Week 3 CSA Weather Warmer

Week 3 is filled with specialty spring greens, shallots, herbs, radishes and early garlic clusters. This week's recipes are honey mustard vinaigrette and bok choy with lime dressing. Also, one of my new favorite creations is Russet Mashed Potatoes with Coconut Oil and a hint of dill and raw shallots served with Hungarian Herb Fish and our fresh salad mix.

Squash Blossom Farm CSA Food Share 2013

The rain is welcoming in our first food share of the season and after the last few spells it is finally hydrating the dry spring ground. You can see the plants and garlic growing before your eyes.

Besides the enduring nature of garlic I'm always an admirer of spring greens in Montana. Germinating early in spring they taste and feel highly energetic and so fresh after winter in the snow. This weeks share includes an assortment of our garden's greens, spring herbs, flowers and nettles which is highly nutritious in vitamin and minerals. You'll be cart wheeling after eating them. So in honor of jumping around the nettle patches and welcoming them into our lives we have a superfood soup recipe this week. 

Spring in your Step Nettles Soup

grapeseed oil

6-10 shallot greens

1/4 lb nettles

2 cups water
1.5 cups cooked quinoa

2.5 cups hemp milk

salt-pepper-thyme 

Heat oil and gently stir fry chopped shallots for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and carefully add several cup of water. I fill my 3.5 qt about half way. Return to high heat and toss nettle tops in (just tip the bag without touching the greens-the sting is inactivated in boiling water). Bring to a boil for 10 minutes. Add cooked quinoa and milk and reduce heat to simmer. Add 2 tsp thyme and salt and pepper to taste. 

Nettles is a nourishing and replenishing herb loaded with calcium, Vitamin A, C, D, E, F, K, P chlorophyll, b vitamins, selenium, zinc, iron and magnesium. It also makes a great tea or hair rinse. Enjoy Spring!

Week 2 Share-Thundering Full Moon

As of Friday we entered into caterpillar eruption mode and I wonder what triggers this cycle-rain, underlying current in timing-when were the eggs laid? Nymphalis milberti is clustering up on the nettles and the unidentified two hungry ones from the greenhouse have a new home on the deck. Their previous existence in the greenhouse endive was not satisfying their cravings as much as the broccoli starts and as much as I didn't mind sharing bitter endive-broccoli starts have to much delicious potential. so, we're awaiting metamorphosis and hope to witness the transformation. They have a happy new home in potted endive and the remnants of a woody basil plant.

In parts of the garden we have nettles, nettles and more nettles sprouting up. When one casually allows it to seed and then composts it thinking the heat will anniliate any hopes of germination-the abundance can be profuse but strangely beneficial when you get past avoiding the sting. The good part is it's vigor extends into the surrounding root structures of nearby plants thereby increasing their growth and yield.
Serving as a native butterfly attractant the caterpillars exclusively consume the nettles keeping the crop in check. It also enriches soil for future plantings, speed ups compost decomposition and acts as an aphid trap. Not to mention the benefits when drank as tea or made into a soup broth.
 Yesterday, I transplanted a large cluster of nettles into the 2 year chicken compost pile without seeds so the root system gets to work. A balanced blend of greens, kitchen scraps, manure, straw, coffee frass and the like have gone into this beautiful pile. Most of the time I just cut and incorporate but this year we're trying the growing method for the piles we've stopped turning.

I also unloaded 30 maybe 40 gallons of micro green flowering plants into other compost piles and the chicken tractor on Friday and the soil beneath looks rich and inviting for the first round of Hungarian Heart, Mikarda, Aurora and Soldacki Tomatoes. Never underestimate the power of cover cropping. It's beautiful unruliness is a driving force in soil moisture retention, loft and procures hardly any physical input on our end. Mustards as a cover crop also grows faster than grass and provides and insect trap for over voracious slugs who might have an interest in my kohlrabi and spinach. In fall I leave these prodigiously producing mustards to self sow and offer up our earliest micro green crop in the spring.

This weeks share~
3 Asian Bundles-mizuna/bok choy/southern frill
1 Bag Salad Mix-it's colorful and full of flavor-hints of cilantro this week
1 Bag Kale or 1 Bag Spinach
2 Herbs-Basil, Chives
1 Bundle Radishes

We thought you'd like to know how to store your Asian greens for optimum life in your fridge. Ziplocks are best to keep stir fry greens from going limp. Eating is easy: stem and greens are all edible and reduce down significantly in a skillet with sunflower oil. Add shredded carrots, sunflower seeds, red beans and chives and serve in bowls.

See you at the Market this week.

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