CSA Newsletter Week 2 (June 13-19, 2021)

CSA Newsletter Week 2

June 13-19, 2021    |    “B” Week

What’s in the Box this Week?

GARLIC SCAPES ~ These June delicacies will be in your box for the next 2 weeks. They have a curlicue shape, and a garlic flavor. Chop off the bottom inch of the scape (the tough end), and discard. You can eat the scapes roasted on the grill whole. Or you can chop/mince the scape (even the flower bulb part), and use it wherever you would garlic. Store the scapes whole or chopped in a Ziploc baggie, and use within a couple weeks. If you can’t get through it fast enough, just throw them into the freezer.

HEAD LETTUCES (2)  ~ Store this in a Debbie Meyer Green bag or Tupperware FridgeSmart container right away and leave it in the fridge. I wouldn’t wash this until you’re ready to use it. Use within a couple weeks. You should get a red and a green variety.

DILL WEEK  ~ store this fresh herb in a baggie in your crisper drawer of the fridge. Try to use it within a week. Use it for pickling, cucumber salad, fish, salads, or your favorite dip. Simply chop the fronds to release their flavor. You can freeze dill by chopping it and storing it in an ice cube tray filled with water. Then just grab a cube whenever you need it.

KALE  ~ Store these in a Debbie Meyer green bag and use within 10 days. Remove the leaves from the tough stems. You can use the stems for stir fries. The leaves can be made into kale chips, blanched and used in dips or sauces or simply sauteed with a vinegar dressing. If this veggie intimidates you, try making our CSA’s popular frozen “Green Cubes” and add them to stews/sauces for later. (This is what we do at the farm).

PURPLE SCALLIONS  ~ Place your scallions into a glass filled with an inch of cold water and place it in your fridge (or leave on the counter).  I like to place a baggie over the tops of the greens, if it’s going in my fridge to keep them from drying out. Refresh the water every 3 days. These will last a long time stored this way. You can trim the green tops of the scallion and use them to garnish tacos or salads or meat dishes. You can also chop them up and freeze them for later use! The purple tips of the onions are often used in salad dressing vinaigrettes, on salads, or enjoyed grilled with a little olive oil and s/p.

WHITE CANDY TURNIPS (WITH GREENS) ~  Remove leaves if they are still attached. Store the unwashed greens in a loosely wrapped Debbie Meyer plastic green bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator and eat them ASAP. (Add them to scrambled eggs or try making our CSA’s popular frozen “Green Cubes” and add them to stews/sauces for later). Store the white roots dry and unwashed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for 1 week. I like to roast these with other root vegetables in some olive oil at 400 F until soft! They’re also good on the veggie tray with some dip. Some CSA members will boil them and mash them with some potatoes. They’re also amazing when pickled.

POTTED HERB PLANT  ~ Every year, we give our CSA members two different potted herb plants. You will be given a choice at pickup of several herb types. When you take it home, put it in a sunny place in your garden or on your kitchen windowsill. Then be sure to “prune” the plant as it grows. This means cutting the herb leaves along the stem. This will cause the plant to branch off where you pruned it, and get bushier over time. It’s important to stimulate growth by pruning!

THIS WEEK’S ADD-ON SHARES:

Knueven Ice Cream Club: Strawberry

Fruit: The Fruit Share will begin on week 3.

Maddie & Bella’s Coffee : Tanzania Peaberry – medium body, rich, uncommonly fruity 

Kristy Buskirk of Clayhill Farms drops off the flower shares.

Taking Care of Your Cut Flowers

Our flowers come from flower farmer Kristy Buskirk at Clayhill Organic Farms. (PS: She also does weddings!) We are proud to partner with them this season and offer you a new share type. Each week, you’ll get a new bouquet of fresh seasonal blooms. Kristy harvests them about 7 hours before you get them in your hands, so they are super fresh!

