In your box

• Bok choy
• Chard
• Garlic scapes
• Head lettuce
• Radishes
• Salad Mix
• Scallions
• Sorrel

Farm News

We’ve finally started getting some rain! Just when it looked like we might finish June going into a devastating drought, we picked up an inch of rainfall over the weekend. The bad news: we will still finish up the month with just about a quarter of our average rainfall. The good news: I’ve largely been able to keep up with irrigating this month, and now that most of our crops have been in the ground for a few weeks, they’ll have deeper roots and be better able to take up whatever water is in the soil.

Even as we round the corner on a miserably dry month, we will still see some effects throughout the year. I mentioned that our strawberries and peas were already wiped out. Most of our other crops still look ok, but we do have random losses where the sprinklers and drip tape didn’t quite reach the plants. We’ll see some gaps in the fields that might make it difficult to get everyone a cabbage on a given week, for instance, but we’ll plow through and give you the best of all that has survived.

Don’t forget– we’ll be participating in the Co-op Farm Tour this year on Saturday, July 10th. I’ll be leading tours every hour from 10am-3pm, and there are some other farms participating in our area if you want to make a day of it. We’ll also have yard games set up and you’re welcome to walk around and explore. For more information, please visit www.coopfarmtour.com.  I could also use a few volunteers for two-hour shifts. If you or your family would like to come out and help direct traffic and welcome folks to the farm, we’d love to have you! Just send me an email with a time that works for you.

This week’s box

While today’s box is still dominated by the salad and stir-fry ingredients we’ve had the previous two boxes, we also welcome two new bunched greens this week: chard and sorrel.

Chard is the bunch of large leaves with yellow and red stems. Chard is used in many of the same ways as kale, but the stems are edible and provide a nice crispy texture. We like chard in omelets and egg dishes.

Sorrel is the smaller bunch of all green leaves. Sorrel is very tasty raw and mixed into a salad, where you can really pick up on its lemon flavor. It can also be cooked down, similar to spinach, and made into soups and sauces.  Sorrel was a new taste for me when we started growing it a couple years back, but our boys took to it instantly. They’ve even gone so far as to invent a “sorrel party.” So far as I can tell, this involves simply raiding as much of the sorrel patch as you can get your hands on. Then you meet up with your friends and cousins and you all sit around eating sorrel until you run out, at which point you go harvest more. I’m still not sure how they’ve been able to talk so many people into attending sorrel parties with them, but there are certainly worse things to do with one’s time!

Sesame Ginger Bok Choy

from spendwithpennies.com

Ingredients:

• 1 TB olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic or 2 scapes, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fresh ginger
• 1 head bok choy
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 TB soy sauce
• 1 TB water
• 1/4 tsp chili flakes
• sesame seeds for garnish

Directions:

1. Combine sesame oil, soy sauce, water and chili flakes in a small bowl. Set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the garlic and ginger until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Mix in the whites of the bok choy and cook 3-4 minutes. Add soy sauce mixture and leaves and cook 2 minutes more or until heated through and leaves are gently wilted.
4. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

Coming up

Next week we are expecting kohlrabi, green onions, head lettuce, red currants, summer squash, salad mix, and komatsuna.