CSA Newsletter // Week 7

Greetings All,

I hope you guys had a great weekend! It's crazy how even though I have been totally out of it, the farm just keeps rolling. Ben was at the Farm Stand today and CSAs start again tomorrow morning, we have a fun bunch of veggies for you this week and I am happy to share that I am feeling better and really happy to be writing this to you all!

I want to start with an apology and a thank you. An apology to let you know that I am really sorry that I wasn't able to get that newsletter sent out last week. Please forgive my absence, as you know I love talking about produce and what exciting things we're all going to try with our veggies on a weekly basis. I have NEVER not sent a newsletter. It's been 12 years of CSAs and I have never missed a week, ever. Until now.. So I just want to explain it's not something I plan on doing again; I have just been really sensitive to screens and I won't share all the icky details but I get so dizzy I get nauseous. It's getting better now, just like everyone told me it would. Resting a lot has definitely made a difference.

Thank you to everyone for your kind messages, letters in the mail and phone calls. I can't explain how grateful we are for your support. This year has been a tough one with the weather, then Ben getting super sick (I've never seen him so sick and we've been married 12 years), then my accident and being laid up, it just feels like the world was crashing down on us here at the farm and after reading your sweet messages it just takes a load off of our shoulders. Having that reassurance that "I need to take care of myself for a bit", it gave me the peace of mind to actually rest and not be as anxious. It's hard being in bed with a to-do list that keeps growing and no ability to do anything about it. So please know that you have all made a big difference in our lives these past couple weeks and I hope one day I can repay that kindness to you.

I wish I could go back and email every single one of you guys to fill you in but as you know, I am limiting screen time so this email will have to suffice for now. THANK YOU for your well wishes, it really did give me peace of mind and helped me rest when I needed it most. I am feeling better and a little less nauseous, I am not lifting because of my back and neck but I have been able to help with little tasks around here. Stuff that used to take me 5 minutes takes an hour it feels like, but it's progress and I am very grateful for it!

Also, Ben has affectionately started calling me his little vegetable. I think it's cute and honestly quite accurate still, haha! We're in better spirits this week, as I'm sure you can tell.

DIVING RIGHT IN

Like I said, the farm just keeps farming... so we have a crew of almost a dozen young adults and college girls that help us here during the summer. They have been absolute rockstars these past couple weeks coming in early and staying late, even picking up extra days when we need the help. None of this would be possible without them and I wanted to mention their attention to detail is what helped your CSA boxes get packed and delivered. Ben has been driving for a couple weeks already for me and I know it's hard on him but he is committed to the CSA and the farm & he will always do whatever needs to get done. I feel like he's running a race track around me right now- I don't know how he does it!

I haven't made it all the way around the fields yet for a tour but I can tell you that the muskmelon are growing really well and we're happy to see so many on those plants! Looks like a good crop of muskmelon (we have two plantings).

Ben has been stressed out about the weeds. We don't use chemicals and he wasn't able to do field work for 10 days while he was sick and then I was in the accident so all of his 'field time' was taken up by delivering produce which is usually 100% my job. He still works when he gets home at 6pm from delivering too, so it's not like he isn't trying to catch up. But his fields don't look as nice as he would like, that's for sure! He is always harder on himself than anyone else ever would be and I try to reassure him of that.

Again, with the weeds. BUT there are a ton of tomatoes on these plants! They're still setting on more flowers too and the bees are very active in the field getting all the pollination done. That's one good thing that we have going for us this season, my Dad is keeping bees here this summer and really doing a great job! He checked out every book they had at the library and took on a new 'hobby' at 67. The bees are keeping up with all of the flowers- just about everything comes from a flower! The beans, zucchini, melons, squash, the list goes on. We are grateful for the tomatoes we have in the field and we should hopefully be picking a handful by next weekend. Comparably, these are about 1.5-2 weeks behind but that's not surprising considering we lost about a hundred plants to the flooding and it takes a while for the others to rebound when they're that wet. They don't like that; they like it hot and being watered intermittently, not flooding and standing water because that stresses them out. Part of the farming package- but it's still a bummer because we can barely wait for this crop to come in!! PRESERVATION Now that we're getting into the latter part of the season, I am going to spend a little more time explaining long-term storage throughout my newsletters. One thing that a lot of folks have asked about is the online store. Yes, we will still have it this season, too! We just know that it'll be a little bit until we open it up because some of our big crops are behind. If you're new with us- we have an online store with surplus or canning quantities that you can order and then we will deliver right with your CSA! We offer discounts on our canning tomatoes for Members who order through the website, so that's a nice thing to keep in mind!