If you’re getting a flower bloom share, here are some quick tips for how to get them to last longer! First, get them out of your hot car and to your cool house ASAP. Before storing them in a vase of cool water, cut the bottom inch of stem off. This will “open” the stem and allow your flowers to drink deeply again. You may need to change the water every couple days. You’ll notice some blooms will droop faster than others — this is based on the variety. But you should expect your bouquet to look nice for at least 2-3 days.

Images taken during our Garlic Scaping event this Saturday

The Great Garlic Scaping

After a spontaneous announcement in our Facebook group, we had over 10 CSA members show up to volunteer this Saturday for an hour to harvest the garlic scapes off the garlic plants.  Farmer Kurt was sharing his weekend “to-do list” with me on Friday evening. “I’ve got to get all the scapes harvested, so I’ve got the crew coming at 8 AM, and we’ll see what we can get done.” I had a moment of genius, when I suggested: “”Why don’t we ask our CSA members to help?”

In just 3 hours, we got it ALL done! It was SO cool seeing our community come together to help us complete a big task. We can’t say thank you enough to all of you who showed up, and gave us an hour of your time. What a morale boost!

If you’re new to the CSA, you may not even know what a garlic scape is! This is the part of the plant that eventually turns into a flower. It looks like a curlicue and has great garlic flavor! We cut the scape in early June before it turns into a flower, because we want to encourage the plant fo use its energy on bulb production (underground), and not on flower production.

Garlic scapes are only around for 2 weeks each season. And they are quite popular with our CSA members. I love to grill them (like scallions) with some olive oil. You can also make pesto out of them. Or chop them up and add wherever you’d use your garlic. Freeze the scapes whole or chopped in a Ziploc baggie to pull from all summer.

This year’s tshirt looks like a baseball jersey! The back has our farm logo on it.

Order Your 2021 SLFarms Tshirt by June 20

We saw a LOT of cool signs last week! Post a picture of yours in the facebook group if you want us to enter it into the contest! That way I can see them all!

Final Chance for CAR SIGN CONTEST

It’s that time again! We’re holding the second annual CSA CAR NAME SIGN contest! Time to bling up and decorate your CSA name sign. We’re picking our favorite sign from EACH site, and awarding them a free pint of Knueven Creamery ice cream. Make sure your sign has your last name written in large letters, so we can see it from 2 car lengths away. We’ll choose our winners on Friday after week 2 of the CSA.

I’m still nursing a sore foot. Long days are hard on me. Here I am kicking back in my Lazy Boy with a bag of frozen blueberries on my foot.

FARMER KURT’S FIELD NOTES

We made it through week 1! A big thank you to my wife, Corinna, for pulling off an administrative miracle — getting everyone made aware of the early start date. We had a couple glitches, which we always expect, but I’d say it was a success. It was GREAT seeing you all again. And your car signs are AWESOME! We’re going to have a hard time picking our favorites at each site this Friday. (Best in show at each site gets a free pint of ice cream).

This past week, we were battling thunderstorms and rain showers. We had a big storm come through the day before we needed to harvest your spinach. As a result, we had some muddy greens on our hands — which necessitated washing the spinach. You’ll notice that it showed some signs of bruising, and doesn’t have the usual shelf life. I hope you were still  able to enjoy it in the first couple days. I’ve never had spinach in the spring boxes before, so I was pretty excited to share it with you.

My biggest priority this week was planting. With rain pockets here and there, I needed to get the last of the peppers in. Which I DID! My crew has been awesome about staying late and getting the job done. With all new folks, there’s a lot of training that needs to happen. But we have a team that really gets along well together; they like being with each other and that makes the energy and morale so strong.

My boys and Saulo pulled out the bok choy beds. I had hoped to get another harvest out of them, but the hot weather temps last week made them start to “bolt” (aka, go to seed). It’s always gut-wrenching to see the waste, but I’ve learned this is just part of the farming gig. You have to expect it.

The garlic scape harvest was finished in just 3 hours this Saturday, thanks to a last-minute decision to ask CSA members to help out. I’m pretty sure that’s a record for our farm. I can’t tell you how proud I was of our community of people we have collected over the years — people like you who want to support a farmer! My chest just wants to explode when I think about it. Thank you, Dennis, Patty, Pam, Elizabeth, Julie, the Minnings, the Coles, Jody, and whoever else I’m forgetting.

