Week 25 (November 18th)
Cauliflower
(Purple for Home Delivery and On-Farm Pick-Up and
White for Southside delivery)
Multi-colored Beet Greens
Hakurei Turnips
Mizuna
Arugula
Baby Leeks
Cabbage Leaves
Spinach
Black Spanish Radishes
Lettuce Mix
Week 25 brings us to our final week of the 2020 Ten Hens Farm Box. We have really enjoyed seeing each of you over the past almost half year, getting to know those of you we didn't know before the season, meeting your kids, dogs, pick-up substitutes on week's you were gone on vacation, and having all around great weather for almost every week. We are going to miss Wednesdays being the anchor day of our week, but we are also excited to finish up a few projects around the farm, take a breath, and then get right into the planning and seed ordering for the 2021 season. We already have our list of crops to add into next year's that we didn't grow this year and have started a seed order. Before we know it, the greenhouse heater will be firing up (in a little more than two months!), we'll be seeding and watering the first transplants, and we'll be well on our way to another season. Thank you for this season.
This week's box has cauliflower! We have been watching these heads form for the past two months hoping they would be ready to harvest this last week of the Farm Box season. We have purple heads (called 'Graffiti') for home delivery and on-farm pick-up shares and white heads (called 'Denali') for southside delivery. We chopped and roasted a head last night for the first time and it was delicious. The cold weather has really sweetened them up! We are also excited about the multi-colored beet greens (and the small roots on them) since they were an experiment with our new paper pot seeder. We are excited with how easy they were to plant, how quickly they outgrew the weeds, and how well they did late into the year. These would be great sautéed in olive oil or juiced for all you juicers out there. The baby leeks can be used anywhere you would use leeks or onions and, unlike large leeks, you can use the whole plant of these baby ones. We are thinking about cabbage rolls stuffed with ground meat mixed with cooked hakurei turnips and spinach. Salads of lettuce mix and mizuna are filling our lunches while we are planning to make arugula pesto again this week. We love it with gnocchi! Lastly, the black Spanish radishes are spicy so you might not want to crunch them raw like you would red radishes. You can always slice them thin if you want to try that spice, but roast them in olive oil with salt, onions, and garlic and they are a great. You can also roast and mash them with some potatoes or other starchy root vegetables.
Cauliflower
(Purple for Home Delivery and On-Farm Pick-Up and
White for Southside delivery)
Multi-colored Beet Greens
Hakurei Turnips
Mizuna
Arugula
Baby Leeks
Cabbage Leaves
Spinach
Black Spanish Radishes
Lettuce Mix
Week 25 brings us to our final week of the 2020 Ten Hens Farm Box. We have really enjoyed seeing each of you over the past almost half year, getting to know those of you we didn't know before the season, meeting your kids, dogs, pick-up substitutes on week's you were gone on vacation, and having all around great weather for almost every week. We are going to miss Wednesdays being the anchor day of our week, but we are also excited to finish up a few projects around the farm, take a breath, and then get right into the planning and seed ordering for the 2021 season. We already have our list of crops to add into next year's that we didn't grow this year and have started a seed order. Before we know it, the greenhouse heater will be firing up (in a little more than two months!), we'll be seeding and watering the first transplants, and we'll be well on our way to another season. Thank you for this season.
This week's box has cauliflower! We have been watching these heads form for the past two months hoping they would be ready to harvest this last week of the Farm Box season. We have purple heads (called 'Graffiti') for home delivery and on-farm pick-up shares and white heads (called 'Denali') for southside delivery. We chopped and roasted a head last night for the first time and it was delicious. The cold weather has really sweetened them up! We are also excited about the multi-colored beet greens (and the small roots on them) since they were an experiment with our new paper pot seeder. We are excited with how easy they were to plant, how quickly they outgrew the weeds, and how well they did late into the year. These would be great sautéed in olive oil or juiced for all you juicers out there. The baby leeks can be used anywhere you would use leeks or onions and, unlike large leeks, you can use the whole plant of these baby ones. We are thinking about cabbage rolls stuffed with ground meat mixed with cooked hakurei turnips and spinach. Salads of lettuce mix and mizuna are filling our lunches while we are planning to make arugula pesto again this week. We love it with gnocchi! Lastly, the black Spanish radishes are spicy so you might not want to crunch them raw like you would red radishes. You can always slice them thin if you want to try that spice, but roast them in olive oil with salt, onions, and garlic and they are a great. You can also roast and mash them with some potatoes or other starchy root vegetables.
Week 24 (November 11th)
Brussels Sprouts
Green Buttercrunch Lettuce
Red Potatoes
Spinach
Salad Mix
Cilantro
Endive
Watermelon Radishes
Curly Kale
Pac Choi
Shallots
A year ago, when we decided the 2020 Farm Box season would run 25 weeks, we never thought we would spend Week 24 working in shorts and t-shirts all week long. The warm weather and sunshine this past week has really pushed the final crops to grow more and we have ended up with some beautiful looking produce to bring us into the final two weeks. We also were able to get two more hoophouses covered (Friday and Monday) which means only two more to go. We can cover them in the spring if we need to but getting them all done this fall, when the list of to-dos is much shorter than it will be in the spring, is going to put us in a great place come late February/Early March when we start planting in them for the 2021 Farm Box season (more info about that coming next week!).
We are most excited to oven-roast the Brussels sprouts this week. If you have a deep fryer you can also do that or fry them up in a pan with some bacon, but for us the slow cooking of the oven really brings out the sweetness. If you go the bacon route a spinach salad will cut through that fat and balance really nicely (or you can put some bacon on the spinach salad too and go all out that way!). We could have harvested the green butter crunch heads a few weeks ago but we wanted to let them get really big so the leaves can be used as wraps. You could go traditional sandwich ingredients for that or check out some recipes for fresh spring rolls with shrimp, cold rice noodles, and cilantro to fill those lettuce leaves. Since the weather is supposed to turn a bit colder later this week we are roasting the watermelon radishes, shallots, and potatoes together with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar for a hearty, comfort-filled side dish. If you slice the radishes crossways (see the pictures below) you'll see where they get their name. A few weeks go we made crab cakes with pan roasted pac choi, ginger, and oyster sauce that was a switch up from our usually pac choi stir-fry. We wrapped up kids soccer for the season last weekend which means we'll have a bit more time to cook on Saturdays and Sundays for a few months. For us, that means quiche with kale and ham and a salad with the salad mix. Lastly, the endive (that you had once before this season) is a bitter green like the radicchio and can be treated similarly. Blanching it, drying it, and then quickly wilting it in some olive oil is good, but doing that then adding some orange slices, salty almonds, and dates makes it really delicious.
Week 23 (November 4th)
Romaine Lettuce
(REAL!) Baby Carrots
Parsley
Salad Mix
Green Onions/Scallions
Radicchio
Collard Greens
Green Loose Leaf Lettuce
Yellow Onions
It feels great to be back on the farm this week and to see just how much things grew while we were away. When we see the crops every day we don't really notice that growth, but like a grandma who only sees you once or twice a year, we can really see how much they have changed in a week.
We have been watching the baby carrots grow over the past 40 days and they are now here and ready to be enjoyed! These are actual baby carrots, not the kind that are whittled on a machine from broken pieces to be small and uniform like you find at the grocery store. They are tender yet crunchy, slightly brittle, and super sweet. You can munch them as is, but our farm crew is suggesting you roast them like they did last week. You could also sautéed them with some butter and honey as a great side dish. The salad mix this week has multiple types of lettuce, baby spinach, and baby chinese cabbage. It's flavorful, has tons of great textures, and is absolutely delicious. We've been eating at least one salad a day lately and this mix, along with the romaine head has you set up for multiple salads this week too. Our menu this week is shaping up to have a wilted radicchio and herbed (with parsley) chicken thigh pasta. The green loose leaf lettuce is perfect for sandwiches (which we usually have for farm crew lunch on Thursdays), but we also had it chopped on nachos for Monday lunch. Loaded baked potatoes topped with green onions are sounding delicious for the weekend as we plan to be outside working around the house and farm (and going to some kids soccer games too) while enjoying the almost 70 degree, sunny days ahead. The yellow onions are ready to add flavor to any of your dishes and will most likely find their way into a risotto with collard greens and bacon on our end.
