CSA Week 2 and Farm Stand Updates

The rains we received Friday night and Monday (with more forecast for tomorrow) have been very timely for our vegetables. While we have set up irrigation on the majority of the farm, there are still some gaps in coverage that we were finding difficult to fill in with all of the other regular planting, harvesting and weeding demands of June. Our winter squash and field tomatoes, peppers and eggplant across the street have particularly benefited from some wetter weather. We took advantage of some cooler temps and cloudier skies on Saturday morning to trellis all of our high tunnel cucumbers (the tunnels are pretty unpleasant to work in on hot sunny days) and we are now very excited that it looks like we’ll be harvesting our very first cukes of the season later this week! With a forecast showing continuing temps in the 70s, we’re looking forward to more high tunnel work this week, including trellising our peppers, planting ginger and doing a second round of tomato trellising.

The downside to some of this rainier weather is that there are also some thunderstorms in the forecast for Tuesday. The CSA and Farm Stand will still be open, but if you are a CSA member, please keep an eye on the weather and try to avoid picking up during a lightning storm. If lightning is close, the CSA check-in will move inside the farm stand and we will have pre-packed bags available for CSA members. Anyone who comes to get their bag on Tuesday and is unable to do the PYO portion will be able to schedule a PYO make-up for Wednesday during our farm store hours 11am-6pm.

In the CSA this week:

CSA pick up hours are Tues/Thurs 11am-6pm and Saturday 9am - 3pm. Face masks are required under the CSA tent during the first hour of each day.

• Garlic scapes - Scapes are snapped off the garlic plants to encourage more robust bulb development. They have the same garlicky flavor, but are a little milder.

• Fennel - This fennel is coming from our high tunnels, so will be limited due to the limited space we have for planting, but there is more fennel from the field to come in the next couple of weeks. These bulbs have a licorice flavor and can add interest to salads (it goes particularly well with grapefruit) or can be roasted (it’s especially good roasted with a whole chicken).

• Yukina Savoy - our spinach did not make it through the extreme heat leading up to the first CSA pick-up week, but many people like to use this tender mild green as a substitute for spinach in recipes. It works well raw in salads or lightly cooked!

• Lettuce - We are getting to a section of our planting that has less woodchuck damage, so there will be more varieties of head lettuce to choose from (though heads will still be on the smaller side).

• Salanova lettuce mix

• Arugula

• Red mizuna

• Baby bok choi

• Red Russian kale

• Curly kale

• Salad turnips

• Radishes

• Mini mak radishes

• Kohlrabi

CSA PYO:

Handwashing sinks are provided at the entrance to each PYO field. For the sake of food safety, please wash hands before picking. The barn bathroom and wash area sinks in the barn are for employees only.

*Please note that we close down the PYO fields for lightning storms.

• Strawberries- all beds are producing!

• Shell peas or sugar snap peas - our two later plantings of sugar snap peas suffered from very early drought conditions, so there will be a choice of shelling peas or sugar snap peas for picking to make sure we have enough for everyone.

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA the farm store this week will also have scallions, carrots (from the field now!) and by the end of the week we’ll have cucumbers from our high tunnel! We also have eggs from Codman Farm, honey from Double B, and we hope to have mushrooms again at the end of the week.

We accept credit card, cash, check and EBT in the farm store. The farm store is open Tuesday - Friday 11am - 6pm and Saturday 9am - 3pm. Masks are required during the first hour of each day and encouraged for the remainder of the day. We are keeping a chalkboard list of items available outside the store and our Shopkeepers would be happy to shop for anyone who is uncomfortable entering the store. We also continue to take online pre-orders for Wednesday, Friday and Saturday pick-up. The link for online orders is https://openfoodnetwork.net/barrett-s-mill-farm/shop#/shop. Online ordering opens at 6pm the day before pick-up.

White Bean and Garlic Scapes Dip

by Melissa Clark, NY Times Cooking

Ingredients

• ⅓ cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)

• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste

• ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt, more to taste

• Ground black pepper to taste

• 1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling

Preparation

1. In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough purée.

2. With motor running, slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. Pulse in 2 or 3 tablespoons water, or more, until mixture is the consistency of a dip. Add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice, if desired.

3. Spread out dip on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with more salt.

Vegetarian Minestrone Soup

adapted from Worden Farm to Table

Ingredients:

• About 4 cups loosely packed mizuna greens with stems

  • The leaves may remain whole but chop the stems into bite-size lengths

• 1 can of cooked organic white kidney beans

  • You may also use red kidney beans, cannellini beans, garbanzo beans, great northern beans.

• 1 cup yellow onion medium dice

• 1 cup carrots medium dice

• 1 cup fennel, bulb and stems medium dice

• 1 yellow squash, medium dice

• 2 cups of yukina savoy

• 1 cup dried macaroni pasta

• 3 cups stewed tomatoes, medium dice if not already

• 1 tbsp dried oregano

• 1 tbsp dried thyme

• 2 sprigs of fresh basil

• 2 cloves of garlic (or 3-4 garlic scapes!), minced

• 4 cups of water or stock (for thinner soup add more water)

• 3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

• Kosher salt to taste

• Black pepper to taste

Preparation:

• Cook macaroni separately using instructions from the producer; cool and set aside.

• Wash and spin dry the mizuna; cut white stems into bite size lengths (about 1 1/2 inches); set aside.

• Peel and medium dice the onions; set aside.

• Wash, pat dry and medium dice the kina savoy stalks and chop the leaves; set aside.

• Wash and medium dice the fennel, carrots, and yellow squash; set aside.

• Peel and dice the garlic; set aside.

Cooking:

• Heat a large soup pot on a stovetop burner set to medium-high, add the oil, wait 1 minute to heat up the oil, add the onions, cook 1 minute, add the garlic, cook 1 minute, stir occasionally throughout this step.

• Add the kina savoy, carrots, fennel, and squash, cook for 5 minutes, stir occasionally.

• Add the tomatoes, water, and dried herbs, cook for 15 minutes, stir occasionally.

• When the veggies in the soup are at your desired doneness (i.e. soft/tender or still a little crunchy) the soup is done.

  • If you are only going to serve a portion of the soup and keep the rest for leftovers then ladle the portion you want to serve into a small soup pot on a medium heat burner.

  • Quickly cool the rest of the soup before storing in the fridge.

  • For the soup that you will serve immediately or later for smaller portions:

    • Reheat the amount of soup you want to serve in a small soup pot.

    • Add about 1/2 cup of cooked macaroni per diner to the smaller soup pot, cook to warm up the macaroni (2-3 minutes).

    • Add the mizuna leaves and stems, cook for 2 minutes.

    • The minestrone with mizuna is ready!

    • Garnish with fresh basil leaves.