We are just getting into a new patch of corn here for this week. We plant 5 plantings so that the corn is always at peak ripeness all summer long. I am sure that very soon we'll start opening up the online store for that as well. Maybe even next week. When the time comes, we will have an option to purchase an extra dozen ears of corn available for your dinner parties or pot lucks, or just to eat every day of the week ;) We also have larger quantities available if you want to freeze some for the winter! While cans of corn on the discount isle are likely a little cheaper than what you can put up yourself, there is peace of mind in opening a bag of frozen corn in the freezer or pulling out canned corn to add to a hotdish knowing that you are feeding your family high quality produce from a local farm that you poured your time into. Once the store is opened, I update it with anything that we have in surplus. I promise we will have more time to dive into that in the future, but good stuff is coming!! I'll announce it here when I open the store (it's ONLY for CSA Members, others will have their orders cancelled and refunded).

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT NEXT WEEK:

Jumbo and Family Shares: Sweet Corn! Green cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers/ pickles, lemon basil and leeks!

Single Shares: Sweet Corn! Green cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers/ pickles, & lemon basil!

**Mark your calendars for the 16th, it's a Saturday. We're working out the details but we are considering setting up a pop-up sale here at our place because we are getting all of our chickens butchered on the 13th and we have a ton of heritage hog pork products too! We'll also have veggies available for purchase here too. So it'll be a bunch of our pastured poultry, our heritage hogs and fresh produce (maybe even some canned goods). I'm thinking we'd offer it from like 12-4. More details next week when we solidify plans but wanted to mention it here quickly.

Let's start with sweet corn quick because I want to remind you guys- don't wait for a week to eat it, then it looses the flavor and it's honestly like grocery store corn at that point. No offense, grocery corn is just fine, but it's not fresh from the field. There is no comparison. The reason is because after the corn is harvested it's goal is to reproduce so it turns the sugars to starches to fortify their seeds. If you leave it on the counter in your kitchen the process of transitioning to starches is even faster. I.e. keep it in your fridge before you enjoy it, if you're not eating it right away!!

Green Cabbage! Personally I never used to like cabbage until I started experimenting with recipes. I found that we really like a cabbage lasagna with italian sausage and cheese with red sauce. That's my current obsession lol! If we have cabbage in the house it's for lasagna (no real noodles in that one). I think we tried it because Ben was going keto at one point and we just really liked it! (here is a very similar recipe, but we never used eggs and we use whatever mild cheese we have on hand- Low Carb Keto Cabbage Lasagna Recipe (Gluten-Free) - Sugar-Free Mom)

When we go out and harvest cabbages we leave a lot of the leaves intact and then get them brought in to the pack shed. The leaves help protect them on their ride in from the field in the bins. Then we clean up the outer leaves and I just tell everyone here to peel layers back until there are no loose leaves (for presentation). We have bins and bins of those leaves when we are done with a single day's worth of CSAs. Our heritage hogs LOVE cabbage weeks because we'll clean hundreds of heads of cabbage and then bring them all the loose greens that we take off. It can literally be hundreds of pounds in a day and they'll always finish those off before heading to other varieties of produce or their grains. They LOVE cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, all of those brassicas trimmings, because they taste so good!

We were hoping to send red cabbages with the Jumbo and Family Shares this week because you guys got the green ones last week too but the red ones grow slower; like I mentioned in the last newsletter. It's weird but the same goes for most varieties, including red onions which we should have here for you guys soon too! So expect a red cabbage next week in the J&F Shares (week 8), and depending on the sizes we see by the end of this week we might have enough for the Single Shares too next week. It all depends on the weather.

Zucchini/ Summer Squash

I want to explain that our first patch should have been ready sooner and the second patch started producing at the same time now. So instead of getting 30 boxes every other day, we're getting 60. Ben just donated almost SIX HUNDRED pounds last week to the food shelf, all courtesy of the zucchini from both patches producing at one time! That being said, I wanted to explain this because we want to give you a good variety throughout the season and I know we've had a few weeks in a row now. If you're zucchinied out- consider freezing some of your goods for the off-season. Now is a great time to start storing away a little bit at a time so it's not overwhelming during the fall!

Another idea- we used ours on our shishkabobs this weekend when my parents came up from Apple Valley! Another idea- a friend was telling me they cut the zucchini into slices and then drizzle or brush on a little butter and then use the dry ranch seasoning for a fun kick, best on the grill but a sauce pan would work great too!! How to freeze zucchini: Grate it (I use yellow and green because I think it's pretty that way), and then I put it in pre-portioned containers. My recipe calls for 2 cups so I put it in 2.5 cup bags and then when I defrost it, I pour off a little bit of the excess water. I don't squeeze it to get all the water out when it's defrosted, but I pour off some of it. Make sure you label everything with date and quantity of cups; even with the best of intentions of remembering, we forget by the winter when we go to take it out of the freezer.

Lemon basil!! This is something you'll probably never find anywhere else... We grow it every year because we treasure this special herb! We grow things that we know we use and love- and we hope you'll love it too!! This is not like basil at all- just fyi. It's a variety of basil but it smells just like lemons. You can use it to add a nice citrusy flavor to many different chicken dishes or salads. We usually keep ours using the 'cut flower' method where I just use my mason jar and put the lemon basil in there with some water (trim up the bottom leaves so they're not submerged or they'll get icky). I don't recommend putting it in the fridge because it's very sensitive (like regular basil) so if it's exposed to cold air for a long period of time it'll turn black and wilt.