Week 22 (October 28th)
Red Buttercrunch Lettuce
Chinese Cabbage
Pea Shoots!
Cilantro
Arugula
Yellow Onions
Lettuce Mix
Curly Kale
Kohlrabi
Swiss Chard
We got to brag about how good our farm crew was a few weeks ago when Adam was in Iowa working with some other farmers, and this week we are going to do it again. With the farm, an extended summer getaway isn't really an option so our kids (and us) don't get a summer getaway like a lot of their and our friends do. So, we almost always take a late October vacation with our kids over our anniversary that usually involves water, beaches, and lots of snorkeling for our little fish. With Covid, we decided to find somewhere within driving distance, instead of flying, and ended up with a trip to Smoky Mountain National Park. We headed out of town last Friday and have filled the past few days with zip lining, horseback riding, and a black bear sighting tonight! For us to be able to do that our farm crew has been taking care of harvesting, delivering, packing, and all that goes into farm box each week. They laid out and took the box contents picture, will be setting up the tent tomorrow, making sure the table is stocked, and generally being the awesome crew and people that they are. We couldn't do this farm without them and we are so thankful for all they do all season long, but we are especially thankful for them for giving us the important family time we find on these getaways. Give them a special shoutout tomorrow...they are the reason this season (and past seasons) have gone so well!
It is greens week for Week 22! Fruiting crops have given way to leafy crops and a special greenhouse crop as well. We've been playing around with pea shoots in the greenhouse (the ones in the spring were from a field planting) and are incredibly happy to have them in the share this week. We'll be definitely be adding those into the early season shares in 2021. We're excited to have cilantro for the first time since the weather turned warm and are planning on a cilantro crema for nachos when we get back home. We're dreaming of Dru's grandma's creamed kohlrabi and red butter crunch salads. That bright red color always makes a salad pop on the plate. Peppery arugula is back too! We made arugula pesto last week with toasted walnuts that was absolutely delicious. Just substitute the arugula for the basil and the walnuts for the pine nuts. It's a great cool season switch up of that classic. We've had plenty of drive time to plan next week's meals and the menu has kale, white bean, and chorizo stew with a lettuce mix salad. The chinese cabbage can be used for a stir-fry, but would also be great as a substitute for the more familiar green cabbage in a cole slaw or the leaves can be peeled off, blanched, and stuffed (with the onions add to your stuffing) just like you would for cabbage rolls. Finally, the swiss chard could be chopped and added to the lettuce mix in a salad or, for something a bit heavier, it could be sautéed and added to au gratin potatoes with swiss cheese to take them over the top!
Red Buttercrunch Lettuce
Chinese Cabbage
Pea Shoots!
Cilantro
Arugula
Yellow Onions
Lettuce Mix
Curly Kale
Kohlrabi
Swiss Chard
We got to brag about how good our farm crew was a few weeks ago when Adam was in Iowa working with some other farmers, and this week we are going to do it again. With the farm, an extended summer getaway isn't really an option so our kids (and us) don't get a summer getaway like a lot of their and our friends do. So, we almost always take a late October vacation with our kids over our anniversary that usually involves water, beaches, and lots of snorkeling for our little fish. With Covid, we decided to find somewhere within driving distance, instead of flying, and ended up with a trip to Smoky Mountain National Park. We headed out of town last Friday and have filled the past few days with zip lining, horseback riding, and a black bear sighting tonight! For us to be able to do that our farm crew has been taking care of harvesting, delivering, packing, and all that goes into farm box each week. They laid out and took the box contents picture, will be setting up the tent tomorrow, making sure the table is stocked, and generally being the awesome crew and people that they are. We couldn't do this farm without them and we are so thankful for all they do all season long, but we are especially thankful for them for giving us the important family time we find on these getaways. Give them a special shoutout tomorrow...they are the reason this season (and past seasons) have gone so well!
It is greens week for Week 22! Fruiting crops have given way to leafy crops and a special greenhouse crop as well. We've been playing around with pea shoots in the greenhouse (the ones in the spring were from a field planting) and are incredibly happy to have them in the share this week. We'll be definitely be adding those into the early season shares in 2021. We're excited to have cilantro for the first time since the weather turned warm and are planning on a cilantro crema for nachos when we get back home. We're dreaming of Dru's grandma's creamed kohlrabi and red butter crunch salads. That bright red color always makes a salad pop on the plate. Peppery arugula is back too! We made arugula pesto last week with toasted walnuts that was absolutely delicious. Just substitute the arugula for the basil and the walnuts for the pine nuts. It's a great cool season switch up of that classic. We've had plenty of drive time to plan next week's meals and the menu has kale, white bean, and chorizo stew with a lettuce mix salad. The chinese cabbage can be used for a stir-fry, but would also be great as a substitute for the more familiar green cabbage in a cole slaw or the leaves can be peeled off, blanched, and stuffed (with the onions add to your stuffing) just like you would for cabbage rolls. Finally, the swiss chard could be chopped and added to the lettuce mix in a salad or, for something a bit heavier, it could be sautéed and added to au gratin potatoes with swiss cheese to take them over the top!
Week 21 (October 21st)
Spinach
Red Potatoes
Red Russian Kale
Romaine Lettuce
Poblano Pepper
Yellow Onions
Green Pepper
Jalapeño
Mixed Tomatoes
Microgreens
We are rounding the bend into the final month of the 2020 Farm Box season but are excited to still have four more weeks to go after this one. In the spring we make the shift out of the hoop houses and into the field and now we are starting to reverse that shift and move out of the field and into the hoophouses. We still have a number of crops in the field that get better and sweeter with a few hard frosts. There is no way we are rooting for hard frosts to come early so we'll be holding those crops until they are nicely kissed by those lower temperatures (hopefully more into November). We have those field crops scheduled for the farm boxes over the next few weeks but we are also spending more time inside the hoophouses weeding, harvesting, and hoping for more sunny days that really make those crops grow this time of year.
We finished up the potato harvest this week by getting the Pontiac Reds out of the field, into the cooler, and into the farm boxes this week. As we write this we have a pot of them going on the stove for mashed potatoes tonight. We have been eating so much spinach lately with the large, tender, delicious leaves finding their ways into salads and omelettes mostly on our end. The red Russian kale gets a nice purple color this time of year when it gets frosted and makes for a great addition for you smoothie drinkers out there. Farm crew sandwiches have been topped with a crunchy romaine leaf this week. We have reached the final (like for real final) week of tomatoes and most likely the final peppers too. We have started to fill our greenhouse up with different microgreens and other shoots that you'll see over the final weeks of 2020 Farm Box.
Spinach
Red Potatoes
Red Russian Kale
Romaine Lettuce
Poblano Pepper
Yellow Onions
Green Pepper
Jalapeño
Mixed Tomatoes
Microgreens
We are rounding the bend into the final month of the 2020 Farm Box season but are excited to still have four more weeks to go after this one. In the spring we make the shift out of the hoop houses and into the field and now we are starting to reverse that shift and move out of the field and into the hoophouses. We still have a number of crops in the field that get better and sweeter with a few hard frosts. There is no way we are rooting for hard frosts to come early so we'll be holding those crops until they are nicely kissed by those lower temperatures (hopefully more into November). We have those field crops scheduled for the farm boxes over the next few weeks but we are also spending more time inside the hoophouses weeding, harvesting, and hoping for more sunny days that really make those crops grow this time of year.
