In Your Box:

• Basil
• Beans
• Beets
• Cherry tomatoes
• Garlic, “Purple Glazer”
• Head lettuce
• Sweet onion
• Sweet pepper
• Tomatoes

Farm News

At this point in the farm season, I start to resemble a creature that could best be called Vegetable Monster. I spend about six hours a week picking green beans, during which time the leaves of the plants (which have a natural Velcro texture) fall off and stick to my shirt and pants. I spend about 5 hours a week picking tomatoes, where the pollen and natural “tomato tar” the plant uses to protect its leaves stain my hands, arms, and shirt a frightening shade of yellow. Then I top it off with picking beets, whose red coloring starts to rub off on my hands by the time I’ve picked all 450 beets from the ground. 

So if you run into a sweaty, yellow man with red hands and bean leaves plastered all over his clothes, please be respectful as you behold the Vegetable Monster in the wild. And if my kids don’t want to stand too close to me at school open houses, I completely understand.

This week’s box

Our sweet peppers are ripening nicely, although unfortunately a hungry critter in our high tunnels (raccoon?) has been making a meal out of a lot of them. Our furry friend takes only a couple bites of each one, leaving the pepper planting a rather sorry looking bed. I’ll be picking the ones he didn’t touch and hoping that my sighs of discontent make him rethink his life choices.

The peppers that we do have are all bullnose varieties, sweet peppers that turn either red (“Carmen”) or orange (“Escamillo”) when fully ripe. The green ones are just as tasty, though the flesh isn’t quite as thick as it is on the fully ripened fruits. 

We are nearing the end of bean season, and for this week and next we’ll have my favorite variety, “Dragon’s Tongue.” Some of my seed catalogs have changed the name of this bean to Dragon Langerie, its historical name, so I finally looked up the word Langerie to see what it means. And it doesn’t mean anything! It’s just a misspelling of Merveille de Piedmont, or Marvel of the Piedmont region of Italy. So somehow the word Merveille became Langerie, and now we’re stuck with a word that doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t even resemble the word it’s supposed to be! And if you look it up online, you have to be careful about your spelling or else you’ll end up with racy pictures of dragons in seductive underwear… So maybe we just stick with Dragon’s Tongue, since the beans look kinda like what a dragon’s tongue must be.

Tomatoes are really coming in nicely, and we’ll have a surplus available for freezing and canning in the next couple weeks. If you are interested in purchasing extras, I offer 10 lb boxes of meaty tomatoes for $30. Just send me an email if you are interested and I’ll let you know as soon as they are available.

Roasted Beet Hummus

from “Bad Manners: Party Grub”

• 1.5 pounds beets, roasted, peeled, and chopped
• 1.5 cups chickpeas (15 ounce can, drained and rinsed works)
• 3 cloves garlic (or more)
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping: Walnut-Herb Crumble

• 1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh dill
• 3 tablespoons minced green onions
• pinch of salt

1. In a food processor or blender, combine the beets, chickpeas, garlic, tahini, olive oil, citrus juices, and salt. Run until everything looks smooth. Add a tablespoon of water if it’s getting caught up.

2. To make the crumble: Chop up the walnuts tiny and mix them in a small bowl with the dill, green onions, and salt.

3. Sprinkle the walnut-herb mixture over the dip and serve (cold or room temp).  It can be made the day before, but do not make the crumble until day of so everything stays looking nice and green.

Coming up

Next week, we are expecting red onions, kale, head lettuce, broccolini or summer squash, beans, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, pepper and carrots.