSA runs runs from December through May and includes 24 weeks of specialty winter veggies, flowers, herbs, and more — all picked up by CSA members, free-choice market style, on their beautiful farm here on Cooper Rd. Sign-up today!
FARMER’S LOG
EQUINOX TURNINGS
At 6:03 PM this Thursday, the sun will cross the plane of the equator — the autumnal equinox.
It struck me today how the tasks of pulling off the farm year harmonize with the seasons in such a way that it always seems like there is just enough time to accomplish what needs to be accomplished by the skin on our chins.
The Byrds were right: To everything, there is a season.
In the Spring, we aren’t harvesting yet so we have all the time in all the medium-length days to prep the canvas and plant out the farm; to build a propagation zone and new irrigation systems; to set up the barn; to seed 60 trays a week in the greenhouse; to pot up tomatoes, to stake tomatoes, to trellis tomatoes; to mow cover crop and turn soil and shape beds and plant, plant, plant!
Then harvest seasons starts and two, then three, then then four days of the week are consumed with harvest. You put down the saw and the hammer and take up the harvest knife. All other projects cease. Planting and harvesting are your life — maybe some weeding if you’re lucky. The days are at their longest. If there is ever a time to be harvesting 1,000+ pounds of cucumbers, tomatoes and squash in the morning and then prepping and planting out a half mile of beds in the afternoon, it is when there is 16 hours of daylight.
Before you know it, it’s late Summer. The tomatoes start exploding, the cucumbers already are, you’re still planting like crazy and then the melons come in — and just when you think you’ll break, that there isn’t enough time in the day, you scroll through your crop plan and see that plantings are nearly done. No more bed shaping. The greenhouse seedings stop. You plant the last Fall brassicas in the field, the tractor sits quiet for a minute, and you can spend all day amongst the vines and in the cooler playing Tetris with boxes of Summer fruit.
Then comes the Autumnal Equinox.
The tomatoes are still pumping and the potatoes and winter squash are calling to be harvested; the corn is filling out and crisping up. The big harvests are here. Space needs to be cleared. Winter is just around the corner so you also need to establish new garlic and strawberries beds and to lime new fields, and get ready for cover cropping — and just when you think you’ll break, that there isn’t enough time in the shortening days the heat starts to ebb, the tomatoes show signs of slowing down. Soon, a light frost will roll through the farm and nip the summer fruits. Smiling friends will come to help you harvest your winter squash. The chill morning air will go down like a draught of ambrosia. You seed the last lettuce of the season. You have a moment sit down and calculate your garlic seed and order cover crop.
All this is why you won’t ever hear a farmer say, “Shucks! Summer is over.” We are greedy for the turnings. We love nothing more than a first harvest. But first tomato harvest glory fades under the weight of a hundred tomato crates and then we crave cold hands and cozy coats and the crisp snap of the stem of a plump radicchio. Lucky for us, when scolding kiddos for running through the corn becomes sad and hackneyed, Autumn comes, and we can yell, “Come! Knock it down! Gather armfuls of cobs!”
Change is our tonic — one of the great sustaining elixirs of farm life.
Soon, Winter will come. It’s so close now we can almost taste it. The rains will fall and we will turn in — to rest, rejuvenation, and internality. We’ll clean up the farm and we’ll look back on the year and plan the next. We’ll look at spreadsheets, sit, think, build, fix things, and sleep.
But ample sleep turns into insomnia; too much internality into angst. Our harvest muscles will atrophy, we will get pudgy, and we will forget why we are toiling out in the wet and the cold. And just when we think we’ll break, that there is too much open-endedness in the too short days, the sun will return and we will hear the Swainson’s Thrush calling us back out to the fields, beckoning us, “Build it up again! Plant! Turn! Turn! Turn!”
See you in the fields,
David & Kayta
