Summer is Back!

The recent drizzle made it hard not to feel like we were being robbed a week of precious summer. After all, there are only so many sunny days that inspire you to jump into the creek each year (!!) and to lose five in the middle of July – unheard of!!! Nevertheless, it looks like summer has returned – which means we have a hot date with a swimming hole on Floras Creek this evening!

The rain was good and bad for the farm, but mostly good. Things grew by leaps and bounds over the weekend. We’ve noticed that plants seem to love real rain from the sky; they know the difference between natural irrigation and the kind we pipe in for them. The strawberries suffered a little from all the precip, but not horribly. I’d suggest you eat or freeze them sooner than later this week because the rain often shortens their shelf life. We tried our best to sort out any imperfect ones as we picked on Tuesday, but I apologize if you encounter a berry that’s trying to rot. Sometimes, unfortunately, we miss them.

The weeds have loved the moist weather, so we are tackling ever corner of the farm with hoes, hands, horses, and Allis the electric tractor. Today is carrot liberation day; tomorrow, the corn.

Cukes and zukesare coming on, and there are new potatoesin your totes this week!

In your share this week:

• Head Lettuce
• Strawberries
• Rainbow Chard
• Snap peas
• New Potatoes
• Fresh Dill
• Cucumbers

On Rotation:

• Broccoli
• Zucchini

Kitchen Tips

Don’t forget to visit the Recipe Wizard to find ingredient-specific recipes, or go to the Recipe Exchange if you have a recipe you’d like to share with everyone!

Please note: all of our produce is field-rinsed, not washed. We recommend you wash all of your produce before eating it.

New Potatoes

We have a farmer friend in Vermont who always relishes the tandem arrival of new potatoes and peas. This week we harvested both, along with the first crop of dill, which makes for a lovely trio: Herbed New Potatoes and Peas.

What is a new potato? It’s a potato dug early, before the plant has died back and the skin has cured. You know it’s time to check for new potatoes when your potato plants begin to flower; typically the plant is setting tubers at the same time it’s blooming. In your garden, you can rob a few new potatoes from each plant and they will still continue to develop full-size spuds for a later harvest. In our case, we dug a whole row and took everything for this week’s distribution.

You get a significantly lower yield when you harvest for new potatoes because the tubers aren’t full size yet, but it’s worth it: new potatoes are petite and exceptionally juicy; have a thin fragile skin; boast smooth, delicate texture; and have a sweet flavor. These new potatoes have only been out of the ground for a day, so the flavor should be even better.

Not to count our chicks before they hatch, BUT…..based on this first harvest and on the health of our potato field this year, it’s looking like it’s going to be a whopper of a potato year! We took a cue from the results of last year’s potato survey and opted to plant only our two favorite, reliable, high-yielding varieties: yellow finn (a buttery yellow spud) and desiree (the tender red variety you’re getting this week). If all goes well, you should be seeing potatoes on a regular basis from now until December!

Storage: New potatoes aren’t cured, so keep them in the fridge, in a plastic bag; they’ll store for a long time, but the flavor is best sooner.

Cukes & Zukes

Here they come, the cucurbit cousins! Once they start producing in the greenhouse (cukes) and outside (zukes), there’s no stopping them! My mom is in charge of these crops – or more accurately, they are in charge of her. She has to harvest every day of the week when cucumbers and zucchini are on – or else they blow up into full-size blimps within a couple of days. Most of the time she manages to harvest the zukes as adolescents when they are at their tenderest.

As for enjoying them: Thinly sliced cucumber salad with a little rice vinegar, sea salt, and fresh dill…..quick, easy, delicious.

And the zukes: we had them grilled last night. It might well be the best way to turn a plain old zucchini into something as savory as sirloin.

Storage:In a plastic bag in the fridge. Will keep for up to a week.

Farm Fact of the Week:

In our microclimate on Floras Creek, the farm produces food year round. The Valley Flora farmers, however, like to have a rest, so we usually only sell produce eleven months out of the year - every month but January.