CSA Newsletter week 2: Being prepared for anything

In their shares this week, members will receive the following vegetables: kale, Japanese salad turnips, rhubarb, chives (for farm pickup only), lettuce mix, mini head lettuce, microgreens and radishes.  

This newsletter includes a roundup of news from the farm as well as information and recipes. Feel free to jump to the bottom of the newsletter to find the section titled, “This week’s veggies and recipes.”

News from the farm

When farmers get together, one topic of conversation is almost always the weather, but this year, those discussions have become more intense. Each week, forecasts have been predicting heavy rains, thunderstorms, flood warnings and so on.

And, as with each growing season, the wet weather has brought with it some good things and some difficult challenges both at our farm and at others around the region.

On Wednesday night, we pulled our chairs up to the patio door in our dining room and watched and worried as a major thunderstorm roared through the region, spawning at least three tornadoes in our region. The National Weather Service issued an ominous warning, alerting us of tornado activity and telling us to take cover. 

We closed up our greenhouse and two high tunnels and hoped for the best, trading text messages with other farmers north of us, asking how things were going. 

In the end, we escaped with no damage, but, again, our fields had the consistency of chocolate pudding, and, with our greenhouse backed up with plants that needed to get into the ground, we couldn’t do much more than wait and work on other projects – and there are always projects. 

Last year, we experienced an extreme drought. This year, we are seeing weather patterns that even long-time local farmers say they have not seen before. 

Out of curiosity, I asked the other farmers in our regional CSA guild how things were going for them and whether they’d experienced a season like this one. 

“I’ve seen weather like this only once before in my 25 years here, but I imagine seasons like this will get more frequent,” noted one Wisconsin farmer.

Overall, the group noted that crops were doing well, but the challenge was finding a window in which work could get done in the field. 

The climate change-driven unpredictability of the season means that when the conditions are right, we have little option but to put our heads down and hammer. 

On Saturday evening, we exhaustedly completed a three-day stretch of planting and eagerly looked forward to hearing our friends play music and enjoying a much-needed day off on Father’s Day. 

In spite of all these challenges, the season is going well. We have about 80 percent of our beds now occupied with hundreds of plants. The plants in our new, 95-foot high tunnel are thriving: tomatoes, lettuce, snap peas, peppers and cucumbers. The older, smaller tunnel is coming to life with flowers, including dahlias, snap dragons and bachelor buttons, to name but a few. 

We enter the second week of our CSA delivery season proud of the boxes we’re providing and excited about what’s to come.

At the same time, we also know that the unpredictability of the weather means we can never count on anything. This, it would appear, is the new normal.

Father’s Day surprise

It was a special Father’s Day at the farm. That morning, we put on our bug nets and layers of loose clothes and braved the bugs to check on the box we set up a few years ago for kestrels (a small falcon) to nest in. The last two years, the kestrels had three babies. 

This year, we attached our camera to our selfie stick and put on the video to discover FIVE baby birds in the box. (Nice work Father and Mother kestrel.)

Later in July, our friends Clinton and Kristina will come out and tag the birds and make a record of their size and weight and give a short presentation on these birds as part of the American Kestrel Monitoring Project.

Angel Cards and gratitude

John’s family introduced Heather-Marie to “Angel Cards”; they’re a deck of cards with a single word written on them.  We both pick one each morning and use it as an intention for the day.  Heather-Marie’s  was “gratitude” on a recent day, and it was fitting.  

We’ve had a lot of “firsts” of the season this month:

• We hosted our first CSA event with member meetings at Duluth Cider and the farm (members learning about the farm; meeting new people).  
• We had our first work days on the farm (where members did everything from potting up peppers, later planting those peppers, trellising tomatoes, and so much more). 
•  And we had our first delivery last Tuesday where we greeted old and new members.  
• We are so grateful for all the support of our farm staff, friends, family and community.  Despite all the rain and soggy conditions, the field is filling up and we’re grateful for the abundance and the honor to feed so many people.

Important dates and details

Here is a rundown of important dates and other happenings at the farm.

Friday Farm Stand opens July 5

First farm stand: We will be opening our farm’s roadside farm on the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Our farm stand will be open on Friday, July 5. Our hours this season will be from 3 to 6 p.m.

Cider with your farmers

Meet your farmers for a cider at Duluth Cider. This cidery is owned by our friends Val and Jake, who also happen to be members of our CSA.  This is a chance for your farmers to relax and for everyone to hang out and have a pint of either alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverages.  We can even play bingo if people are up for that.  

• Date: Tuesday, June 25 
• Time: 7 p.m.
• Location: Duluth Cider

Images from the farm

This week’s veggies and recipes

Note: This week, we asked Olivia, one of our interns, if she would share some of the recipes she is excited to try with her CSA share. Olivia is a junior at Moose Lake high school who is working with us for her second year. She is passionate about sustainability and healthy eating. 

Hello! My name is Olivia, and I’m one of the interns at the farm this summer. I hope you are finding ways to enjoy your shares so far. I know I am. 

For this upcoming share, there are some recipes and tips that I’d like to provide. The first is a recipe for rhubarb. I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m looking forward to it. This is for strawberry rhubarb chia jam. 

https://bojongourmet.com/low-sugar-strawberry-rhubarb-jam-chia-maple/#wprm-recipe-container-30931

My plan is to use it on toast or mix it into yogurt or oatmeal, but feel free to try it on anything you’d put jam on. 

