From Our Farmer and CSA

[persiancook]

Any ideas for how to use radishes? They are too strong to be eaten raw. The only other method I know of is braising them with butter, scallions and thyme (Deborah Madison). Any suggestions are much appreciated.

[edsel]

Today was the first pick-up day of the season - tender mixed greens, onions, and radishes.

(the eggs also come from my farmer).

It took a while to clean the greens, but it was worth it. Delicious!

[edsel]

*BUMP*

Hey folks, where are your CSA posts? It's late June, and even here in the "Heartland" we're getting good stuff from our farmers.

This week I'll be picking up the same sort of stuff that we've had for the last few weeks, with a few changes.

The first wave of radishes are on their last legs - last weeks were already pretty hot. Not sure if there will be any this Saturday, though there is a second planting on the way. We should be getting the first peas and kohlrabi , along with romaine and baby iceberg lettuce.

My farmer had more time than usual to devote to her weekly email report. (It's been raining).

The perfect time to sit and reflect for a minute.

So far I could ask for anything better, we had a mild spring to start off the gardens, got plenty of dry time for planting and now plenty of rain to water those seeds and started plants.

Oh but along with the growing veggies comes growing weeds, lots and lots of weeds. Husband sees me coming from the garden with wheelbarrows full of greens, husbands says, "wife your garden is growing well, look at all the green food."

Ahhh yes, it is good green food - but mostly weeds for the chickens, horses and piggies.

However some of the weeds are perfectly eatable and some people find them very tasty when cooked properly.

There is lambs quarters which tastes like spinach.

Broadleaf and narrow leaf plantain which I think tastes alot like spinich,

and purslane which tastes like ...um...stringy spinach.

The corn has sprouted and is doing well, so too has all the summer squash.

Pepper and tomato plants look strong and healthy there are little pepper buds starting and on a few of the tomatoes little bitty baby maters.

Cabbage family plants are doing well, the white butterflys are a problem though, laying their eggs on the leaves to turn into little green caterpillers that just happen to love eating those leaves. I pick them off when I find them. If you have kids and want them to raise them and see how these caterpillers turn into a chrysalis and then a white butterfly let me know and I will save the little buggers for you. They are easy to feed.

Raspberries? - Well the baby bushes that I planted in april are trying to make a few berries, bless their little woody stems.

Last Saturday was a glorious sunny June day (beautiful enough to almost make you forget how much late Winter sucks up here!) When I picked up my veggies, there were no other customers at the farm - an unusual situation. I was treated to an extensive tour of the fields. What a glorious sight - the plants were almost literally busting out of the ground. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera with me.

[ninetofive]

Last week was our first week for pickup. The owner told us this was the worst spring ever for them because of all the rain. Fingers crossed for a better summer.

This week we got a nice head of leaf lettuce, sugar snap peas, leeks, green garlic, and a dozen eggs. We demolished the peas over the weekend, used the lettuce for a salad topped with crispy proscuitto last night, and today I'm making a chicken soup with the leeks and green garlic. Yum!

[worm@work]

This week in Washington State:

- 2 heads of lettuce

- Lovely yellow tomatoes

- Tons and tons of garlic picked right this morning and smelling earthy and wonderful

- Carrots

- Cauliflower

- Chard

- Green Onions

- Cilantro

- Dill

- Fennel

- Peas

- Beans (We got to pick the beans and the peas)

& a lovely bunch of daisies and zinnias!! I really love this farm!

-w@w

[edsel]

Lettuce, onions, chard, and peas this week. Also my usual dozen fresh eggs.

(Shiitakes and garlic are from the farmers' market, not the CSA).

[kumquatmay]

Just picked up my share today--cabbage, two kinds of lettuce, new potatoes (YUM!), parsley, basil, beets. Course I still have some mustard greens that I'm not sure what I want to do with--maybe mix with the beet greens in a gratin? And kohlrabi--no idea what to do with that sucker. And like 5 daikon radishes.

We've been getting a bunch of radishes the last few shares, which I love. I am so exicted for the start of the potatoes though!

[edsel]

This season has been a roller-coaster here in NorthEast Ohio. Alternating periods of searing heat and drenching rains.

This week the CSA share was very nice indeed. Corn, beets, fennel, and my favorite, edamame (fresh soy beans in the pod). My farmer was running a bit behind when I arrived this morning, so I took the edamame home "on the stem" and cleaned them up myself.

A huge bunch of stems yielded a bit over two quarts of pods.

I like the frozen edamame you can get year-round, but the fresh ones are so much better.

[MarkIsCooking]

I would love to hear about your experiences with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). I just recently started reading about this and found this site very helpful. Local Harvest --> http://www.localharvest.org/about.jsp [url/]

Here's the essence as I understand it. There are over 1000 CSA's across the US. Each sells a 'share' for a given season or year. Each share entitles you to an amount of produce for a period of time. Most farms harvest the produce and you stop by at designated times to get your stuff. Some items or some entire farms require labor on your part.

