CSA shareholder Sara Gillespie demonstrates a knack for arrangement of her double share. Photo by Elissa Planz.

│ Announcements │ This Week’s Share │ U-Pick │ Recipe │ Coming Soon │

We’ve been using a lot of green berry baskets to portion out your okra, onions, tomatillos, chilies, and other small items so you don’t have to do as much weighing. We’d love to keep them here on the farm so we can reuse them. If you don’t need the basket, empty the contents into your bag and leave the basket stacked with the other empty ones. Here are the health rules:
- We can reuse clean baskets that stay in our possession.
- We cannot reuse the baskets once they’ve gone home with you.
It rained! We’re delighted. Between Thursday and Sunday, we got over two inches of rain. Everyone here breathed a big sigh of relief.

This Week’s Share:

Tomatoes
Bell pepper or sweet pepper
Garlic
Red potatoes
Yellow onions
Squash
Choice of okra, chilies, or tomatillos

Our current selection of ripe tomatoes. We’re taking nominations for better names for the red slicer, BHN589, since the seed company dropped the ball. If you think of a good one with the letters B, H, and N, let us know! Photo by Carrie Vaughn.

U-Pick:

We’ve had a lot of questions about when we’ll put tomatoes on the U-Pick list. It’s tricky this year. Our main tomato field is suffering from blight, and the field of tomatoes we hoped to relegate to U-Pick is super healthy but not very ripe yet. We’re prioritizing picking plenty of tomatoes for everyone’s shares before we open up a field for shareholders to pick for themselves. So the answer is: soon, we hope, but not yet.

In our herb and flower garden behind the washing station:

Anise hyssop (licorice flavor; makes a nice tea)
Basil (Genovese, Greek, Thai, Round Midnight, Lemon, and Tulsi)
Cilantro
Garlic chives
Onion chives
Lemon balm
Mint
Oregano
Parsley
Sage
Shiso
Sorrel
Thyme
Flowers and ornamental greenery for your vase.
Blackberries (a few short rows to the right as you approach the CSA pickup)

In field G2, which is beside the parking area, next to the washing station:

Parsley
Lots of basil of various types!
Sunflowers, Zinnias, Cosmos, and Tithonia

Recipes:

Tomatillos
CSA shareholder Maureen Clapper recommends Shakshuka as a way to use your tomatillos. She enjoyed this recipe from Blue Apron. It calls for a thyme and sesame spice blend called za’atar. If you don’t have any on hand, you can make your own za’atar. Don’t let the lack of a few minor ingredients stop you from the whole recipe. Also, Maureen mentioned that the shakshuka sauce was terrific on chick peas.
Tomatoes, Potatoes, and Squash
My uncle, Rick Thomas, is a superb home cook, so this week I’ve tapped him for a recipe to accommodate the ingredients we have on hand. We first give instructions to use as a vegetable dish alone, and at the end you’ll see a note to convert this recipe to use as a pasta sauce.
- Ingredients:
  - 1 pound very ripe tomatoes. If you prefer the skins removed, drop them whole into a pot of boiling water. Once the water returns to a boil, cook for about a minute, then drain and allow to cool. When cool enough to handle, peel them and cut them into large pieces. For those of you using this recipe as a pasta sauce, you can return this water to boil and use it to cook your pasta.
  - 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  - a couple small onions, sliced (about a quarter cup)
  - 2 teaspoons garlic, roughly chopped
  - 1.5 pounds zucchini or yellow squash, sliced into half moons
  - 1 pound potatoes, washed and chopped into half-inch pieces
  - salt and black pepper
  - 1 cup fresh basil leaves
- Instructions:
  - Toss the squash in salt and allow to drain for 5 minutes in a colander or on some paper towels.
  - Choose a large sauté pan with a lid. Heat a tablespoon of oil and brown the zucchini. Remove the zucchini from the pan and set aside.
  - Add the olive oil, onions, and garlic. Turn on the heat to medium and sauté until the garlic becomes colored a pale gold.
  - Add potatoes, put the lid on the pan, and cook for a few minutes. Then remove the lid and continue cooking the potatoes until they’ve browned a bit.
  - Add the tomatoes, turn up the heat, and cook for about 5 to 6 minutes.
  - Turn down the heat to medium, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cover with the lid. Cook, stirring occasionally, until all the vegetables are tender.
  - If the vegetables are tender but the sauce is watery, remove the lid and return the heat to high. Boil away the excess liquid.
  - Return the squash to the pan and stir everything together until the squash is hot again. Taste to add more salt or pepper if needed. Remove from heat. Stir in the basil and serve.
- Notes:
  - To use this as a pasta sauce, Rick prefers using extra wide pasta ribbons.
  - Since pasta dilutes the flavor, you will find that you need a full tablespoon of garlic, plus extra salt and pepper.
  - Wait until you’ve stirred the sauce into the pasta before you add the basil.

These are definitely the end days for BHN589 (the large, red tomatoes). Blight is killing them off. Fortunately, we have other tomatoes that produce fewer pounds per plant but are surviving longer. You’ll see some new varieties ripening up in the coming weeks.

Squash will continue through mid-August. We are between cucumber successions right now, but they’ll pick back up next week.
Potatoes will continue for a few more weeks.
We probably have another week of onions.
We’re hoping peppers pick up production soon. They are a little sluggish getting started because of that dry spell.
Our first chilies are a little hotter than I was expecting. The little purple ones (buena mulata) seem to be the mildest. Many more varieties are coming soon. Poblano and shishito should be especially productive this year.
The okra plants are growing like gangbusters. Buckle up. Tomatillos are also producing surprisingly well.
We’re increasing your garlic to two heads per week, as long as we can clean it faster than you take it.
Green beans are imminent.
The eggplants are anyone’s guess. The plants look good, but the production is slow.
We’re in a head-to-head battle with groundhogs over your last succession of watermelons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash. And now the foxes have begun dragging traps away into the woods to eat the groundhogs, so my tools are disappearing. (Feel free to use David Attenborough’s voice as you narrate this story in your head.)

I leave you this week with a photo reminder that wild lotuses are in full bloom. Shellie Perry worked at Clagett Farm a few years ago and now owns Atlantic Kayak Company with her husband, Joe. You can rent a kayak from them to get this same heavenly experience that I had on Mattawoman Creek!

Week 12 of 26 : Summer Summer Summer

Announcements:

This Week’s Share:

U-Pick:

Recipes:

Coming Soon:

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