Week 8 CSA Newsletter (July 25-31, 2021)
CSA Newsletter Week 8
July 25-31, 2021 | “B” Week
Our crew poses for a picture after the Community Meal this Thursday.
What’s in the Box this Week?
RED SKINNED POTATOES (2 lb.) — These are a buy-in from our partner organic farm Mile Creek outside Cincinnati. (We don’t have good luck growing potatoes, due to the infestation of Colorado Potato Beetles). Store these on your counter (away from onions). They should last for a couple weeks. Peeling is optional. High in moisture and low in starch, red potatoes hold their shape well when cooked. That makes them great for roasting and skillet cooking.
FRESH CELERY (1 bunch) – The celery stalks are a bit thinner than what you’re used to at the store. These stalks should be stored in a Mason Jar of water (stem side down) in the fridge (with a baggie over them), so that the st
alks stay nice and crunchy. As an alternative, you can soak the celery in a Fridgesmart container of water, replacing the water every 2 days. Use within 7 days. Before using, wash them well and chop to desired size. Because they are thinner than usual, their celery flavor will be highly concentrated.
SUMMER SQUASH (2) ~ You’ll receive a combination of green zucchini and yellow squashes. Try to eat these within 5-7 days, as their shelf life isn’t the greatest. We’ve had a few people report that some of the squashes taste bitter. If you find that they taste bitter, try peeling the skin. Store them in a Debbie Meyer green bag in the fridge. Try using them in a cucumber salad in place of cucumbers, or making zucchini boats.
Picking summer squash happens every 2 days. The first planting is almost done.
RED ONIONS (not cured) ~ Store in your fridge in a plastic bag, and try to use them within 2 weeks. Simply chop or slice the bulb. You can freeze onions by throwing them in a Ziplock bag and freezing them raw. Red onions are great for raw preparation, caramelizing, or salad dressings.
HEAD LETTUCE — Store these in a large Green Bag in your fridge and use within 5 days. Wash just before using.
SWEET CORN (bi-color) — 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.
BASIL — Basil should be stored on the counter, either in a glass of water or wrapped in paper towels. Don’t store it in the fridge or it will turn black on you. Use within 3 days. If the leaves get wilty, you can revive them with a little water. To release their flavor, chop them finely with a knife. You can also dry basil in a dehydrator or microwave for long-term storage. Or make some pesto and freeze it in a ziploc.
JALAPENO — Use it in a salsa, as a topping for fish or steak, for pickling, or roasted. Store it unwashed in a plastic bag and use it within 7-10 days. To prepare, cut off the stem. Then chop or slice as needed for recipe. If you want to cut the heat, remove the ribs and seeds inside with a knife. (Wear some gloves if you are sensitive to the acid in the pepper). Then just chop the green pepper flesh.
Kristy Brinker shows off the carrots from her box.
THIS WEEK’S ADD-ON SHARES:
It’s “B” week (for all our bi-weekly shares)
Fruit: White Peaches from Quarry Hill Orchard, and blueberries from Michigan. If you ordered a bulk blueberry order, we will have about half of them arriving this week. I will send you an email if you are on the list.
Maddie & Bella’s Coffee: Monsooned Malabar – exotic/ aromatic/ spicy-sweet
Knueven Ice Cream Share Flavor: Oreo Mint
Bread Share Week 3 (ELMORE ONLY): Italian Sourdough
Freeze your jalapenos in a Ziplock. Then use a microplane to grate a portion of the pepper at a time. That way you don’t waste!
HOW HOT IS THAT PEPPER?
Jed has always liked to eat our veggies raw from the fields. We’ll often find him scavenging mulberries, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, sweet corn… you name it. When Jed was 5 years old, he was wandering the pepper fields. Not realizing what he was doing, Jed grabbed a jalapeno and quickly crunched it down. We heard a HOWL from the fields, and immediately thought the worst. He was crying. Luckily Uncle Kenny found him and ran with him back to the house, where we forced him to drink lots of milk.
This story is now a legend in our family. In fact, I may have embellished some of the facts, because it seems to change every time I tell it. But the essence of the story remains: Jed learned that jalapenos are hot.
In a few weeks, we’ll start to see the hot peppers really start to come out in droves. Peppers can be kind of intimidating if you don’t know a lot about them. There are all kinds of varieties of peppers, each with its own level of spiciness.
We’ve got a LOT of peppers this year! We just finished weeding them all!
Peppers are rated in Scoville heat units (SHU). Named after its creator, chemist Wilbur Scoville, the Scoville scale is a measure of the “hotness” of a chili pepper. The higher the number, the hotter the pepper. A bell pepper has a Scoville rating of zero. Conversely, the hottest chiles, such as habaneros, have a rating of 300,000 or more. One of the hottest chile known to man is the bhut jalokia, which registers at a whopping 1 million SHUs. Mr. Mike once dared Kurt to eat one raw. Kurt was so overwhelmed with the heat, that he almost lost his lunch. The best way to handle a spicy pepper is to follow it with a drink of milk to soften the blow.
