Summer CSA 2023
Hey CSA members!
HAPPY AUGUST! What?!? The summer months are slipping by so quickly. Luckily we still have time to enjoy summer veggies, time on the lake, sunshine, and sweet summer sunsets before fall changes the pace of the world around us.
This week on the farm we harvested our garlic crop, it is always ready for harvest in the last few weeks of July. The bulbs are currently curing in the greenhouse and we will include them in some of the later CSAs. They small AMAZING. We haven’t grown garlic on our farm before, and it was a fun crop to watch mature. We actually planted cloves of garlic in the soil last October, covered them with mulch and waited for them to emerge in the spring. Garlic is truly a test of time and patience. We can’t wait to share them with you.
We spent the day on Friday harvesting for the farmers market. My mom is in town visiting and she helped me harvest flowers for market bouquets just as a rainstorm was headed our way. We picked the blooms quickly as thunder rolled over our heads and ran inside to arrange them. It was an exciting farm adventure to say the least! We’ve also been picking so many beans. April and I harvested 60lbs on Friday alone. We picked another 40 or so pounds today and they’re still producing! Tis the season for green beans!
In your box….
Here are photos of what you’ll find in your box this week!
Large CSA
Purple curly kale, red beets, kohlrabi, dragon tongue beans, baby red onions, cucumber, sage, radishes, pea shoots, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes.
Small CSA
Kohlrabi, red beets, purple curly kale, dragon tongue beans, red onions, cucumber, pea shoots, sage, and heirloom tomatoes.
Some inspiration…..
The first tomatoes! This week, every CSA member gets to taste our heirloom tomatoes. Last week, just the large shares got the first taste, but now the tomatoes are producing enough to share with everyone. We grow a wide variety of mixed heirloom tomatoes in our greenhouse. All of them are different flavors and colors. Here is a little identification guide so you can figure out which variety is in your share:
How to store tomatoes….
Tomatoes are stores best at room temperature, on your counter. If any of your tomatoes are just blushing, and still a little green, don’t worry! They will ripen up on your counter in a few days. You’ll know they’re ripe when the bottom of the tomato has turned color. The top of the tomato might remain lighter, or greenish, depending on the variety. I would eat the ripest ones first and save the other ones for later in the week.
There is more kohlrabi in the share this week! I recommend peeling away the skin and eating the crunchy flesh on the inside of the bulb. The variety of kohlrabi this week is the SUPERSCHMELTZ. It is a German variety that is bred to not get woody. They are super tender and crisp to eat! You can also eat the leaves if you so choose. They are similar to a collard green, so best to cook them up in a pan with a little olive oil, or steam them.
This week, everyone also got come little red onions to use. I don’t know why, but Pearce and I have yet to master growing onions…. They just aren’t our best friends! So they are small, but so flavorful! You can chop up the bulb any way you choose and use just like a normal red onion.
Fermented food:
This week I made a kohlrabi-beet fermented kraut and I thought I would walk you through the process of making, because it’s super simple! Fermented food is incredibly nutritious as the fermentation process starts to break down the veggies before we eat them, unlocking the nutrients and making them more digestible. Fermented foods are also rich in probiotics and will support gut health and overall immune function.
Before getting started with fermenting, here are some good resources that explain the process and what tools/materials you need to make it happen and troubleshoot your ferments.
For my ferment, here’s what I did:
Step One: Sanitize jars and lid by washing them in hot soapy water and letting fully air dry.
Step Two: Chop kohlrabi and beets into small chunks to be shredded. Be sure to cut off the roots and leaves and peel the skin away.
Step Three: I used a food processor to grate the kohlrabi and beets up into little shreds. If you don’t have a food processor, you could definitely shred using a cheese grater.
Step four: Measure about two teaspoons of salt and sprinkle over shredded kohlrabi and beets. You can use more or less depending on how salty you like your food. You need to add enough salt to draw the water out from the kohlrabi and beets to create a brine. I recommend using salt from a reputable source and a fine grind on the salt works the best for fermentations.
Step five: Massage the salt into the kohlrabi and beets so it starts to draw out the water. You can massage, let rest and massage again after a few minutes.
Step six: pack the kohlrabi and beets into your clean and dry jar and pack down until all the vegies are submerged under the brine. Use a fermentation jar, or fermentation weights to keep all the veggies submerved under the brine. Seal with a lid. You’ll need to “burp” the jar and let the air out as fermtnation occurs.
Step seven: Place in a dark, cool (around 65 degrees) environment, and let ferment. I put ours in our pantry and checked on it each day.
I ate our veggies after seven days of fermenting. It could have gone longer but I was ready to enjoy! I scraped the brine and anything that had bubbled to the surface of the ferment before eating. We enjoyed it on sourdough toast with pesto and goat cheese. So tasty!
I hope you all have fun, get creative, and enjoy the veggies this week!
Sunflowers and zinnias,
Eleanor