Bulk List---Week 5

The Asian greens are all coming in at once, and are prime for harvest. Bok choi and tat soi are great additions to dishes you can preserve, like kim chee.

Bok Choi or tat soi: Large head or bunch: $3.00/head
Strawberries (ther are a few quarts available this week): $5/qt
Fresh herbs (sage, oregano, lavendar flowers, fennel): $3.00/bunch
Dried herbs: $2.50/tin

In the Share - Week 5

FORELLENSCHLUSS LETTUCE (F/P) The 'Troutback' is a prettily-speckled and melt-in-your-mouth tender romaine.

STRAWBERRIES (F/P) As the patch ages, the berries don't keep as well. Devour these soon after receiving.

SUGARSNAP PEAS (F/P) The first peas from the half of the patch that survived the spring.

BROCCOLI (F) The broccoli is going quick. This is it's last performance until it's grand encore in the fall.

TURNIPS, BEETS OR KOHLRABI (F) Partial shares will get this choice next week.

GREENS CHOICE: (F/P) Swiss Chard, Kale, Bok choi or Tatsoi. Full shares get a choice of two, partial shares one.

SCALLIONS OR ARUGULA (F/P) The only arugula of the season is here now and not again til fall.

HERB CHOICE (F/P) Parsley, Dill, Summer savory or a dried herb. New dried herb packages this week will have bay or chili peppers. Read on Farmer Tom's post for more info.

ALSO THIS WEEK: Bread of Life Bakery shares

The weather continues to give us lots of opportunities for work. Today we focused our attentions on the spring field. Emily and I tied up cherry tomatoes while Matt mowed and Farmer Tom ... took photos (!?!)

The spring field is full and growing fast. We all pitched in to add more hay mulch to the no-till potatoes. Here's farm apprentice, Matt Maes, showing good form.

So far we continue to find much to do even with 'Grandpa' the Tractor still out on service. Farmer Tom will fill you in on that one. Luckily, I suppose, much of our work requires us to walk the fields and tend the crops by hand. In the case of our no-till beds, a bit of stoop labor at the start of the season eliminates weeding time later on. Many crops, like potatoes, prefer the environment that the hay mulch provides and yield much better than in the open ground.

In the Share - Week 4

morning harvest

BROCCOLI (F/P) Spring broccoli is never a shoe-in, but this week at least it shines.

LETTUCE (F/P) The heat is getting to our some of our lovelies, but most varieties are staying cool under pressure.

STRAWBERRIES (F/P) from the patch that just keeps on giving.

GARLIC SCAPES (F/P) the flower bud from the hardneck garlic patch. Scapes are incredibly tender and delicate - perfect for Farmer Tom's Garlic Scape and Strawberry Dressing.

RADISHES (F) The last of the spring crop.

ENDIVE (F/P) Something we are starting to experiment growing more of. A pleasingly bitter salad green. Tom paired it with above dressing - yum. Let us know if we should be growing more of it.

HERB CHOICE (F/P) dill, mint, oregano or dried herb

ALSO THIS WEEK: Parker Farms delivery

NEXT WEEK: maybe the first sugarsnap peas, more broccoli, lettuce and strawberries.

This has been a good week for farming. Plenty of sunshine and the return of the warm air has brought lots of plant growth. The cherry tomatoes have begun developing their first green fruit. While the planting continues, we have caught up on the backlog of plants and seeds that had been delayed by the cool, wet weather of the past 2 weeks.

peppers and tomatoes newly planted

A sign of the change is that we fired up the irrigation system. The submersible pump left it's winter vacation in the greenhouse for it's summer job floating in the pond. Some minor repair of the floats was necessary due to our pesky muskrat pond-dwellers, but after short work we floated her out, plugged her into the solar panels and flipped the switch. With water now pumping heartily to the fields all that was left to do was roll out the tape along each row. The farm crew has made short work of that so that now all of our summer crops have had a deep watering and are handling the transplant with grace.

water pumping thanks to the sun

Bulk List---Week 4

The strawberries keep coming, as does the lettuce and herbs.


Lettuce: $3.50/hd
Strawberries $5/qt; $3.50 u-pick
Fresh herbs: (mint, fennel, galic chives, oregano) $3.00/bunch
Dried herbs: $2.50/tin

What to Do With Your Share---Week 4

Quite a mix in this week's share, from broccoli to strawberries. For most all of the ingredients, I'm sure you know what to do. But sometimes, you just have to listen to the share, and come up with something new.

