CSA Week 6 and Farm Stand Updates

Every day we have been progressively chipping away at our to-do lists, with our rock star crew pushing through difficult hot and humid weather conditions last week. We have been weeding, trellising, seeding and more, but it is our heavy summer squash, zucchini and cucumber harvests that have perhaps eaten up the largest portions of our days. Because of how quickly the fruit grows, we need to harvest at least 4 or 5 days per week. The work doesn’t end with the harvest, though. Next we need to bin the harvest up into crates (and oftentimes we need to condense and wash bins in order to have something to put the harvest into!) and then we shuffle things around in the packed cooler to make space so that it’s organized for the person stocking the store and the CSA. After the squash, zucchini and cucumbers are all binned up, then we usually have a mountain of harvest buckets to scrub. Fortunately, bin and bucket washing is a highly desirable task on hot summer days!

In the CSA this week:

• Potatoes - This week we’ll be enjoying “Dark Red Norland” variety, which has red skin and white flesh.

• Cabbage - we’ll have both the regular round green heads as well as the conical green heads (“Caraflex” variety).

• Pickling cucumbers - These can be eaten fresh like slicing cucumbers, but they are especially suited for pickling as they will maintain crispness better than other types of cucumber.

• Carrots

• Celery

• Fennel

• Garlic scapes

• Scallions

• Summer squash

• Zucchini

• Slicing cucumbers

• “Burpless” cucumbers - thin-skinned and seedless

• Carrots

• Curly kale

• Lettuce

• Salanova lettuce mix

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Green beans

• Sunflowers

• Herbs - sage, thyme, oregano, chive, parsley, dill, cilantro and basil

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have beets, as well as mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm and eggs from Pete and Jen’s.

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. We also continue to take online pre-orders for Wednesday and Friday pick-up. The link for online orders is https://openfoodnetwork.net/barrett-s-mill-farm/shop#/shop. Online ordering currently opens at 6pm on Tuesday for Wednesday pick-up and 6pm on Thursday for Friday pick-up.

Fennel-Apple Salad With Walnuts

by Melissa Clark, from NY Times Cooking

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons lemon juice, plus more to taste

• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste

• Freshly ground black pepper

• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

• 3 large fennel bulbs, thinly sliced on a mandoline

• 2 Granny Smith apples, halved and cored, thinly sliced on a mandoline

• 3 celery stalks, thinly sliced on a mandoline

• ⅓ cup fennel fronds or roughly chopped parsley leaves

• ½cup toasted walnuts

• 2½ ounces Parmesan, shaved with a vegetable peeler (about ⅔ cup)

Preparation

1. In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in oil, continuously whisking, until dressing is emulsified. Taste and add more lemon juice and/or salt if needed.

2. In a large bowl, toss the dressing with fennel, apple and celery. Fold in fennel fronds or parsley and walnuts. Top with Parmesan just before serving.

Tip: Dressing can be made the day before serving. Store in the refrigerator. Toss with salad ingredients up to 1 hour before serving.

July 4th hours and CSA Week 5

The forecast of constant thunderstorms last week didn’t completely pan out, which we are grateful for! We did fortunately get enough rain to allow us to defer setting up more irrigation until this week. That meant we could keep plugging away at trellising tomatoes in our high tunnels and putting down landscape fabric in tomatoes, eggplant and cucumbers to keep down weeds. This week we will try to put down the last of the landscape fabric in our eggplant, peppers and watermelon, as well as move on to trellising our high tunnel peppers and field tomatoes. We will also continue to pick Colorado potato beetles off of our eggplant and tomato plants, and we will put in one last effort at burning the bugs on our potato plants. Because organic pesticides are not very effective in controlling potato beetles, we have to resort mostly to time consuming control methods like picking off bugs by hand and burning the larvae once populations increase. We could have everyone on the crew spending an entire day picking bugs by hand off the potato plants and still not make it all the way through, so this time of year burning the bugs is faster! It is a huge challenge to keep up with potato beetles and we know we will eventually lose, so we try to strike the right balance of keeping our plants alive long enough to produce harvestable yields while not taking up so much time that other crops suffer. We feel like we’re as successful as we can be in striking that balance, but it’s still pretty deflating to see a field you’ve worked on for weeks completely defoliated in a matter of days!

