In Your Share This Week,
Look for Joi Choi, more Sugar Anne Snap Peas, (we heard many shareholder stories of munching on these in the car and having very few left upon arriving home). Your share will also include Winner Kohlrabi and a bag of Mixed Greens including Red and Green Mustard, Mizuna, Tatzoi, and Arugula.
Bread Shares:
Ten Grain Bread is the selection again this week, using unbleached white, whole wheat and rye flour along with oats, bran, barley, brown rice, flaxseed, soy, millet and corn. Some of the honey from last years bees add a nice touch to this flavorful bread. Each loaf will have a label with the shareholders name on it to help end the confusion about the every-other-week bread shares. Enjoy!
Drop Site Reminders
Your share this week will still be individual items to take out of the boxes. Be sure to bring a reusable bag to carry your treasures home in. Later on when each share gets their own box, you may still want to bring a bag and leave the box at the drop site. That way, you won't have to remember to bring the empty box back a week later. Also, please check off your name from the list at the drop site so we know who to follow up with if your share is not picked up. Also, try to pick up your share as early as possible. Friday is a holiday and none of the drop site homes or businesses will be available to pick up late shares.
FROM OUR RECIPE FILES:
Nitty Gritty Asian Greens Frittata
About 8 cups loosely packed greens (about ½ of your share bag this week)
1 small to medium onion – finely chopped
1 Tbsp Olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
6 to 8 farm fresh eggs (for a 10 inch skillet – use up to 10 eggs for a larger skillet)
1/3 to 1 cup cheese (you can use any kind you want – we have been using our homemade goat’s milk feta and queso blanco – but have used anything from cheddar to swiss to parmesan- it’s all good)
optional – ½ cup ricotta (extra good with fresh goat’s milk ricotta or yogurt)
2 Tbsp olive oil
Preheat broiler.
Chop greens – you may remove any larger stems. In a large sauce pan or skillet heat about ½ cup water to boiling. Add the greens, stir to coat with water and then cover the pan. Reduce heat to med high and cook briefly just until heated through and wilted. Remove from heat, drain well, and remove from pan or skillet.
In skillet (we use a cast iron fry pan) heat 2 Tbsp or so of olive oil. Add onion (and garlic minced if you have it). Stir and cook until softened. Add the greens and cook until any water left in them has evaporated, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper.
Beat eggs lightly with ½ tsp. salt, add the cheese(s). Mix with the greens and onions.
Wipe out fry pan and return it to the heat. Add the olive oil and when hot, pour in the egg and greens mixture. Slide the pan back and forth a few times and then turn heat to medium –low and cook several minutes until eggs have set on the edges and on the bottom. Slide pan under broiler and continue cooking until the top is set and lightly colored. Cool slightly or to room temperature before cutting and serving. This frittata is also good chilled and very thinly sliced as left-overs.
FROM THE FARMERS…
I pulled a Walla Walla onion this week to see if the bulbs are big enough to begin harvesting. What a sweet tasty treat. You won’t see any onions this week but soon! You are getting a lot of mixed greens this week. Use these greens any way you would use spinach. One of my favorite ways is to make a pesto from them instead of basil – wonderful tossed with pasta. Or cut up quite fine and make a frittata. Or chop and add to a pizza or focaccia. Or chop and add to soup. You can also blanch them briefly and freeze for later if there are too many for you to use now. There will not be greens in your share next week but these greens will keep for at least a week.
We have been continuing the weeding this week. Painstaking weeding around carrots – not a job for anyone who needs to see instant results. At the beginning of a 250 foot row, we remind ourselves that it is good to only look behind yourself at what you have already accomplished instead of in front of you at the unfinished distance left. Several more rows of beans and potatoes got mulched with another three bales of old hay we got from a neighbor, and we continue to look for more potential mulch to get the rest of the beans and potatoes mulched. It makes such a huge difference with the organic mulch between the rows to retain moisture, control weeds and decompose to build the soil.
We picked the last of the sugar snap peas for your share this week and Robin disked up the pea patch. The nitrogen-fixers will serve as green manure for the next crop to be planted in the succession in that field. It will probably take a couple more runs over with the disk and then a final tilling and harrowing to get the piece ready to plant more row crops – cilantro, turnips and beans.
The late sweet corn Adam planted last week is up and looking good. As I walked through the cabbage and broccoli next to the corn, I noticed a few holes in the leaves – sure signs of cabbage loopers and imported cabbage moth larva. We will spray all the cole crops on Friday with a product called Dipel, a form of Bacillus Thuringiensis. This organic product kills the worms when they eat it by rupturing their gut. Not a nice idea but we like Dipel because it is so specific for these pests and doesn’t harm the bees. We will also do a first spraying of the potatoes. As we were mulching we noticed a few patches of bright orange eggs on the under sides of the leaves. These are the larva of the Colorado Potato beetle, a small beige and black striped beetle who’s millions of miniature beetle larva will eat their way through a whole potato plant so quickly you wouldn’t believe it. We aren’t seeing a lot of larva but a few patches can hatch and in hot weather can quickly turn into way too many.
We are hoping to get our canoe onto our car and out onto the St. Croix River over the 4th. We’ve not been in a canoe all spring and are going into withdrawal – need a river fix. The fields and crops and weeds and livestock will all be waiting when we get back from an afternoon on the river. Happy 4th of July to you all. Until next week……
