Pictured left to right: green bibb lettuce, mini red romaine, rainbow chard, mixed butter lettuce, beets, fennel, and more lettuce in the distance!
Share Prediction:
Mixed Lettuce Heads
Scallions
Hakurei Turnips
Arugula or Spicy Mix or Loose Lettuce
Head Tatsoi
Cucumbers
Kale or Collards or Rainbow Chard
A note on the weekly share prediction:
You may have noticed over the last three weeks that there’s often an extra item in the share that’s not listed in the weekly email! Everyone last week got an additional item of either chard, spinach, or broccolini, depending on which day you picked up. We really want to give an accurate account of what vegetables you’re going to get each week, but there are often a few crops just starting to be harvested that aren’t yet producing enough for all 250 shares, or some things slowing down, or something we’re trialing that we only grew a small amount of to see if it works well for our growing conditions. Or sometimes we just don’t know how much of one crop is ready to be harvested until we get in there Wednesday morning and start picking. A number of factors can affect what gets harvested between Tuesday afternoon when the blog is sent, and Saturday morning when we do the final picking for the week. So in short, this is a reminder that the weekly email contains a share “prediction” of what items everyone will receive. Some weeks we are able to make that 100% accurate. Other weeks we’ll switch up the categories or add in a rotation of bonus items. This week you’ll definitely see some fun extra vegetables on the bench that we hope you enjoy.
Recipe:
Scallion Pancakes
Scallions are great just diced up and thrown over tons of food as a lightly oniony topping- great on tacos, quesadillas, and pasta. But if you really want to put them on the table in a more central way try these flaky, crispy scallion pancakes with soy dipping sauce. This one right here is a farmer favorite! I love when vegetables that aren’t usually considered the star of the show get to take center stage and be eaten in a way that highlights their flavor and texture. Have fun with it!
Farm Notes:
This year we trialed living cover crop aisles in the half acre field of spring kale, collards, broccoli, kohlrabi, and cabbage. Typically we “cultivate” these crops, meaning we kill weeds and grass with mechanical methods like tractor tines and long-handled hoes. Instead of discing in the usual winterkilled cover crop back in March, we used a strip tiller to make 8 inch wide lines of tilled earth within a field of living rye and clover. Into these narrow strips we planted the young seedlings, and have worked on mowing the aisles with a riding mower, instead of cultivating with our 75 year old Case cultivating tractor. The upside of this trial is the awesome soil health benefits of maintaining living cover crops for 3 months longer than it would typically be allowed to live. Just check out that happy clover growing alongside the lacinato kale! Many pollinators got extra clover nectar this spring when this field bloomed. The downside is the rye and clover surprisingly have impeded the growth of our vegetable crops a little bit, and as such we are harvesting kale and collards about a week or two later than we’d planned. Not a devastating outcome, but we will probably try tweaking this plan for next year to hopefully perfect the bounty of spring greens.
Annapolis CSA members- meet Devon!
If you haven’t met Devon yet make sure to say hi and introduce yourself if you are an Annapolis CSA shareholder. Devon is newly hired this season, and has jumped in splendidly with her experience working at another veg farm in southern Maryland. Ask her about some of her skills, not limited to: pruning and twining delicate indoor cucumbers and tomatoes, hauling sandbags, and lots of kale weeding. She is a great asset to CBF and to the Clagett field team, and Thursday folks will be seeing her with that van of veggies. Welcome Devon!!