If this is a chore because you don't know how to use it, try to incorporate it into something that's already on your meal plan. It is so good for you nutritionally. When in doubt, you can freeze your herbs in a fat like butter. Use it in baked goods or with fish, there are also some great lemon basil vinagrette recipes out there, or if you're feeling frisky you could add it to some fancy cocktails or mocktails for a fun splash of flavor!

Last week was the first week of the season that we had cucumbers and pickles!!

What is the difference? I would love to tell you!!

Slicing cucumbers are longer and darker green with a thicker skin and a wider seed cavity. The traditional ones you'll find in the grocery store produce section. Pickles are a lighter green color, with a thinner seed cavity and thinner skins. Personally, I don't peel pickles when snacking because the skins are so much thinner. When packing a lunch box, throw that whole thing in there because you know it's not hard to eat it in one sitting.

The seed cavity is important to mention because pickles stay firm longer because their seed cavity isn't as big. I.e. this is exactly why we pickle pickles and not slicing cucumbers. No one pickles slicing cucumbers because they get soft faster in your canning process.

**This is also why slicing cucumbers are better for creamy cucumber salad, because they have a higher water content and make a more creamy sauce that goes in the salad. Pickles are dryer, which is good for pickling because we want them to soak up the pickle brine that they're emerged in.

While keeping all of that in mind........ you can use either for most purposes very successfully. I use pickles for my creamy cucumbers too- and I use slicing cucumbers for my refrigerator pickles on occasion too. Whatever you have on hand will work!

WRAPPING IT UP

Thank you for your patience with me this past couple weeks. I still feel pretty stupid after getting knocked out but I am starting to feel better. I keep joking that I wish I would have broken my arm instead of my brain, because I need my brain for everything we do here and I could go without using my arm for a few weeks lol!

Ben is so strong. Our kids think he can pick up a truck by himself, but that's not the strength I am talking about. He is mentally resilient and I wish there was a handbook I could pick up and learn how to be more like him. He says the right things when I need reassurance that everything will be OK, he helps without asking and checks to make sure I have everything I need. We are all so grateful for him here, I don't know how he does it and keeps his cool, too. There is quite a bit of stress around here and he manages it like he wrote the book.

The kids are asking when school is going to start. For our youngest, she is excited to get back to school with new supplies to see her friends and meet her new teacher, she's going into 4th grade. The other two are asking because they're not excited at all, haha! They want to know how many more days are left before they have to go back to school, eww. Though they are all pretty good students for now. We hit a sad milestone, we have all of our kiddos in the intermediate school now, no more elementary school for us!

The walleye was a keeper ;)

We adopted a kitten back in January. Adopting= she was dumped in the swamp and William & Ben found her. Her name is Fiona (think Shrek, the movie). Poor little thing was malnourished and very hungry. She actually came with us on an ice fishing trip because I didn't want to leave her back at the house with our other cats, I didn't know if they'd be nice to her and she was so small. I joked she didn't have legs because for the first month she never got put down it felt like, she was held and coddled for so long. We don't have time for the whole cat story but the quick version, haha!, we inherited 2 cats with the farm when we bought it in 2020 and we already had 2 male cats too. So we have 4 male cats that are all mousers and mostly live outside (don't come for me with torches lol). They are all neutered males ages 6-15. For the record (this is important haha!!) Ben is the one who decided that we needed to keep Fiona, even though I mentioned we already have 4 cats and don't need a reputation for being crazy cat people!

I figured I wouldn't need to worry about stray/ feral tom cats around with 4 males here who are not tolerant to new cats. I figured we could make it through the farm season and then get her spayed, but I was wrong. Fiona is pregnant and going to have kittens any day now I would guess. Like every unplanned pregnancy "it happened so fast", what the heck!!

I volunteered at an animal shelter for 6 years when I was a teenager so I have experience with strays and feral animals. We have adopted out 4 cats over the years from our farm here and I still get pictures of them and their new families periodically. Ben insisted if Fiona went ice fishing with us, she is part of the family. Coming from the guy who didn't even like cats when we met...

We will be adopting out our kitties when they're ready to leave momma- despite our kid's plea to keep them. They even said they'd pay to get them spayed and neutered, and even pay for their food. It's not happening, nope. I think this will be good for the kids to witness though. It's kinda like a farm kid 'right of passage' to have kittens at the farm, we have never had babies here before.

This wasn't planned and like I said, I thought there is no way we're going to have problems with other males; she barely even goes outside! But alas, here we are with our momma kitty Fiona and soon to be babies. Just another chapter of life on the farm. We are grateful for all of it, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited for these kittens.

**** Sorry that this took so long to get out! I keep writing a little bit at a time to avoid the nausea with screens.

Talk to you again on Friday ;)

YES Friday. I plan to get back on schedule with my newsletters and I will be working on it this week so I can get it out on Friday.

Eat Good & Be Well,

~The Farmer's Wife