CSA Week 8 and Farm Stand Updates

Watermelon harvest is the big event of the week! We check each melon for a brown tendril attached which indicates ripeness, then we line them all up in a row. Usually we pick them all up into a big squash bin but the tractor with the forks needs a new battery so we are hauling them out of the field and onto the truck this week! We will do less dramatic harvests this week as well, like cutting arugula and mustard greens. Our non-harvest focus this week is caring for our field tomatoes (slicing, heirloom and cherry tomatoes) which are behind this year. We will finish staking and trellising them, irrigate all beds, and hopefully we will seeing the first field tomatoes ripening for next week!

In the CSA this week:

• Potatoes- Dark Red Norland or Yukon Gold

• Watermelon - The first of the season! This week we are harvesting juicebox and mini love varieties, both are red with seeds. They are super sweet with thin rinds so they have lots of flesh per melon. While some weeks watermelon will be available for Regular Size CSAs only, however this week we will try to harvest enough for Small Size CSA members as well. There won’t be watermelon in the store this week but we will have it for sale in the future.

• Garlic - Right now we are distributing uncured garlic. We are distributing our smaller heads as fresh garlic and curing larger heads. Some of the cured garlic will be in the CSA and farm store this fall and some of it will be used for planting!

• Frisée - A type of chicory related to endive and raddichio.

• Pepper - Mostly green bell peppers with a few purple

• Tomatoes - These will again be a mixture of slicing tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes, all from our high tunnel.

• Fresh onions - These should be kept in the fridge.

• Zucchini

• Summer squash

• Pickling cucumbers - still limited quantities this week but more field cucumbers are coming on soon.

• Green Cabbage - This week or next will be the last cabbage harvest for the summer, we will have cabbage again in the fall (we are just planting our fall cabbage now!).

• Lettuce - This time of year due to the heat we grow exclusively summer crisp varieties of lettuce. Over the years we have been trialing many different varieties and planting times to have lettuce in the heat of mid summer.

• Arugula

• Mustard Greens

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Sunflowers - a new bed is now blooming!

• Green beans or Dragon tongue beans - Dragon Tongue beans are plentiful right now and easy to find. The green bean beds are weedy so require more searching but the beans are very nice!

• Herbs: Members will have a choice of parsley, dill, dill flowers, sage, thyme, mint and basil.

• Hot peppers - choose from jalapeno, aji rico, red ember, hungarian hot wax and fresno peppers

Cherry tomatoes are coming soon - our plants are a bit behind this year so they are not yet producing. Cilantro should also be available next week.

Some herb harvesting information:

• Parsley: Pick only outer stems and leave the center stalks to continue to grow.

• Basil and Mint: please pinch the tops of the plants. We need the mint to last all season (and hopefully for many seasons beyond!) so please use care and do not cut long stems.

• Dill, Sage, and Thyme: harvest stems at branching points

• Please do not clear cut herb plants or harvest from beds that are not yet open.

In the farm store:

Farm store hours are Tuesday-Friday 11am-6pm and Saturday 9am-3pm. In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have:

• Flowers - mini bouquets (option to purchase with or without the pint jar), sunflowers, wrapped mixed bouquets and snapdragons.

• Sweet corn from Verrill Farm (not organic).

• Mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm - Certified organic

• Double B Honey - From hives on the property! Not certified organic

• Applesauce from Long Run Produce in Boxborough, MA. Certified Organic.

• Baer’s Best Beans: 1 pound bags. Grown in South Berwick, Maine. Certified Organic varieties available include: Cannellini, Black Turtle, Italian Cranberry and Light Red Kidney. Not organic: bumblebee, marfax, and flageolet.

PYO Flower Field

The flower field is open to both PYO Flower CSA members and the general public for picking by the jar. Please check in at the farm stand before picking. Flowers available for picking this week include: zinnias, snapdragons, gomphrena, ageratum, celosia, ammi, rudbeckia, verbena, amaranth, cosmos, decorative grasses, decorative basil and strawflower.

Mustard Green and Sausage Orecchiette Recipe

By Rachel Hartly

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces orecchiette pasta

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

• 12 ounces sweet Italian sausage

• ½ onion, peeled and thinly sliced

• 2 garlic cloves, minced (garlic lovers might want to use more when using fresh garlic)

• ½ cup chicken or vegetable broth

• 8 ounces mustard greens

• Parmesan, pecorino, or mizithra (a semi-hard Greek cheese), grated, for serving

Instructions:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook orecchiette according to package instructions. Drain, reserving ¾ cup starchy cooking water, and set pasta aside until ready to use.

2. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat. Add sausage, crumbling with the back of a spatula, and cook until browned. Carefully remove cooked sausage from skillet and transfer to a paper towel lined plate.

3. Heat remaining olive oil in the same skillet on medium heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in garlic cloves and cook for a minute. Add broth to the pan, scraping up any browned bits at the bottom to deglaze. Cook until liquid is mostly absorbed.

4. Add mustard greens to the skillet along with ¼ cup of water. Stir, cover and cook 6 minutes until greens are tender and wilted. Uncover, add sausage, and continue to cook until most of the water is absorbed.

5. Stir in cooked pasta and enough starchy cooking liquid to make a sauce. Serve garnished with grated cheese.