We had rain. Like a bunch of times. It’s weird but we’re getting used to it, again.

The melons split some, and the field tomatoes.

But overall … hallelujah. Those April-transplanted baby trees that survived are reveling in it, and the wild mushrooms have sprung into action.

RAIN ALSO was perfectly timed for the future salad row.

Of course the weeds are also rejoicing. We have had to remember the arts of mower and weed whacker, in holding our own along the weed battlefronts at each point of the compass. The lambs quarter leaps to offer its bounty, an abundance of lambsquarter microgreens for years beyond reckoning. There are weeds far more noxious than these.

This is probably the last week for melons, and corn, and cucumbers. But there are fall crops coming that are looking good: broccoli, cabbage, and kale oh my.

The winter squash is mostly looking good too – other than the Cinderella pumpkins grown for jack o lanterning. It has taken the assault of the vine borers and gave up its life, valiantly, so that the butters and the Tetasuko might live. Thanks, Jack!

The garden pathways are softly green, no longer pokey brown crispies.

Otis news report:

Sarah and Darren were nice when they let him have a rice krispie bar, “And it was nice of them last time they were at our place that they let me have a juice box.”

And so, one might surmise, despite intentions a pure as granulated sugar, the love/ addiction K and I share has blessed another generation in our lineage.

Que sera, sera – there are many vices less sweet.

Speaking of sweet – the melons have been perfect this week, and there’s one

Inside Box 10

• Ussurian Pears – eat these soon, as they can ripen quickly and then go soft (although they are still tasty even when mushy and the inside starts to brown!). We make pear butter and pear juice – and then have a bunch out in broad bowls (so we can see them all) and pick out the most yellow-colored ones each day to devour – the kids love them. This is the first year our pear tree really produced prolifically so we could share!
• Cucumbers 
• Zucchini 
• Melon
• Sweet corn – the sooner you eat it the sweeter it will be! Picked this morning, you won’t get it fresher anywhere but straight from a field.
• Tomatoes 
• Cherry tomatoes 
• Sweet Peppers
• Broccoli Microgreens

It was my birthday this week, and I got to spend a day in our magic waterfall and a day beneath downtown Saint Paul with Otis in my old stomping grounds.

The ripe chokecherries are on in the barrens, but scarce, and the blackberries are putting out the plumpest fruits I’ve seen yet this year (likely the echo of that one 2.5″ soaking we had).

San Fran George & Jude wanted to find and eat Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms their entire stay here, but with the drought nothing ever came up. But on their last day, Otis spotted a beautiful specimen growing right behind our bedroom – so they got to have it with their last dinner here on the farm, serendipity do-dah

Kristin Reports on the Box Contents Thusly:

• Cucumbers 

• Zucchini/Summer Squash 

• Beans

• Tomatoes – have you ever heard of panzanella? I haven’t actually made it but someone described it to me at the farmers market and I am excited to try it. 

• Cherry tomatoes  two recipes I enjoy making each year:
  • Roasted Cherry Tomatoes recipe
  • Burst Cherry Tomato Sauce

• Sweet corn 

• Melons – cantaloupes most likely 
• Tomatillos here’s a recipe to work from for making salsa verde. Sometimes I cook the veggies in a cast iron pan on the stove top instead of oven roasting.
  • Tomatillo Salsa Verde

• Hot peppers – Serrano and jalapeño for salsa making 
• Red onions
• Basil – it loves growing in the high tunnel! Great for pesto, or pair with tomatoes.
• Arugula micro greens 

A.I.deas

1. **Cucumber Melon Salsa:**

   Dice cucumbers, cantaloupe, and cherry tomatoes. Mix with finely chopped hot peppers and a squeeze of lime juice for a unique salsa that pairs well with grilled proteins or tortilla chips.

