In the Share - Week 2

LETTUCE (2): One of our favorite French heirloom butterheads and one red looseleaf.

SPINACH: A smaller portion than last week’s big bag from last fall’s planting. The February planting isn’t nearly as lush.

GREEN ONIONS: These are out of the field from an over-wintered patch.

ENDIVE: Also called frisee, it is lovely in mixed salads or lightly sauteed

SWISS CHARD: The plants are enormous and hogging the sunlight, so they gotta go!

SPRING TURNIPS: More Japanese delicacies. We should have planted more of these (next year!).

STIR-FRY GREENS: Many of our brassica family, including the bok choy and Napa cabbage have started bolting. They are still tasty and you get a little pretty flower too!

RADISHES: Wish we had lots more of these babies, everyone will get a few.

HERBS: From the perennial herb beds, tarragon and chives.

NEXT WEEK: More lettuce, spinach, herbs and green onions. Finally Hopefully asparagus!

 FARM REPORT: My goodness, have you all looked at the forecast? Freezing temperatures are on the way, maybe even some snow. This is coming after 2 days in the 80s. We are as prepared as we possibly can be since all the row cover we put out last week is still out there, but row cover only helps so much. We are happy that we have not put out any of the warm weather crops yet. The tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cukes and squashes are safely stored for a hopefully soon transplanting. But even the cool-loving crops don’t like freezing and this see-saw of weather can lead to premature bolting. We are currently experiencing the results of this in the high tunnel with the flowering bok choys and napas.

On a related note, at this point we feel that we will delay the start of the 24-week season by one week. That would make the first week May 22/25. Our plan is to add a week at the end of October to make it up. It is funny because last year we started a week early, which was unusual, and ended earlier in the fall. Anyway, the asparagus is really slow to start and the lettuces and other greens and roots are also slow and won’t be big enough to hand out. We’ll look at it again next week and give you all an update but that’s what we are thinking at the moment.