Welcome to Week 4 of the CSA growing season. In this week’s share, members will find kohlrabi, Napa cabbage, turnips, Swiss chard, lettuce mix, basil and garlic scapes. Half share members will also receive a cucumber (full share members will hopefully receive cucumbers next week). 

As always, you can scroll to the bottom of the newsletter to read our recipes and suggestions on how to prepare and store this week’s vegetables.

News from the farm

Summer days have been still and somewhat quiet at the farm, as the bird calls begin to dissipate and the air is filled with insects of all sorts. 

In the field and in our high tunnel, you can almost watch the vegetables growing. We have turned from the planting season to the cultivating stage of the growing season (which is just a fancy word for weeding). 

The plants are looking healthy. We have had two rains in the past two weeks, which has helped keep things from getting too dry. Our makeshift irrigation system also allows us to keep plants on a regular watering schedule. 

The hot weather and dry conditions have been tough on some plants. Farmers across Minnesota are reporting that brassicas, including broccoli and cauliflower, are bolting early and also producing marginal yields. We have seen similar results in our plants, but are hopeful that we’ll still be harvesting some of these plants in the next two weeks. 

In the high tunnel, our cucumber and tomato plants are having a race to see who can climb taller faster. Both plants are now over 5 feet tall. The cucumbers are producing some fruit and we are hopeful they will begin to produce more in the next week or two. We have a bounty of tomatoes and a few of them are beginning to turn color, so we suspect it won’t be long.

In the field, snap peas, beans, summer squashes and new potatoes all look as though they are getting close to producing for us. Meanwhile, field tomatoes and peppers are growing quickly and producing a lot of fruits. Our garlic plants look very healthy and we anticipate harvesting them in a couple of weeks and allowing them to cure in our barn. We will be selling both seed and eating garlic in bulk later this year; members will also get garlic in their weekly shares.

Overall, we could not be more pleased with how things have done in our first season on this farm. We’ve learned a great deal about the quality of our soil and have experimented with some new farming methods.

We have used all the revenue the farm has brought in this year to reinvest it in the farm. Heather-Marie’s father is working incredibly hard on helping us complete a walk-in cooler that we hope to have finished within the next two weeks. This will be a great boon for us, allowing us to harvest on a weekly schedule and keep vegetables in excellent shape for delivery.

We have also purchased soil amendments and two dump truck loads of composted manure as well as organic fertilizer and soil amendments to improve the quality of our soil. 

Of course, one of our largest purchases this year, a walk-behind tractor, has still not arrived.

Last Friday, we had our first farm stand at our new location and it was a great success. Of course, our priority is to our CSA customers, but we also grow for the farm stand, selling vegetables when we have a surplus of them. It was great fun to meet some new neighbors and to hear how excited people were to know that there is a farm in their community growing local produce.

Recipes

As always, it’s our hope that you’re finding creative, but simple ways to use the vegetables you’re getting in your weekly shares. For us, that means that things we eat most of the year just taste better because we’ve got fresh green things to put in them.

This weekend, we had breakfast burritos with sauteed chard, for example. There’s kale in our morning smoothies, and of course, lots of stir fries filled with fresh Napa cabbage. 

We’ve found a million uses for our garlic scapes, including making multiple batches of scape pesto that we froze to enjoy this winter. It’s hard with our schedule to find the time to put food up, but that’s one of the reasons we farm, so we can feed you and ourselves well into the winter months.

Swiss chard

This week’s new arrival in your share is rainbow Swiss chard. Chard is a visually beautiful and tasty vegetable that is a lot like spinach in its texture.  Swiss chard is closely related to beets.  Like beets, there are two edible parts; the leafy greens and the stems or ribs.  Swiss chard can be a replacement for any green in a recipe, whether it’s kale or spinach.  Both the stems and leaves are delicious, along with being so pretty!  Swiss chard can be eaten raw, along with sauteed, steamed and braised.  The stems take a little longer to cook.  Chard can also be blanched and freezes well. 

