In the share this week:
1 lb heritage tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
1 bunch carrots
2 cucumbers
1 fennel bulb
1 cabbage head
1 bunch sweet onions
1 bunch sweet basil
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
The tomatoes are finally coming on this week! It always feels like a long wait for those beautiful orbs to start ripening. They look so big and so green for so long. And I'm always hopeful we'll start picking in late June, but realistically it's the first week of July. Every time. Since they are just getting going, you'll either get a pound of our big tomatoes (and some of them are 1 lb fruits) or a pint of cherry tomatoes. We have four different varieties of heritage tomatoes - marnero (dark purplish, pink - pictured right), margold (yellow with red striping), abigail (dark pink beefsteak - pictured left), and enroza (smaller dark pink). These varieties are delicious hybrids generally created by breeding heirloom tomatoes together to increase disease resistance while maintaining excellent flavor. We also have four varieties of cherry tomatoes this year - cherry bomb (red), sungold (orange/yellow), black cherry (purplish), and sunrise bumblebee (yellow with red striping). We will typically mix these different varieties of cherries in the same pint, but as we start to harvest more we'll have pints of just red cherry tomatoes available too. Our classic red and orange slicing tomatoes come from determinate varieties and those should be coming on in the next week too.
Another new item in the share this week is basil. This herb is a classic pairing with tomatoes and would be good sliced on top of this tomato and fennel salad:
I like to give lots of recipe ideas for fennel since it seems to be a vegetable that folks have trouble using and getting to like. The key with fennel is to slice it thinly if eating raw and give it enough cook time is sliced thicker. We also have the last of the spring cabbage this week - either a red cabbage or green. We love sauteed cabbage and onions around here and fennel would be a great addition to this mix. I like the idea of doing a spiced version of this side dish as well, so here's an idea for an indian spiced cabbage and fennel dish:
We are in the last three weeks before our strawbale workshop and the timeline is tight to get everything finished. Our slab is getting poured this week as long as the rain timing cooperates. It's a weird spot for me, because the farm definitely needs some rain but I'm also hoping for no rain so we can stay on our timeline. Our Wednesday Ft. Thomas market has really been badly affected by weather this season and it looks potentially bad again tomorrow. I'll be sending a separate email out to those of you who pick up shares in Ft. Thomas with a weather contingency plan. Send your good weather vibes our way!
Have a good week everyone!