CSA Week 7

This Week’s Harvest

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The perfect cucumber, a rarity

Cabbage

Fairytale Eggplant

Salad Mix

Cucumber

Summer squash and Zucchini

Red Kale

Fennel

Candy Onions

Flat Leaf Parsley

Tomato

Jalapeno Pepper

Kohlrabi

Farm News

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View from the sweet corn patch

We had great weather and a great turn out for our CSA member Open House! We’ve hosted several of the these over the years and I always forget to take pictures! Some pictures taken by members are posted on the Facebook Group page so take a look there. I’ve posted the refreshment recipe links below.

For the first time ever I ran the event solo (with the help of Ben’s mother and our 7 year old), because we decided Ben really needed to spend that time doing field work. The fields had finally dried out and we have more rain on tap for mid week. I thought is was a neat experience for everyone to get to see the farm in action as Ben tilled beds for a major planting of fall brassicas while we all walked around. After the event, Ben continued to work and spread 300 pounds of organic fertilizer and 500 lbs of minerals. When he came in the house later he was literally a dust ball.

Today we had the crew’s help and could lay the white plastic mulch, the final step before planting. By the afternoon we were ready for planting to commence and have gotten all the broccoli in. Tomorrow we will pick up were we left off with several varieties each of cauliflower, cabbage and kale.  And then cross our fingers that it doesn’t actually rain so we can get to all the weeding, compost side dressing, and foliar feeding that needs done!

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Ben’s perfectly tilled beds and our tractor mounted mulch layer make for easy mulch laying.

Recipes

Provencal Kale and Cabbage Gratin

Veggie Shish Kabob (get creative! almost any veggie would work!)

Middle Eastern Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Recipes from the Open House

Herbed Veggie Dip (I did not measure the herbs and suspect I added more of both dill and parsley. I also used half a small sweet onion in place of scallions)

Black Raspberry Muffins (I think any fruit would do!  I could not find my vanilla but had a lemon, so I used juice from half a lemon as added flavor)

Chocolate Zucchini Cake (I left the nuts out. Keep in mind that it always tastes so much better the next day)