In Your Share (July 18th edition)

This cool weather has been great for crops like lettuce and broccoli. It has also extended the sugar snap pea harvest by an extra week – YUM! That said, we are hoping that the sun comes out soon because we’d like to have summer squash, green beans and tomatoes in the share too and they are soooooo close.

This week on the farm we’re going to build more trellis’ for tomatoes and pole beans, seed over 500 trays of fall and winter crops, and plant more lettuce, basil and fennel.

This week your share may include…

  • Beets: There are regular red, a pink heirloom italian heirloom called Chioggia, and cylindrical yellow beets in the bunches this week. The greens are great too – cook them just like you would spinach or chard.
  • Broccoli: Nice heads in the share this week
  • Carrots: We’ve been waiting patiently and finally they’re here – sweet baby bunches of  carrots! This is our best variety so far – Nelson, but we continue to trial others to see if there is an even better carrot out there. In a few weeks you can try Jeanette and Baltimore and let us know what you think.
  • Fava Beans: To double peel or not to double peel, this is the question? Definitely YES says the NY Times. Definitely NO say our Local Experts. My opinion – just depends on how much time I have!
  • Fennel: The mild anise flavored bulb is very versatile – it can be shaved into salads and is also great in gratins. More ideas here.
  • Garlic: The heads are not completely dried down yet so they won’t store very long. You’ll want to eat them sooner rather than later anyway – they’re just bursting with good garlic flavor.
  • Lettuce Heads: You’ll have romaine and butterhead to chose from this week.
  • Peas: Hip Hip Hooray for peas! These are sugar snap peas which means you can eat the sweet crunchy pods too. We’re close to the end of pea season so enjoy them while they last.
  • Spring Onions: These onion sets were planted in February when we had a short but lovely bit of dry weather.  The green tops and any flower stems poking out are edible too.

Coming soon… all we need is a little sunshine and we should have summer squash, green beans and even (gasp!) tomatoes : )