Week 8

“Does it smell like fish yet?” That was the question of the night Tuesday. At first we weren’t sure if we could smell fish, but in the end we had success-we had stinky fish smell in our irrigation water! Why, you might wonder, would we celebrate malodors in our irrigation water? What it meant is that we had successfully used the siphon system for injecting fertilizer into the irrigation system at the farm. Now, we don’t have to carry heavy backpack sprayers full of fish on our back slowly spraying plants. We are able to practically run up and down the rows fertilizing. We are fertilizing with Neptune’s Harvest Organic fish emulsion, a good product manufactured from fish processing byproducts from the North Atlantic fish industry. In the long run we hope to design a system of cover crops and rotations that allow us to grow much of our fertility in place. But as you all know, new ground sometimes requires short term solutions to bridge the gap to the long term ideal.

Thank you all for your words of support after last week’s email. It is so encouraging to hear your positive energy and commitment to local, fresh, and healthy food. I think of some of your emails and conversations several times a day as we try to work out solutions to each challenge we face. The fish emulsion fertigation (fertilizing + irrigating) is one of those success stories.

If “does it smell like fish?” was the question of the night then “The sheep are out again!” was the exclamation of the night. Unfortunately, the bad sheep have learned the tricks to getting out of our fencing. Part of the problem is the lack of high quality grass, so they are never happy. As many of you have undoubtedly noticed it is rather hot and dry. With our irrigation systems we are able to grow our vegetables with no water issues. However, unlike Colorado, no one in the South East is equipped to irrigate pastures. It is simply an unjustified expense in our rainy climate. We hope to revisit that rainy climate sooner rather than later. We (and the sheep) welcome some soothing, soaking rains to gently wake and invigorate the grass.

Week 8 box

Your first taste of Tomatoes! We have a wide variety of types from slicing tomatoes, to thick, meaty tomatoes for cooked dishes, to sweet cherry tomatoes. We will try to rotate varieties among the whole CSA. If you receive cherry tomatoes please return the pint container clean and dry for reuse. The thick, meaty tomatoes are usually long shaped with thick walls and are small (quarter size) to large (5 inches tall). These Roma type tomatoes are for dicing into pasta but they are also great for quartering and salting- then adding to salads.

Cucumbers

Squash

Scallions

Basil- Thai, use basil for a flower arrangement, but also use the leaves! The purple flowers can be soaked in maple syrup for infused flavor! Drizzle that over some pork or grilled veggies in the last 30 seconds of cooking for a glaze.

Green Pepper- small, but flavorful- those thick walls sure are difficult to obtain!

Half of the boxes will receive Swiss Chard-Next week the other half can look forward to Swiss chard (we have to give it a longer regrowing period in this hot weather)

Large Shares only-Green beans

Cucumber Yogurt Salad

This is one of my favorite quick dishes for a hot day. Flavors can be adjusted for personal taste.

Cucumber

Plain yogurt

Dill- ***Sometimes we also add coriander ***

Salt

Garlic or Scallions

Either Peel and slice or Peel and grate the cucumber. Salt the cucumber and place in a colander to drain for about 15 minutes

Dice or crush several cloves of garlic

Or

Dice several scallions

Add as much garlic of scallion as you like-personal preference for this varies widely

After Cucumbers have drained mix with yogurt

Mix in garlic or scallion

Add dill and salt to taste.

This salad is a great side for a Mediterranean themed meal.