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Your CSA Newsletter for Harvest Week #2
News
Expected Harvest
Welcoming Radishes and First of Strawberries
By Derek McGeehan
Strawberries have begun ripening thanks to last week's mini heat wave. With the cooler and wetter weather they'll ripen less quickly, which normally means the season lasts longer. Right now there's only enough for us to pick for you; eventually they'll be opened up for u-pick. Gabe and Abigail sit on an attractive dry-stack stone miniwall made by assistant farmer Pat.
Harvest #2 (Week B) should include radishes, strawberries, kale, chard, arugula, bok choy, broccoli raab, mizuna, spinach, lettuce, green garlic, and perennial herbs. Some items may be a choice. U-pick should include perennial herbs.
Roots and greens of radishes are edible raw or cooked. To subdue the radish spiciness try cutting the root in half and pan frying for a few minutes in fat/oil and salt. Greens can be eaten is salads, smoothies, or cooked any which way.
"Now What!?" Workshops
Bok Ch-huh? Mizun-a-what?
"Now What!?" Workshops Saturday, June 10th 1-3 PM, and Saturday, June 24th 1-3 PM
Is your experience with kale limited to “the thing you put in your smoothies” or “the chips you buy at the market”? Are you excited, but overwhelmed, by your share of greens?
Being a CSA member means you receive some produce you would, most likely, not purchase at the market (if it was even available!). What a stupendous adventure! But opening your refrigerator door and being greeted by a wall of greens can be intimidating! No worries. We have got you covered!
Please try to attend at least one of our two “Now What!?" workshops scheduled on Saturday, June 10th, and Saturday, June 24th, from 1 PM until 3 PM. We will talk about storage techniques, recipe resources and how to incorporate your share into your family’s diet. Bring your questions and share your ideas! Because the topics discussed are driven from the questions and comments of those attending, different topics will be discussed at each workshop. How exciting - right!? This is for new and returning members. Returning members always bring wonderful insight and a different perspective.
Please join us and experience a small part of the community aspect of your CSA membership!
Ticks: Awareness and How to Deal
A bumper year for ticks following a bumper year for mice (per NPR) means education and awareness when in nature to understand the problem and deal with it in a reasonable way.
I'm going to assume that everyone has seen and felt a tick crawling on them and is familiar enough with their appearance to identify them as well as the difference between a dog and deer tick, the two types found in our area. On the farm, 95% of the time I see a tick it is a dog tick, the bigger one, the one you can feel crawling on your skin and see in the mirror quite easily. Since we're in tick habitat daily on the farm we have a routine where we check ourselves nightly before bed, very thoroughly. We do find ticks occasionally, most of the time before they've fed or when they've just attached. At this point it is not a big deal. However, very rarely Dana will find a deer tick feeding on herself (they don't like me for some reason) and we'll very carefully remove it, head and all, with tweezers and ship it to a lab to be analyzed to see if it is carrying lyme. Five times out of five now the results have come back negative for lyme so she doesn't have to go on antibiotics. Each time we've found them they've also only been feeding a short period of time. How long do ticks need to feed to transmit lyme? Not sure if there is a consensus on this since lyme seems to remain a mystery for some reason, but I've heard 24 hours, which doesn't sound accurate. I've also heard from veterinarians and doctors that if you've been bitten by a deer tick and it is carrying lyme to automatically go on the minimal antibiotic dosage (which is 2 weeks of doxycyline, tough on the body but better than untreated lyme).
So, the moral of the story is this: after being on the farm, either before you get in the car or when you get home, or before bed at night, check yourselves and your kids for ticks. It is a good habit to get into and really enhances the nighttime routine.
If you find a tick feeding on you, pull it out, head too, and send it hear to be analyzed: UMass Amherst
First of the Season - Greens!
By Linda Dansbury
Welcome to new members and welcome back returning members! I am the Recipe Coordinator - which means that I am here to help you enjoy the beautiful and plentiful veggies from Anchor Run Farm. There are tons of recipes on the internet for each veggie we receive. What I do is find and create recipes that often incorporate more than one of the crops in a single recipe and that for the most part are seasonal at the same time so that we can eat as close to a "local diet" as possible. I also welcome all of you out there to share with membership what you do with your harvest by sending it to me at lindadansbury@comcast.net. I will share with fellow members in the newsletters.
Green garlic is a new offering for Anchor Run Farm and for me it is a very welcomed item. Green garlic is an immature garlic plant. Garlic bulbs are planted in the fall before the first frost where it begins growing roots. In the spring it starts to grow vigorously, putting up green stalks that look similar to scallions and leeks. Green garlic is much milder and sweeter than mature garlic and so should not be cooked for long periods because the subtle flavors will be lost. Pestos, stir fries, dips, salad dressings or added near the end of long cooking recipes all work well.
Field Manager Hannah holds a bundle of green garlic.
You may or may not be familiar with mizuna. In the stores it is often mixed with other greens and labeled as something like "spring mix". The mizuna we just received is very tender and mild. Although it can be sauteed or added to soups and stews, I like to mix it in with other greens in salads. It adds a nice taste, texture and visual complement to other greens in a salad.
Workshifts Scheduled for Week of 5/21/17
By Derek McGeehan
Workshifts this week:
Friday 5/26 10am-12noon
Sunday 5/28 10am-12noon
Due to the wet forecast midweek workshifts are not being scheduled at this time.
Workshift sign-up instructions may be found here.
Thank you!
Other helpers on the farm include american toads, eaters of slugs, and barn swallows, eaters of insects.
How I Enjoyed My Harvest
Beautiful First Harvest
By Linda Dansbury
I was as excited as all of you with the announcement of the first harvest week, and even more excited when I walked into the updated pick up room! I love looking at all the veggies and then figuring out how to prepare them each week.
My pick up day is Thursday, so at this writing I have had only a couple of days to enjoy my harvest at this point, but below is a couple of dishes I made:
Bok choy, green garlic, mizuna - I made a stir fry: heated a bit of oil and when hot added a hot pepper from last year that I had frozen, but you can use red pepper flakes; added sliced scallions and a sliced green garlic and kept them moving in the pan for a few minutes then added a nice amount of minced ginger. After about 30 seconds I added rough chopped bok choy (added the chopped stems and leaves at same time because these were baby bok choy and putting them both in pan at same time created different textures). I kept stirring them until they looked almost finished, I added some of the mizua and then added a little sesame oil and soy sauce to the pan. Served it over brown jasmine rice alongside a salmon fillet from Wild for Salmon.
Spinach, mizuna, arugula - added some of each of them to a salad where I used lettuce from my garden. I virtually always make my own vinaigrette so that I can adjust the flavorings to how mild or strong the greens I am using in the salad are.
I will be making a spinach salad in the next couple days - check out the Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dresssing.
If you would like to share how you enjoy your harvest with other farm members, please send your ideas, recipes and/or questions to me at lindadansbury@comcast.net