The farm stand will be closed Tuesday July 4th for the holiday, but we will be open regular hours again on Wednesday. Happy 4th!

In the CSA this week:

• Purple carrots - We grow a bed of purple carrots every spring to add a little excitement to things!

• Scallions - Back after a short hiatus!

• Celery - Ours tends to be less watery than grocery store celery, so it has a more concentrated flavor.

• “Burpless” cucumbers - We tried out a new variety in the high tunnel called Katrina. These are short thin-skinned and seedless with a very mild flavor (like a Persian cucumber).

• Garlic scapes

• Fennel

• Summer squash

• Zucchini

• Slicing cucumbers

• Carrots

• Beets

• Curly kale

• Lettuce

• Salanova lettuce mix

• Mustard greens

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Herbs - sage, thyme, parsley, dill, cilantro and basil

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have pickling cucumbers and radishes. We will also have mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm and eggs from Pete and Jen’s.

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 (closed Tuesday July 4th this week). We also continue to take online pre-orders for Wednesday and Friday pick-up. The link for online orders is https://openfoodnetwork.net/barrett-s-mill-farm/shop#/shop. Online ordering currently opens at 6pm on Tuesday for Wednesday pick-up and 6pm on Thursday for Friday pick-up.

Mushroom CSA:

Last week was the final one of the Spring Mushroom CSA. Stay tuned for sign-ups for the Fall session!

Caramelized Zucchini Pasta

by Ali Slagle, from NY Times Cooking

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 2 pounds zucchini, coarsely grated (about 3 large zucchini)

• 8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed (or use scapes!)

• ½cup basil leaves, stems reserved, plus more for serving

• Kosher salt and black pepper

• 1 pound ridged or curly pasta (like medium shells or casarecce)

• ½ cup finely grated Parmesan or pecorino (about ½ ounce), plus more for serving

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preparation

1. In a large (at least 12-inch) cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter and oil. When it’s foaming, add the zucchini, garlic, the basil stems and half the basil leaves. Season with 1¼ teaspoons salt and a few grinds of pepper. Cover and cook until pooling with liquid, 5 to 7 minutes. Uncover and cook until the liquid evaporates and the zucchini starts to sizzle, 7 to 10 minutes.

2. Continue to cook until the zucchini is very soft, dark green, and reduced to about 1 cup, another 20 to 25 minutes. When you see a build up of browned bits on the skillet, add a couple tablespoons of water and stir, scraping up the browned bits. Repeat anytime more browning occurs. If you see burning, deglaze with water and lower the heat. (Caramelized zucchini can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to a week; it also freezes well.)

3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When the zucchini is about done, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente. Reserve 2 cups of pasta water, then drain the pasta. If the zucchini is ready before the pasta, keep cooking it; the zucchini will only get better the longer it cooks.

4. When the pasta’s drained, remove the herb stems from the zucchini. Reduce the heat on the zucchini to medium, then add the pasta, 1 cup pasta water, and the Parmesan. Stir until the pasta is glossed with sauce. Add more pasta water as needed to thin the sauce. Stir in the lemon juice and remaining basil, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with more basil, Parmesan and black pepper.

CSA Week 4 and Farm Stand Updates

It’s been a wetter season so far than we’ve been used to in recent years, so we took advantage of a couple of warm and sunny days last week to kill some weeds! Carmella, Siobhan and Anna all got some quality time atop our cultivating tractors. We also made a big dent in putting down landscape fabric in between beds (the landscape fabric prevents weeds from growing so that we don’t have to hand weed, hoe or cultivate with tractors all season long). This week we are bracing for some stormy weather. While thunderstorms can make it challenging to safely accomplish important field tasks like harvesting, they do force us under cover for some equally important tasks like seeding in our greenhouse and trellising in our high tunnels!

In the CSA this week:

• Beets - The variety that we are harvesting this week is a classic red variety.

