EverGreen Farm

CSA: Week 15

In your share this week:

• Golden Beets
• Carrots
• Cilantro
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash
• Cucumbers
• Garlic - "Music" variety, 1 pound bag
• Filet Beans
• Swiss Chard

A few of my thoughts and observations about this share and this week on the farm:

This share is valued at $55! 

Farmer Shain may have planted "too much" food this year. 

I'm not sure I want to cover the squash & zucchini plants when it freezes next week.  Would it be bad if I let them die?  (Knowing me, I will cover them.)

"Someone" in our family crashed his car earlier this week.  He's fine!  (I hope he has fun riding a bike at college this year.)  And, we are still trying to get him off to college. (Thank heavens for Papa Jay who is coming to the rescue!). With all of these extra-busy stressors to deal with, I was just shy of saying this week's share would only be a bag of a few things we could pull together at the last minute.  However, THIS is an amazing share and all because we have great Workshares who step up when needed, give me encouragement, and are just great people in general.  THANK YOU!!!! (And now I'm crying.  Really, thanks so much to all of you!)

It's garlic clean up time.  This is a big job and we welcome our CSA members to spend a few hours at the farm helping us get a big project done ASAP.  It's mostly a sit-down job that can be done any time of day, regardless of the weather.  We have a small cleaning crew coming on Saturday morning, and next Wednesday at about 4:30 pm.  I am available at other times as well. 

You are getting your first 1 pound bag of garlic this week.  There will be at least one more 1 pound bag coming.  There is extra available for purchase for $10/pound.  

That was quite a thunderstorm last evening.  Even some hail.  I haven't seen much damage to crops, even Farmer Shain's row of sunflowers are still standing tall.

People are asking about our potatoes.  When do you harvest potatoes?  We usually wait until a good freeze kills off the plants, wait for dry ground, and then start digging.  Usually, about the time the garlic clean up is done, we need to start digging potatoes.  It appears as though this will be the case again this year.  I see a freeze coming in the forecast.  

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA: Week 14

In your share this week:

• Zucchini
• Summer Squash
• Cucumber
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Salad Mix - last of the season
• Garlic
• French Filet Beans
• "Dino" Kale
• Carrots
• Golden Beets

News on the farm: 

Farmer Shain is back to work as Mr. Saberon, 8th grade English Teacher extraordinaire.  This is a significant transition period for our family and the farm.  And then adding to this event, our son Eli is headed off to college in about a week.  Shain and I will be "Empty Nesters", and I will be the lone farm girl running the show.  It's a change to our schedule for sure but we've done this routine for 14 years so I know we can do it again.  It's just a little more work, a lot more organization, and planning, and then some great teamwork with our Workshares.

Our garlic crop is dry enough now that we can begin the process of cleaning it up for our CSA shares and to sell. 

You'll notice new items in your share this week - the French filet beans (which are AMAZING!), basil, and cucumber.  This was our first picking of cucumbers, so there will be plenty more in the future.  Our basil is doing pretty good this year, much better than previous years.  Our Walla Walla onions are just about ready to start digging, just waiting for Shain to give me the okay.  And the potato plants look great, but it will be a while before we start digging potatoes.  I've seen a few small cabbage heads forming, that's another crop we hope will do very well for us.  The parsley is about ready.  Our dill got weeded this week and I expect it will grow quickly now that it is free of all the suffocating quack grass.  It's been a good year for so many crops.  

I've heard several comments of disappointment that this is the last of the salad mix.  Yes, it's really over.  Our salad greens are infested with earwigs.  It's just no longer worth our time and effort when so many other items are growing very well and will go to waste if not harvested on time.  Remember the concept of eating in season.  Delicate salad greens are not necessarily a late summer or fall crop.  Enjoy the bounty that the seasons give us over this 22+ week season, some items were never intended to be on the harvest schedule from beginning to end.

One of my favorite recipe ideas is basil pesto on the filet beans.  It's good as a warm dish, but I even like dipping fresh beans in cold pesto "dip".  So yummy and fancy.  You will be getting a LOT of beans in the coming weeks. If you can't keep up, they freeze very well.  Just a quick blanch in boiling water until they turn a darker green, a minute or two is all, and then drain and pack into freezer bags.  They will taste fresh and delicious this winter.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA: Week 13

In your share this week:

• Carrots
• Summer Squash
• Zucchini
• Golden Beets
• Garlic
• Bronze Fennel
• Butter Bib Head Lettuces - last of the season
• Sugar Snap Peas - last of the season
• Cilantro
• Salad Mix
• Chamomile
• Swiss Chard

Wow!  What a great share!  I'm amazed every week a how much food our little farm is putting out.  Crops are growing like crazy!  As usual, some things are growing better than others, but wowzers!  That's a great haul of food.  In years past, we've had to alternate crops from week to week to get a continual harvest all season long.  This year, many items have to be harvested every week before they bolt, grow too big, or go to waste.  So, enjoy the bounty!  I think it's safe to say, you are getting your money's worth this year.  :)

New items will be ready next week or soon after - cucumbers, French fillet beans, basil, and kale. 

