We've seen an amazing number of baby tree frogs all over the farm this year, spread out across cover-cropped fields as well as fields sown to cash crops. Every time I encounter one it's sheer delight and I stop everything t0 move them out of harm's way. And I'll admit, I talk to them. I like to tell them how glad I am that they're here. They tend to burrow into the head lettuce, which is my realm on Tuesday and Friday harvest mornings, so there's been a lot of me out in the field talking to the romaine this past month. There's a slim chance that one could hide deep in a head of lettuce, get crated and trucked to the barn, run through the wash tub, packed into a CSA tote, and end up in your kitchen - in which case please treat it well or return it to us! Frogs are extremely sensitive to their environment and many species have been driven to the brink of extinction by human impact: toxic chemicals in their waterways, habitat destruction, pollution from all sides. The fact that the farm seems to be serving as a little safe haven for them makes me deeply happy.
Lettuce - Rage! (2008) warcraft league extr
A few new signature spring crops are making their way into the Harvest Basket this week: kohlrabi, bunch carrots, and broccoli/broccolini! Our field of spring Brassicas (kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, etc) has loved this cool, wet spring - hence the collard greens the size of elephant ears! We were thrilled to get our first harvest of true heading broccoli this week, which marks the beginning of our summer broccoli season. Broccoli is one of the crops that we grow successionally, meaning we plant a new bed every week for the first couple months of spring to ensure a steady supply for the first half of summer. We grow many other crops successionally, namely head lettuce (which we plant every week from late March until October), cilantro, carrots, beets, sweet corn and fennel. This is in contrast to storage crops that we plant all at once for a single mass harvest, like onions, winter squash and potatoes.
I think the overwhelming theme of this week's harvest basket is "food that stores forever." Or, almost forever. Pretty much the only things that need to be eaten this week are the radicchio and the lettuce, and even the radicchio will keep for a couple weeks in your fridge. As for the rest of it, no worries if you're not hungry! Cut the tops off your turnips and store them refrigerated in a plastic bag for weeks. Same goes for the celeriac - you might find it in the back of your fridge in February and it'll be the perfect thing for an impromptu winter soup. The green cabbage is a storage type that'll hold for a couple months in the fridge, no problemo. And the butternut and onions have a great shelf life on your counter, unrefrigerated. 2ff7e9595c