The Weekly News:
It was a mostly gray and rainy week; good for mosquitoes, early season cool weather crops, and harvesting. A black bear yearling had been hanging around the field, but not messing with the crops … the neighbor saw him hightailing it out and across the road, so he may have been introduced to the electric fence.
We had a booth at the farmers market in St. Croix Falls on Saturday morning; it was our first market we have ever attended, and it went great. Met a lot of interesting folks and sold almost everything we brought with. Worth waking up at 5am to harvest for!
The weeding and mulching continued throughout the week, using our giant rolls of paper as a weed barrier beneath the hay mulch.
On Monday, we went to pick up a free children’s playhouse (to repurpose as a chicken coop) from Craigslist with Kristin’s dad – thinking that it might take a few hours to cut it down from its stilts and get it out of there on his trailer.
However, the thing was built to last thousand years and Wade thousand or so pounds. In spite of a brilliant plan to get it cut down and lowered onto the trailer, it wound up flipping over and smashing into the ground just as we almost succeeded in our mission. (for the record, our approach was sound, but the owner’s son failed to keep one of the support beams in place …)
Six hours after we started, we finally had it wrestled back up right, secured on the trailer, and ready for the road.
Of course then the truck stalled out for a bit, but we got it running again before finding out just what AAA would have to say about towing our billion-pound 8 1/2-foot-wide future chicken coop the rest of the way out to the farm.
We were joined new a new WWOOFer yesterday -Abe from Minnesota. He’s already been a big help in the field and in the processing area, as well as proved a quick study in splitting firewood with the Monster Maul (is time to start getting wood split and drying for the cold weather not all that far away)
The Weekly Box:
New this week:
- Cilantro – add it fresh to stir fry, salads, salads,etc. the exit with cream cheese and spread it on a bagel. Great with Mexican food.
- Turnips (white) – oh my god. You have never tasted turnips like these. You can literally just eat them raw like apples, and enjoy them. Seriously.
- Turnips (purple top) – a more standard flavored turnip, still delicious but perhaps not as likely to be enjoyed raw and alone. Delicious sliced up in salads or stirfried.
- Kale (dinosaur, dwarf curly blue, and red Russian varieties) – there is so much you can do with kale! We enjoy it as baked kale chips, cut up in salads, or as cooked greens. Can be steamed, sautéed, or snacked on raw. Great in soups too!
Salad Mix of the Week: with red ruby & oak leaf lettuce, baby kale, beet greens, and baby bok choi.
Familiar faces in your box include:
- Pea tendrils – lots of them! Go great in a stir-fry, as a raw snack, or added into the salad mix.
- Arugula – you know the drill; add some for peppery green goodness in sandwiches, salads, pesto, etc
- Curly cress – very spicy! Add some kick to any recipe. Maybe not desserts. Unless you really want to I guess. cut off the ends and put in a case or glass of water, if you want it to perk up overnight.
- Redhead lettuce – add to the salad mix or use separately on anything where lettuce is tasty.
- Broccoli – the spring broccoli is starting to run out, but still producing side shoots – and the next wave of fall broccoli seeds have just sprouted in the greenhouse.
- Bok choi, bagged with Tatsoi – these Asian greens have been slightly damaged by flea beetles, but are still perfectly tasty. Perfect for stir fry, or raw, or chopped up in salads.
Thank you for returning your share boxes for us to reuse! See you soon,
the Sehrs
