In Your Share (July 9th edition)

I put new points on the chisel plow!! Some of the old ones were almost completely rounded off from many years of use. I know it doesn’t look like much, but this tool does ALOT of work on the farm for us. The chisel tips go quite deep – especially when they’re new & pointy –  and they lift the soil without turning or flipping it. I use it as first pass before tilling to reduce the chance of compaction. It also seems to do a nice job disturbing the roots of deeper weeds. This is an old, but very effective tool we’re glad to have fixed up and put to work again on the  farm!

You can download Recipe Packet for this week’s share HERE. These are written by my friend Katherine Deumling at Cook With What You Have. This week she included some inspired salads – perfect since our summer weather has finally arrived!! She also included a few recipes for fava beans, but then they didn’t ripen as fast as I expected. Save the recipes because there should be lots of fresh fava beans next week!

We still have a few SUMMER SHARES for sale!! Follow the links above to sign up.

This week your share may include…

• Arugula: Makes a perfect summer salad!
• Carrots: Baby bunches of sweet tasty little summer carrots.
• Collards: We think of these as winter greens, but this time of year they are still tender and tasty.
• Spring Garlic: We harvested all the garlic last week and it is drying in the big white barn at Luscher Farm. The heads in your share this week are mature, but haven’t been cured through the drying process. They’re often more mild than fully cured garlic so you can use lots!
• Kohlrabi: With the leaves on this little root looks slightly alien, and to many americans it is an unfamiliar vegetable. In northern europe, kohlrabi is considered a mundane crop as common as potatoes or carrots are here. I love the sweet crunchy taste of the bulb and often eat it raw or grate it into salads or slaw. Peel the skin off the bulb and use the tender center. The leaves are also good sauteed as you would collards or kale.
• Lettuce Heads: Beautiful little heads of Butter Lettuce.
• Mizuna or Mustard Greens: Two nice tender greens to chose from this week. The mizuna has a finely dissected frilly leaf and a more mild flavor. The mustard greens have a savoyed leaf and some spice to them – but only if eaten raw – cooking them tames the heat down considerably.
• Peas: These Sugar Snap peas are so bountiful this week!
• Spring Onions: These little onions still have all their leaves on. Use the bulb as you would a regular onion and think of the green tops as giant scallions. The tops would be great raw on salad or lightly sauteed with mustards and added to lentil soup – both in your recipe packet this week.
• Radish: These perfect little spring radishes have nice greens too. The prickles on the leaves disappear completely when you saute them and they’d be great combined with mizuna or mustards.