July 17, 2008 Summer in full swing!
Hello folks, here’s this weeks news. I hope your are enjoying the musings…
CSA members: PLEASE try to remember your pint jar returnables for the maple syrup. We’ll refill next week! YUM!
NOTE!!! Huntington CSA members: Next week July 24 and the following 3 weeks we will have the veggie share pickups at Jubilee Farm in Huntington Center. Sara Jane Williamson owner of Jubiliee is hosting a LOCALVORE MARKET for 4 weeks with many wonderful local goods for sale (baked goods, syrup, Maple Wind meats, veggies, jams etc. ) ALL WELCOME!!!! spread the word about this mini farmers market to all your friends.
ON THE FARM: Finally we have completed the water systems at Teal Farm for the lower fields. Bruce and the crew are very relieved to have that behind us and the water pressure is fantastic! Ben Cooley says “the cows will love it and we are ready to move them on Friday or Saturday”. They’ve been vacationing for 8-9 days up on high ground on an old air landing strip. To get them water, we’ve had to fill two water tanks using a pump from ponds on Melissa’s property. Every 24 hours 80 cows with their calves drink about 700 gallons!!!! We are still cutting and bailing hay- its been great weather this week for it!
IN THE GARDEN: Grow garden grow! All is well and we are hitting a nice period of harvest. We hope you are enjoying the fresh vegetables. I will say that soon we will enter into a slower “greens” period. I had a huge number of head lettuce bolt and also a nice patch of buttercrunch get bottom rot (from the wet soils from all this rain) so I had to compost them all. Head lettuce will not be very prevelent in the upcoming few weeks, my apologies. We’ll keep trying for loose lettuce until then. We got all the tomatoes trellised this week finally and they are loving the air and stretching in the sun! We can see many fruits but the ripe ones are still aways off.
THIS WEEKS HARVEST: Cucumbers (salad and pickling), Summer Squash, Basil, Cabbage, Chard, Scallions, Arugula (the swiss cheese kind with flea beetle marks but still tastes fine), and some cut red lettuce. There may be more surprises…
IN THE KITCHEN: We have great dill heads in the pick your own herb gardens so take some home and make a jar of pickles! Easy and fun! For many pickling recipies I highly recommend “Putting Food By” by Janet Greene. Very comprehensive on freezing, canning, and preserving all vegetables, fruits and meats. It is quite the bible of food preservation. Its put out by Plume Press. I think I got this used on Amazon.com.
Quick Pickles
10 pickles, 1/4 c. sugar, 1/4 c. pickling salt, 1/3 Quart vinegar and 1/3 Quart water, fresh dill heads. Optional: garlic cloves or whole picking spices.
Mix together sugar, salt, vinegar, and water to a boil. Scrub cucumbers, remove stems and blossom ends; cut lengthwise in halves or quarters (not longer than the jar) Put a dill head in each clean hot jar. Pack the jars with cut cucumbers upright, then tuck in garlic clove if you like. Pour in boiling vinegar mixture, leave 1/2 inch headroom. Adjust lids. Process in 185F/85 C water bath for 10 min. Remove jars and complete seals if necessary.
Steamed Chard with Candied Ginger
3/4 lb chard leaves, salt and pepper to taste, 1 TB olive oil, grated lemon or orange zest or lemon juice to taste, chopped candied ginger to taste
Wash chard then chop coarsely. Steam leaves 5-10 min. Toss chard with remaining ingredients and serve warm.
I welcome any great tasty dishes you may want to share with the other members, Email me and I can add it to a newsletter.
Have a great week.
Beth
