Sweet Peppers
Broadleaf Kale
Arugula or Frisee
Romano Green Beans or Tomatoes
Goldrush Russet Potatoes
Assorted Eggplant
Highlander Onion
Genovese Basil
Roasted Eggplant and Crispy Kale with Yogurt
Italian Style Fried Potatoes with Flat Romano Beans and Tomato Paste
Burrata With Romano Beans And Roasted Eggplant
Red Bell Pepper and Kale Stir-Fry
Lacinato Kale
Spicy Mesclun Salad Mix
Thin Skinned Cucumbers
Romano Beans or Assorted Tomatoes
Clemson Spineless Okra
German White Garlic
Something Extra
Welcome to our Fall CSA season. There is so much diversity of crops, although we are having a very trying season with some of our summer crops, such as squash, cucumbers, beans, and peppers. We discovered that our outdoor peppers have a pretty devastating case of bacterial leaf spot which has been exasperated by the wet and extremely humid conditions in both early June and throughout August. This causes them to defoliate and not produce many flowers, hence little fruit. Our covered peppers look great but were planted 3 weeks late (we always plant on the later side regardless) so we are just beginning to see our sweet peppers ripen. Anyhow there will be very little in the way of chilies and peppers this season (very sad for us). On a positive note though our last successions of beans and cucumbers look wonderful so you will see them this week and probably again one last time. This has got to be one of the best okra and eggplant years we have ever had, so they will be present over the coming weeks and our latter tomato successions look happy and are finally beginning to ripen. We are experimenting with some new small tomato varieties that hold in colder temperatures and ripen slowly off the plant. If you look to Spanish and Italian traditions they use different types of tomatoes throughout the winter and we are seeing how we can incorporate some of these cooking varieties into our crop plan. It is exciting that we have the best and earliest stand of Fall greens we have seen in many years, likely due to the 80 degree temperatures and lots of rain over the past month. Usually we are in a complete drought through August and struggling to keep plants alive post planting; but this year the struggle has been to get stuff in the ground as the soil has been constantly wet. There is always some weather pattern to contend with. Anyhow we are glad to welcome both salad greens and cooking greens back into the mix, as they pair so nicely with some of our summer crops. Check out the recipes and enjoy the share……Autumn and Brian
Green Beans and Cucumbers with Miso Dressing
Charred Romano Beans with Cherry Tomatoes, Garlic and Preserved Lemon
Kadai Bhindi (Indian style Okra with Bell Peppers)
Speckled Butter Bean, Okra, And Lamb Soup
Cut Salad Greens
Asian Long Beans
Red Creole Onions
Assorted Peppers or Tomatoes
Asian Long & Thai Round Eggplant
Nokia & Suyo Long Cucumbers
Khmer Thai Chiles
Thai Basil
It’s the last Spring/Summer Share. We hope you all have enjoyed the array of vegetables through these 15 weeks. We had a lovely and long Spring season, with longer harvests of salad greens and bunching greens and plenty of beets and carrots for storage. The basil has been insanely abundant and we had scallions and other hebs into July which is rare for us. As with all extremely hot periods the tomatoes really outdid themselves for a few weeks. We harvested over 700lbs one week. Other summer crops have been very difficult this year, partially to do with the long cool Spring season, as nice as it was, combined with heavy interference from pests, thrips on the onion crops, cucumber beetles on the cucumbers and squash, and so much disease on our summer nightshades (spring moisture followed by super dry hot conditions, followed by insane amounts of rainfall in 80 degree temperatures) We also had that strange May frost; which really set back our potato plants, making for extremely small potatoes and hence less yield. Other issues come from not enough hours in a day or hands working. When we get a lot of rain in May, it is hard to keep up with weeds and they grow so fast there is little to be done a few weeks later. May plantings also get set back; which for us means sweet peppers and chilies are not really ready till September. Our corn patch has been ravaged by nighttime visitors and recently a black bear decided it was a good buffet stand, while the bean patch was getting hit by deer on a regular basis for at least 6 weeks. These sorts of pest issues increase in dry and hot summers, as the woods provide less food options during a drought and so the animals search further into our land. Now though we are deep into our fall plantings, although the monsoon season has even set those plantings back a little bit; but we are seeing lots of growth in our bunching greens, cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. We are beginning weekly plantings of salad greens and have seeded fall roots over the past few weeks. This coming week we will do our largest radicchio planting for the Fall, a week late; but the weather is looking wonderful for it after the few day heat wave this week. Soon we will have yu choy, salad turnips, broccoli raab, and spinach growing strong. In addition we have harvested the first of our Winter squash, a new favorite and more prolific variety called Koginut. It needs awhile to cure before the sugars develop, but we will have winter squash. All of this and Summer is not finished at all. We have two more successions of tomatoes that are getting ready to begin ripening and as always the chilies, eggplant, and okra will keep going strong if we continue to have sun. So there is much to look forward to as the seasonal shifts begin to take place.
