THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Bel Fiore & Sugarloaf Chicories, Cipollini Onions, Fairytale + Asian + Italian Eggplant, Slicing Tomatoes, Lorz Softneck Garlic, Farao Green Cabbage, Purple Daikon, Dino Kale, Loose Rainbow Carrots, Summer Squash & Zucchini, Olympian Cucumbers, Lemon Cucumbers, Salad Mix (with Mizuna, Baby Bok Choi, Little Gems, and Frisee), Summercrisp and Red Butter Head Lettuces
U-PICK
Check the u-pick board for updated weekly limits
Pickling Cucumbers (See below for tips and instructions)
Albion Strawberries
Purple Snow Peas
Sugar Snap Peas (Gleanings)
Frying Peppers (See our Week 5 & 6 Newsletter for harvest tips)
Jalapeños
Herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Dill, Tulsi Basil, Italian Basil, Thai Basil, Purple Basil, Oregano, Marjoram, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Vietnamese Coriander, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Lemon Verbena, Lemon Balm, Perilla & Purple Shiso, Chamomile, Cilantro & Mints, Anise Hyssop
HARVEST NOTES
Bel Fiore & Sugarloaf Chicories: We usually reserve these beauties for the Fall but we couldn’t wait that long this year. Chicories (which include Frisee, Radicchio, Dandelions and Escarole) are sometimes thought of as an acquired taste because they are bitter — but we highly recommend you acquire that taste for their bitterness masks a hidden sweetness. The chicories in the share this week are delicious both raw and cooked. For a raw chicory salad try pairing with plums or pears and pecans with a honey-lemon dressing, or, for a more savory twist, a mustardy dressing topped with this week’s daikon radish. Another great way to eat chicories is to roast them: We quarter them, toss them generously with olive oil and garlic and broil them until the outer leaves are slightly crisped and blackened the leaves are melted. Top with salt and/or grated parmesan and eat as a side.
Eggplant: We have a nice eggplant year ahead of us featuring three eggplant varieties, one from East Asia (long thin and dark purple), India (striped white and light purple), and Italy (classic deep purple pear shaped).
Purple Snow Peas: Likely the last week for these beauties. Beauregarde purple snow peas are an open-pollinated, recently-bred variety from Row 7 Seed Company, "bred to bring more flavor (and more purple) to purple peas, these high-anthocyanin, wavy-podded snow peas hold their vibrant color when cooked. Wait for small peas to develop in the pod to reach full flavor potential." Snow peas are delicious raw, stir-fried, steamed or braised.
GARLIC & CARROT HARVEST THIS WEDNESDAY, 9:00 am
This week, for volunteer day we are going to harvest our Metechi Garlic and, if we have time, do our first bulk carrot harvest of the year. Come find us in the fields anytime from 9:00am-11:00am. Bring a face covering por favor!
PICKLING CUCUMBERS
Each year, we plant a large patch of pickling cucumbers so interested members can u-pick them fresh from the field to take home to pickle!
See below for instructions on where to find them, how to pick them, and our favorite pickle recipe from CSA member Kate Seely.
PICKING PICKLING CUCUMBERS
Bring a bucket or bag from home to take your cukes home in.
Check the u-pick board for the current season limit. Grab a GVCFarm five gallon bucket from under the u-pick board. We’ve marked the limit on the inside of the bucket with tape.
Find the pickling cucumber patch out on the farm. They are located in Field 1, behind the massive wall of corn if you look to your left from the frying peppers. The beds are marked with a double pink flag.
Comb through the plants doing your best not to step on cucumber vines or the adjacent beds. The ideal sized pickling cucumber is around 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. Please don't pick too many that are smaller than this. If you see a monster cucumber (7 inches long and 3 inches wise) please pick it anyway and leave it in the pathway. This will help the plant produce many more nice small ones.
Pick however many you want up to the Season Limit (currently 3 gallons per share). Please note that this is a season limit rather than weekly limit.
Transfer your cukes to your container and return the GVCFARM bucket to the barn for other members to use!
Two pink flags marks the spot!
MAKING PICKLES
The following recipe is from CSA member Kate Seely. It is a tried and true pickling method that can be used not just on cucumbers. Pickled Daikon, anyone? Thanks, Kate for sharing your wisdom!
