Week 12 CSA Newsletter (August 22-29, 2021)

CSA Newsletter Week 12

August 22-29, 2021    |    “B” Week

What’s in the Box this Week?

GOLDEN ROMA TOMATOES (6) –– These will be a golden orange color. They are a “paste” tomato, meaning they lack a lot of juice inside and are best used for making sauce or salsa! Store on the counter and use within 5 days. If you see them starting to ripen too fast, throw them in the fridge, although this may alter the flavor.

CHERRY TOMATOES (1 PINT) –– Store on the counter and use within 3-5 days. If you see them starting to ripen too fast, throw them in the fridge, although this may alter the flavor.

KALE-LETTE GREENS (1 bunch) — These are the leaves of a new variety we are growing called “kale-lettes.” Eventually, these stalks should produce little tufts of kale (kind of like Brussels sprout plants). Until then, we can harvest and eat the leaves too. Store these in a Debbie Meyer Green Bag in your fridge and use within 5 days. Wash just before using. Cut out the stem and compost.

SWEET CORN (bi-color), 6 EARS — Sweet corn should remain in its husk until you’re ready to eat it. Shuck the outer leaves and remove the silks/threads, as well as any wormy tip. You can cut the kernels off with a sharp knife or you can boil the corn in hot water for 6 minutes and eat it off the cob. Sweet corn should be stored in the fridge. Its sugars turn to starch in a few days, so the sooner you eat it, the sweeter it will taste! I like to try and eat it within 3 days, but it will last up to 8 days.

LEEKS — Remove the green tops and use them for your DIY broth freezer scrap bag. Cut off the roots. Wash the white parts well and then chop them to desired size.  You can freeze leeks in a Ziplock without blancing.

POTATOES (WHITE) – 1 QUART — From Mile Creek Farm outside Dayton. Store these in a cool, dark place — not the fridge — to keep them from turning green. Use within 4 weeks. You don’t need to peel the skin. Wash well and boil/roast/bake.

RED SNACKING PEPPERS, SWEET (1 PINT) —  Store in a plastic bag in your fridge and use within 7 days. To use, wash and then chop off the top stem. Remove the seed bank from inside, as well as the ribs. Then chop to size. Peppers can also be frozen whole or chopped using the “Ziplock bag and freeze” method.

GREEN BELL PEPPERS (2) —  Store in a plastic bag in your fridge and use within 7 days. To use, wash and then chop off the top stem. Remove the seed bank from inside, as well as the ribs. Then chop to size. Peppers can also be frozen whole or chopped using the “Ziplock bag and freeze” method.

SWEET FRYING PEPPERS, ORANGE OR RED (2) —  Store in a plastic bag in your fridge and use within 7 days. To use, wash and then chop off the top stem. Remove the seed bank from inside, as well as the ribs. Then chop to size. Peppers can also be frozen whole or chopped using the “Ziplock bag and freeze” method. These are great for grilling!

Jed, Josiah, and I often fight over the Knueven Ice cream!

THIS WEEK’S ADD-ON SHARES:

It’s “B” week (for all our bi-weekly shares)

Fruit Share:  nectarines (store on the counter until they soften up; then put in the fridge); Gingergold apples (store in the fridge, these are a great eating apple!); Lambkin melon with a light green flesh inside (Bench Farms)

Maddie & Bella Coffee: Dog Days of Summer

Pain Neuf Bread share (week 3 of 4, Sylvania site): Italian Sourdough

Knueven Ice Cream Share: Toffee Crunch

Pesto Making Party at the Farm

Make a ton of pesto on our farm to take home and freeze

RSVP HERE.

Date: August 29, 3-5 PM. FREE EVENT for CSA members and Sampler members. 

Here’s how it works: You bring a food processor, olive oil, nuts, cutting board, lemon juice, salt, Ziplock baggies, and chef’s knife. We provide the basil, “B-grade” garlic, tables, power strips and electric. You come out to the farm between 3 and 5 PM. We take you out to the basil patch to harvest your own basil. Take as much as you need, and come back to the packing shed area, where we set up tables (and electric outlets) for you to make your pesto. It’s a loud, garlicky fragrant time! When you’re done, you pack up and head home! Typically this takes a person about an hour and 15 minutes to complete.

This year, we will not be offering the pasta dinner afterwards to sample everyone’s pesto. (Maybe next year!!) But feel free to bring some crackers and wine to share or enjoy yourself as you batch your pesto.

There’s quite a difference in size between our 1.5 and 3.5 grade garlic.

Meet the Garlic “Grader”

For the last few weeks, we’ve had a steady crew of volunteers and staffers “cleaning” the garlic crop. This involves checking each individual bulb to see if it “passes grade.” We check to see if it’s soft (we toss those), yellowing, or has missing cloves or dark spots and discoloration. These are set aside into a “B” grade pile — meaning we don’t sell those at premium price.

However, we don’t throw them away! Just because the tip of a clove may have some damage, doesn’t mean the whole bulb does! It can be cut off and the rest eaten. So we’re offering “B-grade” garlic by the quart in our online store this week at a reduced price. If you’re willing to do a little work to remove the bad parts, these are still perfectly fine.

