CSA Newsletter for August 23, 2015

Farm Update

The cherry tomatoes are ripening nicely now that it is a
little warmer.

Hello everyone!  The week started out pretty hot, which really helped spur on the ripening of the tomatoes.  We have also started to see a few tomato hornworms, which if you are unfamiliar with them, are really big and gross.  On Thursday our employee Keegan, who has been with us for three seasons now, struck out to begin an airplane repair training program.  This is his first step in his career plan to become a pilot, and we're going to miss him around the farm!  Another big thing that happened Thursday was that we successfully passed the first round of our GAP certification process.  GAP certification is a voluntary third-party food safety certification that will eventually allow us to provide our produce in schools, hospitals, and large grocery stores.  This is another step forward in growing the farm, and we hope it will allow us to provide fresh organic produce to the local community in new ways.

What to Expect in Your Share This Week

At the regular drop-offs:

• Choice of snap beans, broccoli, or leeks
• Choice of cherry tomatoes or apples
• Choice of kale or Swiss chard
• Choice of beets or cabbage
• Choice of zucchini or basil
• Choice of head lettuce, spring mix, or a bag of small storage onions
• Choice of tomatoes, cucumbers, or shallots

For home/workplace delivery:

A Share:                    B Share:
Snap beans                Broccoli
Cherry tomatoes       Cherry tomatoes
Kale                          Swiss chard
Zucchini                   Basil
Lettuces                    Lettuces
Cucumber                 Slicing tomato
Beets                         Cabbage

Veggie Spotlight:  Cabbage

Savoy and green cabbages

Every year there are certain crops that do especially well, as the particular weather conditions of a given season favor certain veggies.  This year’s ridiculously productive veggie is cabbage, which has really done well under temperatures and rainfall that have been optimal for cabbage almost the entire summer.

Cabbage is recorded as being eaten since around 1000 BC, but like many vegetables, it has changed quite a bit over that time. The first cabbage plants were thought to have originated in the cooler northern parts of Europe. These first early cabbages were actually very loose and leafy, more similar to kale, and were mentioned frequently in Roman writings.  It was possibly as early as 200 BC that the heading types started to appear, but this is still unclear. 

I love the vibrant color of red cabbages!

In medieval times, the cabbage was more associated with the European peasants, for whom it was a large part of their diet. Because cabbage is generally hardier than most other crops, European peasants could count on there being cabbage to eat even when weather events caused other crops to fail.  The first recorded account of Savoy cabbage was from when Catherine di Medici married Henri II of France and brought Savoy cabbage to France with her, though it is widely thought to have been developed somewhere in Germany. In the next couple of centuries, cabbage started to become more prominent on long voyages as sauerkraut.  This was because of the ability to preserve the vitamin C in the cabbage, which would prevent scurvy.  Every year we give a bunch of cabbage to our neighbor who makes a similar traditional sauerkraut for both of our families and a few friends.

         At our farm we grow red, Savoy, Napa, and our favorite “Tendersweet” cabbage, which is green and flat.  We start the plants by seeding them in flats in the greenhouse, where they grow for four or five weeks before we transplant them into the soil.  In the spring, we mostly raise them on beds covered with black plastic, thus keeping the leaves cleaner to help ward off soil-borne diseases.  The plastic also warms the cool spring soil to get the plants growing faster.  These cabbage plants are heavy feeders and require a lot of soil fertility.  We give them slightly less fertility than recommended so we can keep the heads more of a reasonable size for the average household, but after five years of building our soils and the optimal weather we’ve had this season, they have still gotten pretty large.  The largest cabbage record in the Guinness Book of World Records is 127 pounds!  

Lifting a bunch of cabbages is one
 of the hardest parts of the harvest
process, so we often use the tractor
to help.

        Harvesting cabbage is a lot less complicated than many other crops.  We just cut the head off with a knife after the head is nice and firm, and then trim off some of the outer leaves.  The worst thing about this otherwise easy harvest is just lifting so many heavy crates of cabbage! We do use the forks on the tractor this season to help move cabbage, especially with the large size this season.

          At home our favorite cabbage dish is fried cabbage with bacon and tomato, a little cheese, onion (shallot is even better), and cayenne pepper. We sometimes also make sauerkraut by adding salt and letting the cabbage and salt ferment.  This traditional method of making sauerkraut is a much healthier way than the vinegar method most common today.   The salt preserves the vitamin C, and also leaves a beneficial salt-tolerant bacteria that is very helpful in digestion.  Kimchi is a great way to eat and preserve either Napa or the Savoy cabbage and the right recipe is very addicting. Fred’s parents also freeze a lot of the Tendersweet cabbage for the winter by just slicing it up and putting it in zippered freezer bags.  So if you get a little more cabbage than you will use in the next week, this is a good option.

          This week in the shares you folks will have the option of red, Savoy, Tendersweet, and Napa cabbage.  There are a lot of delicious things to do with cabbage, so if you need ideas, check out the recipes below!

Recipes

Southern Fried Cabbage:  This is pretty similar to one of our favorite ways of making cabbage at home, but I'd use olive oil instead of vegetable oil.

Healing Cabbage Soup:  As the weather gets cooler, soups are an awesome comfort food!  Check out this cabbage soup recipe, but feel free to switch out the chicken bouillon for a more natural alternative like chicken broth or stock, and adjust the amount of water accordingly.