Howdy folks and welcome to week one of your 2017 Tumbleweed Farm CSA share. Taylor and I are stoked for this season and hope you all are hungry for some fresh spring flavors! It's been a long winter and we have SO been looking forward to seeing all of your faces again. We can't wait to clink glasses at Migration with seasoned members and we are really looking forward to meeting all of you new folks as well. Thanks again for supporting our farm. We hope you enjoy the journey this season.
As far as winter at the farm....It was brutal! We were under a blanket of 4 feet of snow for almost 4 months straight. We had a late start on many of our spring greens due to wet, cold and un-tillable soil. However, things have been moving along now and we are quickly making up for lost time. We are happy with this weeks box and as our older members will know, things start off slowly with lots of greens. As the weather warms and the season progresses the boxes will continue to have more variety. But for now, I think we can all agree fresh greens are what the body needs after such a long winter.
Right now we are busy getting our summer crops transplanted from the greenhouses out into the field. Taylor has been tilling and prepping a large section of our lower field for those crops and I've been taking care of them in the greenhouse. We'll both be transplanting the first round of summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, watermelons and melons out into the field tomorrow!! We are continuing to put 500 heads of lettuce into the field every week (lettuce is a big wholesale crop for us) along with thousands of kale, cabbage, and collard green plants. We're bummed that the root maggots have discovered our first planting of broccoli and have pretty much decimated hundreds of plants. However, the second planting (which is in another part of the field) is looking stronger so fingers crossed we're in the clear there.
Anyhow, that's pretty much all the news from the fields as of right now. If you have any questions never hesitate to email us. We hope you all enjoy the flavors of your first week's box! Below are recipe suggestions for all of the ingredients in your box. Also-- if you haven't had a chance to purchase the Dishing up the Dirt cookbook it's a great resource for using all the veggies in your weekly share. You can purchase it here. Thanks for supporting all things Tumbleweed Farm and DUTD.
Cheers to the harvest!
Your farmers,
A & T
Harvest 1
- Beets---remove the greens and store them separately in a plastic bag in the fridge
- Green Garlic--tastes similar to garlic but isn't quite as strong. Can be used interchangeably but the whole stalk is edible. Great on the grill!
- Baby Bok Choy--One of the few crops that tastes better as it bolts. You can eat the entire plant including the flowers. Perfect in salads, stir fries, or tossed on the grill. See recipes below.
- Radishes -- Remove the greens (they're edible too!) and store the roots and greens separately in plastic bags in the fridge. If you leave the greens on the radishes will go soft.
- Mizuna--We refer to mizuna as "fancier" arugula. It's got a mellow "mustardy" bite and is lovely in salads, thrown into hot pasta (where it wilts down and is delicious!) or simply made into pesto.
- Arugula-- See recipe suggestions below but it's so darn flavorful right now that a little olive oil, lemon juice and flakey sea salt is all you need!
Chickpea and Bok Choy Coconut Curry (the recipe on the blog calls for using Tatsio but baby bok choy will work beautifully as a substitute.