It seems that many of these farms are organic and you get the benefit of getting produce (that you don't have time or space to grow) just hours or a few days after harvest, instead of stuff that has been trucked a thosand miles and treated to last longer than nature intended.

Produce that isn't picked up by shareholders is donated to the homeless or others in need. The farmer is assured of making some money because the sum of what the shareholders pay provides a profit. The risk of weather is shifted from farmer to shareholders because you pay the same for your share whether it's a bumper crop or a lean harvest.

This seems to me like a wonderful way to support small farmers, get healthier/fresher food and have excess go to people who need it.

I realize you likely need to supplement with stuff from the grocery produce department, but this strikes me as something great to do.

Do any of you have experience with CSA's that you'd be willing to share?

[Rehovot]

Here's at least one thread on CSAs.

I joined one after going through severe fresh-veg withdrawal, after moving to the Czech Republic from the Middle East.

Every three weeks, we pay about $9.50 for 12 kilos (26 lbs.) of vegetables; the selection usually includes two kinds of winter squash, winter greens (kale, as far as I can tell), beets, carrots, onions, and potatoes. The box comes from a farmer outside of Prague, and, while it's not organic, the quality is certainly better and cheaper than what you can find in a supermarket, here (probably about the same, but cheaper, as what you find in mom-and-pop fruit-and-vegetable shops).

So we've been eating a lot of roasted squash (great with blue cheese and toasted nuts mixed in), borscht, and chicken roasted with vegetables.

The farmer also offers cheese, eggs, and honey; we recently got half a kilo of whipped honey, which looks like a gold silk scarf in a jar and tastes fantastic.

[Miriam Kresh]

My CSA farmer dumped me because I was the only customer in my area and it wasn't worth the trouble to deliver to me . But when we were getting that box, it was a challenge to use up that ton of leafy greens. We were eating 3 or 4 vegetables at every meal, which was delightful to eat but became wearisome to cook after a while. I took to drying and preserving much more than before. I'm still enjoying the fruits of that labor, though, especially the tomatoes. It made more work for me as the family cook, but I would still go back to the CSA box if the farmer were willing. Ah - the bugs in the broccoli and cauliflower were a problem, as they are treif, and organic produce often is buggy. I probably soaked all the vitamins and minerals out of them, trying to get them clean.

Miriam

[ludja]

Anyone's CSA's delivering fresh produce now? As usual, I guess that will depend where you live...

Or eating things you preserved from earlier in the year?

Your CSA sounds wonderful, Rehovat--eggs, cheese and honey too!

Although it's more work, I think it would be neat to have the amount of produce and incentive to preserve fruits and vegetables like Miriam described.

Edited February 24, 2007 by ludja (log)

[Teya9]

Anyone's CSA's delivering fresh produce now?  As usual, I guess that will depend where you live...

Or eating things you preserved from earlier in the year?

Your CSA sounds wonderful, Rehovat--eggs, cheese and honey too! 

Although it's more work, I think it would be neat to have the amount of produce and incentive to preserve fruits and vegetables like Miriam described.

←

I just found out about a CSA program at one of our local colleges in N. AZ. You can pick up a box for 17 bucks a week with no commitments. I'm going to give it a try this week. Some one I know bought one last week and they got beets, potatoes sweet and white, turnips and greens of course. And there are farmers there selling eggs, honey and goat cheese and butter. I usually have my own garden growing these things but hubby had a triple by-pass about 8 months ago and things have not been the norm around here. I did get my garlic planted in the fall so there is something green in my garden. And I have some chicks laying me beautiful eggs. I love those little feathered girls

[Knicke]

I just found out about a local CSA that does half-shares! This is fantastic, because I'm only one person. It's still going to be a challenge to use up or process all of those vegetables, but there was no WAY I could do a CSA without the half-share option.

I'm just about to write my check, after I hear back from the farmer as to whether there are still shares available...

Can't wait to get at that produce!

[crouching tyler]

We got our first box of produce from our CSA ( farm ) share yesterday.

This is what I had today:

Strawberry Shortcake

Also in the box,

chives, arugula, spinach, garlic scapes, swiss chard, cilantro, and radishes.

[tsquare]

I'm a little jealous ct - except that we went to the Farmer's Market today and had a fun time selecting strawberries, raspberries, cabbage, baby beets (and greens), snap peas, broccoli, beef shanks, and Rainier cherries!

Do we have an equal time thread for non-CSA subscribers?

So who gets your share while you are away? Bad timing - always hate to leave Seattle in the summer.

