Lucky Moon CSA Week 12!

 

It's Gladiolus time at the farm

 

Hi everyone,
Sorry again for a late-ish post. I'm trying to get a bunch of salsa canned, and of course, it's taking longer than I thought it would... but it smells really delicious!

Things are going pretty well at the farm- the weather's been a bit hotter lately, which some of the crops have been appreciating, and then we got a decent rain this evening, which will help everything along at this point. Somehow, despite the less-than-ideal weather this summer and some disease pressure, the tomatoes are doing splendidly! We picked yesterday, and between the greenhouse tomatoes and the ones outdoors, we harvested 340 pounds of tomatoes! And about 50 quarts of cherry tomatoes, too. And we got it all done before lunch :>)
That was definitely a record for us.
We're starting to harvest some potatoes, and those are looking better than expected as well. The corn is all tasseled out, so it won't be too long before sweet corn. That is if we can keep the racoons out of it. They always seem to know exactly when it's ready.

Oh, and we've been seeing these around the farm this week:

 

Giant Swallowtail Butterflies

They're huge!

In your bags this week:
Summer Squash
Salad Mix (with baby Kale! One of my favorite salad additions)
Carrots
Yellow Onion
Purple-skinned Potatoes (named Purple Sun)
Cucumbers
Beets
Cherry Tomatoes (quite an assortment of colors- and yes, the green ones are supposed to be green)
Regular Tomatoes
Sweet Pepper (some of the regular shares have long, skinny, wrinkly red ones- they look like they should be spicy, but they're actually an Italian heirloom called Jimmy Nardello, and they are an excellent fry pepper)
Cilantro (Thursday shares only this week- Tuesday shares will get it next week)

Lots of lots of options for meals this week!
If you haven't tried it before, put your beets in a roasting pan with a lid in the oven (covered up to keep them moist and tender) and roast for an hour or so (could be shorter or longer depending on the size of your beets). You can skin them and chop them up before that, or just roast them whole with their tops and bottoms cut off. They'll slip right out of their skins once they're cooked. They are so delicious like that! If you'd like more detailed instructions than that (and I admit, those are pretty vague), here's a website with some good directions.

I would love to know how you've been consuming your vegetables. Any recipes that you'd care to share? If so, feel free to email me at sarah_ziegi at yahoo dot com. Or you can post them as a comment on this blog.

Enjoy the summer!

Best,
Sarah VanNorstrand
for Lucky Moon Farm