Share 4 - June 1st

In the share this week:

1 bunch beets

1 pint sugar snap peas

1 bag salad mix

1 bag baby kale

2 heads mini romaine lettuce

1 bunch garlic scapes

1 bunch cilantro

Thoughts from Farmer Anna:

As we flip the calendar over into June, the farm seems to be bursting with spring goodies. The sugar snap peas are doing better than usual and we have enough for shares this week. We have the first of the beets coming out of the hoophouse. There is beautiful lettuce galore for some perfect salads over the next few weeks. And for the weeks to come, our incredibly healthy brassica patch has cabbages that are starting to head up, tiny baby broccoli heads that are just starting to grow, kohlrabi that will be ready next week, and that huge and luscious kale you got in shares last week.

We are grateful for this respite from the super hot weather that will keep some of our spring crops from going downhill too fast. The cooler weather crops respond to prolonged hot weather in many different ways like premature bolting, early disease, and uneven ripening. The warm weather also speeds up maturation of many crops, so that even though we may have planted some lettuces two weeks apart in April, they will be ready to harvest within days of each other. This is one of the challenges of making a crop plan for even harvests throughout the season. And of course, crop planning only goes so far when you have to work around the weather. I've learned that you can only plan to a point, then you just have to get out there and plant. There will always be an abundance of certain crops in late spring, and some years bring bumper crops of more finicky vegetables while other years those crops do poorly. Since broccoli is one of my fav vegetables, I'm trying to contain my excitement for a really nice crop this year.

The share this week includes several new crops - beets, peas, garlic scapes and cilantro. The garlic scapes are a fun crop that previous CSA members will recognize and new CSA members may wonder what in the world they should do with. The scape is the immature flower stalk of the hard neck garlic plant and has a lovely garlic flavor. I typically chop the stalks into small pieces and saute before adding to a dish. However, since you also have cilantro in your share this week, I would suggest putting the scapes and cilantro into a blender or food processor with a bit of oil and salt to make a pesto-style paste that would be excellent on fish or chicken, stirred into a rice dish, combined with more oil and vinegar and made into a salad dressing, etc, etc. If you decide to make the cilantro garlic paste, it will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks at least, or in your freezer for months. We often freeze a bit of cilantro early in the season to use in salsas when the tomatoes start coming on. Since cilantro is definitely a cooler weather crop, it's often tough to be harvesting both cilantro and tomatoes at the same time. The beets were a bit of a disappointment, as they didn't size up as much as I was hoping. So you'll have some lovely little baby beets this week. They would be excellent roasted and added to a salad with your salad mix, mini romaine lettuces, or baby kale (or all three together!).

I hope you all enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend! Although both Steve and I had work to do, we made sure to have plenty of good fun and family time too :)