Farm Update
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| It is so great to see all the plants looking so healthy and verdant again after such a long drought! The crops are definitely glad about all the rain we've been getting! |
Hi everyone! I hope you're all enjoying your veggies so far and making some awesome meals! We've definitely been enjoying having the bounty of summer veggies in our kitchen, and it is wonderful to have such a wide variety of great produce to work with! During the winter and early spring, what we can make is very limited by the lack of good veggies, so we really relish this time of year when almost any food we want to make is possible! We've had the first few cherry tomatoes in our kitchen for the last few weeks, and this week we finally have enough ripe cherry tomatoes to bring to you! The yellow cherry tomato variety that will be in the shares this week is Golden Nugget, which an open pollenated variety with great heirloom tomato flavor. They'll have a slightly shorter shelf life than some of the cherry tomato varieties that appear later in the season, but my guess is that won't be a problem, because they're so delicious you'll probably want to eat them all right away! We've also got some really nice slicing tomatoes that are coming along nicely in the hoophouses, and they should be ready to harvest in a few weeks. They're still green right now, but I'm already getting excited for the first BLT of the season. It feels like real summer now that we're into tomato and basil season!
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| These golden cherry tomatoes are coming in the shares this week! |
With all this heat and rain, things are really taking off! The crops are growing really quickly, and so are the weeds. In any given week, we spend most of our time harvesting, and we felt like the weeds were getting away from us earlier in the week. Fortunately, the farm crew was able to get a lot of weeding done later in the week, and things are back under some semblance of control for now. The insect pressure we were experiencing a few weeks ago has also gone down now that it's not so dry out. When we hadn't had rain in weeks, all the plants in the ecosystem surrounding the farm were really struggling, and naturally, the bugs wanted to eat the healthiest plants they could find. Unfortunately, those were all the plants that we were irrigating like crazy, so it was definitely a battle to keep them all from getting eaten by desperate insects. But now that we have gotten plenty of rain, the bugs have dispersed to other areas to avail themselves of all the lush green foliage that is around in the environment now.
We are also excited to be making progress on getting the new hoophouse built! If you've been reading the newsletter for a while, you may remember that we bought an old hoophouse at an auction in November. We were just waiting for the weather to turn around enough to start reconstructing it at the farm, but we ran into a labor snafu back in March, and Fred wasn't able to get it put up before the planting season was in full swing. We've been working on it little by little in the time margins that have presented themselves, but it was definitely slow going. Yesterday our friend Danny came up to help at the farm, and he and Fred got some major work done on it! There are still a few structural things we need to do with it, and then we have to put the plastic on, but it really feels like we are making real progress on the project, which is a relief.
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| The new hoophouse is coming along well! We've got tomatoes planted in it already, and when we get the plastic on, that will help protect the plants from the temperature fluctuations and cold rain we inevitably get in the fall. |
Last week of the CSA, we had a whole bunch of people postpone their shares because of the 4th of July holiday. If that's you, you can either get a double share this week, or some week in the future if that works better for you. I have put all of the folks who postponed last week down for a double share this week by default unless you told me otherwise, but if you have an extra share coming to you and you don't want it this week, just send me an email or text and we can defer it to some future week. If you have a prepacked share, when you fill out the form to let me know what share you prefer, you'll just select the full share option if you're making up for missing last week. And if you postponed your share last week, but you just fill out the form and select a half share this week, I'll just assume that you are planning to take your makeup share sometime in the future. This can get a little confusing, so if you have any questions, just let me know!
So that's it for this week! Thank you so much, and we'll see you at the drop-offs! :-)
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.
- Cherry tomatoes or beets
- Carrots
- Spring mix or cucumbers
- Zucchini or pearl onions
- Green onions or basil
- Kale, bok choy, collards, or Swiss chard
- Microgreens mix, micro cilantro, kohlrabi, or dill
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:
- Cherry tomatoes
- Carrots
- Spring mix
- Pearl onions
- Basil
- Collards
- Micro cilantro
Share B:
- Cherry tomatoes
- Carrots
- Cucumbers
- Zucchini
- Basil
- Swiss chard
- Kohlrabi
Share C:
- Beets
- Carrots
- Cucumbers
- Zucchini
- Green onions
- Kale
- Microgreens mix
Recipes
Once we start having cherry tomatoes, basil, and zucchini, it feels like real summer! And just in case you don't already have plans for those beloved summer veggies, Fred has been making this really delicious salad lately that uses all three of them! This is a true summer salad, and it only takes a few minutes to make!
Fred's Summer Zucchini Salad
Ingredients: Zucchini, cherry tomatoes, basil, shaved parmesan cheese, olive oil, salt. Use whatever amounts make sense to you. :-)
Chop zucchini into bite size pieces. Put olive oil into a medium size pan over medium heat. Sautee zucchini in olive oil until it is cooked through but not mushy. Pour zucchini and remaining oil from pan into a large bowl and let it cool for a few minutes. While you're waiting, cut your cherry tomatoes in half, and chop up your basil. Once the zucchini is cooled down a little bit, add the basil and cherry tomatoes to the bowl. Add salt and shaved parmesan cheese to taste, and stir it all up. If you feel like you need to add a little more oil to get a nice salad dressing-y texture, go ahead and do so. Serve as a side dish and enjoy! You could also switch it up a little bit by stirring in some goat cheese, or adding grilled chicken to make it more of a main dish. This is a salad you can enjoy all summer long in different variations!
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