Spring Week 5: So Much to Do!

Lovely greens this week…and CARROTS!

THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:

• Spring Onions (tubular leaves)
• Green Garlic (flat leaves)
• Baby Carrots
• Purple Radishes (don’t forget to use the greens in salad or sautéed!)
• Salad Mix
• Baby Turnips with Greens (eat your greens!)
• Cilantro OR Pea Shoots

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

COMING SOON: Lettuces, Arugula, Spinach, Baby Beets

Spring is passing so quickly now, I don’t even have time to write anything. Still everything seems to be a month early: The greenhouses are pumping out produce, the bees are packing up honey, and we are planting nearly every day. It IS only April. Usually April is the wet month, where we gaze longingly out windows, waiting for the ground to dry enough to work. Waiting to go out and plant ANYTHING.

I don’t know that we’ve ever turned on the sprinklers in April before. Beautiful weather means transplanting, and that means water.

But not THIS year! This is the year that we get to be California. With the early planting, and the early harvesting. And likely, we will get the hot, everlasting summer as well. At least until the sudden freeze comes in October. Or maybe it will wait again until November, like last year? Who can say. All we can do is try to be prepared, and squeeze as much summer out of as many months as possible.

First planting of brassicas ready to load into the transplanting machine! These Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Cabbages should be ready to harvest mid-June.

The potatoes will be planted tomorrow. The onions are nearly done being planted. The first crops of lettuces, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beets, and MORE are already planted OUTSIDE! We are working on getting the second plantings out. Really, this is unheard-of. But we will continue to roll with it. Because that’s just what we do.

So, enjoy! And you can look forward to the day in June when we open the U-Pick CSA garden, where we are currently planting Dahlias and Strawberries. Where the Shelling and Sugar Snap Peas are coming up next to Poppies and Bachelor’s Buttons.

Make sure and say hello to hard-working Teo!

When you visit, keep an eye out for the Osprey family that have returned to nest above the train-yard next door. The Swallows have returned, and the Barn Owls are raising a family of noisy chicks in the silo across the street. The mama Coyote has returned for her early morning hunts of stray chickens to feed her pups, wherever they may be hiding. And there are hens hiding in the bushes with clutches of eggs. So much life all around us!