CSA Weeks 3 & 4

Parsnips, Rapini (Broccoli Raab), Spring Onions, Pea Shoots, Green Garlic, Mixed Cooking Greens, and U-Pick Tulips and Daffodils.

THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:

• Parsnips
• Mixed Bag of  Kale and Beet Greens
• Rapini 
• Spring Onions
• Green Garlic
• Pea Shoots

• U-Pick Tulips and Daffodils!

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

COMING SOON: Radishes, Arugula, Cilantro, Spinach

By now it shouldn’t be a surprise that this has been the wettest, coldest spring in our entire farming career. It’s well documented now. We have surpassed our frustration point at not being able to work ground for planting.

Mixed tulips from the U-Pick rows. CSA families only!

Our spring season always starts out a bit slow, with whatever perennial crops have survived through the winter. Everything that we have fed you with, up to this point, was planted last year.

The next crops to harvest (and we did start picking them for market last week) come from the greenhouses. Back in February, we planted radishes, turnips, arugula, spinach, and carrots in all of our hoop houses. They’ve taken much longer than normal to produce a crop, even under cover. It’s been cold. Next week, there will be enough of many of those things to harvest for CSA families as well.

Our Cooking Greens bags are made of frilly kales and beet greens.

But hoop houses are limited to their space, and since we haven’t been able to plant anything outside yet, I’m afraid that we’re going to have a harvest gap. In the past, we’ve been able to transition through these spring harvest stages more-or-less in a seamless way. But it’s been a struggle to get just six items to harvest every week. Next week is looking good, but the following week, I’m not so sure. We’ll have spinach and turnips, and onions and garlic. Is that worth the drive to the farm?

I’m not without hope. Eventually, the weather will turn, and we’ll get more than one day of consecutive dry weather that will allow us to work up seedbeds and plant. There are many steps involved, and much of the farm is still covered by standing water. People like to exaggerate about weather, it’s human nature. But believe me: this is not good.

Rapini, also known as Broccoli Raab, consists of the flower buds and tender leaves of the overwintered turnip plants. They’re juicy and tender, and sweet, with a touch of bitterness.

So I’m warning you now that we may have to skip a week or two of CSA harvest in the weeks to come. However, we have lots of baby plants in the greenhouse, just waiting to planted outside. Because when you can’t plant outside, you get things started inside. In the long run, a little break from harvesting would let us get a lot of planting done, if the weather were on our side.

It may turn out to be a greens and broccoli year. Light on the tomatoes and squash. But we will have food. We just need a few dry days.

GOOD NEWS: The hens are laying well now! We’re going to finish out last year’s egg subscriptions for four weeks, and in mid-May, we’ll open up egg subscriptions to all CSA members, based on how many eggs we predict the hens will keep laying. So, if you had an egg subscription last year, pick up your eggs for four weeks.