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News from the farm...
The toadlets have four legs, no tails and are out of the pond! There are hundreds of thousands of them hopping out of the water. They will radiate away from the pond in the next few days, eating all kinds of critters as they go and making it hard to walk anywhere near the pond (and not so near the pond) without stepping on them.
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We find ourselves towards the end of May, how did that happen! We are well on the other side of our last frost date so we've been busily planting our tender summer vegetables. Unfortunately we did not get everything in the ground last week when it was warm and sunny, so we struggled through some rain on Monday to plant, but we got everything in: peppers, eggplant, green beans, basil, and the second round of summer squash and cucumbers.
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Today we spent our farming time in our greenhouses, pruning and trellising all the tomatoes. The crew is learning all about main leaders, suckers, fruiting bodies, and all the idiosyncratic ways heirloom tomatoes break all the rules of tomato architecture. We’ll be sowing all the winter squash tomorrow, if it’s not too, too wet out in the fields. We have eighteen 200 foot beds to sow! There are Dahlias to plant, along with more lettuce, lettuce mix, and sunflowers, though they may have to wait until the ground dries out a bit.
As some of you have notice, we got a really big strawberry harvest. We had a few days of hot, dry weather and the strawberries responded. Now it’s pretty darn cool for this time of year and the forecast looks pretty wet for the next week, so we’ll just have to see what the future brings. The future will include summer squash. We expect to harvest the first squash on Friday. Since we have no good idea on how big that harvest will be, summer squash will not be available through the online store just yet. Once we get a handle on the harvest we’ll add that to our online offerings.
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What's Available This Week
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Strawberries, lettuce mix and head lettuce, red leaf, green oak leaf, red butter, red little gem lettuce, red and green kale, and cilantro. Lots of new flowers are blooming and making it into our mixed bouquets, campanula, feverfew, lilies and our first sunflowers. We have more of our peppers and eggplant starts in the online store this week as well tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, lots of varieties of nasturtiums, and a good mix of culinary herbs.
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John's Recipe of the Week
John Loyd is our dear friend, neighbor, CSA worker member and a gourmet Southern cook. His delightful cooking observations and delicious recipes offerings appear here each week.
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CILANTRO or coriander is not just for guacamole. All of the plant can be used except for the coarsest stems. Store in a glass of water, loosely covered with a plastic bag. When using in cooking, put the cilantro in at the end as the flavor is diminished by heat.
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Cilantro is great in any sauce made from fresh tomatoes.
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Use cilantro instead of parsley, also use in soup, tacos and on rice.
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LIME-CILANTRO DRESSING – From chef Rick Bayless, who traveled 35,000 miles through Mexico collecting recipes. Vanessa’s parents, when visiting Chicago, would take a later flight so they could go over and eat at Rick’s Frontera Grill. This recipe makes about a cup and goes well with salad and on steamed vegetables.
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Two 2-inch strips of lime zest, ¼ inch wide
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2 ½ tablespoons of fresh lime juice
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2 small cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
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½ fresh chile Serrano, roughly chopped, or hot sauce
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1 ½ tablespoons of cilantro
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3 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese
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Blend or process all the ingredients until smooth. Taste for salt and refrigerate. It’s good for 3 or so days.
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A lady bug cocoon on the campanula growing in the high tunnel. We encourage beneficial insects in our greenhouses, releasing lacewing eggs and parasitic wasps to help control the aphids. This beauty found it own way in.
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Thank you for purchasing our produce and flowers. We are so grateful to be able to do work that feels meaningful to us and you all make it possible.
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