And to top off this great harvest week, there was a lot going on behind the scenes too.  We got another entire greenhouse weeded.  Shain did more planting.  Also, this farming family sneaked off for a 4 day trip to Utah to visit relatives.  With school starting soon (Shain is a school teacher), this was probably out last chance to get away for a while.  At least until "the grandbaby" comes.  That's right!  Our daughter Megan is having a baby.  (If you click on the Instagram link, right column, you can see a picture taken this weekend.)  Unfortunately, she did not coordinate with me on this one and our little granddaughter will come before the farm season ends.  So things are going to be interesting around here real soon.  With the great Workshares we have, it's likely you'll never even notice my absense for a few days.  And our son Eli leaves for college in a few weeks too.  Big changes happening around this place.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA: Week 12

In your share this week:

• Golden Beets
• Carrots
• Cilantro
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash
• Butter Bib Head Lettuce
• Boc Choi - last of the season
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Salad Mix

Another great share harvested with the help of some great people!  Thanks to our Workshares for helping us pull this off every week!  And, a LOT of weeding got done this week too!  A very busy busy week.  Looking around the farm, there are several new crops that are ready to harvest.  It's the time of year when we can enjoy the bounty of summer!  Eat well my friends.

Speaking of eating well, Shain has been cooking up some amazing dishes.  Last week he created one of the best tasting lasagna's I've ever eaten!  Recipe here.  If you missed last week's newsletter, you really need to try his Veggie Stir Fry recipe with Cilantro Lime Sauce.  Shain also recently cooked something he calls "Pasta Primavera" which is basically a white cream sauce, similar to a simple alfredo, poured over pasta and sauteed vegetables such as carrots, squash, and zucchini.  And to top it all off, all of these recipes and meal ideas are plant based and a great way to eat the fresh organic foods grown right here in Star Valley.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA: Week 11

In your share this week:

• Golden Beets - we put a lot of care into keeping and cleaning the tops, we hope you will find a way to use them (smoothies, stir-fry, wilted beet greens, etc.)
• Carrots
• "Ugly" or damaged Garlic - more bulbs we culled out from our garlic harvest this week,
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Butter Big Head Lettuce
• Chinese Cabbage - last of the season
• Boc Choi
• Cilantro
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash

This share is HUGE!  Approximately 16 pounds of fresh, organic produce.  This lot would sell for nearly $50 at the Jackson Farmers Market!  What a great haul!  (And to be honest, it was a magic trick getting it all into one bag.). 

Our garlic harvest is DONE!  It's all hanging to dry in a shed, which will take a couple of weeks.

A VERY BIG THANKS goes out to all our Workshares this week!  To harvest such an amount of food AND finish our garlic harvest - in the same week! - is something I am so proud of.  We can't do this each week without their great help!

Shain has created a new wonderful meal made from the veggies in your recent shares.  I love it so much I told him he could make it every day!  Vegetable Stir Fry with Noodles and a Cilantro Chile Lime Sauce.  We are also enjoying Egg Rolls on a regular basis.  And a nice zucchini lasagna is in the oven as I type this up.  What are you making with your weekly share? 

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies?

Tara

CSA: Week 10

In your share:

• Zucchini
• Carrots
• Boc Choi
• Garlic, fresh - at least one "nice" one and some "ugly" ones that we culled out from our big garlic dig this week, damaged but still delicious!
• Cilantro
• Chamomile
• Salad Mix
• Spinach
• Chinese Cabbage - watch out for earwigs!  Carol spent a LOT of time cleaning these up, but there are layers of leaves and hiding places for dirt, wood chips, and earwigs. Beware and be careful.

I'm so happy to say that half our garlic is up and hanging in the shed to cure.  We will get the other half done next Wednesday.  Garlic is a BIG, time-consuming project.  Plant in the fall.  Weed a few times (mostly just Shain going down the rows with the tiller), digging it all up, bunching and hanging til it's dry, and then clean it all up for our CSA shares and to sell.  As we dig, we find bulbs that are "ugly" or some get stabbed with the shovel.  We clean up some of these bulbs too and put in them in the shares because who doesn't like extra garlic?