• Red mizuna - a mild green with pinkish-red stems. These leaves are large and best for cooking.

• Mustard greens - Usually these are cooked, but they can also make a colorful and spicy addition to a salad!

• Garlic scapes

• Fennel

• Summer squash

• Zucchini

• Slicing cucumbers

• Carrots

• Radishes - We’ll have both the red cherriette variety as well as a new purple variety we are trying out this year!

• Salad turnips

• Curly kale or Swiss chard

• Lettuce

• Salanova lettuce mix

• Arugula

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Shelling peas - Unlike snap peas, you do not eat the pods. You “shell” them (remove the pods) and enjoy the fresh peas inside!

• Herbs - sage, thyme, parsley, dill, cilantro and basil

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have seedlings, pickling cucumbers, seedless thin-skinned cucumbers, kohlrabi, bok choi and daikon radish. We will also have mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm and eggs from Pete and Jen’s.

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. We also continue to take online pre-orders for Wednesday and Friday pick-up. The link for online orders is https://openfoodnetwork.net/barrett-s-mill-farm/shop#/shop. Online ordering currently opens at 6pm on Tuesday for Wednesday pick-up and 6pm on Thursday for Friday pick-up.

Mushroom CSA:

You may come to pick up your mushrooms anytime the farm store is open (Tuesday-Friday 11am-6pm and Saturday 9am-3pm). Your mushrooms will be kept in the cooler and retrieved by the shopkeeper when you arrive at the store. It is the final week of the 8-week Spring Mushroom CSA!

Sautéed Summer Squash & Zucchini Ribbons

from America’s Test Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 1 small garlic clove, minced (or use garlic scapes!)

• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest plus 1 tablespoon juice

• 4 (6- to 8-ounce) yellow squash or zucchini, trimmed

• 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

• Salt and pepper

• 1 ½ tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Before you begin:

To avoid overcooking the squash, start checking for doneness at the lower end of the cooking time.

Instructions:

Combine garlic and lemon juice in large bowl and set aside for at least 10 minutes. Using vegetable peeler, shave each squash lengthwise into ribbons: Shave off 3 ribbons from 1 side, then turn squash 90 degrees and shave off 3 more ribbons. Continue to turn and shave ribbons until you reach seeds; discard core.

Whisk 2 tablespoons oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and lemon zest into garlic/lemon juice mixture.

Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add squash and cook, tossing occasionally with tongs, until squash has softened and is translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer squash to bowl with dressing, add parsley, and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to serving platter and serve immediately.

CSA Week 3 and Farm Stand Updates

Our days have been filled with harvesting and planting and weeding and - when we have time - our favorite activity of potato beetle picking! This week we need to focus in on trellising and pruning tomatoes as well as putting down landscape fabric in pathways to keep down weeds. We are also going to get back on track with tractor cultivation. One of our cultivating tractors was out of commission last week due to a leaky tire, but thanks to Lise’s dad a brand new tire arrived today to get us up and running again. (We have been relying heavily on the courier services of both of Lise and Melissa’s parents this year!) We’ve had a bit of reprieve with timely rains and cooler temperatures, but we now need to get back to setting up irrigation across the street as the first succession of fall carrots and beets gets seeded there this week and you never want to be setting up an entire field’s worth of irrigation in an emergency! We sure do miss Melissa!

In the CSA this week:

• Garlic scapes - These are the flower stem and buds of our garlic. We snap them off for 2 reasons: doing so helps the plants focus their growing energy on the bulbs, and also they are delicious! A little milder than garlic heads.

• Fennel - Grown in our high tunnel.

• Summer squash and zucchini - Putting row cover on these plants when we planted them in May has certainly paid off, as we are going to enjoy these earlier than typical (even in spite of the cooler June we’ve experienced!).

• Curly kale - A little later than usual, as many of our early spring brassicas (like kale and cabbage) got hit hard by flea beetles and are only now starting to grow past that damage. We had decided not to put protective row cover on these when we planted them in April (it’s a windy time of year and we had gotten tired of spending hours re-tacking down row cover on our day off!) but this year was unfortunately a bad spring for flea beetles - lesson learned!