Peppers contain capsaicin, a chemical compound which stimulates your nerve endings in the skin. Interestingly, the amount of capsaicin also depends on the weather conditions of that growing season. A hot, dry season will cause the pepper to be even spicier than usual, whereas a wet year will make the pepper’s flavor more mild.
For your information, we’ve placed a copy of the Scoville Heat Scale here. This chart will help you identify the heat level of some of the peppers we grow, as well as peppers you may find at the market. For the most common hot peppers, the general order of spiciness is as follows (from mild to hot): bell pepper, pepperoncini, banana pepper, poblano, jalapeno, Serrano, and habanero.
Kurt sucks out the old seed from the vacuum seeder.
FARMER KURT’S FIELD NOTES
I’m back! This week, we’ve been focused on cleaning up the fields — pulling out old plants, weeding, mowing the grass between blocks, salvaging crops over-run by weeds, and re-seeding beds to start over. As I shared in last week’s Field Notes, some of our crops took a hit from all the rain and resulting weed pressure.
Good news: we were able to save the peppers from weeds. Corinna weeded all the eggplant. The basil and okra was saved. I’m going to disk the last bed of carrots — it’s not worth weeding. The two rows of beets will be gone through to see what I can salvage this week, but that’s the last of my beets for the year. I’ll have to lean on Adam at Great River Organics to help me with beets for the later fall boxes. Jed and Josiah mowed down the cover crops on the beds where we’ll be planting fall crops.
Alma weeds the peppers. See the tall grass all around?
I spent all Friday afternoon and evening with Josiah, seeding about 2 acres of crops — a mix of rutabagas, kohlrabi, daikon radishes, and carrots. These will last us through the fall. Jed was out of commission for a day (got 4 teeth pulled), so Josiah really came through for me as my tractor driver, working for about 5 hours. I know it’s hard for him to spend a full day of his summer working for Daddy at the age of 10, but he was a champ!
If you are a Port Clinton customer, you may have noticed our white Chevy truck was missing last week. My transmission went out on me, so I took it to my mechanic. Luckily Mom had a Suburban we could borrow for the Port Clinton pick up site. Turns out I need to replace the tranny — an unexpected expense — you know how that goes! We’ve also looking at exchanging our big white delivery truck and upgrading to a new size. The speedometer isn’t working, and the Hino guys can’t figure out what’s wrong. Rather than continue to pour money into their exploratory research under the hood, I opted to rig up a Garman to help me know how fast I’m going. That purchase is now on hold until absolutely necessary. We’ll see if I can fit all the corn, tomatoes, and everything else in there in the high season coming up here!
I’ve started tying tomatoes — a little bit every day — and we are making progress. I am training Isaiah and Noah how to do this job. It’s hard, because I know it would be faster to just do it myself. But I also know that I need to train my future team how to do it, and give them time to practice and get faster too.
Josiah mows the fields. He was really helpful this week!
We pulled out a lot of old lettuces and plants from beds near the house, in anticipation of this weekend’s Field to Table dinner. Glen dumped some dirt on the muddy lanes near the pack shed, to make it easier to walk, so our guests aren’t tripping on dried tractor ruts. Noah roto-tilled many of the beds near the house. Noah has been just amazing. He will often stay late after hours to finish a job, and I really appreciate how he’s invested in this place. I just wanted to lift him up for his commitment.
Zac finished his last week with us. We’ll miss him a lot!
We said good-bye to a crew member this week. Zac Moyer had to take a leave of absence, but assured us he’d be back next year if we’d have him. He was a very reliable, hard worker, with a super attitude! He will be missed by the crew too. If you know anyone looking for work as a harvest member, let me know. I asked Corinna to put out a Facebook ad. I really need about 2 more people. This is an issue facing all my farmer friends right now — finding enough workers to do farm labor is not easy. And it seems like we always lose a few mid-season for various reasons.
Noah and Kurt harvest sweet corn.
The sweet corn is officially in! You’ll be getting your first batch in this week’s box. Remember that this product is NOT organic. My parents (David Bench Farms) grow this product for us, and they do spray for worms occasionally. (The corn is non-GMO). I hope you agree that it is pretty out of this world. I am getting up early almost every day to pull corn for Dad once again. We are short-staffed now, and it’s hard to find someone to do this job.
