In Your Share (June 10th edition)

The first HOT days of summer are here! This week is supposed to be in the 90’s and we’ve been working hard to keep all the veggies happy in the heat. The crew always harvests lettuce & cooking greens early in the morning before any field heat can accumulate. This means they’ll look fresher and last longer – and most important – taste better!!

The timing of irrigation can make a big difference to the quality of the veggies as well. Some crops like parsley, celery & celeriac prefer to be watered in the morning so that the foliage can dry off before the evening. This helps to reduce waterborne diseases like leaf spot or septoria. Other crops like the brassica family can often benefit from overhead irrigation in the afternnoon. The veggies can’t jump in the river like we do, but they still appreciate some evaporative cooling on these HOT days.

Hope you have a strategy to stay cool this week! Does it include summer salads? The little lettuce heads in your share this week will be tasty with Hakurei turnips sliced on top and add some fresh garlic to the dressing – yum! Or use your Joi Choi in my favorite Soba Noodle Salad.

You’ll find recipes for alliums and the rest of the veggies in your share at Cook With What You Have. If you’re a CSA member, you will find your Access Key in the most recent farm email. Enjoy 24/7 access to recipe inspiration!

We still have a few spots available in the CSA so feel free to let your friends know they can still get in on the bounty with a pro-rated Summer CSA share share starting next week.

This week your share may include…

  • Joi Choi: Classic asian greens with a wide tasty stem and tender green leaves. My favorite way to use this is in this Soba Noodle Salad.
  • Baby Lettuce Heads: Summer salad season always starts with these little gems! This week the heads have a beautiful red blush.
  • Dragon’s Tongue Greens: This variation on the mustard green was developed locally by Frank Morton at Wild Garden Seed – one of our favorite local seed breeders. It has a beautiful purple color and it is on the mild side so you can also use it raw if you want add a little spice to your salad.
  • Spring Garlic: There is a definite progression of different kinds of garlic through the season. We’re done with green garlic and moving on to spring garlic. These are full sized bulbs, but the skin has not formed between the cloves and they don’t have the protective dry wrappers around the bulb. They are tasty and can be used just like regular garlic, but use them up as the spring onions don’t store well.
  • Yellow Spring Onions: We call them spring onions to differentiate them from storage onions. This time of year the spring onions have beautiful leaves & stems on them which can be used like just like a green onion.
  • Hakurei Turnip: I’m just eating them raw with dip or in salads. Such a nice sweet & crunchy treat!
  • Red Radish: Probably the last you’ll see of these for awhile. They are so good in the spring, but can get pithy & hot in the hot weather. We’ll likely have more in the fall.
  • Yukina Savoy: Dark green spoon shaped savoyed leaves are tasty cooked up with the Joi Choi or sautéed in stir fry.
  • Dried Cayenne Pepper: These make a great little DIY Red Pepper Flakes – just chop them up as fine as you can or use a spare coffee grinder to make them into a powder. You can also put a whole pepper into a pot of soup – just pull it out before serving or you’re in for a spicy surprise.

Coming soon… HOT WEATHER!!