Farm News – June 16, 2025
Hello Folks, This week’s share will be fairly similar to last week’s – we are still heavy on the greens and have an abundance of English(shell) peas. We will begin to have more sugar snap and snow peas by next week.
The root vegetable for this week will be the Hakurei salad turnip, a ping-pong ball sized globe that is sweet and mild flavored and meant to be eaten raw, sliced or grated in salads. It can also be cooked and has very nice greens which are good braised, in soups or mixed into a salad as well. The brassica entry is kohlrabi, which looks like a root but is actually a modified stem. They are also quite sweet and have a cabbage-like flavor. I like them grated and made into a slaw. A customer of mine once told me that she sliced them thinly and ate them with a slice of cheese in place of a cracker. Then again, another market customer once told me – “You just grow the food and let us worry about how to prepare it” And that was before Google existed!
Feel free to take my culinary suggestions with a grain of salt (or not, if you are on a low sodium diet). In the Allium category we have elephant garlic – a large (hence the name) mild flavored bulb, which even though it is divided into cloves is not a true garlic. It is a member of the leek family, and it is said that the thick stalk can be used like a leek, though it may be woody in the center. The bulb is often roasted whole, and the resulting mush used as a spread on bread or crackers. And there I go again – telling you how to prepare your food! Well, you can do whatever you like with your peas, so long as you eat them promptly (they lose their sweetness quickly) and do not make pea guacamole. I did not think that I could do it, but I got through an entire update without one meteorological mention. I would not expect that to continue!
The share will be: spinach, choice of kale or collards, salad turnips, kohlrabi, elephant garlic, summer squash, shell peas, choice of cilantro or dill, and lettuce. Premium shares will also include a second head of lettuce and a choice of escarole or endive (frisée).
Enjoy! Farmer John