It was a fun challenge putting the shares together this week.  You know there's a lot of food when we have to get out the twisty-ties to hold some bags closed.  And it appears as though we are officially at that point in the season where I walk around the farm and say to myself "I have no idea how we are going to harvest all of this!"  And somehow we do.  Every week.  But if you ever have some free time on your hands, we'd love a little extra help!

New foods that will be in your shares soon:  Swiss chard, cucumbers, snap peas, and golden beets!

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

 

 

CSA: Week 9

In your share this week:

• Boc Choi - a large bag
• Salad Mix - see below
• Zucchini
• Garlic - fresh, as we start digging some up to test for size, most are ready
• Bronze Fennel Ferns - recipe ideas below
• Japanese Turnips* - very last of the season

*It's one thing to be weeding and suddenly feel like you have a spider or earwig crawling up your arm, it's another to be assigned to dig up the last of our Japanese Turnips and be covered in aphids.  YUCK!  A big thanks to Carol and Mary who went above and beyond today, making magic out of that row of infested, partially rotten, and really stinky turnips.  They cleaned up okay and we hope you enjoy them because that's it for the season.

A really good rainstorm on our newest row of outside salad greens made for a little extra time and effort when harvesting and washing up this week's salad mix.  As you can see, the rains kicked dirt up on the greens which made for a morning of playing in the mud.  Thankfully, the rain didn't damage the fragile leafy greens (hail would have ruined it completely) and it only took some extra time to clean up nice.  It's all about looking really good for bugs and bad leaves and then a nice final clean rinse.  Lots of eyes on this week's delicious salad mix.  And now that we are growing this crop outside, it's going to be like this every week when we harvest salad.

Bronze Fennel is not a common herb to most people.  Our new CSA members will wonder "What is this?"  Sometimes called Bronze Fennel Fronds or Ferns, we started growing this licorice-flavored herb a few years ago at the request of a Jackson Hold chef.  Most of our recipe suggestions came from him, but you can also find many ideas online. 

• Shain loves it when I make fennel tea, same process as I've described before (for the chamomile) but we especially like a fennel + mint combination.  Served warm with honey, or ice cold.
• As a garnish.
• A few small ferns (or coarsely chopped) are a nice addition to a salad.
• Finely chopped and added to melted butter (and other ingredients like lemon or mustard) to make a quick and tasty sauce for meats or roasted veggies.
• In soups.
• Some people feel Bronze fennel can replace fresh dill in any recipe.
• Can be an ingredient in a fresh salad dressing.
• Bronze fennel is very easy to dehydrate to make tea or other recipes all winter long.

Farmer Shain says our first planting of carrots in greenhouse 2 are ready to harvest!  They will be in our shares next week.  Other crops that will be ready very soon are cilantro, golden beets, summer squash, Chinese cabbage and hopeully the snap peas (the plants are loaded with blossoms!).

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA: Week 8

In your share this week:

• Garlic Scapes - a lot!  Last of the season.  If you aren't going to use them fresh, I hope you'll take some time to preserve these for use later.  They can be cut up quickly with scissors and frozen in snack sized baggies, or dehydrated (which can then be pulverized to make garlic scape powder).  Pesto is quick and easy to make and freezes very well.
• Boc Choi
• Japanese Turnips - leafy greens were cut off because of aphids.  This crop is almost done for the season, we hope to get one last picking next week (though with this upcoming heat I can't say for sure if they will make it).
• Salad Mix
• Spinach
• Chamomile - enough to dry for making tea this winter.
• Zucchini

Now that the weather is really warming up, I got the okay to remove the row cover from our zucchini plants (they have grown quite well with all the pampering we've given them) and pick our first batch of zucchini, just enough for each CSA share to get one.  And the plants are loaded with blossoms.  Now begins the time of year when I need to remember to go pick zucchini 3 times a week.  And you probably want to get out your favorite zucchini recipes because there will be an abundance.  The summer squash were uncovered today too, but they are at least a week or two behind. 

We (this includes our great crew of Workshares) have been able to get a LOT of weeding done in the last week.  And each time we weed, it helps the crops grow so we can harvest them more quickly.  Just a week ago we weeded a long row of spinach and that allowed it to grow so I could cut it this week.  The spinach is bolting, but we got one good cutting from it and it will be interesting to see how it grows back.  Other crops recently weeded, which we expect to harvest soon, are beets, carrots, cilantro, bronze fennel, and boc choi.  Join us for some weeding therapy on the farm - early in the morning in a greenhouse or later in the day outside in the sunshine.  It always pays off with more good food to eat.

