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Week 13 from Valley Flora!

Beet Box -

Week 13 from Valley Flora! Oh-so-sweet Sweet Corn!
Thanks for eating locally from our family farm!
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What's Cookin' at the Farm...
  • Heavy: Corn, Sweet Peppers, and Beautiful Annina
  • Pickling Cukes Still Pumping!
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What's In Your Share This Week:*
  • Red Onions
  • Cucumbers
  • Head Lettuce
  • Strawberries
  • Carrots
  • Beets
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplant
  • Zucchini
  • Parsely
  • Potatoes
  • Sweet Corn
On Rotation:
(Some locations will receive it this week; others in a future week)
  • Heirloom Tomatoes
  • Romano Green Beans
*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...
  • Onions
  • Carrots
  • Cucumbers
  • Collards?
  • Cilantro or Basil?
  • Lettuce
  • Strawberries
  • Zucchini
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplant
  • Peppers
Heavy
I was compelled to weigh a packed Harvest Basket yesterday and it bottomed out our twenty-pound spring dial scale. I grabbed the forty pound digital scale instead and it read 25 pounds, which means about 22.7 pounds of produce is stuffed into one of those little Rubbermaids for you this week. Poor Amelia and Evan, our delivery angels! Lucky you.

Blame it on August, I guess. Some big fat ears of corn ripened up this week - a white variety called "Illusion." Super duper sweet. They also might be harboring a little surprise when you shuck them: corn earworm. I've never seen earworm so early on the farm; if we get it at all it's usually in our last planting, not our first. It's a harmless but gross grub that is simply trying to fatten up to become a nondescript brown moth (which happens to also have a voracious appetite for tomatoes and cotton). If you find any, just cut the tip off the corn and you're good to go. If you have a flock of chickens, they love a nice fat earworm snack.
Fun Farm Factoid of the Week: the nocturnal moths lay eggs on the corn silks and when they hatch the larva start feeding on the corn kernels, usually a little herd of of them pigging out together. But alas, they are aggressive and cannibalistic so in the end you usually just see one juicy earworm at the tip of your corn, with a belly full of other earworms. Kinda makes you glad to not be an earworm.
On top of the mountain of sweet corn and beets and potatoes and cukes and zucchini, Bets surprised us in the barn yesterday with the first bin of sweet peppers. It's the beginning of "jelly bean" season, she calls it, when life revolves around bins of shiny red, orange, yellow, and purple fruits, whether they be peppers or tomatoes or plums.

And then, the eggplant. Some weekend heat equaled a nice harvest on Monday, including our first haul of lovely Annina, the striped eggplant pictured above. I swooned when I spotted her in the seed catalogue last winter - and even though I am steadfastly loyal to our workhorse Traviata (the dark purple variety you are used to getting), I had to buy a (very expensive) packet of Annina seed. We planted just one bed out of five and what I've observed so far is that she's a few weeks slower than Traviata and is a vigorous, large-statured, matronly plant. There are so many baby eggplants under her canopy of leaves right now it reminds me of a mother hen sitting on a clutch of eggs. Hopefully that means we'll be eating a lot of Annina in the coming weeks, because the first broiled slab I had was amazingly creamy and sweet. Not everyone will get a glimpse of Annina this week, but soon.
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The Pickling Cukes Won't Quit!
I figured they'd have given up the ghost by now, but no, those little picklers just keep coming! I hope some of you still want to try making a couple gallons of my favorite "Bubbies" pickle recipe, because I have cukes that want a nice glass jar to call home. Email me your name, pickup site, phone number, and the quantity and size you want. Smalls (perfect for pickling whole) are $3.50/lb; medium (pickle whole or in spears) $3.00/lb; and large (ideal for for bread and butter or dill slices) $2.50/pound.
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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.


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Week 12 from Valley Flora!

Beet Box -

Week 12 from Valley Flora! Sweet Corn On the Way!
Thanks for eating locally from our family farm!
View this email in your browser
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What's Cookin' at the Farm...
  • Onion Harvest!
  • August Corn!
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What's In Your Share This Week:*
  • Walla Walla Sweet Onions
  • Cucumbers
  • Head Lettuce
  • Strawberries
  • Carrots
  • Rainbow Chard
  • Tomatoes
  • Hot Peppers
  • Zucchini
On Rotation:
(Some locations will receive it this week; others in a future week)
  • Eggplant
  • Heirloom Tomatoes
  • Romano Green Beans
  • Sweet Corn
*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...
  • Red Onions
  • Green Beans, on rotation
  • Carrots
  • Cucumbers
  • Beets
  • Lettuce
  • Sweet Corn, on rotation
  • Strawberries
  • Zucchini
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplant
  • Parsley
  • Potatoes
Onion Harvest!
These past two Wednesdays Roberto has been up to his elbows in onions. Our main crops of red and yellow storage onions, plus our shallots, started showing signs of full maturity last week: most obviously, the tops have keeled over and the bulbs have reached maximum rotundness. That's our cue to start pulling the onions so the curing process can begin. In the past we made long onion windrows on the bedtops where they could fully dry down in the field, but after one-too-many unexpected August rains we switched our strategy and started curing our onions in our propagation greenhouse. The greenhouse is mostly emptied out at this time of year leaving lots of vacant table space that's perfect for the curing process. Our new prop house is the ideal spot: it has great air circulation, retractable shade cloth that keeps the onions from getting too hot or sunburned, and is right next door to the packout and storage barn.

Once the tops are fully dried down we'll begin the process of cleaning all of the onions: trimming roots and tops and packing them into standard weight bins. It's the first thing to begin filling our fall/winter treasure chest of important storage crops. Squash and potatoes are not too far on their heels; soon the barn will be bulging at the seams and many tons heavier.
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August Corn!
The first elotes - ears of sweet corn - are making their way into some of the Harvest Baskets this week. I gotta say, that first bite of fresh corn is really hard to beat. I made an improvised meal of sauteed eggplant, zucchini, fennel, Walla Wallas, tomatoes and basil the other night, accompanied by the first ears of steamed corn and a pan of fried padron peppers. We sat around the table ruining a stick of butter with our corn, savoring and marveling and uttering our gratitude for August and all that it gives.

If you don't get corn this week, don't worry, it's coming soon. This first planting is slightly uneven and staggered, and because it's an early variety the ears are a bit smaller than they'll be in the coming weeks. It is sweeeeeet though! Enjoy!
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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 

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