We finished up the potato harvest this week by getting the Pontiac Reds out of the field, into the cooler, and into the farm boxes this week. As we write this we have a pot of them going on the stove for mashed potatoes tonight. We have been eating so much spinach lately with the large, tender, delicious leaves finding their ways into salads and omelettes mostly on our end. The red Russian kale gets a nice purple color this time of year when it gets frosted and makes for a great addition for you smoothie drinkers out there. Farm crew sandwiches have been topped with a crunchy romaine leaf this week. We have reached the final (like for real final) week of tomatoes and most likely the final peppers too. We have started to fill our greenhouse up with different microgreens and other shoots that you'll see over the final weeks of 2020 Farm Box.
Week 20 (October 14th)
Green Pepper
Romaine Lettuce
Mizuna
Shallots
Beefsteak Tomato
Hakurei Turnips
Baby Pac Choi
Shishito Peppers
Yellow Onions
Garlic
This week is all about our farm crew! For those of you that pick up early and sometimes see Penny, Sean, and Connor please tell them thank you this week for making decisions about what is in this week's share, harvesting and packing everything, and generally being the great crew they always are. Dru, Dave and Pam (Adam's dad and mom) also took care of farm, kid, and house things so that Adam could go to work with some farmers in Iowa. Adam hit the road last Friday morning and just got home at 5pm Tuesday. He got to work with an amazing non-profit organization called Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) to lead hoophouse builds at three farms in the greater Cedar Rapids area. This is the fifth time in the past twelve years that he has been able to work with PFI on hoophouse builds and while they have all been inspiring, these three were special. He got to build with farmers that were hit hard by the derecho two months ago that brought winds upto 140 mph and flattened crops, trees, buildings (including hoophouses), silos, houses, farmers spirits, and more. The past few days in Iowa can be summed up by one of the farmers saying, "We've been picking up [from the derecho] and tearing things down for the past two months. It feels good to be finally building something up."
This week we have a shift to a very green box. We're are excited to have romaine heads back in the share this week. They withstood the hail we had a few weeks ago and are tasting so delicious after the cold nights we have had lately. We are nearing the end of the peppers with one more green bell pepper and the shishitos decided they were going to make one last push after last week's warm, sunny days. Enjoy those as they really are the last of the shishitos. The leafy greens continue to grow well in the warm fall days and cool fall nights. The mizuna is the best leafy green growing on the farm this week with arugula coming in soon (next week or the following) and maybe some baby kale making an appearance in two to three weeks, depending on how low the temperatures are going to go. We have a ripe beefsteak tomato for you this week which for mid-October makes us so happy (and surprised)! Our standard fall onion and garlic are in this week again and joined by their cousin the shallot. We're rounding it out with crunchy hakurei turnips and stir-fry ready baby pac choi.
Week 19 (October 7th)
Carrots
Broccoli
Heirloom Tomato
Spinach
Garlic
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Diakon Radishes
Jalapeno
Yellow Onion
Bullhorn Pepper
Beefsteak Tomato
October is here and we are ringing in this first week with some perfect fall weather! Last week felt really cold (like REALLY cold!) for this time of the year. We love brisk mornings on the farm but layering up with long underwear, two long sleeve shirts, and jackets multiple mornings this early in the calendar was not something we were excited about. On the other hand, all the sunshine this week looks amazing! We have been farming here for 13 years now and it seems like the spring has been moving towards less "spring-y" and the fall has been moving towards less "fall-y" so we relish these types of weeks with sunshiny days, crisp evenings, beautiful purple-pink sunsets, the colors of leaves slowly showing themselves, and the fall crops easing towards harvest size. Tonight we saw what felt like the final egret of the season flying south when we were out closing up the greenhouse.
We're so excited about this week's box and all the new items coming your way. Carrots have been a deer favorite this year (aren't they every year?) but we managed to keep this planting covered and are so happy about harvesting them for you this week. Broccoli has grown so well this fall and we're excited to harvest it Wednesday morning for that fresh-as-can-be taste. Tomatoes, although they aren't ripening like they were a few weeks ago, are still slowly turning. We're adding an heirloom and a beefsteak to this week's box again. We are harvesting the first fall spinach that is so tender and beautiful. The paper pot transplanter we bought a few months ago has really made a difference with this crop and we are so happy to have planted spinach with it this fall. We're planning to fill our kitchen this week with the smell of a whole roasted garlic bulb mixed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper then spread on warm, crusty bread. We have been waiting for the soil to dry out so we could get in with the tractor to dig potatoes. The Yukon Gold potatoes were literally in the ground until Tuesday around 2:30pm and we can't wait to enjoy them this week too. This is our first year growing Daikon radishes and we are really happy with how they turned out. We learned some lessons with this planting and are definitely looking forward to growing these purple ones again next year and adding some other colors to the planting schedule for next fall. There's a single jalapeño and a bullhorn pepper to add to either lunch nachos or your pot of chili.
Week 18 (September 30th)
Lettuce Mix
Red Radishes
Shishitos
Microgreens
Beefsteak Tomato
Cucumber
Poblano Peppers
Heirloom Tomato
Yellow Onion
Curly Kale
Garlic
September has come and nearly gone, the trees are pushing towards their prime colors, night time temperatures are dipping closer to the low 30s, and the greens are as happy as can be. We have been flipping more hoophouses so out with the old summer crops and in with the new fall/winter crops. We are finishing up our last plantings in the field and have one more hoophouse to plant out. We've also been replacing the coverings in our hoophouses. Five of the six that we have are being recovered after 7-8 years. We knew they were going to line up for recovering at the same time so have been thinking about this fall for a few years now. We are cracking garlic bulbs for planting, getting the grass around the edges of the fields mowed one more time, and managed to get some cover crops sown before the rain this week too. There are always things to catch up on in the fall, but right now we are felling mostly on top of what has to happen around the farm. But, just because things are slowing down and the days are getting shorter it doesn't mean we won't be adding new crops (or ones you haven't seen since the early season shares) to the mix each week.
This week we have beautiful red radishes with wonderful greens. If you aren't a raw radish eater we'd suggest a quick pickle with some rice wine vinegar and sugar or pan roasting them in some brown butter. There are plenty of recipes for their greens online too so search away and let us know if you find anything you especially like. We have shishitos one more time for all of you that have been loving them! We are so happy about the response to those from so many of you. We are definitely planting these next year and can't wait to taste them again next July. We know we said last week was the last of the cucumbers but then we had some 80 degree days and we just couldn't quite pull them out without a final harvest. They are really done this week. The plants are out, the tunnel has been fertilized and tilled, and is now replanted to romaine, lettuce mix, kohlrabi, and cilantro. We haven't quite pulled all the tomatoes (although most of them are out) so we still have some beefsteak and heirloom plants we are harvesting from. As promised we'll be sending you with an onion and garlic each week to make your kitchens smell delicious, and there are shallots to round out a nice group of alliums. We made dilled rice and green lentils tonight with an onion and garlic but the shallots would work well in that too. Our oldest daughter loves white bean and chicken chili and she always says it's best when we add a couple poblanos. We'll be using the kale for kale, chorizo, bean stew with some crusty bread. There's some lettuce mix to round out the share along with a bag of microgreens we hear you always enjoy.