Once the “good” garlic has been sorted from the bad, we sort it AGAIN. This time by size. There is a wide range of size for garlic bulbs. Some will be HUGE with large individual cloves. Others will develop much smaller. We use a tool Kurt made called a Garlic Grader to help us grade the garlic by size. Here’s a video that shows you how it works:

The largest bulbs are set aside and re-used for seed. In a few weeks, we will begin to “crack” these garlic bulbs — meaning we remove the individual cloves from the bulb. Each clove will be planted around Halloween for next year’s crop. We use the biggest and best cloves we have in order to pass on this healthy gene stock to the future. In this way, we “naturally select” for the strongest plants. The rest we give to our CSA shares or sell.

Our flower share arrives about an hour before we head to our delivery sites. They are picked fresh that afternoon.

LEAVE US A QUICK GOOGLE REVIEW!

I need about 10 people to leave a rating and/or review of our farm on Google. Just click on this link and it will take you right there: https://g.page/r/CWe3eYJ5MOIgEAg/review

Farmer Kurt grilled some pizza last week with a very dirty shirt!

FARMER KURT’S FIELD NOTES

Well, the tomatoes have finally started to turn. Every day, we have a tomato harvesting crew doing some work. Remember, my crew is also harvesting for my mom’s roadside stand and markets, so there are just a LOT of tomatoes out there. We should have a good batch of canners in a few weeks for those of you who want some.

Melons are exploding. We picked 8 bins in one day last week. And the next day, I could have picked 6 more. I’m almost tempted to just let some of them go — I’m not sure I can find a home for them all. I planted a bunch based on a client last year telling me he’d take more if I grew them. Unfortunately, he backed out so I’m left with a bunch of melons to find a home for. Stuff like this happens all the time in farming — “gentleman agreements” that fall apart. Looks like I’ll be able to move them, but it has added another thing to my to-do list, making lots of phone calls to try and arrange multiple deliveries.

Luckily I planted 3 succession crops, so at least they’re not all coming on at once. I know you “B-weekers” in the fruit share want a watermelon, too. Don’t you worry. I’ll have PLENTY down the pike. The Lambkins are a one-time shot, so I wanted to make sure I got those to you this week.

The tomatoes and peppers look fantastic, and we are about to pepper-palooza you. It happens every year in the CSA. A couple weeks where we load you up on the eggplant, pepper, tomato trinity. Ground cherries and tomatillos are coming soon. The winter squash is ready in some places too! I have green beans out there, but they are pretty weedy, and I’m not sure I have the labor force to pick them by hand — since they are so labor intensive.

The labor situation is still pretty tight. Although I’ve found a couple guys to do some custom work for me regularly, and John’s been a real strong addition to the team, I still feel like I’m one strong person shy. (One of our guys didn’t work out). With Zack heading to school next week, I lose my sweet corn picker, which puts me in that spot every day for sure. Shalese is also going back to school in a week, so she’ll be with us just a few more times. I keep taking it day by day, trying to figure out what the priorities are, and what tasks may get put on the chopping block.

I bought myself a new pallet jack to replace the super old one that only half-worked. My staff is going to freak out!

Garlic is done. Next step is to sort and grade by size and “pop” the garlic cloves out for seed. I have a note to buy garlic seed this week. One year I waited until October, and it was sold out across the US.

Speaking of seed, there is a real seed shortage issue happening in the United States.  Due to the fires in the Pacific Northwest, where much of the vegetable seed is produced, there are farms contacting seed companies to say, “We lost our seed stock. We won’t be able to fill your order.” Our seed suppliers are encouraging us to pre-order our seed for next year right now.

Many of you may not realize how vegetable seed is even produced. There are farms around the country whose sole job is to grow vegetable product for its seed. For example, to harvest a carrot seed, you have to wait for the carrot to grow, NOT harvest it, let the tops flower, dry out, and then capture their seed. The same is done for lettuces. If you’re trying to create hybrid seed varieties, and breed certain favorable characteristics, this can be a very complicated process indeed.

(Farmer Corinna here inserting myself into this post!)… Read The Seed Underground by Janisse Ray. This is a really great book to check out if you want to learn more about how the Seed Industry works in the world. It’s kind of like the “Omnivore’s Dilemma” version of Seed production. Very enlightening. Check it out on Amazon OR get it from your library.

We have 2 giants blocks of onions that still need to come out –– shallots and those popular cippollinis. They should have come out 2 weeks ago, but we kept getting slammed with rain showers at the wrong time. They’re also “weedier than sh*&t.” It’s going to be SO MUCH WORK to get them out. I need to take a look and see if they’re even still good. My plan is to go pick up the root digger at Adam’s place in Fremont (Adam is the organic farmer at Wayward Seed Farm, and my friend and mentor). I’ll run over one bed to see what comes on the top layer and see if it’s worth proceeding.

Food waste is a part of the farm gig. We are always throwing away produce that doesn’t meet grade.