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For crunchy pickles, Kate has found that the trick is to pickle them as fresh as you can — i.e. as soon after picking as possible. (Some people swear by putting grape leaves or citric acid in with the pickles to make them crispy, but Kate hasn’t found that to work.) If you can’t get to pickling right away, try getting them into the ice water / salt bring as soon as possible. Another helpful trick for crunchier pickles is to pick your cucumbers in the morning rather than the heat of the day.
Brine INGREDIENTS
1:1 ratio water : organic distilled white vinegar
1/3 cup pickling salt for every 8 cups liquid
**If you like it a little less vinegary, go 2/3 water : 1/3 vinegar instead of 1:1. Also, you really can use this brine to vinegar pickle any vegetable.
PicklE INGREDIENTS
Fresh GVCFarm pickling cucumbers!
GVCFarm Garlic!
Fresh spicy peppers (a jalapeño works, or any spicy pepper) or red pepper chili flakes
Yellow mustard seed
Fresh dill (if you don't have fresh, dried is fine). Try using the dill flowers in the garden.
Peppercorns
EQUIPMENT
Canning Pot
Pint Jars (or Quart if you want to go big!)
New lids for sealing
Tongs and/or can removers
STEP-BY-STEP
CAUTION: Canning can be dangerous. If it is is not done properly, bacteria that can make you very sick, even kill you, can develop in the jars. If you have never canned before, make sure you do your homework and feel confident in your ability to can safely before starting.
Step 1 - Soak Cucumbers: Cut your cukes, removing ends and sizing the slices to the size of the jars you will use, and set in water, salt and ice. Use about three TBSP of salt for 5 pounds of cukes. Let sit anywhere between 4 and 24 hours.
Step 2 - Make Brine: Begin this step when you're ready to pickle. Put the brine measurements into a separate pot and bring to a boil. 1:1 water to white vinegar, and 1/3 cup salt for every 8 cups of liquid. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer.
Step 3 - Sterilize Jars: Fill canning pot with water, bring to a boil. To sterilize, wash jars with soap and water, then place in boiling water for 10 minutes. Remove and set aside. Be mindful not to touch the insides of the jars with your hands as that will de-sterilize them. Sterilize lids in a smaller pot as well.
Step 4 - Fill Jars: Drain the cucumbers you have soaking in the ice / salt mixture. Trim them to the length of the jar as needed.. Jars should have 1/4 inch of space between liquid and jar top. Pack cucumbers, dill (1-2 sprigs), and garlic (one clove for a pint jar). Really, PACK them in there.
Add spices: Pour 1 tsp yellow mustard seed, 3/4 tsp (or more or less depending on the spice you want, I like them spicy!), 6 peppercorns on top of cucumbers.
Step 5 - Pour Brine: Pour your brine over pickles, covering them, but leaving 1/4 inch until top of jar. Remove lid from small pot with tongs, being mindful not to touch lids. Screw on cap so that it is not tight, so that air can escape from jars as you water process them.
Step 6 - Seeling Jars: Place jars in canning pot and water process for 15 minutes. (If you do not have a canning pot with a metal insert to hold cans, make sure to put a buffer between your glass jars and the bottom of the metal pot, like an old dish towel. Your jars will break if they touch the hot metal. Heck, they might break anyways if you're reusing jars. That's just the way it goes.
Step 7 - Remove Jars: Remove jars and let cool. As they cool the lids should seal tightly. Once cooled and sealed, tighten the jar lids down. Any jars that did not seal properly should be kept in the fridge and eaten first. Store your sealed pickles in a cool dark place and enjoy for many months!
FLOWERS for KILEY
CSA member and fellow farmer Kiley Clark is well on her way to raising money to start her regenerative farm. In just a few short weeks she has raised over $86,000. She’s now aiming at a new milestone — $125,000 — which is awesome because getting secure land access and properly capitalizing a regenerative farm is expensive. The world needs more regenerative farms owned and operated by women and people of color. To support Kiley’s campaign we are holding a raffle. A raffle for what, you say?
A Flower Share! If you have a friend, family member, or co-worker nearby who you think would love to come to the farm each week to pick a bouquet, enter to win them the gift of a Flower Share! $15 gets you a ticket. Buy two! Or ten! Winner gets free access to the flower garden to pick-bouquets from early August until the last blooms expire in October. Need a place to meet up with your Hinge date? Enter to win them a Flower Share. How romantic. Have a friend waiting forlornly on the waitlist! Win them a Flower Share!
