Our favorite buttery little Japanese salad turnips are back! These are a delight, sliced raw and thrown in a salad or roasted in the oven to fall apart perfection. You should definitely cook up the tender turnip greens too. They are relatively mild with not too much of a turnipy kick, and make a solid side dish, soup, or frittata enhancement.
This Week’s Share:
Ginger
Cucumbers
Spicy Mix or Lettuce or Tokyo Bekana
French Radishes or Hakurei
Sweet Peppers
Tomatoes
Onions
Choice options may include: Chili Peppers or Shishitos or Okra or Poblanos
Recipe:
Tokyo Bekana Kimchi
This week the Tokyo Bekana is coming to you as beautiful young heads, with the crunchy white stem intact instead of harvested as loose leaves. When you plant a ton and some of it grows really large you just have to pivot to eating it this way! Tokyo Bekana is called an “open-headed cabbage” by our seed supplier, and you can think of it as kind of like a bok choi, cabbage, and lettuce mix. If you aren’t down to try making kimchi this week, just stir-fry it with your ginger and onions and it will be delicious over rice.
What’s on U-Pick?
NEW on U-pick: green beans!
Second field on the left side of the road when entering from the main gate. Look for the blue arrow signs indicating the bean patch. Cars with low clearance should use caution when parking on the shoulder of the road as the ground has a slight dip in it.
Though there are many beans still in the field to pick, they are beginning to get large and therefore will be a little tougher than a baby green bean. We recommend blanching or steaming these before sautéing in order to soften the pod. For the best texture for eating them raw, pick the smallest beans you can find, when the pod is smooth with no bumps.
In field “F”, through the gate, below the primary parking lot:
New zinnias are blooming all the way down past the tall sunflowers!
Sunflowers have mostly dropped their petals now but can still be harvested for sunflower seeds, for birds or for yourself to eat! Look for a drooping head that is yellow or brown, not green, and has hard dark seeds. If they’re still green for now keep waiting for them to mature on the stalk and look again next week.
Cherry and plum tomatoes and tomatillos are still available but winding down!
In field “G” behind the pizza oven/parking lot:
New plantings of Italian basil, Holy basil (for tea), and dill! Signs are marking the new beds. Parsley and some cilantro are also now available.
Hot peppers are now on u-pick! All colors and varieties are available.
Lots of zinnias and gomphrena still for your bouquets!
In the raised brick beds, also known as the Cleeland Garden:
These are still going strong so help yourself to a few stems of herbs and flowers:
Marigolds
Mint
Oregano
Parsley
Greek Basil
Sorrel
Thyme, Sage, and Lemon Balm (to allow for healthy growback for these plants, pick the largest leaves from the outside, do not cut from the stem of the plant!)
In field “D7” directly beside the high tunnels:
Still some large tomatoes here but not too many left!
Reminder that U-picking hours are Monday-Saturday, 8am-6pm. Please do not come to the farm on Sundays, as we do not have staff on site who can be available in case of an emergency. If the main gates are closed when you arrive you can follow the paved road to the right, and then follow the curve of the road back to the left. This will take you in a loop around the main deer-fenced area and up to the wash station/parking lot.
Notes from the Field:
Fall field work is progressing wonderfully, and the crew is rolling through a million jobs to make it all come together. A few highlights in no particular order: Kayla got trained on the old cultivating tractor and has now fertilized and scraped countless weeds away from the fall and winter cabbages and kale. Devon successfully reseeded perfect lines of fall spinach which we hope will grow big in October. Matt is back to college now, but still supported the full-time staff in taking Labor Day off by being here on a Saturday chipping away at farm chores alone. Amara has had a hand in planting just about everything this summer, and got hundreds of little baby beets in the ground last week. Lilly has mowed every inch of the farm and is single-handedly the reason all our deer fences are visible and standing. Alex is investing in our future riches (soil richness) by bringing together cow manure and vegetable scraps to turn a perfect batch of compost for 2027. Elizabeth is only becoming more of a Kubota wizard every moment, flawlessly moving between the finicky potato digger and direct seeder like it’s nothing. Willy is leading an awesome group of weekly volunteers in the tree nursery prepping all those native trees for fall planting events AND still having spare energy to make the world’s best tomato confit. Thomas is busy raising the most beautiful newborn baby ever seen and yet still writes helpful and engaging documents on regenerative agriculture topics. And Olivia is pretty excited to see little carrot heads poking through the soil starting to grow big and strong for fall meals. That’s the report for now! Thank you to all our customers for being part of this farm community and sourcing your veg from us.