As we all emerge from our homes and activity ramps up, the same practices are still required at the farm: washing hands and wearing masks are essential ways to keep this shared space in good shape for all the families who collectively enjoy it.
Farm Happenings
A word about flowers: Though it’s wildly tempting, there’s no shareholder harvesting allowed yet, for two reasons: 1. There’s not yet enough flowers for everyone to enjoy a harvest, so we need a critical mass of blooms. 2. Patience yields bigger payoff later. For many annuals, we encourage branching of the plants via pruning the early stems, which also promotes longer stem length for future blooms. For example, the calendula have a couple short blooms on them now, bright orange and fetching, but the stems are all 3-6″. We cut all those stems at the junction below that flower, which promotes the plant to send multiple new stems from that point, resulting in a larger, bushier plant with increased flowers on longer stems. The same idea applies to zinnia, strawflower and many other favorites. We’ll make them available as soon as we can- last year that was the third week of July.
Next week we’ll harvest all 8,000+ scapes, so get ready to enjoy this short-lived, abundant June specialty! The scape is the newly emerged seed head of maturing garlic, which is removed to encourage the plant to channel all its energy into growing big, tasty bulbs (instead of seed production). We’ll bulk harvest scapes next week and every household can bring home unlimited quantities for fresh projects and preservation alike. Garlic scapes are milder than cloves,
Snapping turtles find the light soil of littleGrasse to be excellent for nests.
but can be used just like garlic in recipes. A new favorite technique last season was roasting them on the grill or in oven, but we also freeze and pickle lots of them, or puree for salad dressings and pestos.
Eggs everywhere! There’s been a show of animal activity around the garden, winged creatures and four-legged alike. We watched snapping turtles lay eggs in the asparagus AND in the parsnips, digging into the soft soil, buried so only her head was showing. We’ve marked the spots to keep our eyes peeled for activity, but we’ll need to be patient since incubation time is 75-95 days. This won’t affect our harvest, we can share the space and still enjoy our food crop- good deal!
Crops Available
This list is subject to change, check the share whiteboard at the start of every visit. Harvest quantities are based on fresh use for your household, not bulk storage/preservation quantities.
* Items new this week
first kale!
- Kale*
- Rainbow Chard*
- Fennel fronds* (a flavor blast raw in salads, a little goes a long way)
- Chamomile* (cut the flower head to use fresh or dried in teas)
- Sage*
- Head Lettuce
- Mixed lettuce greens
- Scallions
- Green garlic (entire plant is edible, sautee as you would regular garlic)
- Dill fronds
- Anise hyssop
- Spinach
- Cilantro
- Spicy mixed greens
- Rhubarb
- Oregano
- Lemon Balm
Tips for Success
- There’s no hand washing or vegetable washing in the three bay sink. That sink is reserved for washing harvest tools. The center workstation is designated for vegetable washing and the hand washing sink is stationed on the far side of the barn.
- Hello to the meat lovers: the 8 O’clock Ranch freezer is stocked in the wash stand area. It’s a self-checkout on the honor system. Each person must fill out their own invoice to the left of freezer, including writing your payment method on the invoice (Venmo, Paypal, check or exact cash).
surprise on riverside hike: rock art foot path