2. **Tomatillo Chicken Tacos:**

   Use tomatillos to create a tangy salsa verde to drizzle over shredded chicken, diced tomatoes, and sliced hot peppers inside soft tortillas. Garnish with arugula microgreens for added freshness.

3. **Grilled Veggie Skewers:**

   Thread zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and chunks of sweet corn onto skewers. Grill until vegetables are tender and slightly charred. Serve over a bed of arugula microgreens for a delightful presentation.

These recipes offer a combination of fresh flavors and creative pairings that are likely to be both delicious and satisfying. Enjoy trying them out!

From and for humans

Earlier this week Neighbor Marcia dropped this off at our place, and I’m going to share it with you:

Today Kristin saw a honey bee attack a native bee and take its flower at the holy basil, and the wasps in the greenhouse are doing something weird. There might be zombie wasps? We will have to investigate and report next week.

In other news, IT RAINED.

It rained twice on Thursday, and we got more than we’d had all year – 2.65″. This felt like a miracle was unfolding before our very eyes, and that is a hell of a drug. I imagine the plants felt similarly ecstatically surprised.

The miracle did come at a cost, as they tend to do (Kristin may or may not have made a deal with a genie or a devil at a crossroads I can’t say). I’d battened down the greenhouses just before it hit and Otis and I enjoyed the storm from inside our safe, sturdy plastic bubble – but some of our corn was blown over, a pear tree busted up a bit, and some field fruits were hail punched.

Worth it.

We haven’t had to irrigate the baby trees or the field ever since, which has been a pleasant respite – but this time I’m trying not to let myself believe that getting one rainfall means the drought has ended. (But I can secretly hope I reckon.)

The local fungal colonies are similarly guarded, it seems, and have not thrust their spore spreaders out from their lairs. So, no wild mushrooms from our woods yet. That isn’t the worst, really; time can feel so limited and there is so much delicious fruit to wild-scavenge. The first choke cherries are plump and ripe in their abundant, weighty clusters, and the standard black berries are out in good numbers, if rather drought-dwarfed in size. I get a strangely compelling pleasure from simply opening the freezer and beholding the many hefty, vibrant bricks of vacuum packed fresh-frozen fruits.

The trips out to the berry patches with The Boys feel like living a golden memory, live.

This is a good life, and we’re so profoundly lucky to live it.

Inside the Box

• Tomatoes – an assortment of cherry tomatoes and couple bigger ones of various types. We gave out some that are ripe and others which you can let sit on the counter to ripen for a few days.
• Italian Eggplant – Slice/Bread/Fry or chunk and cook as part of ratatouille , or mashed and smoked into babaganoush (spelled exactly as it sounds, that’s nice)
• Green Peppers
• Zukes- some yellow summer squash, golden zucchini, green standards & patty pans,
• Cukes – both picklers and slicers (picklers are great for eating too, but the slicers can’t be pickled). Don’t confuse the slender English varieties for zucchinis!
• Basil (both Italian & Holy Basil (aka Tulsi) – we wonder what Holy Basil honey would be like. That’s the stuff with the flowers that smells like heaven probably would -tuck a leaf in your lapel and a flower in your door frame to catch those heavenly whiffs.Can be dried for tea, chopped up and sprinkled on cubed melon … you can get weird if ya wanna. The other leaves in there are your familiar foodstuff.
• a Melon – probably a cantaloupe but somebody got a more crisp and elongated Asian melon. If you get a cantaloupe which is both sweet and tart, you got the Melonade variety. They’re all ripe and ready to go; I wouldn’t let mine go bad on the warm countertop, forgotten and oozing from the wounds of abandonment, but you do you.
• Beans – mostly greens with a smatter of purple and yellow.
• Sunflower Microgreens– Fun facts: can be chopped up if you’re adverse to biting food apart with your face, and microgreens instantly elevate any dish.