The next recipe I’ll share I have not tried either, but I’m really excited to. I’m assuming most of you have had or heard of Top the Tater. For me, it was a staple growing up and brings to mind many fond memories. This recipe uses the chives from this week’s share. 

http://savegreenbeinggreen.blogspot.com/2013/04/make-it-monday-clean-eating-top-tater.html?m=1

Use it on sandwiches or as a dip with chips, crackers, or vegetables. Lastly, I’ll make a suggestion for the lettuce mix. I will be using it for salads, as they are a favorite of mine. When I make them I like to incorporate just about every vegetable I have available. A little bit of everything. 

I also like to include some protein sources such as beans, hard boiled eggs, seeds, nuts, and rice. Some may not know this, but you don’t need to have an exact recipe for a good salad.  No matter what ingredients you have at home, a salad can be made of pretty much any combination of vegetables. 

As you may have noticed, the recipes I shared are rather simple and don’t require highly processed ingredients. 

These are things I often look for when preparing food because even the simplest of recipes can be delicious. If you find them to be good as well, I encourage you to share them with your friends and family. For example, you could get together for a potluck. 

During this past school year, my friends and I did something similar. Every couple of weeks we’d find a new recipe to try together, and one of us would prepare it and bring it for lunch.  This made trying new things even more enjoyable, as we got to do it together. 

I hope you find these tips helpful. Feel free to share feedback and recipes that you may have found. 

Thanks!

Try spring rolls for an easy change of pace

Spring rolls w/ fish sauce

Spicy Fish-Sauce

From Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden

We could drink this sauce, it’s so good!  It’s a staple in Vietnam (called “nuoc cham”)

• ¼ cup seeded, deribbed, and minced fresh hot chiles
• 4 large garlic cloves, minced
• ½ cup fish sauce
• ¼ cup water
• ¼ cup white wine vinegar
• 2 T sugar

Stir everything together in a small bowl until the sugar dissolves.  Taste and adjust so you have an intense sweet-salty-sour-hot balance.  Ideally, make this a day ahead, then taste and readjust the seasonings on the second day.  The sauce will keep for a month or two in the fridge.

The Farm’s Asian-style salad, and spring rolls

This seems to be on our rotation a lot on the farm, especially for Heather-Marie

Any vegetable combination, cooked or raw: Sauteed bok choy, kale or greens; roasted carrots; or any raw veggies: radishes, turnips, carrots, etc

Microgreens

• Rice noodles
• Fish sauce-sauce (see above)
• Protein, optional: fried egg, scrambled egg, roasted garbanzo beans, shrimp, cooked chicken, etc
• Herbs, optional: mint, Thai basil

Prepare vegetables and protein, if using.

Cook the noodles according to package (we boil water in a kettle and pour over noodles and let sit for about 3-4 min. Check for doneness).  

Assemble salad with noodles in the bottom of individual bowls, followed by the rest of the ingredients and topped with the sauce.  

Spring roll variation (see this weeks’ video for spring roll demo)

Instead of a salad with all of the above ingredients, you can also make this into spring rolls, or lettuce wraps.

Additional ingredients: rice paper and/or large lettuce leaves 

Have all of your ingredients chopped and made ahead of time.  Have a large bowl of water ready to slide the rice paper sheets into.  You only need to get them wet for a few seconds.  You can still assemble them when they are still stiff.  They will hydrate.  In the bottom third of the rice paper, place a small amount of rice noodles, egg, radishes, microgreens and whatever other veggies you want.  Fold up the bottom edge, then the two sides and roll all the way up.  You can make a plate of these to eat all at once, or eat as you go.  Such a fun meal to do with friends or family.   

Quick Pickles

Six Seasons  by Joshua McFadden

• Brine
• (makes enough for about 3 pints pickles)
• ½ cup rice vinegar
• 1 Tb white wine vinegar
• 1 ½ cups hot water
• 5 Tb sugar
• 1 Tb plus 1 tsp kosher salt

Put everything in a pot or big pitcher and stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. 

Using clean canning jars, fill with your vegetable in a way that shows off the beauty of it, pour over the brine until the vegetables are completely covered and the jar is full, and screw on the cap.  Refrigerate for up to 2 months.  Start tasting after the first day to see how the flavor and texture are developing.  They are ready to eat as soon as you think they are ready.

Turnip Pickles

• Seasoning
• 5 smashed garlic cloves
• 3 strips of orange zest
• 1 Tb black peppercorns
• Rinse all seasonings.

Preparation

Use early-season Japanese turnips.  Remove tops, leaving ½ inch of the greens.  Scrub but don’t peel, then cut into quarters lengthwise.  With larger late-season turnips, peel and cut into wedges.  Layer with seasonings.  

Tips for turnips, and other roots

In the earlier part of the growing season, you will find your root vegetables still attached to their greens.  That is because the greens are still tender enough to eat.  Later in the season the greens become tougher and roots like storage carrots, will have their tops removed.  

So a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Remove the greens promptly.  If left on for too long, roots will become soft.  
• Store the roots and greens separately. They will both keep longer. 
• Cook up the greens like you would any other greens.  Turnip greens are used quite frequently in southern cooking, along with collards.