Newsletter for June 26, 2016

Farm Update

Our lovely pearl onions

Hi everyone!  It's been a pretty intense week at the farm.  Fred has been out there pretty much nonstop, harvesting, washing, and packing veggies for the CSA and wholesale, moving irrigation around, weeding, chasing away deer, and all of the multitude of other things we do at the farm.  One thing we haven't done much of this week is planting, because it's so dry that anything we plant runs a really strong risk of just not coming up.  Usually we plant every week or two, so that we have veggies that are the right size for harvest at any given time, but the conditions have just been so unfavorable for it that we decided not to last week.  That has its own pros and cons; the pro is that we won't expend valuable resources (seed, time, labor expenses) only to not have the crops come up, but the con is that we run the risk of having a gap in crop availability later in the summer.  We're supposed to get a pretty big rain system this afternoon, so we have our fingers crossed that it will hit us and give us the rain we need to get back into our normal production patterns.  Fred is hosting a transplanting workshop through MSU out at the farm today, so farmers and future farmers from all over will be visiting us at the farm.  As much as you don't usually want rain during an event like that, I bet pretty much everyone there would be happy to get rained on today. :-)

What to Expect in Your Share this Week

Not only are our baby carrots
beautiful, nothing beats a fresh,
locally-grown carrot for flavor!

Here are the options in each veggie station this week!  If you have a half share, you'll choose one from each category, and if you have a full share, you'll choose two.  You'll probably notice that there are fewer options than we usually have, and that is also due to the extreme dryness.  Many of the crops aren't sizing the way they should be due to lack of moisture, so the variety coming out of the field is a lot more limited than usual.  We're hoping to start getting some consistent rain so the veggies can get back on track and you guys can have lots of choices in your shares!

• Baby carrots
• Pearl onions
• Lettuces (might be any combination of romaine, spring mix, read leaf lettuce, or head lettuce)
• Zucchini
• Small cabbage, bok choy, or green onions
• Kale or cooking greens
• Surprise veggie!

If you have your share delivered to your home or workplace, or if you pick up at our East Lansing drop-off, here are your options for this week.  If you have a half share, choose one, and if you have a full share, choose two.

Share A:                                      Share B:

Baby carrots                                Baby carrots
Pearl onions                                 Pearl onions
Lettuce                                         Lettuce
Zucchini                                      Zucchini
Small cabbage                             Bok choy
Cooking greens                           Kale
Surprise veggie                           Surprise veggie

If you have a preference for share A or share B, just let me know by noonish the day before your delivery day, and I'll make sure you get your preferred share.  If you don't have a preference, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Recipes

One of the fun things about having a CSA is introducing people to veggies they've never tried before.  I absolutely love it when someone comes to the drop-off the next week after taking home something they've never seen before (kohlrabi, garlic scapes, bok choy, microgreens) and tells me how they prepared it and how much they loved it.  I had a friend come to the Alma drop-off last week and ask what one does with bok choy, so I figured some of you might be wondering the same thing.  So Clare (and everyone else), just in case you're still wondering, here are 10 great things to do with bok choy!