CSA Farm Share Week 6

Hello Everyone,

This week you will find in your shares:

Sat. July 5

• Summer Squash
• New Potatoes (red)
• Fennel bulbs
• Carrots (purple,yellow,white)
• Parsley
• Fresh Onions (bulbs with good tops)

Tue. July 8  (new recipes added today)

• Fennel bulbs
• Parsley
• Cucumbers
• Fresh Onions
• Green Beans

Vegetable Spotlight

Potato  Native to South America specifically the high Sierra of the Andes, where it had been developed because corn would not grow above 11,000 feet.  The first Europeans probably saw their first potato near Quito Ecuador not much later than 1530, where Pizarro’s men wrote about it in his Chronicle of Peru (1553).  It has been estimated that the potato had been domesticated in Peru since 3000 B.C.  It was these Spaniards that most likely took the potato back to their home land.   The potato enjoys and interesting history from the 16th century on to today, worth looking at more extensively if you were so inclined.  (i.e. how did it get to Ireland?).  

Recipe Ideas

Quick Pickles (for cukes, beans, onions and other things too) - Here are a few ideas, the combinations of spices, and variates of salt, sugar and vinegar present many options for making pickled food.

http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2013/08/quick-pickles/

http://www.chow.com/recipes/30422-easy-quick-pickles

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-quickpickled-red-onions-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-193247

Cucumber parsley salad - http://www.cookthink.com/recipe/16430/Cucumber-Parsley_Salad (onions added to this would be great!)

Fennel and green beans - http://www.marthastewart.com/326889/fennel-and-green-beans-with-orange-and-a

Roasted potato and fennel salad -  This recipe calls for 5# of potato and serves up to 12 people, so you might need to reduce proportions by 1/2 or 1/4.  You could replace the chives with the green onion tops if you like.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/roasted-potato-and-fennel-salad-recipe.html

This Week on the Farm

Lots of stuff to keep up with.

• Harvests for wholesale every week.
• Seeding lettuce mix (need to do it every week)!
• Cultivating the weeds, especially in the summer crop areas (beans, pepper, squash, etc).  Mostly done with hoes, some done by tractor.
• Seeding fall crops in the greenhouse, they will be transplanted in August (kale, cabbage, collards, etc).
• Pounding tomato stakes and stringing up plants.
• Keeping an eye on the garlic, not quite ready to pull yet, soon though.