In this week’s share, members will receive the final harvest of garlic scapes, red leaf lettuce, lettuce mix, turnips, radishes, bok choy and collard greens. As always, scroll to the bottom of the newsletter for this week’s recipes and tips for storing your vegetables.

This week’s delivery falls on a special anniversary for your farmers. It marks our collard-aversary (is that a thing?), which is the day that we first “met” online when we started sharing recipes. The first of those recipes involved collard greens, which are in this week’s share. You can read more about that story here along with a more involved recipe, or you can try the simpler one below.

Farm updates

Here are a few updates on what’s been going on at the farm. 

Last week, we completed transplanting the majority of our crops. We have now reached the goal we set for both how much we would plant and when we would plant it. 

In spite of the hot weather and lack of rain, most vegetables are doing well, and we anticipate that it won’t be long until some favorites of our members will be ready for harvest, including cucumbers, tomatoes and snap peas.

This Friday, the farm will host its first farm stand of the season from 4 to 7 p.m. This will be a “soft opening” without much publicity because it’s still early in the season for us.

We’ve had lots of great company and visitors at the farm lately. One of our favorites are the tree swallows that are nesting in the bird boxes on the fence posts around the field. The birds come and go, and we suspect that they are feeding their young. In the mornings, they line up along the fence. In the breezy evenings, they soar over the field. 

We have had some human visitors to the farm in the past few weeks as well and have enjoyed giving a tour, talking about the farm’s history and showing off what we’re growing. One visitor this week was Deborah and her husband, Jim, who are CSA members. Deborah also is a colleague of John’s at UMD.

As we were talking about the farm and the sustainability of the business, Deborah asked a question: “What if the farm isn’t a business?”

It took a second to understand the question, but it did make sense.

Businesses are often motivated by profit. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But, maybe this isn’t a business. In many ways that’s how we’ve thought about this “thing.” Our motivations for doing this are not to make money. We love being outside. We love being together. We love growing food and giving it to our friends, our neighbors and our community.

What we hope for, financially, is to get to a place where we aren’t losing money on this. And, if the farm does begin to earn a modest income, we’d consider it a success.

It reminded us of a bumper sticker on our old Toyota Prius that reads, “Farming is public service.” 

Nuff said.

When we weren’t putting vegetables in the ground in the past few weeks, we turned our attention to another project: installing a pollinator friendly rain garden.

Last year Alyssa Bloss, a conservation specialist with the Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District, paid us a visit and talked about installing a rain garden as part of the Lawns to Legumes program that would capture the water running off our roof and cement patio and help native pollinator plants to grow. We picked up several dozen native plants a couple of weeks ago, cleared the space of unwanted grass and sod and filled it in with nutrient-rich compost and a final layer of mulch. 

The new garden is a beautiful addition to our home, and we look forward to seeing how it grows and attracts bees, birds and butterflies.

Recipes of the week

Here are some of our favorite recipes for this week’s vegetables. Remember our advice: Keep it simple. 

Collard greens

Being from the South, John is particularly partial to collard greens, which are traditionally cooked low and slow, often with pork as a key ingredient.

However, while visiting Charlotte, North Carolina, a couple of years ago, John came across some of the best collards he’d had at Mert’s Heart and Soul and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were both simple and that there was no meat used.

Here is the recipe. You can also watch a video of how to cook it here.

Ingredients

A “bunch” of collards 

2 teaspoons Goya Adobo Seasoning (or just salt, peppers, oregano and cumin)

1 chopped onion

1 or 2 diced garlic scapes or 1 garlic clove

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

Directions

Place all ingredients in a crockpot or in a heavy pot on the stove. Cook at a medium-low setting until the greens are tender but still chewy. Serve with cornbread and Tabasco seasoning. 

Bok Choy, Carrot and Apple Slaw (from Food.com)

This was a light and easy slaw and very tasty.

2-3 heads baby bok choy

1 ½ T fresh lemon juice

1 tsp coarse salt, divided

1 ½ tsp canola oil

1 apple, peeled and cut into matchsticks

½ tsp grated ginger

1 carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks

freshly ground pepper

Cut bok choy in half lengthwise.  Cut base of stems off as well as any bruised leafy tops.  Rinse each half thoroughly to remove any grit.  Slice each half crosswise into thin strips.  Place it all in a colander.  Rinse lightly and shake until most of the water has drained.  Coat top with ½ tsp salt and cover with a plate that fits inside the colander.  Place a canned good on top of the plate to weigh it down.  Meanwhile, place apple and carrot matchsticks in a medium bowl.  Add lemon, canola oil and ginger.  Add bok choy.  Add remaining ½ tsp salt and ground pepper to taste.  Stir and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes before serving.

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. 

“What’s for dinner, Farmers?!”  Turnips, kohlrabi, scapes and lettuce

We were inspired by a few things for dinner the other night.  One, was the salad recipe from last week for a “wilted salad”.  The green lettuce we gave the first week is bolting more and rather than waste it, we decided to use it along with that recipe.  Next, we just walked the field and harvested what looked tasty!  We grabbed kohlrabi, turnips and garlic scapes.  We happened to also have asparagus that was gifted to us.  In a cast iron pan, we roasted on high heat the asparagus with oil, salt and pepper.  Once that was done we put that aside and roasted the scapes, turnips and kohlrabi.  After about 10 minutes we added the greens of the kohlrabi and turnips and roasted for another 5 minutes.  We assembled our salad and topped with olives, feta, pepperoncinis and the dressing below.  John made the dressing as a combination of the “herbed” and “aoili” variations.  Delicious!  

Mayonnaise New Recipes from the Moosewood Restaurant

1 egg

dash of Tabasco sauce or cayenne

5 tsp vinegar or fresh lemon juice

1 cup vegetable oil

½ tsp salt

1 Tb hot water

2 tsp Dijon mustard

Place the egg, vinegar or lemon juice, and seasonings in a blender or food processor.  Turn on the blender and begin adding the oil, drop by drop.  Gradually increase the flow of oil to a thin stream.  Continue until all of the oil is used or until the mayonnaise is the right consistency.  Blend in a tablespoon of hot water to stabilize the mayonnaise  

Mayonnaise will stay fresh refrigerated for up to a week.

Variations

Herbed Mayonnaise: Add chopped scallions or chives and finely chopped fresh basil, tarragon, and/or dill.

Aioli Sauce: Start by adding one pressed garlic clove.  Add more garlic to taste.  Aioli Sauce is delicious on steamed vegetables and chilled fish.  

Optional: replace half of the vegetable oil with olive oil.