CSA Newsletter – 2010: Summer Week 1
Welcome to Primrose Community Farm’s Summer 2010 CSA season! We are so happy to have you all with us for the season. Each week we will send out a newsletter to keep you in touch with what’s happening at the farm, as well as to give you tips and recipe ideas for the produce you are receiving. All members will receive every newsletter, even if you only get a share everyother week.
The Crew: We are so lucky to have a great crew with us this year. Eva has returned for her 3rd season. Her daughter, Asha, sometimes helps too. (Our 8 month-old daughter, Zea, especially loves when Asha is out at the farm.) Alex Young, Ross Cohen, and Colleen Kiefer have also joined us this year. Our employees work extremely hard in all kinds of difficult conditions. We are so appreciative to have them and couldn’t do what we do without them! In addition to our employees we have 30 worker shares who help out at the farm in exchange for food. Most of these folks help in the fields and wash sheds; some help at farmer’s market and a few mamas and babes come out to play with Zea during busier parts of the week. (Otherwise she’s with her mama). We really are a community at our farm!
From the Fields: So far we couldn’t have asked for a better spring. Our first plantings went in on the 17th of March – the earliest ever! After that, it continued to stay warm enough for them to grow well. The rains have been very timely, drying out enough for us to get field work done, but falling consistently enough to prevent us from having to irrigate. At this point in the season our vegetable crops are over 85% planted.
Now that the bulk of our seeding and transplanting is complete, we are now moving into the part of the season dominated by weed control. We have been busy cultivating the soil every 10 ” 14 days to kill the little weeds before they get too big. We have three different small cultivating tractors with different tools on them to help us get really close to the row to save us from having to do too much weeding by hand. We have been able to keep up with the cultivating so far, but this is the time that is critical for many crops to be weed free for them to have good yield later on. Luckily this week is when we have many more hands joining us in the field. Our worker shares are starting in force this week to come out and help us get a handle on the rapidly growing weeds.
Share News: An item that may be new to you is garlic scapes. These are what would become the flower stalk of a garlic plant. You will find them in a bunch of 7. They are cylindrical and kind of curly. We pull them off to encourage the plant to put energy toward its bulb. The scape, however, is completely edible. Just mince it up and use it as you would garlic. One scape is roughly equivalent to 1.5 cloves of garlic. Kohlrabi may be a new item to you as well. This is a green or purple bulb, about the size of a large tomato. This plant is from the cabbage family. It is most commonly peeled and eaten raw; julienne and put on salads or dip into a favorite dressing. In other veggie news, our strawberries are just beginning to ripen. We had enough for all of our EO members, and some of our REG members will receive them too (but unfortunately not all this week). This may happen sometimes throughout the season, where not everyone will get the first of something. Don’t worry though ” you will get that item eventually. We appreciate your patience! We keep track of who receives what so that food is as evenly distributed as possible.
This week and every week we will provide recipes to help you use the food in your share. We encourage you to read your newsletter on our website, as you have access to more recipes AND all of our archived recipes. We now have an easy search function where you can type in the name of a vegetable, like €˜kale’ and past recipes using this item will pop up. Check it out! Click here.
Enjoy your veggies!!! Sincerely, Mike, Cassie, Zea and Crew
What’s In the Box:
- Arugula – small, leafy bunch, oblong leaves
- Broccoli
- Cilantro
- Garlic Scapes – green, cylindrical, bunched
- Head Lettuce (Red Leaf)
- Kale (Red Russian) – large leafy bunch, purple stem
- Kohlrabi – green or purple bulb
- Radish
- Salad Mix
- Spinach
- Strawberries (all EOs and some REGs)
REGs = regular shares only
EOs = everyother shares only
This Week’s Recipes:
Orange, Walnut, Gorgonzola and Mixed Greens Salad with Fresh Citrus Vinaigrette
Announcements:
Mark your calendar for the 4th Annual Tour and Strawberry Pick, June 26th!
Summer Week 1: Wednesday, June 9th – Everyother Group A
