Welcome to week #5! We hope you all had a nice 4th of July and were able to catch up on your veggies a bit, because here come a lot more!
In Your Share This Week
- Beets, mixed
- Carrots
- Fennel
- Kale, red ursa
- Lettuce
- Potatoes, new red-gold
- Scallions, shimonita
Crop Highlights
Beets: The white beet in these mixed bunches is called Avalanche, and they are milder (less beety tasting) than the others. We started growing these last year, and I love the addition of them to our batches of mixed beets! Roast ’em, grate ’em, juice ’em!
Carrots: We seeded these Yaya carrots with the tractor in early April, and are stoked to finally be harvesting them! They are living next to our beets, and starting next week we will be busy with weekly beet and carrot bulk harvest for our restaurant/wholesale accounts. A favorite of many of our CSA members, these carrots are so sweet and crunchy. We are leaving the greens on for you this week-try making pesto out of them, or tossing them on salads!
New Potatoes: These potatoes are my favorite! Red gold potatoes are a variety grown to be eaten as ‘new potatoes,’ meaning they have not reached full maturity- the skins are not yet fully developed so they do not do well stored for too long. Our tractors have been weeding and hilling these potatoes since we seeded them in April (a very fun project that involves sitting on the back of the tractor and constantly placing potatoes in a chute while it drives you up and down the beds). These potatoes are sweet and delicious; you can cook them any way you want, but my favorite is to simply sautee them with olive oil, scallions, salt and pepper. We decided to send these potatoes out unwashed so as not to damage the delicate skins, so give them a rinse before use.
Fennel: We were hoping our fennel would have sized up more by this week, but they are still cute little bulbs, so we decided to give you two! TIP: If you find the flavor of fennel to be overpowering, or isn’t you’re favorite, try cooking it. Sautee it just like you would onions. The flavor becomes very muted and savory. You might even experiment with tossing the whole fennel on the grill with a little olive oil and salt!
Remember to check out Katherine’s recipe blog for new, delicious cooking tips: http://www.cookwithwhatyouhave.com/sauvie-island-organics-recipes-tips/
On The Farm
Here are pictures of our new transplanter in action! Brian is driving the tractor, pulling the transplanting implement, which Tabitha and August are sitting on facing backwards. We bought this over the winter, and it has been awesome to use, greatly speeding up the transplanting of our many brassicas (kale, cabbage, choi) as well as our chard, head lettuces and salad lettuces, all which we have previously transplanted by hand. Transplanting most starts by hand can take two people ~30 minutes per bed, but with the transplanter a bed takes less than five minutes! It is also fun to use and easier on our backs than hand transplanting , a win-win for SIO and its farmers!