The Recipe A.I.deas for this week included:

1. Summer Garden Salad:
   Combine cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and Italian basil in a refreshing salad. Drizzle with a lemon vinaigrette for a burst of flavor.
2. Zucchini and Eggplant Stir-Fry:
   Sautee zucchini and eggplant with green beans, using a soy sauce and garlic glaze for a savory and healthy stir-fry.
3. Caprese Skewers:
   Create tasty appetizers by skewering cherry tomatoes, mozzarella balls, and fresh basil leaves. Drizzle with balsamic glaze for a delightful touch.
4. Ratatouille Casserole:
   Layer sliced zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes in a baking dish. Season with herbs like Italian basil, then bake until tender for a mouthwatering dish.
5. Cucumber, Green Bean, and Tomato Salad:
   Toss cucumbers, green beans, and cherry tomatoes in a light dressing with a touch of lemon and fresh basil for a vibrant and crunchy salad. (It’s got a different dressing and green beans instead of green peppers, see.

Another week of our phone alerts misinforming us about incoming thunderstorms and of big beautiful rainstorms sliding past us, close enough to smell but leaving us in the dust. We did get one decent rain which doubled our total for the month of July … of course, since our total was barely a third of an inch, it wasn’t all that amazing, alas

But

Remember when we didn’t run the irrigation at all for a summer and remember when the screen porch got moldy because it rained so much and the fungus was a problem with crops and when the spreading quackgrass was a crisis and remember having to keep the weeds and grass cut underneath the electric fence line and bad hatches of mosquitoes! Hey look, the ripe tomatoes never get split on the vine by surprise rainfalls! And the driveway, it never washes out.

And this week when we determined that the well was putting out even half as much water as it can usually muster, we didn’t panic (much) – after taking apart the well shed and testing the things, I figured out that the problem seems to be with the pressure tank, and not the pump itself (which is 11 years old and we are keenly aware of its mortality during times of extreme drought). Still slightly ominous, but it’s nice to know (or strongly suspect anyway) that this is what has been causing the increasingly hard to ignore pressure fluctuations and air spitting and low yield … as well as (ha) it’s much easier and cheaper to fix a surface component than the one hats almost 150 feet below ground. We’ll see that the Well Guy has to say, but in the meantime we can reinflate the gradually failing air bladder as needed – bringing the flow back to a respectable 6.5 gallons per minute. The aquifer abides, and the kids are alright.

PS – Did you know that there are no poisonous berries here that have the aggregate fruit shape familiar from raspberries and blackberries? So you can gather and eat them with impunity, feed them to random children and relatives and strangers. The only threat is picking them under-ripe when they aren’t tasty. (OK and scratchy thorns and mosquitoes and ticks and perhaps even berry bears. But no poison fruits.)

So feel free to gather up the mixed mulberries and blackberries from your neighborhood brambles to enjoy your seasonal local foraging opportunities – you can eat them fresh or make jam or, during this coming heatwave keep them in a ziplock in the freezer and snack in them like chunks of nature’s popsicles.

PPS – Today our new WWOOFers George & Jude the Dragon arrived from Northern California, eager to enjoy the heatwave and smoky air with us for a couple of weeks.

Inside Box 7

• Tomatoes – the full size ones are just beginning to ripen, and the cherries are hitting their stride.
• Eggplant 
• Green Peppers
• Cabbage – not Napa, just the regular green cabbage type
• Zucchini 
• Cucumbers 
• Italian Basil
• Radish Microgreens – add some zip to your tacos, eggs, and sammiches

THE A.I. IS ON STRIKE

So here are some recipes that Kristin thinks you might enjoy in this heat wave week:

• Tangy Loopy Cukes
• Cold soup is the only good soup in this heat … and you have zucchinis! This recipe also uses cucumbers, or this one looks tasty too:

Neighbor Marcia Field Flowers Cam

Knock Knock? (Who’s there?) Nora. (Nora who?) No rain!

Hmm. Otis has been into knock-knock jokes, but he wasn’t into that one, either. The irrigation held the line. This local drought is, well, pretty interesting really. And, it’s satisfying to abide.

