Feed aggregator

Week 8 from Valley Flora!

Beet Box -

Week 8 from Valley Flora! Walla Wallas! Cukes!
Thanks for eating locally from our family farm!
View this email in your browser
-->

What's Cookin' at the Farm...
  • Walla Wallas and Cukes
  • Bulk Basil
  • Hats Off to the Crew!
-->
What's In Your Share This Week:*
  • Walla Walla Sweet Onions
  • Broccoli
  • Head Lettuce
  • Strawberries
  • Rainbow Chard
  • Bunch Carrots
  • Red Cabbage
  • Zucchini
On Rotation:
(Some locations will receive it this week; others in a future week)
  • Cauliflower
*Harvest Basket contents may vary between pickup sites in a given week depending on what's ripe and ready on the farm. Don't worry - if something is on the list but not in your tote, you'll get it soon!

The VF Crystal Ball - What might be in your share next week...
  • Carrots
  • Red Long Torpedo Onions
  • Broccoli
  • Lettuce
  • Strawberries
  • Parsley
  • Zucchini
  • Cucumbers
Walla Wallas and Cukes!
I rolled in at 6:30 last night after a day and a half of driving from Idaho and jumped straight into CSA packout. What a wonderful treat to see bins full of big fat Walla Wallas and cocktail cucumbers and zucchini and chard and hefty red cabbages! In the week I was on the Salmon River the farm did a full pivot into the heart of summer (and the summer cover crops grew a foot, too!).

The fresh Walla Wallas in your share this week are the sweetest onion we grow - mild, juicy and big! Keep them in the fridge since they are not cured like our late season storage onions.

The small cucumbers are a variety I discovered a few years ago that doubles as both a fresh-eating and pickling cucumber. We call them cocktail cukes and they are delightfully sweet and crisp with thin skins. If you don't want to peel them, just give them a wash or a quick rub-down to remove any hairs and spines. It's smooth snacking from there.
-->
Bulk Basil Available
It's shaping up to be a great basil year. If you'd like to order a bulk quantity to make your winter stash of pesto, email us your name, pickup location, phone number and the number of pounds you would like. It's $16/pound - all gorgeous tops with no stem.
-->
Hats Off to the Crew!
Enormous thanks and kudos to the crew for keeping the farm humming while I was away this past week. I had a fantastic time on the Salmon River and got to leave all my farm worries behind during our six days of wilderness whitewater with dear old friends and family. Meanwhile, Amelia, Roberto, Shelli, Bets, Ab and Evan did a stellar job of getting the produce watered, weeded, seeded, harvested, washed, packed, invoiced, delivered and so much more. It's great to be back, renewed and grateful for all there is to come home to - not the least of which: the huge pile of salad I ate for dinner last night!
-->
The Farmstand is Open for Summer Hours!
 
Every Wednesday & Saturday (rain or shine)
9 am to 2 pm

Fresh Produce
U-Pick Strawberries & Flowers
Homemade Jam & Hot Sauce

Please bring your own bags and u-pick containers!

Directions to the Farm
For Recipes & Cooking Inspiration:
 
Valley Flora Recipe Wizard
Our own collection of recipes gathered over the years.
 
Epicurious
A vast collection of recipes, searchable by one or multiple ingredients
 
Full Belly Farm
Recipes from one of my favorite farms in California, pioneers of the organic movement since the 80s.

Farm Fresh to You
A storehouse of recipes, searchable by ingredient.
 
Helsing Junction Farm
A Washington farm that has a good collection of seasonal recipes geared toward CSA members.
Copyright © 2019 Valley Flora, All rights reserved.


unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp

Week 7 from Valley Flora (early!)

Beet Box -

Week 7 from Valley Flora (early!) Purplette Onions! Zucchini!
Thanks for eating locally from our family farm!
View this email in your browser
-->

What's Cookin' at the Farm...
  • Purplettes and Zukes!
  • Flowers, Lovely Flowers!
  • Your Farmer Flew the Coop!
-->
What's In Your Share This Week:*
  • Purplette Onions
  • Broccoli
  • Head Lettuce
  • Strawberries
  • Fava Beans
  • Bunch Carrots
  • Collards
  • Zucchini
On Rotation:
(Some locations will receive it this week; others in a future week)
  • Possibly green cauliflower...
*Harvest Basket contents may vary between pickup sites in a given week depending on what's ripe and ready on the farm. Don't worry - if something is on the list but not in your tote, you'll get it soon!

