No strawberries in the shares yet, but not too long now!
LETTUCE (F/P) More of our pretty ladies from the lettuce patch
HAKUREI TURNIPS (F/P) Not your grandma’s turnip, these are best raw ‘eaten like an apple’ or lightly stir-fried as in Farmer Tom’s recipe.
TAT SOI/YUKINA SAVOY (F/P) Mildly mustardy spinachs that grows reliably for us. Good fresh in a salad or in Tom’s stir fry.
BOK CHOI (F) The rest of the patch goes to the full shares this week. Our variety ‘Mei Qing Choi’ is a green baby type that withstands our crazy springs staying tender and sweet.
ASPARAGUS (P) We are just eeking out enough for the partial shares this week due to the cool temperatures. Hopefully when the heat returns we’ll get one last burst of spears before the season is over.
GREEN GARLIC (F/P) the last of this version of garlic for the season.
GREEN ONIONS (F) the first of these springtime treats.
HERB CHOICE (F/P) More cilantro this week than last along with garlic chives, dill and mint.
ALSO THIS WEEK: Parker Farms delivery
NEXT WEEK: More lettuces, asparagus, turnips, green onions and greens. Perhaps the first radishes.
FARM REPORT:
This damp weather makes for a frustrated springtime farmer. May should be the busiest month of year for us. When conditions are right, we wear ourselves thin planting the last of the spring and all of the summer crop. When conditions are as they are now, we struggle to keep busy doing whatever we can.
Thankfully, there is a long list of rainy-day projects. Lately we’ve focused our attentions on the wash area.
before
after
We also found time to finally solve the mystery with ‘Grandpa’, the Graff family tractor. My grandpa Graff bought the International Farmall 504 a few years after it was new in the late 1960s. He farmed with it until the day he died in the mid-1980s. The tractor passed down from him, to my dad, to us. ‘Grandpa’ has served us well, shifting from field crops to vegetable production without skipping a beat.
Grandpa
Until recently that is, when he started spewing steam after an hour or so of labor. We learn as we go on the mechanical front, so we are very lucky to have a gem of a guy in the CSA, Keith Stubblefield. Keith is a modern Renaissance man – beekeeper, computer wiz and motorcyle and airplane mechanic. He’s been helping us trouble-shoot for the past few months. Oil and gaskets have been replaced, carbuerators rebuilt and, after he called in a favor from a friend, the compression tested. Turns out only 3 of Grandpa’s 4 cylinders are firing. So, now we begin the process of finding parts and a mechanic to take on the project of either a valve replacement or possibly an entire engine rebuild. If we find the right parts and the right mechanic perhaps it can be done within a week or so.
photos this week thanks to Emily LeCuyer, FSF apprentice.