If this is your last week with us for the season, we hope this share is a good one to go out on. We have the first of our new crop salad greens, along with a new stand of cucumbers, long beans, Asian eggplant, and a bunch of aromatics (basil, chilies, and red onions) to make some epic sweet and spicy southeast Asian dishes. The chilies are quite hot but don’t let that scare you, they are a wonderful seasoning pepper and you can use a small amount just for flavor. There are some of our favorite recipes below. Enjoy the share…..Autumn & Brian
Lemony Arugula Salad with Couscous, Cucumbers and Feta
Tam Taeng Kwaa (Thai Cucumber Salad) –Pok Pok by Andy Ricker
Sichuan Style Stir-Fried Chinese Long Beans
Stir-Fried Chicken with Hot Basil
Nicola Potatoes
Clemson Spineless Okra
Shishitos or Mild Peppers (Poblano, Anaheim)
Leutschauer Paprika or Maules Red Hot Peppers
Pozzano or Red Pear Tomatoes
German White Garlic
Genovese Basil
Crispy Smashed Potatoes with Garlic Pesto
Red Potato and Shishito Pepper Hash
spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce
Braised Okra With Tomatoes, Peppers and Spices
Okra with Garlic and Coriander – The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
Takleya is the name of the fried garlic and coriander mix which gives a distinctive Egyptian flavor to a number of dishes. It goes in at the end. In Upper Egypt they chop up and mash the okra when it is cooked. Serve hot as a side dish with meat or chicken.
1 pound okra, small young ones
1 onion, chopped
3 Tbls vegetable or extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
juice of ½-1 lemon
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
11/2-2 tsp ground coriander
With a small sharp knife, cut off the stems and trim the caps of the okra, then rinse them well. Fry the onion in 2 Tbls of the oil till golden. Add the okra and sauté gently for about 5 minutes, stirring and turning over the pods. Barely cover with water (about 1 ½ cups), add salt and pepper, and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until tender. Add the lemon juice, towards the end and let the sauce reduce. (Lemon juice is usually added when the dish is to be eaten cold). For the takleya, heat the garlic and coriander in the remaining oil in a small pan, stirring, for a minute or two, until the garlic just begins to color. Stir this in with the okra and cook a few minutes more before serving hot.