Swiss Chard Omelet with Middle Eastern Savor

Source: “From Asparagus to Zucchini”

These omelets are amazing!  Since they are “savory”, they are great for dinner, too.

For each omelet:

1-2 tsp olive oil

1 T finely chopped kalamata olives

3 eggs, beaten

1 T toasted pine nuts

½ c chopped, cooked chard leaves and/or stems

lemon juice warm or at room temperature

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 T currants

herb sprig (rosemary, thyme, sage, etc)
Crumbled feta cheese, optional

Instructions:

Heat olive oil in a small nonstick skillet over high flame. Add beaten eggs. They will immediately begin to set on the bottom of the pan.  

With a spatula or nonstick egg lifter, pull the cooked egg from the outer edges of the pan toward the center.  The uncooked egg will spread and cook.  

Use a spatula to help spread the liquid egg off top of cooked egg and onto exposed sections of pan bottom.  

Continue to do this until nearly all the liquid egg is set.  

Reduce heat to very low.  The egg will continue to cook as you layer the following across the omelet: chard, currants, olives, and pine nuts.  Sprinkle with a few drops of lemon juice.  Season with salt and pepper.  

To serve, hold a plate close to the edge of the skillet and, shaking the skillet slightly, slip the omelet onto the plate, either rolling it into a cigar shape or folding it over into a half-moon.  Serve immediately.  

(Or, since this entire process takes only 2-3 minutes, you can keep the omelet warm in the oven while you make more of them.)  Garnish with an herb sprig and optional feta.   Makes 1 serving.

Napa cabbage 

We are hearing from a number of members who are making kimchi with their Napa cabbage. We are looking forward to trying that ourselves. However, Napa is very nice in salads and, of course, in stir fries and Thai curries like the one we had tonight before we started writing this newsletter.

Asian Fusion Slaw  

“Tastes from the Bluff” cookbook

I love this recipe!  I have also used this with kale.  The dressing is very versatile.

Dressing

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 Tb toasted sesame oil

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1 1/2 Tb finely minced fresh ginger

2 tsp soy sauce

Slaw

6 cups shredded napa cabbage, thinly sliced

2 bell peppers, sliced into sticks

1 bunch green onions, finely chopped

Salt

1 cup chopped salted peanuts

1 cup minced cilantro

Instructions

Mix the dressing ingredients in a small bowl.  In a big bowl, toss together the cabbage, peppers and onions.  Pour the dressing over the cabbage, and toss.  Salt to taste.  Add the peanuts and cilantro right before serving.  This salad tastes better the second day, but wait with sprinkling the peanuts on until just before serving, or else they will soak up the oil and get soft. 

Kohlrabi and Pea Vine Patties with Cilantro Yogurt Sauce

“From Asparagus to Zucchini”

AMAZING and a little spicy!!

Sauce:

1 bunch cilantro, stemmed, finely chopped

Juice of 1 lime

½ tsp salt

1 tsp honey

5 oz plain yogurt

Patties:

1 T Dijon mustard

1 T minced ginger

1 T minced garlic or garlic scapes

1 T curry powder

salt and pepper to taste

½ c packed chopped pea vines; or Asian greens, kohlrabi greens work too

3 medium kohlrabi, peeled and shredded

2 T flour

1 egg

¼ c vegetable oil

1 c bread crumbs

Directions:

Combine sauce ingredients and let stand 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, mix all ingredients for the patties except breadcrumbs and vegetable oil.  Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Form kohlrabi mixture into small patties, squeezing hard to extract excess moisture.  Roll patties in the bread crumbs (FARMER NOTE- I actually think the patties stick together better if you add the bread crumbs to the mixture instead of rolling).  Fry patties on both sides until golden brown, about 4 minutes per side.  Drain on paper towels.  Serve with cilantro dipping sauce.  

Makes 6 patties.