Early Beet Greens from the greenhouse. A splash of red to perk up spring salads or a light sauté.
THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Baby Lettuce Mix
• Baby Turnip Greens with Tiny Turnips
• More Baby Turnips
• Baby Leeks
• Beet Greens
Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.
COMING SOON: Pea Shoots, Arugula, Spinach, Carrots, and much more.
They’re getting bigger! They will never be the purple, hard, winter turnips. These Japanese babies are always sweet and tender.
Spring is greens season, and we’re stretching a bit this week. Last week was amazing—after a week of warmth, everything responded with rapid growth, but lately it’s been cold and very wet, so growth has slowed again. That results in less to harvest. But the turnips are coming along very well, and there are LOTS, so enjoy them. I will be working on a page dedicated to the tender morsels, but in the mean time just use them raw like radishes, including the tender leaves, or gently sauté or steam them.
Good news on the honeybee front: David, our bee mentor has been checking on our hives, luckily (since I don’t know what I’m doing) and even though we lost one colony just a month ago, the other is going like gangbusters and was already preparing to swarm. He got in there and stacked up boxes, moved frames around and cut out swarm cells. He believes that this colony is so strong, that if we can keep them from swarming they could make 100 pounds of honey this year. I can’t even imagine, so I just do what he says and try to keep up. 100# is about 8 gallons. That’s a lot of sweetness.
Teo has been hard at work transplanting onions. These are Red Torpedo variety, a semi-sweet Italian heirloom. We’re guessing about 18,000 plants went into these beds. And there are still Walla Walla and storage onions to do.
Our intern for the year arrived last week! She is Sarah, and you will see her at all of our farmers markets, as well as helping with CSA duties. Be sure and say hi. She’s very friendly and a hard worker. We’re really excited to have her with us!
We’ve decided to let one of our cows go—not sweet Beauty or Juniper, but another who I had hoped to train to milk but just doesn’t have the right attitude. After putting up with kicking for two weeks, I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. The others have all been so easy, and we have two little heifers to train for next year. GOOD NEWS! We will have ground beef in just a few weeks! Let us know if you’re interested. It’s grass-fed, well-treated, lean, and delicious. We will be selling it in units of 10 one-pound packages, as in the past, for $65.
Things seems to be growing slowly in the cold rain lately, but I force myself to remember that this time last year we were only just planting our first batch of peas. We should have Sugar Snaps and Shelling Peas a month earlier, if all goes well.
And today I struggle with keeping optimistic and cheerful. The greenhouse is FULL of little plants waiting to go outside into the ground (lettuces, kale, chard, broccoli, cabbage, green onions, fennel) and we have not been able to get it ready before another rainstorm hits. We also have crops that need to be seeded directly into the soil, like carrots, arugula, and spinach. Last week, we discovered the tractor needed a new carburetor, so we missed that window and now we wait for the next window. At least there are signs of spring, and we will get there. It’s going to be an amazing summer because we are at least a full month early on everything planted so far, and the summer season starts in just seven weeks! Summer waits for no-one!
Whistling Train Farm 