[crouching tyler]

I'm a little jealous ct - except that we went to the Farmer's Market today and had a fun time selecting strawberries, raspberries, cabbage, baby beets (and greens), snap peas, broccoli, beef shanks, and Rainier cherries!

Do we have an equal time thread for non-CSA subscribers?

So who gets your share while you are away? Bad timing - always hate to leave Seattle in the summer.

←

We share a large box with friends, so we went on a serious veg eating spree tonight (creamed swiss chard with scapes, lettuce and argula salad with baked goat cheese and radishes) and will take the rest with us to eat along the road to San Francisco, and will have next week's share waiting for us when we get back - or at least some of it, hopefully.

I know exactly what you mean about trying not to leave Seattle in the summer. This is the only big trip we have planned this summer, and I am so looking forward to just watching my garden grow this whole summer season.

[nakji]

Lately I've been getting a weekly bag of produce from a local organic farm, The May Farm.

This week was:

Red cabbage

Grape tomatoes

a couple varities of lettuce

daikon

indeterminate mushrooms

and

peashoots. I've gotten peashoots every week for the last month, in fact.

What to do with peashoots? I've stir-fried them with sesame oil and garlic, and thrown the leftovers into fried rice. (delicious) I've put them into a Korean hot pot in place of chrysanthemum. But I don't know what else to do with them. Has anyone ever substituted them for kale or the like? I'm thinking of making a peashoot and bean soup.

[heidih]

Has anyone ever substituted them for kale or the like? I'm thinking of making a peashoot and bean soup.

I think the flavor would be ok- not as earthy and more green than a kale- but I would be careful about the stems as they can be stringy & chewy depending on their age.

[LizD518]

I've substituted pea shoots for lettuce on sandwiches. I like sprouts on general so they work for me. Not very creative, but it works.

[Kim Shook]

We joined our CSA for the first time this year. They deliver to our door and let us opt out of specific foods we don’t eat. They also gave us the option of every week or every other week, so the problems that other posters have mentioned seem to be taken care of. We aren’t very good about getting out early to the (very) few good farmer’s markets the area and I’m kind of looking forward to meeting the challenge of a mystery basket.

We got our first CSA basket Friday:

It contained sweet potatoes, asparagus, Bibb lettuce, blackberry jam, spring onions, lemon balm, strawberries, mustard greens, feta and free range eggs.

So far we’ve used the asparagus in a salad that Jessica made for dinner tonight, the eggs are almost gone with breakfast today and yesterday and the strawberries were just eaten as is – not even any added sugar. The sweet potatoes (is that odd, getting sweet potatoes in a CSA basket in MAY?) are going into a soup with some ginger and peanut butter! The mustard greens are babies and I’m planning a salad with the Bibb, the greens, spring onions and feta for dinner tomorrow night. The only thing that is stumping me is the lemon balm. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s a pretty big bunch, too. Any ideas?

[djyee100]

The only thing that is stumping me is the lemon balm. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s a pretty big bunch, too. Any ideas?

Some nice produce there. As for the lemon balm, I've never done much with it myself, but these are some suggestions off the top of my head--You could add a little to a salad for a tangy lemon flavor, or stuff some sprigs into the cavity of a chicken before you roast it. You could also steep some lemon balm with fresh mint leaves for a tea. I've served cold herb tea in the summer (usually a mint tea with some sugar added to it), & people liked it.

[Kim Shook]

The only thing that is stumping me is the lemon balm. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s a pretty big bunch, too. Any ideas?

Some nice produce there. As for the lemon balm, I've never done much with it myself, but these are some suggestions off the top of my head--You could add a little to a salad for a tangy lemon flavor, or stuff some sprigs into the cavity of a chicken before you roast it. You could also steep some lemon balm with fresh mint leaves for a tea. I've served cold herb tea in the summer (usually a mint tea with some sugar added to it), & people liked it.

Thanks for the good ideas!

[nakji]

For the lemon balm - Could it be used to make a sugar syrup to infuse a pound cake? I had a friend who liked to make a cake like that, though I never attempted it myself.

[nakji]

My bag comes on Tuesdays - today I got:

Please excuse the bad photo. Fresh Peas (!), lettuce, hothouse tomatoes, pickling cukes, two potatoes - hey, they're a vegetable in Asia, not a starch - a small green pumpkin, and taro. Obviously a lot of this is grown year-round in their hothouses and kept, eg. the potatoes.

The peas immediately went towards tonight's dinner - pea risotto with some soft feta swirled in. I also made an excellent salad with the lettuce. The tomatoes and pumpkin I'll probably curry later in the week, but the taro - what to do with the taro? It's white inside, not purple. This is the second time they've given me taro, and I'm only mildly ashamed to say I threw that first pack out. Taro for me - I don't know, I've tried it lots, but I've never seen the charm. Give me a sweet potato any day.