Share 7 - week of July 7th
In the share this week:
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch beets
1 bunch long red onions
2 green bell peppers
1 salad mix
Summer squash mix
1 quart (5) pickling cucumbers
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
We survived our first major heat wave of the summer last week! It was nice that the week coincided with our CSA break so that we had a little more flexibility in our schedule and do some lighter work, or take off in the afternoon. We ended up having to bring our walk-behind tractor down to Earth Tools in Owenton, KY (www.earthtools.com) for an engine replacement. We've used that machine hard for the last 13 years, so it's not surprising that the engine finally gave out. Happily, they were able to get our tractor all fixed up within a week so Cole will be headed back down there to pick it up tomorrow afternoon. We really love basing our farm on this minimal piece of equipment with such amazing service and support from a local KY company. These guys are some of my favorite mechanics to talk to. Last year, we were having an issue that I needed help diagnosing. When I called Earth Tools, the owner himself answered and ended up walking me through several possibilities. I was able to fix that problem myself with his help and it didn't cost me a dime. Needless to say, I'm happy to pay these guys when the tractor needs more than I'm able to easily do myself!
Now that we're fully into July all the summer crops are really getting going! We've started to harvest the first of our tomatoes, both cherry and slicer varieties. We should have those in shares for you starting next week. The cucumbers and summer squash are still going strong. Our son Robin and his friend Henry are working on the farm this summer and we're having fun carving faces in a couple of pickling cucumbers that got too big before feeding them to the chickens (pic above :)
An exciting new item in the shares this week are the carrots! These babies were planted in mid-April and are looking pretty darn nice. Carrots are a tough crop and we struggled with them last year due to intense rain in the spring and generally poor germination. We are doing much better with our plantings this year, so we'll have a more of these crunchy, sweet veggies for you over the coming weeks!
I was thinking that a stir-fry with your carrots, green pepper, squash and onion would be tasty this week! Use this recipe as a guide for the sauce. Stir fry is super adaptable to lots of different veggies.
This has been a bumper beet crop this year! I know you are potentially a little tired of beets, but they have just been so nice and this recent planting sized up really well with all the rain we had in June. Remember that beets are amazing pickled and can easily be canned so they can sit on your shelf and bring you some sweet summer joy in the middle of winter :)
Here's a nice reference for pickling vegetables with recipes for both beets and cucumbers:
https://rejoicenutritionwellness.com/simple-pickled-veggies-cucumbers-carrots-beets/
The lettuces weren't super happy about the heat wave last week, but we do our best to keep them going with shade cloth over newly planted beds. This will be the last week of salad mix for all shares for awhile, but we will still have plenty available and should have some of our summer head lettuces coming in shares during the summer too.
Alrighty, that's all for now. Hope you have a great week!