CSA Delivery Week 1: A long time in coming – Rising Phoenix Community Farm

This Sunday, the farm finally received some much needed rain.

NOTE: Here is our first newsletter of the CSA season. It includes a roundup of activities at the farm, a review of what you can find in your CSA shares this week and a few recipes for you to try.

Tonight, as we sit down to write this newsletter, it’s dawning on us that it is the first CSA delivery at our new home on our new farm. It was almost exactly a year ago that we signed the closing papers to take ownership of this farm. Sometimes, we almost can’t believe how much has been done in the past year to get ready for this day.

We would never have been able to do all this on our own. We had the support of our family both here and afar, and the help of our members who have set up fences, built high tunnels, planted tomatoes, peppers and so on.

But what has happened in the past month and a half, is even more astonishing. When we had our May Member meeting (via Zoom this year) we showed photos of what we’ve been up to and it’s almost laughable how different it all looks now! There’s a fence, plastic on the high tunnel (AND tomato and cucumber plants growing in the ground!), we started making permanent beds in five separate plots, multiple plantings of Brassicas (Cabbage family of kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, etc), lettuce, peas, beans, potatoes, etc have been planted.

In our last newsletter we talked about the drought we’ve had the past three weeks. On Sunday, we took a much needed day off and enjoyed a gentle, soaking 1.25 inches of rain.

Rather than tell you about all that has changed in the past month in a half, let’s just show you in pictures…

Here’s what the farm and field looked like just a few weeks ago

On May 10, our neighbor, John Stolz came out to till the field one more time before the real work began. Today, we have prepared nearly 50 beds, each 100 feet long. We brought in 30 yards of composted manure and used a broadfork to break up the soil. And, of course, we erected at 10-foot deer fence. No wonder we are tired.

With the help of friends from Fairhaven Farm and Agate Acres Farm, we began creating permanent beds that allow us to build up the soil with rich, organic matter and to reduce the amount of tilling done to the soil, protecting the farm’s most important resource: it’s soil.

What’s in your box

This week, we are excited to give you a nice assortment of vegetables, including a contribution from a neighbor and friend of ours. In this week’s share you will find: rhubarb, oregano, radishes, sprouted pak choi, red and green head lettuce and microgreens from Sprouted Earth Farm.

The microgreens were grown for us by our neighbor John Stolz. He and his wife Erin live just down the road and are one of the reasons we love living out this way. John grows amazing produce and we thought it would be fun to include his microgreens in the delivery both this week and next. If you like what John grows, stop by his stand at the Duluth Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The sprouted pak choi was a happy accident. Normally, we’d be delivering you pak choi, which is a kind of bok choi, a vegetable used in Asian cooking. However, the high heat of the past few weeks means this plant “bolted” early and started growing flowers. Before calling it a loss, we did a little research and found many people actually enjoy eating this vegetable this way. So, we thought we’d try it out. We did a simple stir fry and had the shoots for breakfast this morning with our eggs. We liked it so much, we made another round for our intern, Alli. She, too, thought it was pretty tasty.

The rhubarb is a combination of plants that were started by the Johnson family and likely go back decades here on the farm and a few plants that Heather-Marie received from numerous friends and family members over the years and transplanted here last summer.

Recipes for this week’s veggies

Here are a few suggested recipes for the vegetables in your shares this week. We hope you will also share your own recipes and images with our members and allow us to post them in future newsletters.

Rhubarb-infused cocktails

A rhubarb syrup paired nicely with locally made Vikre aquavit to celebrate the summer solstice.

Rhubarb Juice

1 ½ cups rhubarb, chopped
1 cup sugar
1 ½ cups water
Sparkling water
Optional: tequila
Lime juice

(see “adult drink” below)

Bring rhubarb, sugar and water to a boil, lower to a simmer. Cook down, about 15 minutes. Let cool. Put mixture through a strainer. Save the juice. Pour over sparkling water. If you want to zip it up, add optional ingredients (see additional recipe below!)

78 Degrees North Vikre Distillery, Duluth

For one drink:
1 oz Ovrevann Aquavit
¾ oz rhubarb syrup/juice (see above)
½ oz lime juice
Dry sparkling wine
Shake the aquavit, rhubarb juice, and lime juice with ice to chill. Strain into a champagne flute or coupe and top with sparkling wine.

Stir-fried sprouted pak choi

Pak choi is a common ingredient in Asian cooking. When the high heat caused our crop to flower early, we did some experimenting.

Stir fried pak choi with garlic and scrambled eggs.

This week, we made the best out of a bad situation. When the hot weather caused the pak choi to “bolt,” we decided to see how it would taste. We were quite pleased. In fact, it reminded us of one of our favorite dishes in Vietnam called rau muống (water spinach).

Ingredients:
Two bunches of sprouted pak choi. Trip off woody ends and roughly chopped.
1 head garlic
Olive oil (for flavor)
Grapeseed oil (for heat)
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: Lemon juice or tamari sauce or coconut aminos

Instructions:
1. Rinse and roughly chop the pak choi. Into half inch pieces. We removed the larger woody stem at the base.
2. Chop or mince garlic and add to a pan or wok with heated grapeseed and olive oil. Let the garlic cook just enough to release its flavor.
3. Toss in the pak choi, adding salt and pepper to taste. Toss or move around with a spatula until the greens are wilted and are a deep green. Taste a little to see if you like the texture.
4. Serve with a little fresh lemon, soy sauce or other acid if you like. We had ours with scrambled eggs and it was delicious.

Grilled Potato Salad with Oregano

(Sunset magazine)

6 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, halved lengthwise
1/4 cup olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano leaves
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped capers
1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes
2 teaspoons minced oil-packed anchovies
1/2 cup pitted oil-cured olives
1 1/2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves

1. Heat grill to medium (350° to 450°) with an area left unheated for indirect heat. Toss potatoes in 1 tbsp. oil; grill flat side down until marks appear, 8 minutes. Turn over, moving to indirect area. Cook until tender, 10 minutes. Let cool, then cut into chunks.

2. Whisk remaining 3 tbsp. oil, mustard, vinegar, oregano, capers, chile flakes, and anchovies in a large bowl. Gently mix in remaining ingredients.

Wilted Lettuce Salad

from allrecipes.com

I haven’t had a chance to make this yet but I have heard that a “wilted salad” recipe is a way to deal with lettuce that might be slightly bitter.

5 slices bacon
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 head leaf lettuce – rinsed, dried and torn into bite-size pieces
6 green onions with tops, thinly sliced

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Remove from skillet, crumble and set aside.

To the hot bacon drippings, add the vinegar, lemon juice, sugar and pepper. Stir over medium heat until hot.

In a large bowl, combine the lettuce and green onions. Add the warm dressing and toss to evenly coat. Sprinkle with bacon and serve.