CSA Week 8 newsletter: Mid-summer produce arrives (finally)

In their shares this week, members will receive the following vegetables: Purple sprouting broccoli, traditional green broccoli, romaine lettuce, salad mix, summer squash, carrots, Thai basil, Hungarian hot wax pepper, bunching onions, cucumbers and cauliflower for some.

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

After a sluggish start to the growing season, summer finally came to Barnum last week. While the temperatures have been seasonal, we’ve had few days in the 90s and very few warm nights, which has delayed harvest dates for many of our mid-summer vegetables.

That changed last week with a string of 90-degree days that pushed many of our plants into another gear. Now, we are picking summer squash and sprouted broccoli on a daily basis. Our traditional broccoli and cauliflower plants are beginning to produce as well. 

In the high tunnel, tomatoes are beginning to ripen. Our French fingerling potatoes are nearly ready for harvest. Herbs are looking beautiful. And pepper plants are starting to produce fruit as well.

In the flower beds, plants are beginning to blossom. Heather-Marie has been preparing flower bouquets for our Friday farm stand and will soon be offering larger bouquets to CSA members, starting with those who signed up to receive a flower share. 

In all, it’s pleasing to walk our fields and see how good things are looking in our third year of converting this old hayfield into fertile ground. 

However, the combination of cool nights and severe drought conditions have had an impact on some crops. In our high tunnel, we’d normally be picking cucumbers on a daily basis in large numbers, but this season, we have been hit by a cucumber beetle that has brought with it a bacterial blight that is slowly killing off our plants. So far, we’ve lost about 20 percent of our plants and a few more are showing signs of distress. We are taking what preventative measures we can, but it may be a very short season for cucumbers. Bob Olen, the horticulturalist for St. Louis County told us that beetles and other plant pests have been plentiful this year. 

Cool nights have also meant that the 400 feet of tomatoes we grow in the field have been very slow in producing. Cherry tomatoes should be part of our harvests by now, but they are showing very little evidence of ripening or even producing too many fruit. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. 

Another crop that we grow but do not to sell is called cover crop. This includes a variety of plants that we grow to improve the fertility of our soil and to compete with weeds. We try to have at least one section of our field rest each year so it can regain nutrients and organic matter. Last week, John mowed down a planting of buckwheat, which is great at competing with weeds and adding organic material to our soil. In its place, he will now plant a cover crop blend of grasses and other plants that will add even more organic material to the soil, hopefully leaving it rich and fertile and ready for next year’s growing season.

This cover crop work is done in consultation with the Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District, which is helping us explore the use of different cover crops depending on the season and what we are trying to accomplish. 

As we approach early August, the change of seasons can be felt at the farm. The birds have become more quiet and have begun to move about. Our resident birds have mostly nested and moved on. We’ve said goodbye to our kestrels and our tree swallows. 

As the season progresses, it is also time for us to start preserving food for ourselves. John made four and a half gallons of kimchi using our Napa cabbage and garlic as well as scallions from our friends at Farm Sol in Saginaw. The Korean pepper flake used in our kimchi is grown organically by Lakehouse Farms in Pennsylvania, whom we met at a Korean festival last year in New York City.

As we look into August, we are excited by all that’s growing in our field and by the visits we will have with family and friends as we celebrate the peak of our short growing season. Within the next week, we will be pulling up 300 feet of garlic that will be cured and prepared both for sale and for replanting. 

We are also welcoming new neighbors to the farm. Just north and west of us is now the home to Graceful Strides, which according to their website is a farm, “meant to uplift people’s lives through recreational and therapeutic approaches through cultivation and working with animals. At Graceful Strides, you will be able to grow food, care for animals, and learn more about agriculture.”

We look forward to meeting them at their open house this week and learning more.

In the meantime, enjoy these summer days.

Images from the week

This week’s veggies and recipes

Purple sprouted broccoli

This week’s veggies include a variety of purple sprouted broccoli that we are growing for the first time. When tasting it raw, we have found that some of the sprouts have a slightly bitter taste. However, when we quickly blanched them, the flavor was fantastic and the broccoli became a vibrant, deep green color.

Thai basil

This week’s share includes Thai basil, which has a different flavor and aroma from traditional Genovese basil. We use this in many of our stir fry dishes and in the two cold noodle salads listed in this week’s recipes.

Salad mix

The salad mix we grow is actually made up of five different greens that we mix together and seed into the ground. They are a combination of kales, Asian and mustard greens that can be eaten raw but are also sturdy enough to hold up to cooking.

