Cherry tomatoes ripening

TOMATOES (F/P) We have just enough for everyone to get one tomato or some cherry tomatoes and not all the fruit you get is completely ripe. To ripen a tomato, leave it on your kitchen counter or for quicker ripening place in a paper bag. Ripe tomatoes of any color (and we grow a lot of different colors) feel soft with gentle pressure. Most of what we have this week are hybrid early reds and heirloom “black” varieties (more burgundy or brown really with various amounts of green-shoulders) and there’s a few pink ones. By the end of the season we hope you get a chance to try all of our 30 varieties and find a few favorites.

CARROTS (F/P) While the tomatoes are just starting, the carrot harvest is in full swing. More sweet orange carrots from the April planting.

CUCUMBERS (F/P) The struggling first planting of cucumbers has turned the corner and is pumping out the fruit.

EGGPLANT and/or GREEN PEPPERS (F/P) The graceful eggplants and peppers are also giving up their jewels.

SUMMER SQUASH (F) The first planting of summer squash has been a bit of a dud. The second planting of round squashes is looking good and is just starting to come in. As happens in the squash patch, a few got larger than we want. These will be at the end of the line as a “take what you want” extra. They would be great stuffed or turned into baked goods.

WALLA WALLA SWEET ONIONS (F/P) See Tom’s recipe for a sweet onion, tomato, cucumber salad. Tastes like summer.

HERBS (F/P) Pesto basil bunches or a mixed bunch of summer herbs.

KOHLRABI (all) Extra item this week for those who want it, last of the season but still very tender and substantial.

ALSO THIS WEEK: Parker Farms shares

NEXT WEEK: More cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, squash and eggplant. Potatoes and beets.

FARM REPORT
Killing weeds is one of our favorite ways to kill time on the farm. Over the years we have gotten better and quicker at the task. The various cultivators and discs that we attach to our electric Allis Chalmers G made quick work of many a weed this week. Hoes were also put into service for the places the tractor can’t go like around the bigger plants like the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. The leeks are especially demanding of cultivation because they are in the ground for such a long time. After a combination of farmers and CSA members completed the task of hand weeding around the plants, we were able to get them in top notch shape with a few passes of the G.

Leek cultivating

the end result

Summer is in full swing here as the days heat up. Work is demanding in July, but the warm and dry is something that has been missing over the past several years. The weather has produced a crop of peppers and eggplant that is our best to date. We are hoping that the plants maintain their health and produce into the Fall.

If such a fate is ours, you will be eating eggplant, peppers and tomatoes on a regular basis. So here are a few tips to enjoying these wonderful and beautiful vegetables.
1. Do not refrigerate your fresh tomatoes. It adversely affects both taste and texture.
2. Raw and crunchy eggplant can be a turn-off. You should cook you eggplant to the texture of a cooked mushroom.
3. Eggplant does not have a strong flavor, so you can add it to most any dish and it will take on the flavor of the dish.
4. Peppers are easy to preserve. If you have too many just cut them, clean them, chop them (if desired) and freeze them.

Cucumbers are something to use this week, as we are having a good harvest at the moment. The simplest thing is a cucumber, Walla Walla onion, and tomato salad. Cut them up, add the dressing of your choice, and you have a great veggie dish. The Walla Wallas are particularly sweet and make this not just any salad.

The request for pickle packs has been great. We are glad that pickling has become a CSA experience for so many of you. You may have to be patient (you are in the cuke queue) and flexible as far as when you get yours though. We have 200 feet of plants, but they have been temperamental as far as production. The small ones are in highest demand and are the slowest producing.

I’m here to say that the large cukes have great potential too. We recently started a crock of fermented pickles using the large ones. Our friend Linda Coussens gave us a large, high quality Gartopf crock. We started the process on Sunday, filling it with whole cucumbers, onions, garlic, tarragon, dill and salt water. Ten days like that, and then 2 weeks in the larder. So come the end of July we will update you on their progress.

Another good use is making pickle chunks. Get some pickling lime and follow their recipe. Lime pickles are the crunchiest you can get.

Beets: $3.00/quart
Kohlrabi: $1.00/lb
Swiss chard: $3.00/bunch
Carrots: $3.00/bunch
Herbs (summer savory, tarragon, thai basil): $2.50/bunch
Large basil bunch: $3.00/bunch
Walla Walla onions: $3.00/bunch

Pickling packs are available in a limited quantity this week. If we cannot fill your order this week you will be put on a wait list for next week.