Lettuce Mix
Red Radishes
Shishitos
Microgreens
Beefsteak Tomato
Cucumber
Poblano Peppers
Heirloom Tomato
Yellow Onion
Curly Kale
Garlic
September has come and nearly gone, the trees are pushing towards their prime colors, night time temperatures are dipping closer to the low 30s, and the greens are as happy as can be. We have been flipping more hoophouses so out with the old summer crops and in with the new fall/winter crops. We are finishing up our last plantings in the field and have one more hoophouse to plant out. We've also been replacing the coverings in our hoophouses. Five of the six that we have are being recovered after 7-8 years. We knew they were going to line up for recovering at the same time so have been thinking about this fall for a few years now. We are cracking garlic bulbs for planting, getting the grass around the edges of the fields mowed one more time, and managed to get some cover crops sown before the rain this week too. There are always things to catch up on in the fall, but right now we are felling mostly on top of what has to happen around the farm. But, just because things are slowing down and the days are getting shorter it doesn't mean we won't be adding new crops (or ones you haven't seen since the early season shares) to the mix each week.
This week we have beautiful red radishes with wonderful greens. If you aren't a raw radish eater we'd suggest a quick pickle with some rice wine vinegar and sugar or pan roasting them in some brown butter. There are plenty of recipes for their greens online too so search away and let us know if you find anything you especially like. We have shishitos one more time for all of you that have been loving them! We are so happy about the response to those from so many of you. We are definitely planting these next year and can't wait to taste them again next July. We know we said last week was the last of the cucumbers but then we had some 80 degree days and we just couldn't quite pull them out without a final harvest. They are really done this week. The plants are out, the tunnel has been fertilized and tilled, and is now replanted to romaine, lettuce mix, kohlrabi, and cilantro. We haven't quite pulled all the tomatoes (although most of them are out) so we still have some beefsteak and heirloom plants we are harvesting from. As promised we'll be sending you with an onion and garlic each week to make your kitchens smell delicious, and there are shallots to round out a nice group of alliums. We made dilled rice and green lentils tonight with an onion and garlic but the shallots would work well in that too. Our oldest daughter loves white bean and chicken chili and she always says it's best when we add a couple poblanos. We'll be using the kale for kale, chorizo, bean stew with some crusty bread. There's some lettuce mix to round out the share along with a bag of microgreens we hear you always enjoy.
Week 17 (September 23rd)
Lettuce Mix
Collard Greens
Yellow Onion
Cucumber
Braising Mix
Garlic
Bell Pepper
Iceberg Lettuce Head
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Lunchbox Peppers
Heirloom Tomatoes
Lettuce Mix is back and should be in the boxes most weeks for the rest of the season. We have multiple plantings to spread the harvests through October and into November. We like collard greens already but after they have been frosted they are especially tasty. We made Gomen Wat this week (an Ethiopian collard greens dish that has a lot of online recipes to follow) for the first time ever and it was great. Farm crew ate it with ribs for Monday lunch and even those that don't like collards liked it! Onion and garlic are standards in our kitchen, especially as we head into colder temperatures and we have set aside enough of both to keep those as standards in your kitchens too. We thought cucumbers were done with the frost last week, but they made it through in one of our hoophouses and the transplants that are going in where they are currently aren't quite big enough so we have at least this one extra surprise week to enjoy them. There's a really beautiful braising mix of beets (with small roots on them), red russian kale, and mizuna. This would be excellent lightly sautéed with pasta, mixed into soups, or added to crock pot stews for the last 30-45 minutes. Our kids have been munching on the lunchbox peppers as is, but we occasionally slice them up for them with some veggie dip too. You could do lettuce wraps with the iceberg leaves or make a classic wedge salad. The heirlooms and red slicers made it through the light frost too so they will keep filling boxes as long as we have them. You could dice them up and freeze them for winter meals or make a Caprese salad on this week's 80 degree days, sit outside, and pretend it's still summer.
Week 16 (September 16th)
Buttercrunch Lettuce
Baby Eggplant
Poblano Peppers
Hakurei Turnips
Garlic
Mizuna
Lunchbox Peppers
Cherry Tomatoes
Jalapenos
Green Pepper
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Tomatillos
Cucumbers
Escamillo Pepper
It's another full box this week to celebrate mid-September. The buttercrunch lettuce is great for wraps or filled with chicken salad or even a burger. We saw some great pictures of all of those things from Farm Box members the last time a buttercrunch head was in the box. We harvested the baby eggplant today before the cold weather hits this weekend just encase the plants don't make it through the high 30s that are being called for so we can savor them one more time. We are really looking forward to roasting poblanos, with the tomatillos and jalapeños for salsa verde this week. We are loving the mizuna for a beautiful mild salad and, if you're feeling like trying something new, you can check out some recipes for overnight pickled mizuna. For real, it's a thing, and it's really good! While you're pickling you could toss some of the garlic in there to pickle too or you could cook it with the Escamillos pepper, lunchbox peppers, and beefsteak tomatoes to make pepperonata. We made this for the first time ever this week and it was amazing! This is the final week of the cherry tomatoes (all good things must come to an end) so let's savor them and know that we are pulling out the 12+ foot plants to make way for fall lettuces and other tasty greens. This is the last week for cucumbers as well as they have to make way for salad mix, kohlrabi, and other cool season crops. There's always a delicate balancing act this time of year between when we have to pull warm season crops to make room for cool season ones, and with the cold weather forecast we are feeling the crunch to get our last plantings in. We love when the hakurei turnips come back around in the fall. These sweet, crunchy treats just scream deliciousness and remember not to sleep on sautéing their greens.
Week 15 (September 9th)
Romaine Lettuce
Carmen Peppers
Swiss Chard
Heirloom Tomatoes
Scallions
Shishito Peppers
Baby Red Russian Kale
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Yellow Onion
Cherry Tomatoes
If there was any doubt about fall being here we can leave that doubt behind. These are the weeks we talk about when it's 90 degrees in the summer and we are doing whatever we can to stay cool and stay hydrated while harvesting, washing, cleaning, and packing. As we harvested romaine lettuce today we couldn't help but feel excited about cool weather head lettuce again. The fall crops take on the crispness of cool evenings that we can hear when we harvest and we hope you can taste the same when you eat. This time of the year we see more of the greens showing up that were in the first few weekly shares in the beginning of the season. Swiss chard is back this week along with the first baby red Russian Kale, which is one of our favorite baby greens of the fall. The kale can be eaten on its own or combined with the chopped romaine in a salad, wilted with eggs, or mixed in smoothies. We're thinking roasted Carmen peppers stuffed with heirloom tomatoes and rice and topped with scallions for one night this week. We heard you all on your love for the shishito peppers so have more of them this week too. We can't get enough of those on our end and have been tossing them with rice wine vinegar, vegetable oil, soy sauce, brown sugar, and chives then charring them on the grill. The beefsteak tomatoes are still hanging tough out there and we're rewarding them (and us) with BLTs while we still can. With some 40 degree nights incoming this weekend we're thinking that onion needs to find a way into the crockpot to join a stew to ring in the fall. We're still snacking away on cherry tomatoes, but are close to pulling those plants to make room for the last spinach and lettuce transplants of the season that are almost ready to go in the ground and carry us through the fall.
