Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for Week 5

   Farm Update

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all enjoying your veggies!  We're definitely glad to have gotten some rain last week!  Fred and I breathed a huge sigh of relief on Tuesday night when we got our first big rain in weeks, and the plants are definitely looking perkier as well.  We got another good rain yesterday afternoon, and it's like a weight has been lifted off of our shoulders.  So now that we don't have to spend so much time irrigating, we can get back to all the weeding that still needs to get done.  There will likely be more weeding in the upcoming weeks (since those rains inevitably also germinated plenty of weed seeds), but for right now, we are just thrilled to have some moisture in the soil.

These white onions will be in the
shares this week!

Most people think of fall as harvest time, and while we actually harvest a variety of crops five days a week throughout the CSA season, we also do several major harvests of specific crops as well.  On Thursday and Friday, we did our big annual garlic harvest, and now all of the garlic is out of the ground and curing in the greenhouse.  Many of you got some of our fresh garlic in your shares two weeks ago, which is the first garlic of the year, and because it's uncured, needs to be used up sooner than the garlic you're used to from the store.  Over the last few days, we pulled up all of the rest of the garlic from the field, loaded it onto our flatbed trailer, and brought it to the greenhouse.  Then we spread it out on the greenhouse benches, which are really more like wire tables.  The benches usually are covered with flats of tiny plants that are working on growing to the size where they can be transplanted in the field, but they are currently available to serve as a garlic-curing surface now that we are done with our major transplanting push.  For the next several weeks, the garlic will stay in the greenhouse until it starts to develop the papery skin we're all used to and which signals that the garlic is now ready to last for months out at room temperature.  Thus, even though it's July and fresh vegetables are almost at the height of their abundance, we're already looking ahead to the time when we'll need that preserved garlic that we harvested in the fullness of summer to get us through the leaner winter months.

This recently harvested garlic is waiting
on the trailer to be brought over to the 
greenhouse for curing.

And nothing signals that we are in full summer more than blueberries!  It is finally blueberry season, and there are a bunch of beautiful ripe berries on our bushes ready to harvest!  You'll all be getting a pint of blueberries in your shares this week, and we'll likely have them for a few more weeks after that as well!  

Because we never know how many will be ready to harvest at once, and indeed, how much labor we'll have available to harvest them, I am going to also tentatively start taking orders for bulk blueberries.  If you are interested in getting blueberries to put in the freezer or make jam, we'll have them available in 10-pound (13 pint) increments, and it will be $44 per 10 pounds.  Usually we get a flood of blueberry orders, so we might not be able to supply all the orders that come in.  I'll fill them on a first-come, first-serve basis, and we might not actually know until the day of your drop-off whether we'll have bulk blueberries for you (because they ripen at different rates and we have a varying availability of people to harvest them).  If you put in an order for bulk blueberries, I'll let you know as soon as we know whether we'll have them, but don't be entirely surprised if you get a text on the morning of your drop-off letting you know we'll have them.  Alas, that's just the nature of the blueberry beast.  But if you're interested in yummy bulk organic blueberries, they'll be $44 for 10 pounds (13 pints), and you can just fill out this form to put in an order!

So that's it for this week!  See you all at the drop-off!

What to Expect in the Shares this Week

 

If you pick up at our Alma, Mt. Pleasant, or Midland drop-off, here are the options for your shares!  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item from each choice category, and if you have a full share, you’ll choose two.  And if there is something you don’t like or can’t eat, you can bring it to the trading station at the end and trade it for something you like better. 

• Blueberries for everyone!
• Beets or potatoes
• Carrots or cucumbers
• Zucchini or micros
• Garlic or white onions
• Cabbage, kale, Swiss chard, or cilantro
• Spring mix or romaine

 

If you pick up at our Lansing, Okemos, St. Johns, Midland hospital, or Alma hospital drop-off, or if you have home or workplace delivery, here are your options!  We have three different prepacked shares, and you can let me know which one you want by filling out this quick form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off.  If you have a half share, you can choose one of these options, and if you have a full share, you’ll choose two.

Share A:

• Blueberries
• Beets
• Carrots
• Microgreens
• White onions
• Kale
• Spring mix

 

Share B:

• Blueberries
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Zucchini
• Garlic
• Cabbage
• Romaine

 

Share C:

• Blueberries
• Potatoes
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Garlic
• Swiss chard
• Spring mix

 

Recipes

 

This Beet Salad with Lemon Dressing is just one
of these great beet recipes!

Beets are one of those things where you either love them and have several go-to beet recipes, or you've never really eaten them except as a side dish at Thanksgiving.  Whether you're a confirmed beet-lover or you've never really worked with them before, here are 22 of Our Best Beet Recipes from Taste of Home that will give you some great ideas, from beet salads to beet pizzas to roasted beets and pickled beets!  There is something for everyone here, so check it out! :-)