We picked and preserved a pleasing supply of the seasonal wild berries of the neighborhood. The juneberries are almost done, with the remaining fruits mostly having gone Past Purple and into the “Fruit-Leather Nuggets” phase. Kristin observes that they are unique in being enjoyable at all stages of ripeness. She’s right. Its a rare and prized fruit that hits the trifecta of tastiness when ripe, under ripe, and over ripe.

The red and black cap raspberries are at the end as well, black caps drying on the plants and final reds ripe and relished by the wild life. Simultaneously the first ripe dew berries are arriving. The earliest of the blackberry clan, they sprawl low on the edges of bare sun-baked sand, the largest such berries seasonally seen. Blackberries and grapes remain green, but seem probably plentiful,

No new bear or deer or mosquitoes. The blister beetles – a newcomer to our field – are quite plentiful, but seem to eat a little of all kinds of things instead of destroying just one whole crop of something, which is very polite of them. We listen to Wood Thrush in the evening, Whip-poor-Wills at night, and Ravens whenever. And something – Wabbits? – is munching down soybeans and parsley-or-maybe-that-was-cutting celery.

MORE WORDS

Whats in Box 6

• Potatoes – we had some kind of new, powerful weed pushing up the landscape fabric in the field this season, something more tenacious and powerful than anything we’d faced before. Well, it turned out to be potato plant volunteers, sprouting from the apparent army of spuds that we missed harvesting from the 2022 weed forest. They pushed up and through the weed barrier, found their way to the sunlight and somehow gathered enough moisture to form the spuds that we harvested for you today. Everyone is getting a mix of reds, purples, and whites – but sorted by size so some of you get a few big lunkers, some get an equivalent volume of adorable little miniatures, perfect for roasting whole, and most of ya; have a quart of taters somewhere in the middle size range. Bone apple tea, as they don’t say.
• Tomatoes – probably. They’re juuuust getting started, so you’re going to get either ONE full sized tomato, a handful of cherry tomatoes, or maybe just an IOU and a muttered apology..
• Onions – They’re biggening.
• Cucumbers – surely you used them all up from last week by now right? Right?!
• Zucchini
• Garlic – more volunteers from those who went MIA among last year’s mega weed forest. Thanks Baby Jasper, we wouldn’t have any garlic this year without ya!
• Bok Choi
• Napa Cabbage
• Mint Medley – spearmint, peppermint, and mountain mint. They all go great on your refreshing mock tails and mojito s! In the bag with your bok choi.
• Micro Mix – a downright delectable blend of kale, broccoli, amaranth, sunflower shoots, pea shoots, red cabbage, and radish microgreens.

Recipe A.I.deas

The robot was being a bit silly today and tried to recommend that we caramelize the napa cabbage, but I think we reigned it in now …

• Garlic Butter Roasted Potatoes: Toss diced potatoes with minced garlic, olive oil, and salt. Roast until golden brown and crispy.
• Cucumber and Napa Cabbage Slaw: Shred cucumber and Napa cabbage, then toss with a light vinaigrette dressing for a refreshing and crunchy slaw.
• Bok Choy Stir-Fry with Zucchini: Sauté sliced bok choy and zucchini with soy sauce, ginger, and garlic for a flavorful and nutritious stir-fry.
• Zucchini and Onion Fritters: Grate zucchini and onions, mix with a bit of flour and egg, then pan-fry until crispy and delicious.
• Garlic Roasted Napa Cabbage: Drizzle napa cabbage with olive oil and minced garlic, then roast until tender and caramelized.
• Potato and Micro Green Salad: Boil diced potatoes, toss with lemon juice and a light mustard dressing and top with micro greens for a delightful salad.
• Feel free to adjust the quantities and seasonings according to your taste preferences! Enjoy these recipes in your CSA newsletter.