And just like clock work, it's the 4th of July and the heat turns up in Star Valley so the crops start growing a little more quickly.  Your share will only continue to get bigger and better each week from here throughout the season.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

 

CSA: Week 7

In your share this week:

• Salad Mix
• Baby Boc Choi
• Chamomile
• Japanese Turnips
• Garlic Scapes - a lot!

Our row of Japanese turnips growing in greenhouse 1 is infested with aphids.  This is something new for us.  Sometimes we'll have some aphids in the Tango lettuce greens (one of the salad varieties we grow that goes into our Salad Mix), but I don't remember us ever having such a big infestation and causing such a mess.  So, after repeated efforts trying to wash the aphids out of the leafy green turnip tops, I made the decision to cut them off.  If we get another harvest of turnips again next week (there are still some "good" sections in the row), they will be topped immediately, and the leaves will go to the burn pile.  This will hopefully isolate the little buggers and speed up our harvest and washing process. 

So now we are dealing with aphids in greenhouse 1.  Sadly, this insect is known to stick around for a long time, but usually to a contained or specific location.  People will ask me "How do I get rid of aphids?"  And I'll tell them some of the methods I've heard will help (crop rotation, healthy soil, cleaning things up really good, tossing out anything that could be a hiding place for eggs, and similar ideas), but now it's our turn to fight off this invader!  Shain will start with a heavy sprinkling of diatomaceous earth.  He says we may need to order lady bugs.  We moved our row covers outside to bake in the sun and I'll move other things out ASAP just to be safe.  For the last week we've been working on clearning out two rows in this greenhouse so we could plant our last transplants, but now we are hesitant to plant anything near the infested row of turnips.  Yuck! 

So, that's a lot of fun.

I can tell it's really summer based on how quickly some of the crops are growing now.  The garlic scapes are all ON at once!  You are getting a large bunch of them.  Remember, they will last several weeks if stored in a loose sack in a crisper drawer.  It's possible you'll get some more next week, but if you are planning on doing anything special with your scapes, this week's batch is your opportunity.  Other crops are growing well, and so are the weeds.  We weed greenhouses early in the morning before it's too hot, then enjoy the cold water as we wash and package produce, and if time allows it's back to outside weeding.  Repeat.

Boc choi + Japanese turnips + garlic scapes ...  You know what I'm thinking?  Eggrolls!  We have a few recipes (here and here) but honestly, I make each batch a little different depending on what I have on hand.  SO GOOD!

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

 

CSA: Week 6

In your share this week:

• Salad Mix
• Micro Pea Shoots
• Japanese Turnips
• Garlic Scapes

We are anxiously waiting for more foods to be ready to harvest for the CSA shares.  We hope to have Chinese cabbage and boc choi soon (maybe 2 weeks?).  The zucchini plants have blossoms.  We'll start pulling some fresh garlic soon too (after the scapes are off).  Lots of items just about ready, but not quite.  It's pretty typical for us to see a jump in what we can harvest around the 4th of July.  Seems like this year will follow that pattern.

Garlic scapes are just starting to form.  You are receving a small handful this week and you'll be getting a lot more over the next 2 to 3 weeks.  This crops will only be availble for these few weeks, by nature of how the garlic plant grows, and then gone again until next year.  Scapes store very well in a loose plastic sack in your refridgerator crisper, up to a month even.  The entire scape is edible, but you'll want to discard any parts of the stalk that get "old" or "woody" (similar to how you cut off the end of asparagus) and some also prefer not to eat the blossom tip.  Garlic scapes have become a much sought after item at Farmers Markets because they are so versatile.  Our favorite recipe is Garlic Scape Pesto.  We make it in large quantities and freeze to enjoy all year.  I have seen several garlic scape pesto variations online, so you can experiment with different nuts or even make it vegan.  Garlic scapes can be used in place of garlic in nearly any recipe (well, maybe not spaghetti sauce).  When we get "too many", I will cut them up and freeze in small baggies.  I've even dehydrated scapes with good success.   Other ideas:  pickled, sauteed, roasted, as a seasoning, etc.  We've tried it all.  It's all good! 

We continue planting and weeding and growing great food.  It's our hope to be done with all transplanting by the first of July.  That will put us a little ahead of schedule.  And will alow us to move on to other projects, mostly more weeding. 

Crazy weather last week.  We went from two nights of freezing temperatures - to our hotest day of the year (so far) - to torrential rains.  Keeps us on our toes.  

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara