In the share this week:
1 lb red tomatoes
3/4 lb red long onions (pictured below)
2 italian sweet peppers
3 poblano peppers
1 bag carrots
1 bag sweet potato greens
1 bunch cilantro
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
What a difference a week makes! We are enjoying the mild temperatures this week and trying to catch up on the planting and weeding we weren't able to get to last week. These are the last couple weeks of major planting before we can relax a bit and just keep up with the weeds and harvesting. Crops going in this week are radishes, spinach, bok choy, and turnips (both white and scarlet). I'm a little bummed because our fall beet planting was pretty much destroyed by goldfinches. We've been noticing them munching on chard and beets leaves the last few years, but typically they'll wait until the plants are a little bigger. I did not think they would go after tiny seedlings, but since we covered the chard and radicchio (another finch fav) with row cover, I guess they were the only greens in town and they've plucked pretty much everything. I'm doing my best to make the best of the situation by reharrowing those beds (which had honestly gotten pretty weedy anyway) and seeding spinach there. The hope is that the spinach will come up with fewer weeds since we've already let a flush germinate. Next year I'll be more proactive about covering the beets right away!
After a slow couple of weeks of tomato production, we are picking more red tomatoes again this week and they are looking great! The heritage tomatoes are very slow this week, but there is a lot of green fruit on the plants so it looks like we'll have another flush of those coming up as well. The cilantro didn't love the heat last week, but we kept it watered so it still looks nice this week so we are continuing to cut it so we can possibly get a third cut. I was thinking that pretty much everything in your share this week could be used to cook up a big pot of a cuban black bean soup. You can use the recipe below as a starting point, but I would honestly add all of your peppers, onions, tomatoes, carrots and sweet potato greens too. You can garnish with cilantro for serving.
The sweet potato greens are the fun and different item in this week's share. I really love the idea of using them in a soup - that is our family's preference for cooking most greens actually. They can also be used as a substitute for spinach in any recipe that is cooked. I would chop them into ribbons before cooking to lessen their whole leaf impact, but they are really pretty tender (more so than kale sometimes). These greens are commonly eaten in many asian cultures and are a fun way to get an additional crop from the sweet potatoes, which love the heat of late summer when most greens are not very happy.
Well, I think I'll keep it short this week so I have a little time for reading and relaxing this evening. Hope you all have a great week!