• Slicing cucumbers

• Carrots

• Kohlrabi

• Radishes

• Salad turnips

• Mini daikon radish

• Lettuce

• Salanova lettuce mix

• Arugula

• Bok choi

• Yukina savoy

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Strawberries - All of the beds are finally producing! These are a popular item, so in order to ensure that people coming at the end of the day still have ripe strawberries to pick, please do not overfill your container and (as tempting as it is!) please do not snack on berries in the field.

• Herbs - In addition to sage, thyme, parsley, dill and cilantro we now also have basil!

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have seedlings, flowers, spinach, pickling cucumbers and Persian (thin-skinned, mini) cucumbers. We hope to have summer squash and zucchini in the store by the end of the week. We will also have mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm. We know that strawberries are on many store customers’ minds - the planting for the farm store has unfortunately mostly petered out, so we are unlikely to have more in the store this season.

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. We also continue to take online pre-orders for Wednesday and Friday pick-up. The link for online orders is https://openfoodnetwork.net/barrett-s-mill-farm/shop#/shop. Online ordering currently opens at 6pm on Tuesday for Wednesday pick-up and 6pm on Thursday for Friday pick-up.

Mushroom CSA:

You may come to pick up your mushrooms anytime the farm store is open (Tuesday-Friday 11am-6pm and Saturday 9am-3pm). Your mushrooms will be kept in the cooler and retrieved by the shopkeeper when you arrive at the store. It is week 7 of the 8-week Spring Mushroom CSA. This week’s variety is shiitake.

Salad Turnips and Cucumbers with Garlic Scape Labneh

adapted from Ricardo Cuisine

Ingredients:

Labneh:

• ½ cup (125 ml) labneh, 10% plain yogurt or Greek yogurt

• 2 tsp garlic scapes, chopped (see note)

• ¼ tsp Espelette pepper

Dressing:

• ¼ cup (60 ml) olive oil

• 2 tbsp (30 ml) white wine vinegar

• 1 tbsp (15 ml) whole-grain mustard

• 1 tbsp (15 ml) maple syrup

• 1 tbsp poppy seeds

Turnips and Cucumbers:

• ½ lb (225 g) salad turnips with tops, scrubbed clean (see note)

• 3 slicing cucumbers (or 8 Persian cucumbers), halved lengthwise and cut diagonally into pieces ¾ inch (2 cm) long

• ¼ cup (10 g) purple or green basil leaves

Preparation:

Labneh:

In a bowl, combine all of the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside in the refrigerator.

Dressing:

In another bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Turnips and Cucumbers:

1. Using a mandoline, thinly slice the turnips. Set the green tops aside.

2. Place the sliced turnips in a bowl of ice water. Let soak for 5 minutes or until very crunchy. Drain and dry on a clean dishcloth. Place in a large bowl.

3. Add the turnip tops, cucumbers and dressing to the bowl of sliced turnips. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well.

4. Spread the labneh out in a serving dish. Top with the salad. Sprinkle with the basil. Serve immediately.

CSA Week 2 and Farm Stand updates

With the first week of the CSA and the second week of the staffed farm store behind us, we can breathe a little sigh of relief. But not for too long! The larger and more time-consuming greens harvests that start in early June also coincide with some other critical farm tasks. The longer and warmer days mean that both crop and weed growth take off, requiring trellising of our vining crops and timely mulching and cultivation to keep down weeds. Our most hated nemesis - the Colorado potato beetle - also flourishes this time of year, requiring hours on end of crushing eggs and picking bugs off of our potato, eggplant and tomato plants to avert a complete crop failure. Although we just pushed past the heftiest planting block of the season, we still have plenty more to go. Fortunately we had decent precipitation this past week and could take a break from irrigation set-up. We’re hoping this continues for a few more weeks (and preferably all the rain happens at night!) so we can keep up with our planting, weeding, trellising and potato beetle squashing responsibilities!