When placing your order, be sure to specify what types of aromatics you want. Choices are:
cornichon (tarragon, thyme, garlic, onion, hot peppers, grape leaves)
dill (dill flowers, onion, hot peppers, grape leaves)
garlic (garlic, hot peppers, grape leaves)

Pickle pack (small cukes): $18/pack
Pickle pack (medium cukes): $14/pack
Pickle pack (large cukes): $12/pack

pepper trellis

LETTUCE (F/P) the crisp heads are hopefully holding for this week and then it’s goodbye lettuce until fall.
GREEN GARLIC (F/P) two heads for the full shares, one for the partials, from the beginnings of the garlic harvest. These are full size but not cured. Read Tom’s post for more on use and storage.
NEW POTATOES (F/P) freshly dug new potatoes are like nothing else. Enjoy them soon or refrigerate.
SUMMER SQUASH (F/P) slice and put them on the grill for a tasty Independence Day treat.
GREEN ONIONS (F) Every dish begins with onions so we try to include them in the shares every other week from now through fall.
CHOICE: EGGPLANT, GREEN PEPPERS, CUCUMBERS OR SNOW PEAS (F) this is the last of the spring peas (peas only for the Weds. shares) and the first of the fruits of summer.
BEETS OR KOHLRABI (F) Both crops are to be harvested in bulk this week before the heat takes them out. The extra beets will store beautifully in the walk-in cooler and will be available in bulk for a while longer.
CABBAGE (P) partial shares get their chance to make coleslaw. More for the full shares next week.
KALE OR CHARD (F) grin if you love your greens!
HERB CHOICE (F/P) summer savory, parsley or basil
ALSO THIS WEEK: Bread of Life Bakery shares
NEXT WEEK: More squash, cucumbers and cabbage. Carrots and perhaps beans and cherry tomatoes.
HELLO SUMMER
You can tell it is summer on the farm by how we spend our time. For one thing everything green is growing new leaves, branches, flowers and fruit exponentially. If we ever stood still long enough we could probably perceive the growth of the tomato plants. Once a week we spend several hours trellising the tomato crop. We put our strings about every six inches along the stakes, weaving a new one in and out of the crop about every seven to ten days. For the determinate varieties some are approaching the tops of their cages. After the cold, wet spring of 2010 put a damper on the tomato crop, we are really hoping for a good harvest. We are looking forward to the hot weather forecasted for later this week which sounds like tomato-ripening weather to us. In the meantime we have the beginnings of the cherry tomatoes. If you are lucky there may be one cherry tomato per share this week, just enough to wet your whistle.

Another telltale sign that it is summer is the exuberant growth of plants that we do not want growing on the farm, i.e. weeds. The FSF farm crew has made good headway in this area but there is still a bit more to do. Every so often we get done with harvesting early on a CSA morning and get some extra help from the membership, but for the most part it is the four-person farm crew out on the six acres. Some weeds we can get with the tractor’s cultivators, some we can get with our hoes, but the ones right around the plants have to be pulled by hand. If your idea of a fun Sunday is pulling weeds with your farmers, come on out on the volunteer day on July 10th .

And it wouldn’t be summer in Missouri without a feisty thunderstorm which we awoke to 1 am Monday morning. Small hail, strong winds and three inches of rain.

There is nothing to keep you up at night quite like hearing the wind howl and visualizing entire plants snapping under the pressure of wind, hail and torrential downpours. Happily all but a couple plants survived, some crates were blown around and we spent the better part of the day shoring up more plants. This is the first time we have staked the peppers and so far we are happy with the result.

Fresh Garlic
We feel we are off to a good start with this year’s garlic. The hardneck variety Musik is the plump, 4 to 6 clove garlic in your share this week. We leave the neck on in case you want to hang it up and let it cure some.

You can also use it now. To get at the cloves cut the neck off, and then use a paring knife to slit the outer papers. Once you peel it back you can get to the cloves.

This week we recommend a recipe from last year to go with this week’s veggies. The Grilled Pasta Primavera is a great way to christen the grill for the season. Or, you can use your broiler.

Another good recipe that will take care of this week’s beets, and any others you have in the fridge, is pickled beets (from our July 6, 2005 newsletter). If you like beets, this is a nice way to have them on hand to top a salad, or have on the side. An added bonus is that you can use the pickle juice when you are done just like you would vinegar, and stretch that wonderful flavor even farther.

Order some extra goodies for your week.

