Welcome to Week 4 of the 2025 summer CSA season. This week is a Group B week, which means full shares in all locations pick up and half shares at the Farm pick up.

In their shares this week, members will receive the following vegetables: broccoli, kohlrabi, Japanese salad turnips (the last of the season), radishes, salad mix, microgreens, scallions.

Online store: The online store is open this week for the first time, offering kale, collard greens and radishes as well as farm gear and Heather-Marie’s linoleum block prints. Please place orders by 10 a.m. Tuesday morning to allow for processing.

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.”

Farm Stand opens July 11

While we usually open our Farm Stand the first Friday in July, this year that also coincides with the Fourth of July. So, we will delay one week and open for the season on Friday, July 11.

The stand is open on Fridays from 3 to 6 p.m. We sell seasonal produce picked fresh from our fields. Follow the farm on Facebook to get reminders or, even better, sign up for our mailing list to get weekly notifications.

News from the farm

With the summer solstice behind us, we’re transitioning into a new phase at the farm. The greenhouse is nearly empty, and almost every piece of real estate in the field is now occupied with something. On Saturday, we hosted our last work party as a team of six speedily transplanted melons, lettuces, and yet another round of broccoli before turning our attention to what will need to be the focus of the weeks ahead: weeds, weeds, weeds.

By most measures, it has been a highly successful growing season so far. Cool weather and slow, steady rain (with one exception) have allowed plants to thrive. This is, without question, one of the best years we’ve ever had for radishes and Japanese turnips, which will make their final appearance in CSA boxes this week.

Our cool-weather-loving brassica plants (the cabbage family) also seem quite content with the conditions we’ve been having. This week, we’re harvesting some lovely broccoli and big, beautiful purple kohlrabi, as the season begins to shift from leafy greens to more substantial produce.

Meanwhile, in our largest high tunnel, tomato and cucumber plants are growing by the hour, and pepper plants are beginning to thrive under the midsummer sun. After a dismal potato season last year, this year’s crop—900 feet of potatoes—is looking promising as the plants poke their noses out of the soil and begin to bush out.

This week also marks the start of flower season at the farm. For the first time in the farm’s history, we’re offering a flower subscription service, and the first of those subscriptions will be delivered this week.

Heather-Marie started vegetable farming in 2011. She didn’t grow flowers that first year, but the next year she did: sunflowers, amaranth, celosia, ornamental grasses, Queen Anne’s lace, strawflower, cosmos, and zinnias—solid choices that are relatively easy to grow. Slowly, over the years, she added a new flower or two—bachelor buttons, statice, calendula—but those remained the mainstays until 2021. That was our first farming season on our own land after moving in during the summer of 2020. Finally, she could start investing in perennials: hydrangea, peonies, ninebark, daffodils. She used the quiet winter season to pore over books and sit in on Zoom sessions to learn all she could.

This year, she is growing the largest variety of flowers she has ever cultivated. In total, there are 26 varieties of annuals and perennials, along with 20 different sunflowers.

The transition into mid summer means another change at the farm: we say goodbye to many of our early season birds. This year, we are pretty sure we’ve had a record number of baby birds born at the farm. In fact, they are everywhere. We have baby robins, of course, flying awkwardly all over the place. Along our fenceline, the boxes that were put up for bluebirds and tree swallows are now empty with the babies fledging over the weekend.

In our barn, the barn swallows are still on the next, but they’ll soon be fledging as well. We’ve also had to keep other doors to the barn open so that a nest of phoebes could also fledge and be on their way.

Of course, the one birds that show no sign of leaving year are our hilarious family of killdeer. Hatched in our tomato bed, the killdeer seem quite content in our protected field. Even though they can now fly, the spend much of their day hoping from bed to bed, eating up worms and other insects. They have learned that when we are working in the field, if they stick close to us, they can also count on getting tossed the occasional worm or other such goodie.

Images from the farm

This week’s veggies and recipes

Kohlrabi

• Most people eat kohlrabi raw – peeled, sliced and cut into sticks, like carrots.  
• Can also be used in a non-traditional slaw with grated kohlrabi, turnips and/or radishes, chopped parsley, scallions and dressing of choice.
• Can be sliced or cubed and added to soups, salads or stir-fries.

Grated Carrot, Kohlrabi and Radish Salad

From MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN (New York Times)

• 1 ½ pounds mixed carrots, kohlrabi, black radish and daikon, peeled and grated on the large holes of a grater or cut in thin julienne (any combination; 4 cups total)
•  Kosher salt to taste about 1/2 teaspoon
• 1 ½ cups water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ½ cup rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons slivered mint leaves or chopped cilantro optional

PREPARATION

1. Combine the grated or julienne vegetables in a large bowl, and toss with about 1/2 teaspoon salt. Place in a strainer or colander set over a bowl or in the sink. Let stand for about 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, combine the water, sugar and vinegar in a saucepan, bring to a boil and remove from the heat. Pour into the bowl in which you combined the vegetables, and allow to cool to room temperature.
3. Briefly rinse the vegetables, and squeeze dry. Add to the bowl with the vinegar mixture, and stir together. Refrigerate for one hour or longer. To serve, lift from the vinegar bath with a slotted spoon and arrange on a platter. Garnish with the mint or cilantro, and serve.

Radish sandwiches!

This “recipe” came from the New York Times cooking section. We’ve had it a few times, including today with our friends at Prairie Rose Farm, who baked focaccia for the bread, so that was pretty great. 

It’s really pretty simple:

– Slice radishes thinly and sprinkle lightly with salt, which mellows the radishes a little

– Wash radish greens and chop them up a little

– Slice a baguette or other good, crusty bread

– Slather baguette with butter (you could also use olive oil)

– Add a nice big layer of radishes and some of the radish greens

– Top with a little more salt and pepper 

– Eat it!

We also tried this with sardines and another time with some hard boiled eggs.