The rye field was cut this week. My neighbor Gary Bach showed up with his giant red combine to cut down the tall grass. We’ll use the seed next year. Some of it I may be able to use for rye flour. The rye is primarily there as a cover crop, to add nutrients back to my soil. It rotates around the acreage every year. It’s strange seeing it gone, because I can now get a clear view across my entire property again.
Our neighbor showed up with his combine to cut our rye fields. Now the acreage has an unobstructed view.
This weekend, Cadie Jardin, our CSA Coach is competing in an Iron Man competition. She’s been training hard for a long time for this. She doesn’t bring it up much in our Facebook group, but I wanted to lift up this accomplishment here. We have some pretty incredible people in our community, and I wanted you to know about that.
Corinna and I are looking forward to seeing some of you Saturday night for the first Field to Table dinner. I’ve been cleaning up the property this morning, and hoping the rain will hold off so you can have an idyllic dinner.
Want to volunteer? Ann Krause was in charge of weighing the beet portion on the assembly line last Wednesday. You can sign up to help for 2 hours on a Monday or Wednesday and pack our CSA boxes. It’s really fun! We could use help packing the corn bags too!
On the home front: Uncle Torsten left this past Monday, and the boys are on their own once again. Jed’s now saving money to buy a laser cutter, so he can cut his own airplane kits. Josiah (our entrepreneur) is trying to convince him that they could ALSO use it to sell stuff. Corinna sent in the paperwork this week to officially announce that we are homeschooling again Josiah next year. Jed decided he wanted to go back to school — too much Mommy time I guess.
Jed got 4 baby molars pulled this week, so he’s been nursing a sore mouth. Poor guy is starving, and all he is eating are smoothies, mashed bananas, and grits. Michelle Weber stopped by this week to drop off about 50 pounds of replacement freezer beef. The transition is complete! Our freezer is fully operational and restocked. We are so grateful for your help with this! It’s packed to the gills again. We truly have been blessed with an incredible group of people — you inspire us every week to serve you with all our heart.
~Your Farmer, Kurt
Bulk blueberries are now for sale.
WEEK 8 ANNOUNCEMENTS
- FIRST BATCH OF BULK BLUEBERRIES WILL ARRIVE TO SITES THIS WEEK. If you ordered a 10# box, you MAY be getting one. I will email you on Sunday to let you know.
- Want to order bulk blueberries? It’s your final chance. 10# boxes are going for $35. I will bring the first disbursement this week. Look for an email from me if we are expecting to bring you your order. PAYMENT IS DUE UPON PICKUP! DON’T LEAVE US HANGING! Head to this Google sheet to place your order. Once the order is placed, your name will change color on the sheet. Once you pay, it will show as PAID next to your name.
- 4-WEEK BREAD SHARES FOR SALE – SYLVANIA SITE ONLY: We are now pre-selling another round of 4 week bread shares — this time to SYLVANIA customers only. You may purchase your bread share in the online store this week. Cost is $35. You get one loaf from Pain Neuf baker Brad Yaniga, for weeks 10, 11, 12, and 13. Head here to place your order. First bread arrives on August 10th.
- Now taking reservations for the Sept. 17th Field to Table Farm Dinner. Price is $75 per ticket. Arrive at 6 PM, and dinner will begin around 6:30 PM. This event is limited to 75 people, and we will set up tables in a giant horseshoe in the field near the pack shed, with a beautiful view. 5 course meal provided by Chef Joseph Jacobsen of Cork and Knife Provision (formerly the head chef of Degage Restaurant). To reserve your spot, head to this Google Sheet link to place your reservation. Payment is made via check or cash (to Shared Legacy Farms). If you can’t make the link work, then email Corinna at sharedlegacyfarms@gmail.com.
- Want to volunteer for a couple hours, packing the CSA bin? If you’d like to help out one time during a CSA Pack night (Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-8 PM), please email me at sharedlegacyfarms@gmail.com. We require our volunteers to be vaccinated if you want to be mask-less. Otherwise masks must be worn while working.
- You can order additional items from the Shared Legacy Farms online store. We’ll restock the store on Saturday after the Farm Dinner — so around 10 PM?… Our store link is super easy to remember: www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/store. We reload and open the store inventory on Saturdays, around 6 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.
Clara Eckel posted this Shankshuka with SLF Kale, onions, dill with Parmesan; Kale and garlic breadsticks
WEEK 8 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!
20 Minute Skillet Sausage & Zucchini
Almond Flour Zucchini Bread
Southwestern Black Bean Corn Salad
Marinated Onions- Magic Elixirs
Corn and Potato Chowder
Garlic and Parsley New Potatoes
Celery Soup
Celery Spiked Guacamole with Chiles
Jalapeno Popper Creamed Corn
Basil Vinaigrette
Blueberry Vinaigrette
Blueberry Peach Salsa
Peach Crostata