Week 3 Squash Blossom Food Share

This weeks share includes 2 Heads of Lettuce(Pablo is the red-Grandpa's Admires the Green), 3 Bunches of Early Garlic, 1 Bag Spicy Greens, 1 Head of Northern lights Chard and 2 Bunches of Chives. Next week will likely be the last week of chives. So, if you don't devour this weekly they dry down easily in a dehydrator or laid flat and thinly on brown bags suspended on a cookie rack. This way you'll have optimum air flow over and under the chives.

Sicilia our Buttercup with the Rooster making his rounds

Try the chard with any kind of meat including fish-it likes to be cooked with fatty foods. We ate ours with Salmon Cakes this week and it was delicious. We tried the suggestion by one of our share holders of grilling the garlic whole and nibbled on like they do in Spain and found it absolutely delicious. Thanks for the great grilling idea.

Talus's perspective of the Blue Andalusian

The broccoli got a fresh round of compost today and we started mulching the "straw"berries. The straw serves several purposes of retaining moisture and smothering grass germination. The ground seems warm enough to start doing this most everywhere in the garden. So, the purple Adirondack Potatoes and French Fingerlings were mulched with fresh cut organic hay from our jungle and should add some extra nitrogen for some leaf growth.

I found the first curls in the garlic today! so look for the Garlic scapes next week. Besides adding them to stir fry or making pesto, they make great wrist bands to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Happy 4th!

Week 2 Squash Blossom CSA

The garden is shaping up with this much needed warmer weather. This week, I replanted spinach, beets and radishes as the previous crop did not emerge during the soggy bout.boo hoo.

The radish mix should be quite colorful and varied with Easter egg mixes, belles and german giants. We also transplanted the remaining broccoli, kale, bok choy and lettuce seeded some kohlrabi and fennel to the rows and scattered more daikon.

Daikon is a Japanese Radish that seems a totem in Macrobiotic Cooking. It forms a stout white root with a strong spicy flavor. It's also a great soil aerator providing organic matter if left in as a cover crop or serves an easy guide for successive plantings of other food crops. You'll find it scattered about in most of our garden.

We also ventured into the world of Purple Asparagus earlier in the spring. The extra compost I added this week will give them a boost when we pull our first harvest next year. It's making very teeny tiny small shoots right now that are more enjoyable to admire than to ponder eating.

In the berry world the strawberries are looking great with plenty of flowers and the first berries forming. We also have trial run of Northern Blackberries that we're hoping will actually produce early this fall and our Raspberries show signs of fruit too.

After we finish off the arugula this week and work through more of the bok choy we'll be transitioning that row into our peppers and moving some more warmer weather crops into the high tunnel. The squashes, eggplants, okra and peppers have been quite happy in the greenhouse. We'll leave a handful of peppers and okra in the greenhouse to see if they produce more prolifically than growing in the high tunnel.

So this week the share consists of a couple roseates of tatsoi which has a dark green quality that we like to eat fresh like spinach. A few heads of Grandpa's Admires lettuce. This heirloom lettuce was introduced to Seed Saver's in the 1970's and carries an interesting story like all heirlooms. Some more chives and marjoram and a few heads of bok choy. I saw our first bee buzzing in the chive blossom yesterday.

Also, the bok choy will be peppered with some holes as we do have persistent little critters out there. We strongly believe in a chemical free, organic and sustainable methods so we eat our greens with holes from time to time. However, nightly we do collect and occasionally toss slugs to the furthest distance possible in the evenings. Even with the cosmetic drawbacks, the bok choy is absolutely delicious chopped up and stir fried. It also freezes well if you pre-chop and bag in zip locks.

You'll also find "early" garlic. Finely slice the white ends and use like regular cloves. These clusters we're from our trial on leaving the flowers intact to determine if the garlic stored longer without losing bulb size. We found it did so far but plan on testing this annually. The garlic has 2 other seasons coming-fresh scapes and the grand finale of bulbs.

The recipe this week was located in Roz Denny and Christine Ingram's Vegetarian Cookbook.

Bok Choy With Lime Dressing

1/2 a bunch of chives

1 bok choy head

dried red chillies

2 garlics

1 tblsp ground cashews(we use a coffee grinder)

Dressing

2 tblsp fish or mushroom sauce

2 tblsp lime juice

1 cup coconut milk

Blend mushroom sauce, lime juice and coconut milk.

Stir fry red chilies in olive oil for 2-3 minutes set aside on plate

Stir fry sliced garlic and chopped chives for 30-60 seconds and add to chilies

Finely shred bok choy then toss in salted boiling water for 10 seconds-drain and transfer to large bowl

Pour Lime dressing over the bok choy and sprinkle with ground cashews and chili mixture