One option is lettuce wraps. A great recipe from our friend Heather Hands is here. We made some for Sunday brunch that was simply leftover stir-fry with some fresh greenery added. Simple.

Another option is this week's main recipe. I originally wanted to do a garlic scape dressing, and then thought that a few strawberries might be a good addition. I think it was a good idea.

Garlic Scape and Strawberry Dressing (over Endive)
One of the things that made this especially nice was the homemade yogurt. It is also a great dressing on the endive. You can adjust you dressing proportions to suit your taste.

Ingredients
3 garlic scapes
3 strawberries
1 to 1-1/2 cups plain yogurt
1-1/2 tsp sugar or 2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil



Method
Coarsley chop the garlic scapes and place in a food processor or blender. Chop fine. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
Chop endive coarsley and add dressing to consistency of a light slaw. Let site 5 minutes to 1 hour.



As promised in a recent email, here is a great strawberry jam recipe.

Strawberry Jam
5 lbs strawberries
8 to 10 cups sugar or organic evaporated cane juice

- Clean strawberries, removing leaves and white hulls
- Place berries in 6 to 8 quart pot.
- Crush berries with a potato masher (crush in separate layers)
- Add sugar and cook to boiling, stirring often
- Skim occasionally
- Cook until mixture thickens to desired consistency, about 3 to 4 hours over medium heat
- Fill canning jars and process in boiling water bath for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on your elevation.

In the Share - Week 3

green garlic harvest

This week I will be brief. We are expending all of our energy on planting the crops and very little is left for the blogging. Finally the gods have given us a break from the wet and our fields are prime for planting. So far this week the winter squash, pickling cucumbers, melons and tomatoes are in. This adds to our earlier plantings of summer squash, cucumbers and tomatoes that have been sitting with cold feet. If we're lucky once the shares are harvested tomorrow, we'll get the peppers, eggplant and basil planted. Still on deck are pole beans, more squash, cukes and melons.

And there's the strawberries. The crop is starting nicely. We harvest the patch every morning. Everyone gets a pint this week. By next week we may be up to a quart per share. Also, the lettuce is much, much improved over last week's offerings. I apologize for the sad state of the lettuce last week. It was a muddy mess out there, I tell you. But this week, we've got some beauties and lots of them. So, the full shares are getting 3 heads, the partials 2. Here's the list:

LETTUCE (F/P)

STRAWBERRIES (F/P)

GREEN ONIONS (F/P)

RADISHES OR HAKUREI TURNIPS (F/P)

TAT SOI (F)

HERB CHOICE (F/P) Cilantro, tarragon or mint

EXTRA: Shallot tops - 1 bunch for all if you who want them. They are the chive-like tops off the shallots. We have heard that trimming the shallots gives a boost to their root development, so we might as well eat them.

While the ground was still soggy we headed over to the Parker Farms picnic on Saturday. Their farm, as always, was beautiful. The animals seemed to be enjoying the spring. Here's the hen house where our eggs come from.

the lovely ladies

What to Do With Your Share---Week 3

Pooped. Not the best word to start a food blog, but one that applies this week. Our overtime work to catch up on planting, along with taking the engine block head and radiator out of our main tractor has been a bit exhausing. We borrowed a boroscope from a local shop and Keith Stubblefield spotted Grandpa's burnt valve problem. I took out the radiator and found a shop in North KC where they said it was 80% plugged. As we speak they are getting ready back East to rebuild the whole thing. Hoping we don't have any leftover parts when we put it back together.



But through it all we have eaten well, enjoying a wonderful Parker Farms leg of lamb. A main ingredient in the sauce was mint jelly. I made some in preparation of Bad Seed's Food Preservation Class series. Fellow member Emily Akins and I are teaching a series of 4 classes on how to do everything from making mint jelly, to pickling a cornichon, to making catsup/ketchup, to fermenting sauerkraut. The details are here, at http://www.badseedfarm.com/.

I have heard from more than one person that the stir fry recipe from last week's blog is good. Between this week's and last week's share you should have all the makings for an incredible fresh stir fry. Make sure you take advantage of the Asian greens, green garlic and turnips.

While we are lettuce heavy this week, it needn't be a bad thing. The Romaine lettuce is perfect for a Ceaser salad. You can add things like chicken or tofu to make it a meal. I searched on Google, and found videos for "tasty," "most bitchin,'" "delicious," "crispy," "killer," and "real" salads. Take your pick.