In the share this week:
1.5 lbs mixed slicer tomatoes
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 lb sweet onions
Sweet and/or bell peppers
1 small garlic
1 bag salsa verde mix
2 lbs red beets
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
One of the really enjoyable parts of spending a good part of my days outside, is getting to see the stunning variety of birds and insects that live here with us. In some ways, I wish I would have done a bird and insect inventory of the farm when we first moved here so that I could prove how much the biodiversity has increased under our care. While I don't have the hard data, I can tell you that we have a list of at least 52 different bird species that have been sighted on the farm, including a new one seen just this weekend - an eastern meadowlark. The meadowlark is a fairly large and very striking bird, with a bright yellow breast, a black v-shaped 'necklace' and black and white stripes on the back of its head. It needs grassy areas and pastureland for nesting, so maybe it was stopping by to see if this looked like a nice place to raise some young. We often note that our practices of intermittent mowing (maybe 1-2 times per year) in some areas results in the growth of different plant species than areas that are either mowed more frequently or not at all. There are some areas of the farm that had previously been grazed by cattle before we moved here, that we haven't completely mowed in years. We have gotten to see the natural succession of different plants in these areas, from chicory in early years, to ironweed and goldenrod, and now many young trees. We have so many birds here on the farm because we have a great mix of habitats for them, from the vegetable farm, grassy areas, mature forest and the mix of young trees and grassland.
Maybe one of my fun projects this fall will be to catalog the different insects we've seen here. It feels like it will be a much bigger and more involved list than the bird list because there are a whole lotta insects here! A couple of the charismatic insects we are seeing right now are the velvet ant and the cicada killer wasp. These are hard to miss, being both big and brighty colored. They are both actually wasps too, although the female velvet ant is flightless and looks like a large red and black ant, hence the misnomer. Both of these insects are farm neutral, meaning that they aren't herbivores that eat our plants, but they also don't eat any of the herbivorous bugs on the farm either. So they are just fun to have around, since they are cool to see and aren't aggressive. Although I've heard that the velvet ant sting is pretty painful, so don't try to handle one if you ever see them.
Tomatoes are coming on strong this week, so you'll continue to have those in your shares, along with some tomatillos as well! We like to pack the tomatillos in a bag with a jalapeno, garlic clove, and small onion so that you can use these ingredients to make a tasty salsa verde. Basically, you can just roast these veggies together and then blend them in a food processor or blender. This salsa is also very good with some cilantro added, but unfortunately we don't have any fresh right now. Here's a link to a recipe for some ratios:
Our spring beet plantings did so well and we are now just gleaning what is left in the field and finding so many beautiful beets! I made a beet grain bowl that included sauteed carrots and onions, roasted beets, quinoa, feta cheese, toasted walnuts and a homemade vinaigrette for our farm lunch last week. It was scrumptious! If you want to try something a little different, it would be fun to pair beets with some of your tomatoes in this delicious and colorful salad:
That's all for now - have a great week!