Well. It’s been a rough week to be growing vegetables. More incredible heat, and more incredible drought. We’ve been growing here for a decade now, and never had anything like this before – hot spells, dry spells, sure – but this is has been sustained and extreme far beyond anything we’ve yet faced.

The irrigation, which some years is used not at all, is running daily, trying to at least keep the roots somewhat moist in the dust bowl, I mean, field. We’ve kept ourselves moist as best as we can as well, with regular trips to local rivers, which both cool our bodies and soothe our spirits.

The rains keep dodging us, and it’s harder to find it amusing. It was supposed to rain all morning today, but then we got a tiny sprinkle before this happened (we’re the blue dot):

At least the temperatures dropped, and the sun clouded over. And hey, there have been almost no mosquitoes! Although really, at this point, we’d happily deal with swarms of the little suckers if it meant the field got a good soaking.

In other news: a hen snuck away into the woods and raised a nestful somewhere … we’ll have to try to round them up.

Life and hope spring eternal.

Now let’s just get some rain please.

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Inside Box 5

• Blasted Broccoli – we mentioned that the crazy heatwave was having a strange impact on the broccoli; well, this is what happened. It’s kind of mishappen and a bit bitter, but it’s what we managed to save from this cool-weather loving crop. It’s probably extra healthy with anti-oxidants produced to help it survive? Might be best cooked rather than raw, unless you’re into this kind of thing. We are hoping that the heat settles down a bit, and the plants will go on to produce normal side-shoots.
• Sugar Snap Peas – another cool weather crop that is being brutalized by the heat. Sections of the rows are surrendering to entropic heat death, so this will be the biggest pile of peas we can get you this year.
• Slicing & Pickling Cucumbers
• Zucchini – these are doing great anyway!
• Onions – same onions as before, but bulbing up into full onions now.
• Garlic Scapes – Kristin went and harvested a bunch from a local garlic farm yesterday morning, so that we could share them with you.
• Microgreens – 2 per box of either Red Cabbage, Curly Kale, Sunflower Shoots, Cinnamon Basil, or Lemon Basil

Coming soon …

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We got a little bit of rain. Not nearly enough, but way, way better than none. Sometimes the heavier rain storm systems would dodge us like matadors, other times politely utter “ope!” as they turned to pass by outside of our personal space. But we felt the shade of lots of clouds, and enjoyed a couple of light but sustained rains.

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Smatterings of rain, no matter how mild, are far superior to the convection baking oven thing that’s been so in vogue this season; even with negligible precipitation, cloudy misty afternoons were a much needed respite for the thirsty roots of crops and farmers both.

Which is to say it felt rejuvenating and I can’t help to think the garden felt it that way too. And that’s a good thing indeed.

Tips from Shareholder John:

Here is the method I have been using to store the green onions.

Also, I’ve been struggling with what to do with all these radishes and found this delicious simple recipe. 

Inside Box 4

• RADISHES! – what about fridge pickles?
• GREEN ONIONS! – did we mention fridge pickles?
• Snap Peas – pea plants like cool spring weather, and plenty of moisture.; we are lucky to have any!
• Pea Shoots – apparently many people stir-fry these, but we like them fresh, so we found this here promising-looking recipe and oh it also uses radishes!
• Zucchini – the first harvested this season
• Kales & Collards Mix – massaged kale salad might be in order. Because this is not the tender watery pillowy leaves from some hydroponic factory. It’s got character and gumption and it’s obviously good for us but you have to fight it first. Fortunately, they’re just leaves.
• Microgreens (Red Cabbage or Curly Kale)

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Well, we finally got some rain. Only a half of an inch, but it felt significant. Like we’d broken the drought, and now perhaps the floodgates will open up for us. Or at least give us an occasional trickle.

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It helps that the crazy heat wave broke – sure, we’re still dry, but at least we’re not under the broiler all day as well.

So it feels good now, and looks hopeful ahead. That said, the parched and burning weather has definitely taken a toll. Even with lots of watering, the cool weather crops are suffering.