This is one of those moments as a farmer (and business owner) where you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it. By the time I invest all the labor into harvesting, curing, cleaning, and processing those onions, will I really come out ahead? Even if I profit $1000, was it really worth all the hassle, when there are other pressing jobs on the farm that could be more valuable to my customer in the long term? (Like planting more carrots).

In the economics world, this is referred to as “opportunity cost.” Too often, I think we farmers feel tempted to stay the course and finish a crop through to the end, for the sake of finishing it — not because it will actually be valued by our customer. I struggle with this every year, but deep down know that waste is a part of the equation. I try to minimize it as much as I can. With all the curve balls thrown at us (weather, labor shortage, weeds), we do the best we can to make the “right” decisions.

I decided to take down one of my low tunnels that used to hold spring lettuces, and move it just a few feet away to new ground. This will house my winter carrots for all of you. I’ve had sketchy germination in the big field using my new vacuum seeder. I think I just need more practice with it. So I’m trying my luck in an area closer to the house, and easier to water and manage.

Glen created a covering for our onion topper machine. This should make it safer to use.

Glen fabricated some protective screening for the onion topper I told you about last week. Corinna freaked out about the safety factor, and I told her that I was already planning on adding some casing around the gear boxes. This topper sits at waist-height now, so it is much safer.

Jed starts school on August 31. He will be back at Woodmore for one more year. He’s in 8th grade already! Those of you who have been with us since the early days, it’s hard to believe! I remember changing his diaper on the back of my pickup truck. Jed is becoming a young man. He is stronger than ever and very helpful on the farm. Today, Mom showed up with her Suburban to get some veggies to sell at her roadside stand, and Jed was lifting all the heavy bins and putting them into her car for her.

Josiah will be homeschooling for another year with Corinna. He enjoyed it so much last year that he asked to stay home again. So we’ll take it semester by semester, and see how he feels. I am really hoping to get away for the weekend to do some camping next weekend. It’s our last chance to do so before school starts.

Our okra plants are blooming now. You can see the okra fruit setting just below it.

WEEK 12 ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. Jewish Holiday Conflict: Sylvania Site Change Coming Up on September 7th. If you’re a Sylvania customer, be aware that we will not be having our site pickup at the temple on Sept. 7th due to a Jewish holiday. We are still arranging our alternate location, and we will let you know what it is in next week’s newsletter.
2. Last week for the Grilling Challenge! I’m choosing my winners on Sept. 29th. To be eligible to win a prize, you must…
   1. Enter at least TWO meals in the 2 week period. That’s only once per week, so I know you can do it! Post your picture in the Facebook group. Or if you’re not on Facebook, you can email them to me.
   2. Use the hashtag #SLFGrillingChallenge in your post, so that I can find it.

    

3. Check out this awesome new technique for cutting sweet corn off the cob! Use this if you are freezing corn in large batches! Be sure to wear a glove!… Thanks to Kendra Davis, for helping me freeze my corn last weekend!
4. Tickets for the Field to Table Dinner on Sept. 17 are now sold out. To get on our wait list, email me in case there is a cancellation.
5. We could still use some volunteers to help PACK CORN on Mondays and Wednesdays. This is a (roughly) 2 hour job for one person. If you’d like to help out during a CSA Pack night (Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-8 PM), please email me at sharedlegacyfarms@gmail.com.
6. You can order additional items from the Shared Legacy Farms online store.  This week we have: bulk sweet corn (by the bushel, 65 ears), bicolor sweet corn (by the half dozen), rye flour, peaches by the quart, red seedless watermelons, curly and dinosaur kale, red onions, yellow onions, B-grade soft garlic, fresh sage, pimiento peppers, hot and sweet banana peppers, lime-green bell peppers, all types of eggplant, jalapenos, and cantaloupe. Our store link is super easy to remember: www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/store. We reload and open the store inventory on Saturdays, around 5 PM. Just be sure to select the right pickup site that coincides with your pickup location. If the pickup option is greyed out or not available, it means you missed the window to order. You need to place your order 2 days before your site, because we harvest the product early on Monday and Wednesday mornings.

Val Washeck posted this picture of bacon wrapped jalapenos. I think she’s going to freeze them.

WEEK 12 CSA RECIPES

Members: You can download these recipes as a PDF here.  These recipes are designed to inspire you to use your box this week! Please check inside our private Facebook group to find your fellow members sharing ideas for what to make with their box! Share a photo and you might be featured in next week’s newsletter!

Bell Pepper Tomato Salad

Pasta with 15-minute Burst Cherry Tomato Sauce

Potato Leek Soup

Rosemary Potato Skillet with Bacon and Fresh Corn

Cast Iron Roast Chicken with Caramelized Leeks

Turkey Stuffed Cubanelle Peppers

Grilled Cubanelles, Tomatoes and Scallions

Fresh Tomato Salsa

Stir Fried Kale with Tomatoes

Southwestern Black Bean Corn Salad

Apple Spiced Waffles

Iced Melon Moroccan Mint Tea

Shrimp and Nectarine Salad