CSA Newsletter:2010 – Summer Week 7
From the Fields: All this heat and things are growing, growing!
Zea loves all the cucumbers - perfect for teething!
Would you believe it ” after all that rain in June, we’re now in short supply. We have started to irrigate around the fields. We feel fortunate that we have the equipment to do this – a high pressure well and movable aluminum and pvc pipes. It takes a lot of labor to move the pipes, and tends to take away from other important tasks like weeding. Nothing beats real rainfall.
Share News: So remember how last week we said you could expect a lull of new items in your box? Well, we lied! Not only do we have sweet corn as a new item this week, we also have cantaloupe, green beans, sungold tomatoes (for various REG sites), and green pepper!
Okay, so here’s some information regarding these new items. The sweet corn is delicious. It’s an all yellow variety called Mirai. We eat this corn without anything else on it, it’s that good. Unfortunately it’s a bad year for the corn borer. When you shuck your corn (and any other corn you get this season), keep an eye for these little pests. There’s not much we can do about them, except cut around them. When we saw obvious corn borer damage while harvesting, we went ahead and broke off the tops, so you may notice that some of your ears are shorter. Luckily, while the borers are no fun, they don’t take away from the yumminess. The next new item is cantaloupe. You can store it on your counter. It will continue to ripen and sweeten ” though make sure to keep an eye on it so it doesn’t over-ripen. It’s best eaten in the next couple of days. Green beans are also a new item. Some of these beans got away from us and ripened faster than we could pick them. Some of you will receive beans that are a little larger than we’d like. These beans are better for cooking than fresh eating this time around. There will definitely be more beans to come (that will be smaller and thus more tender). We’re going to use ours in a curry, oh or maybe casserole. I’m a huge sucker for green bean casserole. Sungold tomatoes are another new item that some of you will receive this week. These tasty little tomatoes are often a great way to get kids excited about tomatoes. They are really sweet! We will begin rotating the tomatoes through the dropsites. This week regular members that pick up at the farm and at Stratford will receive them. Last little note, when looking for cooking ideas for green peppers, notice they are categorized as a sweet pepper in our recipe search engine.
Community News: So you may have wondered just how many cucumbers we are harvesting if you are receiving 3 every week. Well, what you receive is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s coming out of the fields. Right now we don’t have places to sell all of these cucumbers. We’ve been reaching out to some area grocery stores, but still there are many that we can’t sell. We are very committed to our food reaching bellies, so we donate what we can’t sell. This Monday we donated 760 pounds of cucumbers via the Community Action Coalition of Madison. We’ve had a relationship with this organization for several years. They provide a wonderful service of connecting farm food with local pantries. The CAC knows that as busy farmers we don’t have the time to drive our excess crops to a pantry, so they come straight to the farm and pick it up for us and make sure it reaches a pantry and a hungry belly. It’s really a wonderful thing. If you are every looking for an organization to support, this is a great one.
Crew News: In final news, this past Saturday we had a mid-season crew party for all the folks who work at Primrose in one capacity or another. There was lots of corn, lots of beer, a celebratory frisbee game in what was this year’s garlic field, and a foosball tournament wherein the Noltnerwyss’ had to hand down their winning streak to Alex and Ross. All in all a great night (except for the loosing at foosball bit€¦).
Sincerely, Mike, Cassie, Zea and Crew
In the Box:
- Cantaloupe
- Carrots
- Cucumber
- Eggplant “EOs (either Japanese or Globe)
- Garlic
- Green Beans
- Green Pepper
- Pearl Onions “ EOs
- Purplette Onions – REGs
- Sungold Tomatoes-(various REGs)
- Sweet Corn
- Sweet Onions
- Zucchini, Gold and/or Green
REGs = regular shares only
EOs = everyother shares only
This Week’s Recipes:
Summer Week 7: Wednesday, July 21st – Everyother Group A