It’s frustrating and sometimes depressing but we know we’re doing the best we can, given our many limitations in this best-of-all-possible-worlds.

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Hope you’re enjoying this beautiful weather, these utterly amazing moments of consciousness, and the following vegetables:

Inside Box 3

Salad Mix – (lettuce, arugula, tat soi, pea tips, bekana) – The salad row has not been a fan of this heat. We didn’t pick any to sell at the market his week, so there’d be more for you – but even then, it was barely enough even after we picked and re-picked anything that looked good. This week’s mix is going to taste a bit more bitter, as a result of the heat it grew in – if you don’t like the flavor, it is pretty easily countered with dressing or other additions.

Radishes – French Breakfast & Cherry Bell

Basil Microgreens

Radish Microgreens

Green Onions

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Dill

Kohlrabi

Purslane – this “weed” is popular in Mediterranean dishes. Here are some ideas if you don’t have a plan in place.

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Well, today got off to an intense start and I’m coming down off the adrenaline now.

This morning, we wanted to fill up some rinse water basins for the salad mix. Our solar battery bank was a bit low, so I started up our generator in order to run the well. It started up LOUD, way way louder than usual. This was a concern, but we needed to water and it was still putting out electricity properly, so I let it run hoping it would settle down and smooth out. It did not settle, nor smooth. It started on fire.

Blowing on it was futile. It spread to the plastic housing. A little water from a nearby bucket wasn’t enough. The fire got larger inside the generator as it spread. The hose to the mushroom logs did the trick, and the fire was stopped before it spread or exploded.

Fortunately, it was still under warranty, and we had our old one (functional but loud as bellowing hell) on standby. But dang.

And here I’d thought I’d had my peak adrenaline moment of the week on Friday morning.

I woke up at 5:30 with the sun, trying to make sense of what I was hearing from outside. Something was .. yelling? Repeatedly. From down by the chicken yard? I threw on my robe and headed toward the sound.

I started recording – capturing the unusual cry for identification purposes, suspecting that whatever it was might hear me coming & disappear before I could see it.

But as I got nearer and nearer to the sound’s source – inside the chickenyard fence), it did not run away and I rounded the last tree trunk in the way, expecting to see a fox or maybe a fisher cat or coyote but definitely not a black bear cub and oh cute oh shit where’s Mom and I turned around and got of there and that’s in the video too:

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Momma had led her cub into the chicken yard and then climbed over the fencing to knock over the garbage can with the chiclen feed inside.

But baby couldn’t follow her over the crushed fences and got stranded. After spending some time up in the tree yelling “MOM!” over and over, he came down, met our flock, and found his way back out into the woods the way he’d come. Ten minutes later his cries stopped and we knew Mom had found him.

The next night I set up a game cam to see if they came back, but instead discovered we have an obese raccoon with no tail and strange lumps hanging out in there at night.

I don’t know, it’s been one of those weeks. Maybe for you too.

But I guess interesting times don’t seem like much of a curse to me.

Inside Box 2

In other news, there is a farm happening here. There is no rain happening. It is unclear if rain will ever happen, or has ever happened. It is not as hot as last week, though. And the clouds are beautiful. Oh, right, the farm … the weeds are being countered, the irrigation working hard to save lives. Zucchini is flowering. Some tomatoes are forming. The crops are not flourishing, but they are surviving.

• Salad Mix (Red & green lettuces, arugula, pea tips, bekana, maybe a leaf or two of mizuna)
• Green Onions – they are starting to bulb a bit …
• Radishes – oddly, this batch was in much better shape than the last week’s radishes. Milder and better formed. Delicious roasted. Don’t forget to chop off the greens before storing so the bulbs don’t get squishy! The greens can be either cooked, or blended into a pesto … which would a great idea to combine with the …
• Garlic Scapes – we scavenged these off the Free List from a local gardener to share with y’all. The flower of the garlic plant, basically, full of flavor. Chop finely and treat like raw garlic in whatever you’d like.
• Microgreens – either Red Cabbage or Kale
• Cilantro – god I love the way it smells. This is the last of it for the foreseeable future due to the hot weather. Tastes a little bit coriander-esque because it was starting to bolt.
• Fresh-ground corn meal – use this ASAP for maximum freshness!

