Farm News – July 3, 2014

Hi Folks, We received .6″ of rain this past week. I was hoping for more but we’ll take what we can get. As we head into July we typically experience a dry spell until sometime in August. There are scattered and isolated storms predicted for most of the week so hopefully some of these will drop some rain on us. In the meantime we are busy moving the sprinklers around to help germinate recently planted seeds and to give the brassica, carrot, and beet crops the moisture they require.

Broccoli is coming in heavy now and I expect to have enough for all groups. We also have kohlrabi, another member of the brassica family. These are baseball size spheres that look like a root vegetable but it is actually a modified stem. They have a cabbage like flavor and are very sweet. They are good keepers and can be stored in the fridge for several weeks; they can be steamed, roasted or eaten raw (they make a nice slaw). We also have beets this week; choose from the regular purple type or red skinned heirloom Chioggia, aka candy cane beets because inside they are white with red rings. The sugar snap peas are coming in heavy now, so most groups will get these. Thank you to the volunteers from Westfield who came out to pick peas this past Sunday. We are still picking arugula and broccoli raab and are still heavy on lettuce so there will be 2 heads again this week.

The share for this week will be: Broccoli, beets, 2 heads of lettuce, choice of arugula or broccoli raab, kohlrabi, choice of kale or Swiss chard, summer squash, sugar snap peas, and choice of an herb (parsley, marjoram, savory, or chervil)

Enjoy! Farmer John