Easy Eggplant Poblano Pepper Curry
Spicy Köfte Simmered with Eggplant, Tomatoes and Roasted Poblanos
Watermelon Juice With Basil and Lime
Watermelon, Feta, and Jalapeño Salad
Mixed Tomatoes
Tomatillos or Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
Middle Eastern, Italian, & Long Eggplant
Shishito, Cubanelle, or Seyrek Peppers
German White Garlic
Genovese Basil
Only five more weeks of the Spring & Summer share, time is really flying by. We had such a long and abundant Spring, which we are very thankful for especially in this crazy pandemic season. This was followed by a slow start to our Summer crops, with some pretty pitiful successions of beans and cucumber (our usual mid season fillers); but starting this week, you will get new and different crops each week. This week and next includes tomatillos and various peppers followed by watermelon and long beans, and then chilies and hopefully more beans. For now though revel in the abundance of eggplant, basil, garlic, and tomatoes. The tomatoes are coming, with new varieties each week and before we know it the sungolds will be done. Summer is the season where successions come and go quickly. Many farms plant multiple successions of every type of tomato and their other nightshades, due to our size and minimal labor, we prefer rolling plantings of tomatoes (with some types getting two plantings but most only one) and only one successions of peppers and eggplant, so we tend to the crops, feeding them to keep them healthy and they run their course a little differently each year. This week’s share includes Shishito peppers (a mildly spicy frying pepper), which can be an excellent addition to a stir-fry, pasta sauce, or even a scramble. They also excel on their own, done in a simple tempera or pan fried/charred in olive oil and finished with a nice flaky salt. These peppers are occasionally spicy; but mostly they have a bright, green, mild flavor. A shishito side dish can accompany steak, fish, or just about anything. Seyrek (also called corbaci) are a very skinny, fresh green flavored pepper with no heat. They are wonderful raw or cooked and do not need to be deseeded as like the shishito, they are picked young with tender seeds. They are a wonderful addition to a shepherd salad or your morning scramble. A cubanelle pepper is yellow green when unripe, has a tender flesh, a bit sweeter than a seyrek and is our version of a non-spicy green pepper for general use. Your standard green bell pepper is an un-ripened sweet pepper and it shows in that it has a strong bitter and tannic flavor, whereas a cubanelle is mild and balanced flavor. Check out the recipes and enjoy the share….Autumn & Brian
Blistered Shishito Peppers & Cherry Tomatoes
Pork Polpettine With Tomatillo Marinara Sauce
Caponata from The Kitchen Garden
Lots and lots of olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 head garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp chili flakes or fresh hot peppers, to taste
1 pound peppers, cut into large chunks
1 pound eggplant, cut into large chunks
1 or 2 ripe plum tomatoes, chopped
salt & pepper
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp capers
3 Tbsp chopped Kalamata olives
Few sprigs chopped basil and parsley
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat about 4 Tbsp olive oil in a heavy pot or Dutch oven with a lid that can go in the oven. Sauté the onion and garlic until soft. Add the pepper flakes and peppers and sauté over medium heat 5-10 minutes. Add eggplant and sauté another several minutes. You may want to add more oil to make sure everything is generously anointed. Add the tomatoes. Cover the pot and put it in the oven to bake for 20-30 minutes. Everything should be very, very soft. Season with salt, pepper and the other seasonings. Adjust sweetness, salt and acidity to taste. Serve it warm on fresh crusty bread or at room temperature the next day. Makes a great pasta sauce, too. (The original version contains chunks of celery, too. If you like celery, you can add it when you add the tomatoes.)
Lettuce
Nicola Potatoes
Summer Squash
Eggplant or Romano Beans
Candy Sweet Onions
Mix Tomatoes
Chioggia Beets
Parsley or Dill
Marinated Beets with Potatoes and Horseradish
Cumin-Spiced Beet Salad with Yogurt and Preserved Lemon
Tomato, Summer Squash, and Caramelized Onion Gratin
Zaalouk (Spicy Eggplant Salad) The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
1 ½ lb eggplant, peeled and cubed
5 cloves garlic, peeled
salt
3 large tomatoes (about 1 ½ lbs)
4 Tbls argan oil or mild extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbls wine vinegar
½ tsp harissa or a mixture paprika &ground chili pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
½ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
Boil the eggplants with the garlic in plenty of salted water, in a pan covered with a lid, for about 30 minutes or until they are very soft. Drain and chop the eggplants and garlic in a colander, then mash them with a fork, pressing all the water out.
Put the tomatoes in the emptied pan and cook over low heat for about 20 minutes, or until reduced to a thick sauce, stirring occasionally. Mix with the mashed eggplants and the rest of the ingredients and add salt.
Variation: Add the juice of 1 lemon (instead of the vinegar) and 1 tsp ground caraway or coriander.
Cucumbers
Yaya Carrots
Red & Orange Tomatoes
Eggplant or Romano Beans
Napa or Tendersweet Cabbage
Daikon Radish or Hakurei Turnip
Thai Basil & Shiso
Scallions
Cucumber & Carrot Noodle Thai Salad
Szechuan Spicy Eggplant & Carrots
Fresh Spring Rolls
When we make these we let everyone prepare their own and it makes for a really fun meal activity. As the recipe states, you can substitute various herbs’ we particularly like thai basil, shiso, and mint together. We will add julienned pieces of hakurei turnips, daikon, or even sweet peppers and sometimes substitute shredded pork or shrimp for tofu. For dipping sauces we use a traditional Nuoc Cham and peanut sauce (recipes below).