• We grew it last year, dried it over the winter, and shucked, stone-ground, re-stone-ground, and sifted it for you yesterday. It totally made my day when the random amount of cobs that we pulled out to process turned out to make EXACTLY the 44 cups worth of finished product that we needed for you! Want to get excited about your corn meal? I want you to, too. So here read this: The Search for Mandan Bride
• Rhubarb Chutney – We had rhubarb to share! Chutney is like …a sweet and savory tangy chunky barbeque sauce, kinda. Use with meat or perhaps tempeh, if you are a vegetarian. Here’s the recipe we used if you’re curious about ingredients or anything.

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I don’t think there is any way to talk about the week we’ve had or the field or the veggies or the future of life itself without Talking About the Weather.

As you are almost certainly aware, it is HOT. And it has been hot. And it’s going to stay hot. And this Hot came snarling on the heels of it being dry for weeks and then Cold too; in a one week span we went from covering the plants to save them from impending freezes to watering them copiously to save them from roasty toasty doom.

As you can imagine this has been a complicated dance. Stressful, sure. But also interesting, which is always nice – even when it’s hard to feel it from within the thick of the interestingness. (Like a day of raising and lowering and reraising and relowering all four sides of a giant greenhouse, trying to balance the defense against relentless high winds (close it down!) with defense against tripe digit sun roasting (open it up!).

The weather kind of sucks, sure, but I’m feeling optimistic – not that everything is going to work or that nothing will go haywire, but that it – the work, the stress, the joys and pains and beauty and lessons and sunshine and burns and flowers and fruits and thorns – will be a good use of our lifetimes, a worthwhile way to live.

I feel lucky to be living this dream, and I’m glad you’re all here with us.

Now let’s eat some vegetables.

Inside the Box

This morning, we woke up around 5:00 to get the leafy greens harvested before the sun got brutal with them, and to get as much as possible of the rest picked and packed before it hit the 90s. (Everything in the boxes was picked today.)

The harvest went smoothly, thanks in large part to a little help from our friends – Marty and Maddie rocked the picking and packing, and Grandpa Jim hung out with Otis while we harvested all of this stuff for you:

• Salad Mix (several varieties of red & green Lettuces, Arugula, red & green Mizuna, Tatsoi, & Pea Tips) – a cool weather loving crop … we are watering like crazy, but can’t be sure how it will fare.
• Spinach – with the early heat, our spinach crop was all right on the verge of “bolting” (which makes it less tasty), so we we harvested it all for you today! Spinach ravioli might be calling you this week.
• Bok Choi – this is usually stir-fried at our place with whatever else is on hand.

• Green Onions <- link – These will continue to grow and bulb, and we will keep including them in your boxes. We love these and use them constantly and we want you to join our cult.
• Radishes <-link
• Radish Microgreens – add some zip to any dish! We had planned on doing some different flavors of micros for this box, but were thwarted by a series of unfortunate events that I am going to blame squarely upon one particular chicken. Anyway, the flavor of radish is pretty much the trademark of the first CSA box of the season, so celebrate the radical radish this week!
• Cilantro – this heatwave is sadly most likely going to murder this cool weather crop, so enjoy it while you can!
• Chive Blossom Bouquet – Pick the petals off with your finger tips – and sprinkle them on a salad perhaps. They provide a little bit of chive flavoring, in addition to the obvious visual appeal. Or you can infuse vinegar with them! Or mine for idears here.

• Recipe of the week: Steak Tacos with Cilantro-Radish Salsa

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PS – y’all are extended family now, so you’ll be among the first to hear about the newest magic growing out here on the homestead … :)

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