Cabbage (small head): $2.50/hd
Onions: $3.00/bunch
Garlic (fresh hardneck): $1.00/head
Kale or Chard: $3.00/bunch
Herbs (tarragon, basil, summer savory): $2.50/bunch
Beets: $3.00/quart

The first carrots

LETTUCE (F/P) The first day of summer marks the beginning of the end of the spring lettuce crop. We are hoping for another couple of weeks with the more heat-tolerant crispheads.
SUMMER SQUASH (F) Good, reliable zucchini and yellow squash. This is the kind of food civilizations were founded upon.
CARROTS (F/P) The first harvest of the season. They’re still growing but are oh so tender at this stage.
GREEN ONIONS (F/P) No more slender scallions, these have some heft. They still need to be refrigerated as long as they have the green tops.
CABBAGE (F) Petite spring cabbages. There will be more and for the partials too next week.
KOHLRABI OR TURNIPS (F) These are most likely the end of both until fall.
SUGARSNAP OR SNOW PEAS (F/P) It was a good harvest (over 300 lbs.) but this is the last of them.
HERB CHOICE (F/P) Summer savory and basil. All combo bunches this week.

ALSO THIS WEEK: Parker Farms shares

NEXT WEEK: More squash, cabbage, and lettuce. Beets, chard and kale. Perhaps a sprinkling of peppers and cucumbers.

FARM REPORT
The longest day of the year is today and the farm crew has been making full use of the extra daylight hours. Most of Monday was spent in the tomato patch, trellising and pruning. The plants looking great. They are growing fast and have lots of flowers and green fruit.

Irrigation has been a top priority for the past two weeks as we continue to miss the big downpours that are all around us. Here you can see some of the tools that help us get the irrigation system in place. The wooden cradle holds the old electrical spools repurposed to hold our irrigation tape. The tape runs down each row of crop and connects to the supply line with a small valve.

With the tomatoes tended, we tackled the Family Cucurbitae. 6 rows of winter squash, 4 of summer squash, 3 of melon and 4 of cucumbers is enough to keep the four of us (me, Tom, Luke and Kim)occupied for awhile. Hand weeding around each plant is a meditation in orange blossom, scratchy leaf and squash bug.

The Spring crops are waning, but we still have some bulk available.

Beets: $3.00/bunch
Swiss chard: $3.00/bunch
Lettuce: $3.00/head
Carrots: $3.00/bunch
Herbs (oregano, tarragon, fennel): $2.50/bunch
Onions: $3.00/bunch

When it comes to variety, this time of year is quite exceptional. When the shares include such delectables as strawberries, broccoli, sugar snap peas and summer squash, you know it is mid-June. We hope that enjoying this Spring’s bounty has been easy.
Here are a couple of suggestions for you:

From last year’s Week 5, try the Julienne Snap Peas, a wonderful pea salad that gets better over time.

Another must, if you still have any garlic scapes, is to use last week’s creamy garlic scape dressing as a dip for your strawberries. This combination is one of those that is realized when you spend two weeks in late Spring smelling scapes and berries every day. I feel that, when two fruits or vegetables are naturally ripe at the same time, they will always go together. It is the rule of the seasons. I hope you taste this combo and see what I mean. Last year’s Garlic Scape and Strawberry Dressing is another option.

The summer squash will be a regular in the shares for a while, so it is good to realize the many options you have to prepare this versatile vegetable. We don’t feel that it is bad to go the fried route every once in a while. And when you use an egg batter, you are getting both vegetables and protein in the dish.

Tempura Style Fried Summer Squash and Broccoli
Ingredients
Summer squash
Broccoli
Eggs
Flour
Oregano, marjoram and/or summer savory
Salt and Pepper
Frying oil (we used grape seed oil

Method
1. Trim ends from summer squash and cut into rounds or half rounds
2. Break broccoli into florets
3. Dust the vegetables in flour seasoned with herbs
4. Next dip the vegetables in egg
5. Fry coated vegetable in oil until golden brown
6. Drain on paper
7. Season with salt and pepper

Since we did not fill up our shares for Saturday pickup, we have about 10 extra shares worth of produce each week. Until we fill up for Saturdays, you can expect most share items on the list. Sorry, but there are no more u-pick strawberries. The patch is winding down.

Kolhrabi: $3.00/bunch of two
Hakurei turnips topped (from first planting): $3.00/lb
Hakurei Turnips with tops (from new planting): $3.00/bunch
Beets: $3.00/bunch
Sugar snap peas: $2.00/half pound
Swiss chard/kale: $3.00/bunch
Lettuce: $3.00/head
Herbs (oregano, tarragon, fennel): $2.50/bunch
Scallions: $2.50/bunch