• Use it in place of lettuce or lettuce mix to make a zesty salad
• Can be sauted or added at the last minute to eggs.
• Can be wilted by tossing with a hot, cooked grain like quinoa with a dressing added.

Recipes from a camping trip

Heather-Marie and her sister went camping this weekend and, as usual, brought too much food.  They made two great dinners that included similar veggies.  

The first night was meant to be simpler since they were arriving at the campground in the evening. 

They had snap peas, carrots, hummus, cheese, crackers, fancy olives and this parsley dip from last week’s newsletter.  

The second night they made rice noodles and topped them with snap peas, carrots, garlic scapes, thai basil, shrimp and fish-sauce sauce.  

Fish sauce with the rice noodles and Thai basil

Spicy Fish-Sauce Sauce

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

• ¼ cup seeded, de-ribbed, 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

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

Any vegetable combination, cooked or raw: Sauteed Napa cabbage, bok choy 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 the package (we boil water in a kettle and pour over noodles 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. 

Cold soba noodle

This week, we tried a cold noodle salad using mostly raw vegetables with the exception of the purple sprouted broccoli, which we quickly steamed and then blanched in cold water. It was a perfect dish to have with fresh veggies on a hot day when you don’t feel like cooking. Soba noodles are made from buckwheat flower and are popular in Japanese cooking.

The recipe is adapted from one in The New York Times, Cold Noodle Salad With Spicy Peanut Sauce. 

Noodle salad

• Kosher salt
• 10 ounces soba noodles
• 1 medium zucchini, yellow squash or cucumber (about 6 ounces)
• 1 broccoli floret, raw or steamed and blanched 
• 3 or more carrots cut into matchsticks
• Thai basil
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• ½cup roasted salted peanuts (about 2 ounces), roughly chopped
• 2 bunching onions, trimmed and finely chopped
• Handful of cilantro leaves
• 1 lime, cut into wedges for serving

Spicy peanut sauce

• ½ cup smooth peanut butter (not natural)
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons lime juice (from 1 lime)
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons chile oil or hot sauce, plus more to taste
• 1 garlic clove, grated

Directions

Step 1

Start by bringing a pot of water seasoned with salt to a boil. Add the soba noodles, stir them to prevent sticking, and cook them according to the instructions on the package until they are just tender. Rinse the cooked noodles under cold water until they become completely cold.

Step 2

Meanwhile, let’s prepare the sauce: In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the peanut butter, soy sauce, maple syrup, lime juice, sesame oil, chile oil or hot sauce, and garlic. Gradually add ¼ to ½ cup of water, one tablespoon at a time, and whisk until the sauce reaches a pourable consistency. Taste it and add more chile oil or hot sauce if desired. Set the sauce aside.

Step 3

Next, cut the zucchini or cucumber and radishes into thin slices, approximately ⅛-inch thick. Then, further cut them into thin matchsticks. Slice the peppers into pieces of approximately ⅛-inch thickness. Put all the prepared vegetables into a large bowl.

Step 4

Gently loosen the soba noodles by rinsing them with water again, and then let them drain. Add the noodles to the bowl with the vegetables and pour the remaining 1 tablespoon of sesame oil over them. Toss everything together to combine the flavors.

Step 5

When you’re ready to serve, drizzle the spicy peanut sauce over the noodles and vegetables. Top the dish with peanuts, scallions, and cilantro for added flavor and freshness. Serve immediately, and you can also offer lime wedges on the side to complement the dish. Enjoy!

Romaine lettuce

Lettuce is back in boxes again, this week with a head of romaine.  These bigger, sturdier leaves are more versatile than “regular” lettuce and can be used as wraps.

Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps “Tastes from Valley to Bluff”

These are really tasty!  You can substitute mushrooms or tofu for a vegetarian option.

• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 pound ground turkey breast
• ½ c green onions, sliced
• 1 ½ T fresh ginger, finely grated
• ½ tsp red pepper flakes
• 3 cloves garlic, mined
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1/3 c Hoisin sauce
• 8 lettuce/romaine leaves, washed, dried, chilled
• ¼ c sliced almonds, toasted

1.  Sauté the bell pepper in the vegetable oil for 2 minutes.  Add the turkey, green onions, ginger, red pepper flakes, and garlic.  Stir while cooking for 5 minutes or until the turkey is no longer pink.

2.   Add the soy sauce and Hoisin sauce.  Heat thoroughly for one minute.

3.  Spoon the turkey mixture into each lettuce leaf.  Sprinkle with the toasted sliced almonds, roll up tightly, and serve immediately.