To buy tickets, Venmo Kayta Plescia @greenvalleyfarmers in $15 increments based on how many tickets you want. The drawing will be Wednesday, August 5th. All proceeds go to Kiley’s GoFundMe campaign.
ADD-ONS
Bramble Tail Homestead Creamery: Stocked with Bramble Tail frozen yogurt, 100% grass-fed beef, Green Star chicken, eggs, Oz Family Farm heritage rabbit and more. Become a member of the weekly dairy herdshare by emailing Aubrie at brambletailhomestead@gmail.com.
The Marketplace: New products this week include bone broth and gluten free breads! Also stocked art, soaps, honey, coffee, Moonfruit Mushroom dressing and seasoning, beverages, and much more. Across from the Bramble Tail Creamery.
Revolution Bread: Our baker Eli is still dealing with some (non-COVID) health challenges. Fresh bread and cookies are on hold for the time being. Get well soon, Eli!
Moonfruit Mushrooms: Mushrooms are a mysterious fruit. Cory and Ryath report that there next flush looks to be about three weeks away.
FARMER’S LOG
The sun beats down, the hills are bleached gold, and the wind blows hot… the dog days of summer are here.
The term “dog days”, for the late summer, traces back to the ancient Mediterranean, where people connected the night sky return of the brightest star, Canis Majoris (aka Sirius, aka “Orion’s Dog”), to the sultry days of late July-August when, as Virgil said, “the Dog-star cleaves the thirsty ground.” These ancient people associated the dog days with fever, bad luck, and heat.
As Marin naturalist and tracker Richard Vacha brilliantly observes of our own Mediterranean climate in his book The Heart of Tracking, the dog days can be a raucous, frolicking time for wild canines as they feast on the fattened prey and tree fruit of summer and as canine pups leave the den and come into their own. (Perhaps this is the wild origin of the naming of the star?)
But, in Mediterranean climates like ours, the dog days are also a scarce time, a spent time. They are the beginning of a great dry down and a great dormancy.
“For an animal,” Vacha writes, the late-Summer-early-Fall “can be as tough to endure as an East Coast winter. Food is scarce, water is scarce, and green vegetation is crowded into riparian corridors, drawing the animals that depend on these resources closer together. The animals who prey upon them have shifted correspondingly. Territorial patterns are all in great flux as the expansive cycle of the summer season slowly winds down.”
On the farm, this shift into the dog days — their abundance and scarcity — has been clear.
Our harvests are more and more heavy with fruit: Cucumbers, squash, eggplant; the first poblanos and sweet peppers are on their way; we picked the first few field heirloom tomatoes this week; our first melons are swelling; the wild blackberries are laden. In the garden the first flowers and herbs are following the wild grasses, tapping out and throwing seed. Even our Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins are turning from green to orange.
In our staple field crops, if July was an outward explosion of verdant green growth, the dog days are the beginning of a hunkering down, a drawing nigh, a focused inward stare toward the serious work of setting fruit, forming bulbs and tubers, and setting seed. The corn is tassling. The jubilant winter squash flowers are beginning to wilt and metamorphosize — green and gold orbs now swell in the shade of sun battered leaves. The potato flowers are beginning to pop and with them the plants will now look to swelling their secret orbs in the black earth.
And as the wildland plants dry out and are scorched to gold, her wild inhabitants turn more and more to the farm — an irrigated green oasis — for moisture and succulent meals. The wild turkeys and their fluffy younglings visit the fields every morning and evening, snipping off hydrating bits of lettuce and broccoli leaves. They annihilated a whole patch of Romaine in just one evening this week. Song birds are raiding the greenhouse now, right on schedule, eating juicy germinating beets and Fall chicories. Gophers take bites out of our drip irrigation lines nightly, seeking the cool water flowing within.
The sweet relief of the first Fall rains will come to us all sooner than we think. Until then, keep cool, move slow, and enjoy the fruitful abundance of the dog days of summer.
See you in the fields,
David & Kayta
“Fox in a Coyote Bush” illustration by Kayta from The Heart of Tracking by Richard Vacha from Mount Vision Press