Nuoc Cham –Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid
1/4cup fresh lime juice¼ cup fish sauce
¼ cup water
2 tsp rice or cider vinegar
1 Tbls sugar
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 bird chile, minces
several shreds of carrot (optional)
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar completely. Serve in small condiment bowls. Store in a tightly sealed glass container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days (after that, the garlic starts to taste tired).
Vietnamese Peanut Sauce –Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid
¼ cup dry roasted peanuts
2 scant Tbls tamarind pulp, dissolved in 2 Tbls warm water or substitute 2 Tbls tomato paste
2 tsp peanut oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbls fermented soybean paste (tuong in Vietnamese; dao jiao in Thai)
1 cup water
1 ½ tsp sugar
1-2 bird chiles, minced
Generous squeeze of fresh lime juice
Place the peanuts in a food processor or large mortar and process or pound to a coarse powder; set aside. If using tamarind, press it through a sieve; reserve the liquid and discard the solids. Heat the oil in a wok or skillet over high heat. Add the garlic and stir-fry until it is starting to change color, about 15 seconds. Add the soybean paste and the tamarind or tomato paste and stir to blend. Stir in ½ cup water, then stir in most of the ground peanuts, reserving about 1 Tbls for the garnish. Stir in the sugar and chiles. Add up to ½ cup more water, until you have the desired texture: a thick liquid, pourable but not watery. Serve in small condiment bowls, warm or at room temperature, squeezing on the lime and sprinkling on the reserved peanuts just before serving. The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for 3 days or in the freezer for 1 month. Reheat it in a small pan and simmer briefly before serving.
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
Summer Squash Mix
German White Garlic
Candy Onions
Russian Kale
Frisee
Basil
So much going on at the farm lately and everything is growing, fruiting, and ripening so quickly, thanks to the longest days of the year. The tomatoes are poised to overwhelm us, but right now the plant vegetation is just enormous with tons of green fruit, so the twine and posts holding them up are drooping or leaning towards the ground. We also planted the last succession in our high tunnel this past week. They are our smaller red varieties for fall, good for cooking, drying or long storage. The peppers, which were planted weeks late this year, are getting trellised and tied. We harvested the first of our romano beans on Friday and weeded and trellised the long beans which should come on in about a month. Our okra and eggplants are knee high and super robust this season. Eggplant harvest begins this week, so you will see them soon. We just began harvesting from our third succession of squash, so this week will be the last harvest of our first succession (yes they are all running together) and we will plant our 4th & final succession. Winter squash and watermelons are coming along; but we let the weeds in the pathways get out of control, so that is a bummer; but nothing to be done. Early potatoes will be harvested for storage later this week, the beginning of many hours this month of potato harvest for storage. Onions were all pulled and laid out to cure this past week and the garlic is just about ready to come out of the barn for long term storage (meaning clipped of their tops and sorted for damage). In the midst of all of this, our greenhouse has 75 new trays of fall brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, collards), fennel and scallions and this week we add to that with our late radicchios, fall chard, chicories, lettuces, beets, and napa cabbage. It is always funny to be finishing spring crops in the field as we begin the same crops for fall. In some climates up north or out west they plant cabbage once and harvest early varieties for summer eating and later varieties for storage. Here though the season is longer and the summer too hot; compounding disease and bug pressure. So these crops are grown twice. Due to a mild May, we still have kale, cabbage, and chard in the field. We will be finishing them in the next week or two and hopefully the 3-4 weeks without these crops in the field will starve out some of the bugs; but we will see.
This week’s share is the last of the regular greens (Kale and Frisee) you will see, except for an occasional head of lettuce or cabbage, until September. The sungold tomatoes are on point this year and we hope you are excited for the tomatoes to begin, they should be a regular feature in the coming months.
Enjoy the share….Autumn and Brian
Farfalle with Wilted Frisee and Burst Tomatoes
Frisee Salad with Chorizo and Roasted Garlic Vinaigrette
Zucchini Basil And Kale Frittata
Sauteed Kale with Smoked Paprika
Photographs by Alexis Courtney
