In Your Box:

• Bok Choy
• Garlic scapes
• Head lettuce: “Grandpa Admire”
• Radishes
• Rhubarb
• Spinach

Farm News

Welcome to your first delivery of our 2023 CSA season!  We are so excited to begin feeding your family and bringing in the harvest from our fields.

We are so grateful that you’ve chosen our farm to supply your family with local, sustainably grown produce this year. I truly love what I do here on our farm, and I’m so grateful for your support as we live out this passion.

This spring has been extremely busy as always, especially with the late start to the growing season and all of the snow we had to melt before I could start planting. I’ve been running about a week behind on all of the successional planting that I have scheduled, but I should finally be caught up by this weekend. Then I can focus on keeping the weeds under control and harvesting all the fruits of our spring labor. 

We ended up in the bullseye of a surprise thunderstorm last Saturday, which brought us over 2 inches of most-welcomed rain. Unfortunately the storm also brought us the first damaging hailstorm that we’ve ever had in our 15 years of farming. For about ten minutes we had hail the size of peas. The hail wasn’t large enough to kill many of our young plants, but it did a lot of damage to the young greens we rely on for our first harvests. You’ll definitely notice holes and large tears in all of the greens we have for the first four weeks of the season. Thankfully it’s only cosmetic and does not affect the quality or taste of the lettuce and spinach. It’s definitely not as pretty as what I like to offer, but it’s certainly better than nothing. Thanks for your understanding, and hopefully we can keep getting rain–minus the hailstones next time!

This week’s box

This week’s box is heavy on greens and salad fixin’s as we wait for the more common veggies of the summer to size up and fruit.

This week’s head lettuce is an heirloom variety called “Grandpa Admire.” Last Saturday I walked down the bed where they were growing, marveling at the perfect heads that I had grown. I must have been a little too prideful, since the hail a few hours later shredded their leaves and left them a little less admirable.

My personal highlight this week is the spinach. Despite the damage from the hail, this crop is in good shape and a welcome addition to spring. As long as it can handle the heat we should have a few more weeks of harvest from our spinach beds. This spinach can be chopped small for mixing in a salad or it can be cooked down for any recipe using boiled spinach.

• Please email me if you will be away for a week and don’t need a box or want extra veggies when you return.
• Please return your boxes! You are welcome to take the box home with you when you pick up, but please return it next week when you come back for more veggies. You may also empty the box into bags or your own box and leave it at your delivery site.

Grains and Greens Casserole

• 2 TB olive oil
• ½ onion
• Bok choy or komatsuna or vivid choi chopped into small pieces
• 1 bunch kale; stems removed and coarsely chopped
• 10 oz baby spinach
• 2-4 garlic scapes; minced
• 3 cups cooked brown rice (or quinoa/barley/lentils or a combination)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3 eggs; beaten
• 2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Oil a 13 x 9 baking pan
2. Add olive oil to the skillet or wok at medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute for 5-7 minutes.
3. Add all the greens (in small batches) to the wok and cook until wilted.
4. Remove greens from heat to a large bowl and cool.  Stir in cooked grains and add salt/pepper.  Stir in eggs and cheese.
5. Transfer to a prepared baking dish and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake for 35-40 minutes.  Remove foil and cook until the top is lightly browned.

Coming up

Next week’s box will be quite similar to this first one.  We are expecting bok choy, garlic scapes, head lettuce, kale, radishes, salad mix, and spinach.