Week 14 (September 2nd)
Acorn Squash
Escamillo Peppers
Garlic
Mizuna
Heirloom Tomatoes
French Breakfast Radishes
Lunchbox Peppers
Cucumbers
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Jalapeños
Cherry Tomatoes
Fall is in the air with acorn squash this week while some tender, baby greens are back too! We know you've been asking for them and we have been watching the mizuna (one of our very favorite salad greens) grow over the past three weeks. Sean worked hard today to get it all harvested, washed, and spun dry before the afternoon rains came. No one likes harvesting baby greens in the rain, so we appreciate all the time he spent getting that done today! We are just as excited as you are about these mild greens and we have plenty more baby mix seeded, growing, and coming to your shares soon. As some of you saw on our Instagram page on Monday, we had our first planting with our new paperpot transplanter! We have heard about how great this tool is for a few years, but even with the high expectations we had we were so happy and impressed with how well it worked. There are a lot of seeds getting planted into the paper pots this week for October and November harvests plus our brains are already turning with new crop possibilities for 2021. This is our most favorite time of the year on the farm as the mornings and evenings are cool but we still have the summer crops overlapping with the start of the fall ones. The colored peppers are continuing to change and this week's share includes both the yellowish-orange Escamillos and Lunchbox peppers for snacking. The heirloom, beefsteak, and cherry tomatoes are still producing but there are also some 40 degree nights in the forecast that will slow them down. We do a second planting of heirlooms and beefsteaks that are just starting to ripen, but the cherries are on their way out soon with just a few weeks left before we tear them out and fill that space with lettuces, spinach, collard greens, and more. We smoked some jalapeños this week to go with fajitas while our youngest daughter has been munching cucumbers for her "last call" before bedtime. We are rounding out this week's share with some french breakfast radishes. Our favorite way to eat them is to drag them through a pad of butter and top them with salt. Another way to eat them is to remove and wash the greens, slice the roots, sauté them in butter, then add the greens to wilt just at the end. Hit them with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice for brightness and eat away.
Acorn Squash
Escamillo Peppers
Garlic
Mizuna
Heirloom Tomatoes
French Breakfast Radishes
Lunchbox Peppers
Cucumbers
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Jalapeños
Cherry Tomatoes
Fall is in the air with acorn squash this week while some tender, baby greens are back too! We know you've been asking for them and we have been watching the mizuna (one of our very favorite salad greens) grow over the past three weeks. Sean worked hard today to get it all harvested, washed, and spun dry before the afternoon rains came. No one likes harvesting baby greens in the rain, so we appreciate all the time he spent getting that done today! We are just as excited as you are about these mild greens and we have plenty more baby mix seeded, growing, and coming to your shares soon. As some of you saw on our Instagram page on Monday, we had our first planting with our new paperpot transplanter! We have heard about how great this tool is for a few years, but even with the high expectations we had we were so happy and impressed with how well it worked. There are a lot of seeds getting planted into the paper pots this week for October and November harvests plus our brains are already turning with new crop possibilities for 2021. This is our most favorite time of the year on the farm as the mornings and evenings are cool but we still have the summer crops overlapping with the start of the fall ones. The colored peppers are continuing to change and this week's share includes both the yellowish-orange Escamillos and Lunchbox peppers for snacking. The heirloom, beefsteak, and cherry tomatoes are still producing but there are also some 40 degree nights in the forecast that will slow them down. We do a second planting of heirlooms and beefsteaks that are just starting to ripen, but the cherries are on their way out soon with just a few weeks left before we tear them out and fill that space with lettuces, spinach, collard greens, and more. We smoked some jalapeños this week to go with fajitas while our youngest daughter has been munching cucumbers for her "last call" before bedtime. We are rounding out this week's share with some french breakfast radishes. Our favorite way to eat them is to drag them through a pad of butter and top them with salt. Another way to eat them is to remove and wash the greens, slice the roots, sauté them in butter, then add the greens to wilt just at the end. Hit them with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice for brightness and eat away.
Week 13 (August 26)
Shishito Peppers
Pac Choi
Cucumbers
Cherry Tomatoes
Sweet Onions
Escamillo Peppers
Heirloom Tomatoes
Shallots
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Zucchini
As of this week we are officially more than half way through the Farm Box season. With all the fall transplants in the greenhouse, and the weekly crops we are direct seeding for October and November harvests, it feels like that time of year on the farm. There are plenty of crops we have yet to harvest, the temperatures are saying summer, and the crops we harvest multiple times per week are getting an every other day harvest so that we can keep up with them.
We are really excited about the shishito peppers this week! They look hot but they aren't. The classic way to eat them is to get a pan really hot, add oil, quickly blister them, then salt them and dip them in soy sauce. We are marinating them in rice wine vinegar and vegetable oil then grilling them tonight with flank steak. The Escamillo peppers are the cousins of the Carmens. They come from the same breeder and, once in awhile, plant breeders have a good sense of humor and a sense of art too. Both of those peppers are named after characters in the opera Carmen so if you are struck by the urge to sing the libretto while eating just go for it! We have all the tomatoes because it's August but these are the last of the sweet onions. We have more white and yellow (cooking) onions, but the sweet onions only store for a few weeks after harvest so enjoy them and look forward to them again next July. We have packed baby pac choi two times this year, but we have a different variety this week that grows larger and with thicker stems than the baby variety we grow. We're rounding the box out this week with shallots and a zucchini as well.
Week 12 (August 19)
Yellow Filet Beans
Carmen Peppers
Cooking Celery
Heirloom Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Curly Kale
Lunchbox Peppers
Cherry Tomatoes
Microgreens
Zucchini
Arugula
Garlic
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Onions
This share is what peak summer on the farm is all about! Everything is ripening, farm crew is dialed in, packing and harvesting systems for the season are streamlined all the onions and garlic are out of the field, straight rows of late summer seedings are germinating, fields are prepped for planting, and the greenhouse is full of fall transplants just waiting a few more weeks to go in. August on the farm is controlled chaos, and we are riding in the eye of that storm right now.
We are really excited about the yellow filet beans this week. We have never grown these before but the shape, crunch, and cool little tinge of green on the tip make this something we are definitely growing more of in future years. Sautéed them, steam them, or heck, just eat them raw. The 'Carmen' peppers look like they would be hot but they are an Italian sweet frying pepper perfect for cooking with the onions and topping a sausage, bratwurst. The lunchbox peppers are a great snack for you or, if you have kids, a snack for them too. We have chicken stock going on the stove right now with the cooking celery and onions and our house smells amazing. Cherry tomatoes are back after a week off to rejoin the beefsteaks and heirlooms. We are eating curly kale in omelettes this week, and we made a batch of "cukes and vinegar" on Sunday to go with some ribs we smoked (sorry, we don't provide the ribs in the Farm Box...those are on you). The microgreens are a blend of radish, chinese cabbage, mizuna, and just a touch of arugula (which is also in your box this week as a green). You could use the arugula as a salad or we have been making arugula pecan pesto as a switch up from the traditional basil pine nut combo. That pesto would go great on top of some grilled zucchini with roasted garlic.
Week 11 (August 12)
Cucumber
Green Peppers
Baby Choi
Jalapeno
Sweet Onions
Eggplant
Heirloom Tomatoes
Beefsteak Tomatoes
Zucchini
Shallots
Even though last week tempted us with what felt like a touch of fall, the weather and the farm box this week are here to remind us that we are still very much in the heat summer. This is always crunch time on the farm as we are just starting to get into our largest harvests, in terms of the diversity of crops, and the amounts of each of those crops too. Since we continue to farm in the late fall and into the winter, August is also full of direct seeding root crops, transplanting fall crops into the field, and seeding in our greenhouse. Late last week we spent the day filling our greenhouse about 3/4 full (with more seeding to go) of fall and winter crops and it feels great to see all the baby plants starting to emerge this week with the promise of great food into late November and December. We also had a direct seeding marathon on Monday that lined up perfectly with the rain that night.
We are so excited to have the first cucumber in the boxes this week. We grow a number of different crops on our farm to not only fill the Farm Boxes and farmers market stall with options, but also to manage the risk of occasionally having a crop failure with crops we are usually very good at growing. That happened with our cucumbers this year for only the second time since we've been farming. Our first planting of cucumbers was already in the ground in one of our hoophouses when we had three nights in the high 20s/low 30s in May and they never quite recovered from being so cold. We tried to nurse them back to health but we re-seeded as soon as we decided they weren't going to make it and now ,60 days later, that second planting is starting to produce it's first cucumbers. They are looking good and there are a lot of small fruit growing larger by the day so watch for plenty of more cucumbers in the upcoming boxes. Some of our peppers are now starting to change to red and orange but we have included green peppers as we wait patiently for the others to change color completely. We have baby choi in the box for the first time since spring and they would make a great stir-fry with the green peppers, eggplant, sweet onions, zucchini, and the jalapeño. We know some of you are hot heads but what we've learned in the past is that most members are happy with just a few hot peppers sprinkled in throughout the season. We have loved all the messages that you've been sending and the pictures you've been posting about the tomatoes, especially the picture of the tomato toast this week and the message that the 'Green Zebra' tomato "was pretty much the best tomato I've ever had!" It makes us so happy to hear these things and to know that you are as excited about this produce as we are. We're rounding out the box with shallots to add that subtle allium taste to your cooking this week.
Week 10 (August 5)
Heirloom Tomatoes
Garlic
Arugula
Purple Cabbage
Beefsteak Tomatoes
White Onions
Poblano Pepper
Cherry Tomatoes
The tomatoes have begun! We've been watching green ones change color one by one over the past few weeks and now they have finally decided to get on their horse and go. Although it was a slow, wet start to the season crops around the farm are starting to kick into higher gear. We are on the verge of pepper mania in a few weeks and, although hard to believe, we started seeding crops for our the fall and winter hoophouses this week.
This share is all about the tomatoes. There are heirlooms to savor with a touch of salt, red beefsteaks to stack on sandwiches or BLTs, and mixed cherries to snack on. With all the cooking we've been hearing everyone is doing at home we've also included onions and garlic to add aromatics to your cooking frenzy. The purple cabbage has been heading up the past two weeks and we were so excited when we added it to our Farm Box harvest list on Monday. The arugula surprised us in early July (Week 6) but we are even more surprised (and very happy) to have it in early August! It is usually reserved for the spring and fall seasons but we are going to keep planting it as long as it keeps on growing. We are rounding out this week's share with a poblano pepper. As mentioned above, our numerous different pepper plants are absolutely loaded with small to medium sized fruit that we are looking forward to harvesting and sharing soon. This is just the first small taste of one of them with many more to come.
Week 9 (July 29)
Green Beans
Eggplant
Cooking Onions
Garlic
Green Pepper
Zucchini
Beefsteak Tomato
Cherry Tomatoes
Eat the green beans...
then make ratatouille.
Seriously, everything else goes into that wonderful, french, stewed vegetable dish.
Have a great week!
Green Beans
Eggplant
Cooking Onions
Garlic
Green Pepper
Zucchini
Beefsteak Tomato
Cherry Tomatoes
Eat the green beans...
then make ratatouille.
Seriously, everything else goes into that wonderful, french, stewed vegetable dish.
Have a great week!
Week 8 (July 22)
Green Beans
Beefsteak Tomato
Heirloom Tomato
Celery
Walla Walla Sweet Onion
Parsley
Curly Kale
Cherry Tomatoes
Zucchini
Woo hoo for green beans! They aren't great to pick but they sure are great to eat. We just harvested them Tuesday afternoon so they are as fresh as can be and are incredibly delicious! It was a team effort and we are all enjoying them this week in our own kitchens too. The red tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes have been slowly turning the past few weeks and we now have enough ripe and ready to go. The red ones are 'Big Beef' which is a great beefsteak variety we haven't grown in a few years and brought back this season. The heirlooms will be a mix this week. We grow a number of different heirlooms and these first ones coming off are 'Cherokee Purple' (Purple), 'Brandywine' (Pink), 'Berkeley Tie Dye' (Red and Green Striped), and 'Valencia' (yellowish-orange). They all have different flavors and textures and aren't nearly as hardy as the red varieties, but they more than make up for that in flavor. We have more of these plus other varieties to come this season. Tomatoes are just getting rolling! They all really want you to either slice them with a sprinkle of salt or make them into a BLT. For those of you who go Old School, a tomato sandwich on white bread fits the bill too! The celery stalks are definitely for cooking. They are thin and have a much stronger celery flavor than anything you will find at the grocery store. They make a great jambalaya or soup stock. We also pull the leaves off and love to use them chopped in chicken, salmon, or tuna salad for an amazing pop of flavor. The Walla Walla sweet onion could be sliced, breaded, and fried into onion rings or topped on a burger. They are still fresh (not cured) so please store it in your refrigerator. Onions are slow growing and do a terrible job of competing with weeds so we spent A LOT of hours weeding them this spring to make sure they had a good start and could get ahead of the weeds. We are happy to say the hours spent weeding were worth it with the size we got on our onions this year! You've learned we are suckers for flat-leaf parsley and all it's versatility so we've included it again. The curly kale is also a new item (there are five new ones this week!) that we like to wilt down as a side dish and a lot of juicers purchase from us at the Bath Township Farmers Market. We've heard from a number of you that the cherry tomatoes sit on your counter or kitchen table and that you scoop up a couple to snack on each time you walk past them. We'll keep them coming as requested! It's zucchini season and for the next few weeks a combination of our three varieties will find their way into your box too.
Week 7 (July 15)
Zucchini
Fresh Shallots
Broccoli Florets
Endive
Scallions
Cherry Tomatoes
Fresh Garlic
Green Leaf Lettuce
Purple Basil
We were so ready for the cooler weather this week! We are still starting early and are mostly wearing shorts but it feels like we could work all day with the 10 degree drop from the previous week. We are working harder, sleeping better, and watching tomatoes and other crops ripen before our eyes. This week we turned over and cleaned up a number of the outdoor beds that we harvested from this spring and we will be transplanting new crops into these places over the next few weeks. We have started to harvest the garlic that we planted last October and have moved half of it to our greenhouse (with a shade cloth on to keep it cooler inside and keep the garlic out of the direct sunlight) to cure. It will dry down over the next few weeks so that it can be stored in a cool, dark place instead of in your refrigerator. It's not quite there yet but in about two weeks we'll start trimming, cleaning, and sorting it into what will be eaten this year and what will become next year's seed.
This week we have mixed zucchini for the first time. Our favorite way to make these is thinly sliced, tossed with olive oil and salt, and grilled. The fresh, french shallots are a treat too. You'll see them cured, like the garlic, later this fall but for now they are fresh and mild and wonderful. Think of them as a refined cousin of onions with a more delicate flavor and a stunning purple color. We have two favorite ways to do these. The first is to slice them, bread them, and fry them. It's like the top of green bean casserole, but WAY better! Our second is to quick pickle them with an equal mix of white vinegar and water. Slice them thin, mix the vinegar/water mixture in a pan with sugar to taste. Bring to a boil, pour over the shallots, and let them soak/seep for about 30 minutes. We eat these with charcuterie or barbecue to cut through the fat of both of those. The broccoli florets can be used on a baked potato or in homemade mac and cheese (that's almost exclusively how we eat broccoli), but it's also great raw on a veggie tray. The curly endive is a crop we have never grown before and did especially for the Farm Boxes. It is a chicory, like the radicchio last week, so it pairs well with some fat and/or sweetness. Trust us when we say search for a salad recipe for this with bacon (and a poached egg if you like eggs) and you won't be disappointed. We are grilling (you have probably learned that we grill a lot around here!) the scallions this week, like calcots in Spain, and dipping them in a Romesco sauce made with the cherry tomatoes and garlic. There are lots of Romesco recipes out there so see which one looks good to you and feel free to share if you find one you love. You'll find a summer crisp, green lettuce for your weekly salad or sandwiches and purple basil which we are using in place of mint for a purple basil mojito recipe that one of our Farm Box members shared with us last time. We're looking forward to sharing more summer fruits coming soon (big slicing tomatoes and more are just around the corner). Enjoy the week!
Week 6 (July 8)
Cherry Tomatoes!
Fennel
Fresh Onions
Arugula
Parsley
Radicchio
Red Buttercrunch Lettuce
Green Cabbage
We added our final farm crew member of the year this week and we chose a HOT week for him to come back! Connor joined us to help with all the harvesting that's happening on Mondays and Tuesdays along with the mulching, pruning, trellising, packing, seeding, and planting. This is his second season with us, which means we have no newbies on the farm this year. He dove right in without missing a beat and we are already so happy to have an extra set of hands around to help keep pace. You won't see him on pickup Wednesdays, but he's putting in the time, energy, and effort two days a week right along side of our five day a week crew.
Tomatoes are here! Um, don't think about cooking them...just eat them! They are delicious and we are going to have many, many more where these came from. We love the flavors of the different varieties and love laying them out and comparing them side-by-side. The tomato season always seems to go so quickly so we plan on savoring every bite of these over the next three months. We're really excited about the baby leaf arugula. Usually we only grow this peppery green as leaves like this in the spring and fall but we thought we'd give it a try this summer and the results have been great. The red buttercrunch is a bit looser of a head than the green buttercrunch from Week 3 but equally as tasty. We've been lovingly referring to this week's box around the farm as the "Box of Strong Flavors." Besides the arugula, there's fennel that has an anise flavor and radicchio that has a slightly bitter flavor. Those three together would make a great salad with some olives, prosciutto, crusty bread, and a balsamic dressing to bring some sweetness to the plate. Feeling adventurous? Try grilling the radicchio before chopping or tearing it before adding it to the salad. You could also shave the fennel into a slaw with the green cabbage which we are planning to also do this week. If you can manage to not eat all the cherry tomatoes before you unpack your bag and actually get some of them into a cooked meal, one of our favorite pastas of all time is cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced and sautéed fresh onions, and parsley with a white wine pan sauce.
Week 5 (July 1)
Shelling Peas
Golden Beets
Japanese (Hakurei) Turnips
Green Tomatoes
Fresh Garlic
Iceberg Lettuce
Kohlrabi
Lettuce Mix
Welcome to July and another Farm Box filled with many new items! The farm crew has shifted to starting earlier this week, as we do when it starts to get hot, so we can get more work done inside the hoophouses before it starts to get unbearable in them. This shift is happening earlier in the year than it usually does, but when we get August temperatures at the end of June we do what we have to do. More and more crops are growing (and weeds too but we're trying to stay on top of most of those!) and it's hitting the part of the year where we can see some of the heat loving crops growing daily. The winter squash is flowering, eggplant is setting the first fruits of the year, and we managed to get a lot of straw mulch down on the peppers, zucchini, and field tomatoes today.
We keep saying it, but we are having so much fun with Farm Boxes on our end. We usually grow a wide variety of crops but we are now growing even more variety and are trying crops at times of the year when we usually wouldn't just to see if we can get them into the boxes. There are lots of highlights in this week's box but, for us, the shelling peas take the cake. Our love affair with shelling peas is from Dru's great-grandma Lydia (our Lydia's namesake) and we only grow 'Green Arrow' ones because of her. When Dru was young, she lived across the farm field from Dru's family and she always kept a garden. Some days she would bring over a bowl of peas, already shelled and drop them on the porch. Adam had never eaten fresh shelling peas before meeting Dru, but you can now find him, along with Dru, Lydia, and Alison munching away on these during their oh-too-short harvest season. You don't eat the pods on these and we suggest you don't bother cooking them either. Just pop them open, eat them right out of the shell, and we hope you love them as much as we do. The golden beets are a little sweeter than the red ones you had two weeks ago and their interior color is a sunshine-y yellow-orange that pops on any plate. You can cook the Japanese (or salad) turnips but they are best this time of the year eaten raw. They are crunchy like a radish but much sweeter and with a smoother texture. If you'd like to cook them, they are great roasted. We expect to see a lot of pictures on our Facebook page of fried green tomatoes this week but are also looking for some pictures of other things you all do with them. Please continue to share there! The fresh garlic is the third version of garlic you'll see. The first two (green garlic and scapes) are all done for the year. This is fresh (uncured) so should be kept in your refrigerator. You'll notice it has a much higher water content than garlic that you find in the store and garlic that you'll see from us in later August/early September after it has been cured so that it no longer has to be refrigerated. It is harder to break apart too, so we suggest carefully using a sharp knife to cut between the cloves and then breaking it apart. You'll notice that you also have to peel a few layers to get to the actual clove. Once they are cured that's what becomes the papery covering that comes off so easy. We had burgers this week with the field grow iceberg that we think is more tender and sweeter (it's a sweet kind of farm box this week) than the early ones from Week 1 that were grown in the hoophouses. This week's box is rounded out by a couple green kohlrabi (make that slaw with apples a few people posted!) and our classic lettuce mix. We hope you all have a wonderful and safe July 4th weekend and get to spend sometime sharing and eating food with family or friends.
Week 4 (June 24)
Carrots
Romaine
Genovese Basil
Zucchini
Swiss Chard
Parsley
Lettuce Mix
Dill (with flowers)
It's week four (already!) and the farm crew is really hitting our stride these days. We're getting systems down for harvesting so that come Wednesday when it's time to pack your Farm Boxes we are organized and ready to go. We're so grateful for our crew that returns year after year, knows where things are, how we pack, what quality we expect, and how to get things done! If you see Penny, Sean, or Dave (Adam's dad) around the farm when you pick up each week feel free to give them a shout out for all their hard work. They make this clock tick.
Yea for new items! For the first time this year you'll find carrots, zucchini, Swiss chard, Genovese basil, and dill this week. Carrots are the fussiest, most demanding crop we grow. They take a long time to germinate, grow slowly, and don't compete with weeds at all. Despite the extra work that goes into them it's one of our favorite farm vegetables to eat! We have some monster romaine heads for you this week. They are weighing in at more than a pound and a few that we harvested were over 1.5 lbs. We have the first Genovese (Italian) basil harvest this week. While we are looking forward to pairing these with cherry tomatoes in a few weeks we've also been adding them to fresh pastas and pizza. The zucchini variety is called 'Costata Romanesco' and is Dru's absolute favorite. It's an Italian heirloom with a firmer texture and nuttier flavor than green or yellow zucchini (both of which we also have growing for future weeks). There's plenty more where these are coming from but we wanted to share the first taste of them this week. Swiss chard is the week's cooking green. They are genetically identical to beets, but don't produce a root. We love the colors they bring to any meal and, although you don't get to see them, they are always fun to transplant because their roots are the same color as the stems. We had some great pictures of gremolata and chimichurri from some of you the first time parsley was in the bag. If you haven't made either of these before, make sure to look up some recipes and try one of these amazing sauces with something grilled. We're keeping lettuce mix going as long as it will in the heat of the summer (which it doesn't really like), but we are suckers for a good salad and have heard from a lot of you that you are too so we'll keep planting and harvesting this as long as it keeps growing well. Lastly, the dill rounds out the week. We are planning to lay it on top of some simply grilled salmon.
Week 3 (June 17)
Collard Greens
Cilantro
Red Beets
Scallions
Pea Shoots
Green Buttercrunch Lettuce
Lettuce Mix
Purple Basil
We can feel the shift on the farm this week as we come nearer to the time when we move from lots of planting to lots of harvesting. We aren't quite there, and we plant something almost every week of the season, but the crops like tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and peppers are now starting to put on more growth, more flowers, and start to cover themselves with tiny fruit that seems to grow larger every day. We are a bit off still but they are coming. We've sampled a few cherry tomatoes and are cheering on the plants to have enough to harvest for all of you by the first week of July. That's always our target date for a first big cherry tomato harvest but with as wild as this year has been we'll be monitoring the plants and keeping you posted.
