July 3rd, 2024
What’s in your share?
Salad Mix
White Spanish Sweet Onions*
Radishes or Japanese Salad Turnips*
Romaine Lettuce*
Cucumbers
Zucchini
Green Beans
Oregano (not pictured)
*Romaine Lettuce - Well folks, we’re finally starting to see some damage from all this rain. The tender nature of lettuce is what we love so much about it, but also makes it more susceptible to excessive moisture. Sadly, this planting of romaine definitely shows signs of too much moisture. The heads looked stunning in their bed, but upon harvesting, we noticed tons of rust colored spots all over the ribs of the lettuce. We tried removing some of the outer leaves, just to find that it was on the inner leaves as well. We’re pretty vain over here, and only like sending out the prettiest vegetables, so due to the aesthetics, we contemplated composting the entire harvest. But after a lengthy discussion amongst the three of us, we opted to let you decide if you want to compost it. The rust is safe to eat, but its also really easy to cut it off. It’s only on the ribs, so you could cut out the ribs and enjoy the leaves. We’re lucky that our farm is half covered in greenhouses because, for the most part, we have some control over the amount of moisture that reaches the plant. However, we have a suuuuuuper high water table, so honestly, even the plants in the greenhouses are probably sitting in water. That’s just kind of how it goes! Enjoy the romaine (or don’t!)
Japanese Salad Turnips - We love “Hakurei” turnips! They have become very popular among our members because of their tenderness and sweetness, unlike a storage turnip, which has a tendency to be more dense and slightly bitter. We definitely recommend trying them raw; on a salad, sandwich, salad, or just plain. They also sauté nicely and pair well with napa cabbage, bok choy, carrots, and scallions. The greens are also delicious and nourishing! Add them to salads or stir fries.
Plants are loaded. Photo by Matt Filipiak
STORAGE: Remove greens. The root is the energy source of the whole plant, and even though we like to include the greens attached, the greens draw nutrients from the roots as they store. Keep roots in a closed container or plastic bag in the fridge. Salad turnips are grown to be eaten fresh, but they can last over a month stored this way.
Bean harvest - a farmworker’s worst nightmare. Enjoy the beans! They were picked with love and bent backs. Photo by Matt Filipiak
White Spanish Sweet Onions* - Onions are the only thing we haven’t grown from seed on our farm in past seasons. We did try our first couple years, but had germination issues, and had to start them before it was worth firing up our propagation table. So we purchased “onion plants”, tiny onion transplants, which we then planted into our field. They grew fast and were dependable, but way too expensive. So this year, I convinced Sam that we should plant our early onions and our storage onions from seed, and purchase the transplants for the bulk of our fresh yellow onions (to allow ourselves some forgiveness if the seeds were a bust). But no crutch was necessary because the onions are here and they are absolutely loving the rain, and have found themselves among thousands of companion plants in the form of weeds who are also loving the rain. We’re trying to accept the weeds for their better qualities, retaining moisture (not that we need it this season) creating a canopy for further weed germination, and acting as trap crops for pests that might otherwise go after our veggie crops. That said, our seeds were successful, so from here on out, we plan to grow all of our onions from seed.
Recipes to Try
Smashed Zucchini (in case you can’t view the link above)
Best Ever Greek Pita (it is seriously the best)
Meal inspiration: Keep in mind for next week as well. Smashed broiled zucchini (I was deeply offended by this method at first and thought it was stupid, but now I’m hooked - recipe above. Broiled Japanese Eggplant (coming soon). Hummus. Feta Tzatziki. Greek Pitas - excellent recipe above. Sliced cukes and cherry tomatoes with minced sweet onions, parsely, dill, oregano, and mint.