The VF Crystal Ball - What Might be in your Share Next Week...
  • Carrots
  • Walla Walla Sweet Onions
  • Broccoli
  • Lettuce
  • Strawberries
  • Cilantro
  • Zucchini
  • Rainbow Chard
  • Red Cabbage
Purplettes and Zukes!
The first onions of the year are always confirmation that it's really, truly summer. These little purplette onions are a lovely teaser of what's to come for the rest of the season: pretty little purple onions give way to big, fat, sweet Walla Wallas, then torpedo-shaped Red Long of Tropea, more Walla Wallas (while the gettin' is good and onion ring season is high!), and then we'll rock steady with yellow and red storage onions and hifalutin shallots - deep into wintertime (in fact, we're still eating last year's shallots!). The purplettes are relatively mild - great eaten raw or cooked - and very pretty to boot. Store them in the fridge since they aren't a cured onion that will hold up on the counter.

Zucchini! It always starts so benignly - one or two glossy fruits proffered forth on a tame, orderly plant. And then...

But we aren't to the "and then..." part yet (the part, usually in August, when people are locking their car doors to keep neighbors from dumping overabundant zucchini-blimps into the backseat). No, we're still in that beautiful moment of anticipation - like the early days of a romance - when everything about zucchini is AMAZING! So enjoy it, any way you like it. Zucchini made my 8-year old's list of Top Five Favorite vegetables recently (especially when cooked in lots of butter). Let it be amongst your top five this week, too.
-->
Strawberries for all, hard-working horses, too!
-->
Flowers, Lovely Flowers!
Amelia's flower patch is in full bloom! The best is still to come in her flower CSA, (zinnias! dahlias! marigolds!), and she has prorated flower shares available if you'd like to join up. If you're looking for extra flowers for an event or special occasion, she's your gal. For all flower-related inquiries, reach out to her directly at clements.amelia@gmail.com or (914) 419-0413. 
-->
Your Farmer Flew the Coop!
Who says farmers can't go on vacation in the summer? Well, I did for the past eleven years, but we're breaking free of that paradigm this season and have set things up so that everyone on my crew is going to take a week off during peak summer craziness. Yours truly is going first (to test the theory that it's possible....), and in a few hours I'm loading up my kids and hubby and driving to Idaho to float the Salmon River for a week. I used to run rivers all the time in the summer - especially Idaho rivers - but then I hitched myself to this farming dream and have been tied down on Floras Creek every summer since. Not that it's a bad place to be tied down to, but there is a little part of my soul that also dwells in the Sawtooths and the Uintahs and the Wallowas and the Wasatch and every river that flows forth from those inland mountains, and it's high time I reunited with that little vestige of my former twenty-something self. Especially since I'm turning 40 in a week. What better place to celebrate than deep in the largest wilderness area in the Lower 48, pretending I'm 20!?

Which is all to say, I'm out this week! Amelia will be checking the email, so if you need to communicate that's the best way to get a message through while I'm gone (or call  the farm at 541-348-2229). I'll be back in the saddle on Wednesday, July 17th. You're in great hands; I've made a million lists that the crew probably doesn't even need and there's great summer food starting to pop in the fields (zucchinis for all this week!). So eat well, be good, have fun, and I'll be back with a newsletter on July 17th full of tales about black bears and huge wave trains and yellow jackets and sunburns. And I'm sure I'll be hungry for some veg after a week of rice and beans.
-->
The Farmstand is Open for Summer Hours!
 
Every Wednesday & Saturday
9 am to 2 pm
Rain or shine!

Fresh Produce
U-Pick Strawberries & Flowers
Homemade Jam & Hot Sauce

Please bring your own bags and u-pick containers if possible!

Directions to the Farm
For Recipes & Cooking Inspiration:
 
Valley Flora Recipe Wizard
Our own collection of recipes gathered over the years.
 
Epicurious
A vast collection of recipes, searchable by one or multiple ingredients
 
Full Belly Farm
Recipes from one of my favorite farms in California, pioneers of the organic movement since the 80s.

Farm Fresh to You
A storehouse of recipes, searchable by ingredient.
 
Helsing Junction Farm
A Washington farm that has a good collection of seasonal recipes geared toward CSA members.
Copyright © 2019 Valley Flora, All rights reserved.


unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp

Pages

Subscribe to Valley Flora aggregator