full share
medium share
small share
Hello all,
We hope you’ve been enjoying the cooler weather we’ve been having–we sure have. We even got some rain the past week to boot. Not only do the plants seem to enjoy rain water more than irrigation water (there’s something in the water from the sky that ground water doesn’t seem to have) but we don’t have to spend so much time moving around and setting up irrigation in the hot heat!
Many thanks to our neighbors and friends at Turnip Rock, Steady Hand, and Burning River Farm who all pitched in this week to make sure the boxes were full for everyone. We’ve been running into some big gaps the past few weeks due to a number of crop failures and have been leaning on the community of farms in our area to help fill out the shares.
The big event on the farm last week was garlic harvest. We pulled over 6000 heads of garlic from the ground! Most of them are either on tables or hanging in bundles from the rafters to cure. They will take about 3 weeks to dry properly so that they will be able to store for most of the winter. Many of them will end up your boxes during the rest of the season. A good portion will be saved to plant in the fall for next years crop. The individual cloves get planted to grow a new head of garlic that pops up early the following spring.
It’s also time to add our last two crew members to the “Getting to know them” segment of the newsletter-Karen and Michele!
Michele has been with us for 4 years now and is truly one of the foundations of this farm. She keeps us going when we just can’t work another minute, and spoils us with treats, birthday parties, and lots of love and support!
Karen is a CSA member who amazingly decided to work with us one day a week to get to know farming a little better! She is a former chef and also spends a lot of time working at our neighbor’s farm, Whetstone.
Maybelle helping harvest. She could barely make it to put the garlic into the pallet box, or “trash can” as she was calling it.
Brandon organizing the garlic
What’s in the Box
- Basil (1/2 lb small, 3/4 lb medium, 1 lb full)
- Onions: Scallions or Ailsa Craig
- Zucchini
- Garlic
- Beets: Golden (small only)
- Snap Beans: Dragon tongue (3/4 lb medium and 1# fulls)
- Carrots (1.25 lbs, full only)
- Cucumbers (1.5 lbs small)
- Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes or cucumbers (medium and full)
- Cauliflower or Broccoli (medium only)
- Cabbage (full only)
Recipes and Notes
Basil is the real star of this week’s box, and you are getting it in ridiculous quantities. I was giddy over how much basil we were able to give out this week. I’ve been obsessed with pesto and other related basil/garlic spreads and dressings ever since we started harvesting them this year and can’t recall a day in the past two weeks when I haven’t had it in some form. Puree up a huge batch of basil, garlic, and olive oil, put it in the fridge and use it on everything. Add lemon juice and nuts to make a pesto. Add it to mayonnaise for an awesome sandwich spread or dip. Go nuts. It freezes pretty well, too.
Snap Beans-we’ve got more of these beauties this week, and if you haven’t tried this nice side dish, beans with mustard vinaigrette, I’d highly recommend it! We’re also loving our classic Spanish Green Bean and Olive Salad.
Cucumbers-If you got cucumbers this week, you got quite a few! I still highly recommend making a quick refrigerator pickle out of them since you’ll get to nosh on them for a few weeks this way. This recipe looked pretty awesome, and I love that it allows you to use up other firm veggies like carrots and cauliflower, too. I love bread and butter pickles, and this spicier than usual recipe looked pretty amazing, too.
Happy cooking and eating!
 Sneak Peek Next Week
- Sweet Corn (come on sweet corn!)
- Tomatoes (more and more from here on out)
- Onions
- Zucchini
- Peppers? (come on peppers!)
All the best from all of us,
Heather, Brandon, Maybelle, Ted, Nicole, Hannah, Karen, and Michele
sleepy root farm 