In the CSA this week:

• Cucumbers - The cukes we’re harvesting right now are grown in the ground in our high tunnel. Cucumbers grown outside of the protection of the high tunnels usually aren’t producing until mid-July! It will be a limited amount this week, but production should ramp up soon.

• Carrots - These carrots are a little earlier than usual. Later carrots will size up a bit more, but these early carrots are tender and sweet!

• Green Garlic

• Kohlrabi

• Radishes

• Salad turnips

• Mini daikon radish

• Spinach - This is probably the last week of spinach until the fall, as it does not hold well in the field in the heat.

• Lettuce

• Salanova lettuce mix

• Arugula

• Baby bok choi

• Yukina savoy - This is a mild green that can either be eaten raw or cooked.

CSA Pick-Your-Own:

• Sweet William flowers

• Herbs - In addition to sage, thyme and chives, we now also have parsley, dill and cilantro.

Strawberry update: The PYO strawberries are showing signs that they are ripening, so we hope to have them next week!

In the farm store:

In addition to the items listed in the CSA, we will have seedlings, flowers, scallions and bok choi heads. We will also have mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm and Double B honey.

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. We also continue to take online pre-orders for Wednesday and Friday pick-up. The link for online orders is https://openfoodnetwork.net/barrett-s-mill-farm/shop#/shop. Online ordering currently opens at 6pm on Tuesday for Wednesday pick-up and 6pm on Thursday for Friday pick-up.

Mushroom CSA:

Now that the farm store is staffed you may come to pick up your mushrooms anytime the farm store is open (Tuesday-Friday 11am-6pm and Saturday 9am-3pm). Your mushrooms will be kept in the cooler and retrieved by the shopkeeper when you arrive at the store. It is week 6 of the 8-week Spring Mushroom CSA. This week is Lion’s Mane and Blue Oyster mix.

Fresh Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce

from Cookie + Kate

Ingredients:

Spring Rolls

• 2 ounces rice vermicelli or maifun brown rice noodles*

• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

• 1 cup torn butterhead lettuce, ribs removed

• 1 cup very thinly sliced red cabbage

• 2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks or sliced into strips with a julienne peeler

• 1 small cucumber, thinly sliced or sliced into strips with a julienne peeler

• 2 medium jalapeños, ribs and seeds removed, thinly sliced

• ¼ cup thinly sliced green onions

• ¼ cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro

• ¼ cup roughly chopped fresh mint

• 8 sheets rice paper (spring roll wrappers)

Peanut Sauce

• ⅓ cup creamy peanut butter

• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar

• 2 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari or soy sauce

• 2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup

• 1 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

• 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced (you can use green garlic!)

• 2 to 3 tablespoons water, as needed

Instructions

1. To make the spring rolls: Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the noodles just until al dente, according to package directions. Drain, rinse them under cool water, and return them to the pot. Off the heat, toss the noodles with the sesame oil and salt, and set aside.

2. Fill a shallow pan (a pie pan or 9″ round cake pan works great) with an inch of water. Fold a lint-free tea towel in half and place it next to the dish. Make sure your prepared fillings are within reach. Combine the green onion, cilantro and mint in a small bowl, and stir.

3. Place one rice paper in the water and let it rest for about 20 seconds, give or take. You’ll learn to go by feel here—wait until the sheet is pliable but not super floppy. Carefully lay it flat on the towel.

4. Leaving about 1 inch of open rice paper around the edges, cover the lower third of the paper with a few pieces of butter lettuce, followed by a small handful of rice noodles, some cabbage, and a few strips of carrot, cucumber and jalapeño. Sprinkle generously with the herb mix.

5. Fold the lower edge up over the fillings, rolling upward just until the filling is compactly enclosed. Fold over the short sides like you would to make a burrito. Lastly, roll it up. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

6. To make the peanut sauce: In a small bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, rice vinegar, tamari, honey, sesame oil, and garlic. Whisk in 2 to 3 tablespoons water, as needed to make a super creamy but dip-able sauce.

7. Serve the spring rolls with peanut sauce on the side. You can serve them whole, or sliced in half on the diagonal with a sharp chef’s knife.