Corinna and the boys were able to get away on Friday to go to East Harbor State Park and swim on the beach. One of our goals this year has been to create space for family free time. It felt pretty incredible not to wake up at 5 AM to go to the market on Saturday morning. (Although I do miss seeing people). I’m already feeling more confident about my ability to manage the farm CSA operation better, now that I can be here more often.

Catalina is back! She drove up from Florida this weekend.

Catalina is back! She drove up from Florida this week, and I’m glad she’s here. As my one returning staff member, I rely on her to guide my new crew members in our processes at the farm. She came just in time for our first “Friday Community Meal.” This is a new thing we’re trying every Friday — where we feed our entire crew lunch. Last week, one of our members, Christina Yaniga, brought some tamales and desserts. A crew that eats together will work better together — at least that’s what we think! With a multi-cultural crew, we want to find ways to bridge the language barriers and laugh and spend time together over a meal. If you would like to volunteer to bring a lunch for 12-15 people, just let us know, and we can schedule you in!

This week I’ll have a LOT of weeding to do. Those rains really brought them to the forefront. I planted some chestnut trees in the back property. Those will take a decade before they start yielding any fruit, but I’m a pretty big tree geek. (Have you read the book The Hidden Life of Trees?)

~Your Farmer, Kurt

Angie Patchett gives her first box an affectionate squeeze. Love to see this kind of devotion to veggies!

WEEK 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. Don’t forget to bring back your plastic veggie tote back on week 2. We’ll sub it out with a fresh one. Simply leave it in your car wherever you want the next bin to be placed by our team. Please return all egg cartons the following week. We can re-use them.
2. Christina Villareal won the Instagram Photo Contest last week! Thanks for posting and tagging us on your box contents photo on Instagram! Christina wins a fun prize from her farmers. Our Instagram account is @slfarms2. This is a great way to promote our CSA to your friends, and it makes it so much easier for us to “fill up” our membership in the fall. Also, please tell your friends about our online store! ANYONE can order from the store each week, and pick up their order at one of the 4 CSA sites. Again, it’s a great way to try out our produce, and most of our new members come through referrals of our current CSA members!
3. Watch our weekly Live Unboxing video this Tuesday around 8 PM inside the private Facebook group. Cadie Jardin, our CSA coach and dietitian, will show you what’s in the box, share storage tips and ideas for how to use your product. You can find the Facebook group at this link. If you aren’t on Facebook, we download the unboxing video into the digital Academy library (which you all get free access to). Reach out to me if you can’t figure out how to get into the Academy. (www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/academy) — note: you should NOT pay for a membership to the Academy. You get in for free with your membership!
4. This week, I’ll be scheduling volunteers for the first 8 weeks of the season. 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.
5. Order your 2021 SLFarms Tshirt at this link before June 20th. It will ship right to your house.
6. Beginning this week, you can order additional items from the Shared Legacy Farms online store. Our store link is super easy to remember: www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/store. 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. We harvest the product on Monday and Wednesday mornings — early. This week, the store will have: local honey from my brother Arik, local maple syrup from Elmore’s Jon Keller, rye flour, Easter egg radishes (3 different colors!), Boom salad mix, Chef’s Blend salad mix, carrots (just a few leftovers from last week!), garlic scapes, white scallions, Romaine lettuce, green crisphead lettuce, and red crisphead lettuce.

Laura Latham tried the veggie cream cheese last week.

WEEK 2 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!

• Veggie Cream Cheese
• Kale, Potato and Irish Cheddar Frittata
• Scallion Fish with Sesame Kale
• Pickled Scallions
• Roasted Carrots with Dill
• White Bean & Garlic Scape Dip
• Garlic Scape Pesto
• Glazed Hakurei Turnips
• Shaved Turnip and Radish Salad with Poppyseed Dressing