Collard Greens are a staple around our house and we love them with bacon, onions, a splash of vinegar, and some red pepper flakes. We have heard from some of you that you are looking forward to collards and they are here this week! We're going to use the cilantro with grilled fajitas on the farm but we also loved the cilantro chimichurri some of you made a few weeks ago. Beets are a favorite in our house and we think anyone who doesn't like beets just ate too many of the canned ones when they were young (can those even be considered beets?). We love to wrap them in foil and throw them on the grill. Sometimes we peel and eat them right then, but we REALLY like to chill them overnight then peel and dice them with avocado, scallions, and an orange vinaigrette. You can honestly just munch on the pea shoots. They are really that good! We like to dice them small and mix them in salads that would work with either the salad mix or the green buttercrunch. We were definitely impressed with the lettuce wraps we saw with the red butter crunch and are thinking about doing that with the green head this week. The purple basil is a new one for us and it has a great taste. We are big fans of basil in cocktails, especially with gin, grapefruit juice and a honey simple syrup. If you go that route you can add the basil fresh, steep it in the honey simple syrup, or go for both. It also pairs really well with blackberries and adds an extra layer to a fruit tart or crumble. As always, we're looking forward to pickup day tomorrow and we even have an extra surprise (hint: it's the bags we ordered with our logo on it and we are so, so, so happy with how they turned out).
Week 2 (June 10)
Baby Lettuce Mix
Oregano
Dino (Lacinato) Kale
Cabbage
Scallions
Parsley
Garlic Scapes
Red Buttercrunch Lettuce
Thank you all so much for making everything run so smoothly for pick-up and delivery last week! It was so good to see so many of you. When we were planning for pick-up we thought we would set everything out for a completely self-serve setup, but we were so looking forward to seeing both old friends and new faces that we just had to hang around on the porch (more than 6ft away) to say hello and to make sure the bags were replenished. We missed some of you while we were changing irrigation but hope to see those we missed this week. On the delivery side, thank you all for setting out coolers, boxes, and baskets for your bags. We absolutely loved the texts, pictures, and FaceBook posts sharing what you cooked this week. Please keep sharing. You all also really know how to make some farmers feel good! Thank you for all the kind words of gratitude and thankfulness you personally sent us this week. We feel the same way about you and are so excited to be finally into the Farm Box season after so many months of planning.
There is another new-to-us item this week. We have grown cabbage in the past but these personal sized 'Tiara' cabbages have us excited for the second planting of them we have planned for later this season. We leaked a picture of them to our Bath Farmers Market manager and he said he was planning sauerkraut in his parents' crocks this week. Lettuce doesn't always love hot weather but we are planting and planning for some lettuce/salad for each week this season. This week we have another bag of baby lettuce mix (our favorite text of the week was that one of our Farm Box members was just standing in their kitchen eating it as-is right after pickup!) and there is a beautiful red buttercrunch lettuce head, which is also a new variety for us. We have oregano for a short time in the spring and it loves the grill. Look to add it to either grilled vegetables or grilled meats, especially ground lamb kebobs with some tzatziki. One of our favorite condiments is gremolata and you can use the parsley and garlic scapes this week to make your own. The scapes are a spring treat that are the immature flower stalks of hard neck garlic. You can use it all, except the flower bud on the very end, just like you would garlic. They are great charred on the grill and made into a garlic sauce or pickled for a Bloody Mary. The dino kale is great cooked down with some onions and vinegar or in a Portuguese sausage, kale, and bean soup that would go with the cooler temperatures expected later this week. Finally, the scallions/green onions are great for topping baked potatoes or diced to add to a salad.
We've made it through this early heat wave, hope you all have all stayed cool, and are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Week 1 (June 3)
Iceberg Lettuce Head
Cilantro
Radish
Baby Lettuce Mix
Green Garlic
Cabbage Leaves
Baby Pac Choi
Kohlrabi
Welcome to Week 1 of Ten Hens Farm Boxes! We made it! The first household signed up on January 5 and the last signed up on June 2 (just a few hours ago). While everything seems different in our world from that first sign-up to the last, one thing that remains is our dedication to growing fresh, healthy, safe produce. Like most of you have over the past five months, we've had our ups and downs on the farm from great germination in some crops to record low temperatures late in the spring. But we are all here now and are so excited to start our inaugural year of Farm Boxes.
The first week starts out with some classic greens and an old vegetable that may be new to you. We have grown over 30 different types of lettuces on our farm over the past 12 years, but have never grown iceberg. We are really excited to have that in the boxes in the first week because sometimes you just need that crunch on a burger or on tacos (with the cilantro added in too). The radishes are great to just snack on or to slice and sauté in butter. If you're feeling adventurous you can search "radish top pesto" for recipes and use the leaves to try something new. If you try that, a tip from our chef friends is that some added sugar helps to cut the sharpness of the radish leaves. In our opinion, nothing beats a salad from the first fresh baby lettuces of the late spring. You can use the green garlic like you would regular garlic for a milder taste than the garlic scapes you'll soon see and the bulbs you'll find in the boxes around July 15. The cabbage leaves as big as your head are a star this week and are begging to be blanched then stuffed and rolled before baking or steaming. We added the baby choi to a teriyaki stir-fry this week. The kohlrabi (German for "Cabbage Turnip") reminds us of Dru's grandma cooking in her kitchen in Frankenmuth. She always peels it, cubes it, then boils it until almost done before straining it and finishing it in a cream sauce. It's old school, but sometimes you don't have to mess with a classic.
Thank you all again for your support. We have so much goodness growing right now and so much more planned over the next 25 weeks!
Iceberg Lettuce Head
Cilantro
Radish
Baby Lettuce Mix
Green Garlic
Cabbage Leaves
Baby Pac Choi
Kohlrabi
Welcome to Week 1 of Ten Hens Farm Boxes! We made it! The first household signed up on January 5 and the last signed up on June 2 (just a few hours ago). While everything seems different in our world from that first sign-up to the last, one thing that remains is our dedication to growing fresh, healthy, safe produce. Like most of you have over the past five months, we've had our ups and downs on the farm from great germination in some crops to record low temperatures late in the spring. But we are all here now and are so excited to start our inaugural year of Farm Boxes.
The first week starts out with some classic greens and an old vegetable that may be new to you. We have grown over 30 different types of lettuces on our farm over the past 12 years, but have never grown iceberg. We are really excited to have that in the boxes in the first week because sometimes you just need that crunch on a burger or on tacos (with the cilantro added in too). The radishes are great to just snack on or to slice and sauté in butter. If you're feeling adventurous you can search "radish top pesto" for recipes and use the leaves to try something new. If you try that, a tip from our chef friends is that some added sugar helps to cut the sharpness of the radish leaves. In our opinion, nothing beats a salad from the first fresh baby lettuces of the late spring. You can use the green garlic like you would regular garlic for a milder taste than the garlic scapes you'll soon see and the bulbs you'll find in the boxes around July 15. The cabbage leaves as big as your head are a star this week and are begging to be blanched then stuffed and rolled before baking or steaming. We added the baby choi to a teriyaki stir-fry this week. The kohlrabi (German for "Cabbage Turnip") reminds us of Dru's grandma cooking in her kitchen in Frankenmuth. She always peels it, cubes it, then boils it until almost done before straining it and finishing it in a cream sauce. It's old school, but sometimes you don't have to mess with a classic.
Thank you all again for your support. We have so much goodness growing right now and so much more planned over the next 25 weeks!