Our new water wheel transplanter! It’s much less finicky and more efficient than the old tobacco transplanter we’ve been using for the past three decades. Here, you can see Liana Rosenblum (volunteer) and Elissa Planz transplanting Chinese cabbage. Jared Planz is driving. Photo by Carrie Vaughn
│ Announcements │ This Week’s Share │ U-Pick │ Recipe │ Coming Soon │
Announcements:
Clagett Farm’s grassfed ground beef is for sale! $10/pound or $45 for 5 pounds. Available for pickup at the farm only. Anyone can purchase (including people who aren’t CSA shareholders).
We continue to have garlic for sale—only $8/pound for CSA shareholders! $12/pound for others. Our garlic will last an additional 3 to 5 months in the pantry.
Reminder: Please wear a mask at the CSA pickup site. Thank you!
Did you know that the Chesapeake Bay watershed has a resident species of otter? River otters live in the tidal areas near us, including the Patuxent River and the Anacostia. Check out some fun facts about these adorable neighbors here.
This Week’s Share:
Spicy mix, ready for picking. Photo by Carrie Vaughn
Ginger!
Salad greens: Tat soi, Tokyo bekana, and Spicy mix
Tender collards and kale
Tomatoes, mostly cherries
Hakurei turnips and French breakfast radishes
Eggplant
Garlic
Peppers — green bells and ripe, sweet peppers
Optional chili peppers and okra
U-Pick:
U-Pick is available all week for the crops on this list.
Tomatoes and chilies, across from the washing station, inside the fence, below the high tunnel
Ground cherries, beside the sunflowers
Basil (Genovese, Greek, Thai, Round Midnight, Lemon, and Tulsi)
Garlic chives
Lemon balm
Mint
Oregano
Parsley
Sage
Shiso
Sorrel
Thyme
Flowers (Zinnias, Gomphrena, Tithonia, and others)
Recipes and Tips:
Young Ginger!
If you haven’t used fresh, young ginger, you’re in for a treat. Here’s some tips:
It’s more tender, mild, and less fibrous than what you normally find at the store, so you can eat larger chunks and it doesn’t need peeling.
It can be easily frozen whole if you don’t plan to use it within the next few weeks. Just pull it out of the freezer, grate off the amount you need, and then return it right away to the freezer.
We’ll include a bit of stalk with the ginger, and sometimes some roots. Steep these parts in boiled water for a great ginger tea. Or add them to the water you use to cook rice or soup and then remove them before eating (similar to how you cook with lemongrass).
If you’d like to replicate the pickled ginger that typically comes with sushi, this is the type of ginger you need to use.
Add the ginger to smoothies or add slices to your sautéed vegetables (since it isn’t fibrous, it doesn’t need to be grated).
Ginger has medicinal benefits galore! Among other things, it’s anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and eases indigestion. And if you’re having nausea from motion sickness or pregnancy, ginger is very effective.
Once you’re done using your little pumpkin for decoration and you’d like to eat it, pumpkin goes deliciously with ginger, such as in this easy recipe for Pumpkin and Ginger Soup. (Save yourself the trouble of peeling and grating the ginger as instructed—just chop it up instead.)
Japanese Ginger Salad Dressing
Put the following ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Once it’s finished, taste for your preferred flavor. You might want to add even more ginger! This recipe is adapted from VeganHighProtein.com.
3-inch piece of ginger, chopped into chunks
1 shallot, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 quarter of an apple, peeled
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 Tbsp sugar or 3/4 tsp agave
1 Tbsp sesame paste (This is toasted, ground sesame seeds; tahini is a good substitute, but since it isn’t toasted, you might want to replace some of the grapeseed oil with toasted sesame oil.)
1 cup grapeseed oil (This has a neutral flavor and can be easily substituted with other oils)
Stir Fried Ginger Quinoa with Mixed Vegetables
This is a recipe highly adapted from Food and Wine. Feel free to follow my lead and adapt liberally to the vegetables you have at hand. Unless you have leftover quinoa (or rice) on hand, begin by cooking the quinoa while you prep the other ingredients.
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon oyster sauce (can substitute with hoisin)
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
3 small, ripe peppers
4 okra pods, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
a handful of greens, cut into ribbons (tat soi, collards, kale or spicy mix would all work here)
3 hakurei turnips, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 chili of your choice, minced (include seeds and ribs if you want the heat)
1 shallot or 3 scallions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-inch piece of ginger, sliced
3 cups quinoa, cooked and cooled
2 eggs, beaten (can be easily substituted with tofu; scramble it separately, as with this recipe, instead of following the instructions below)
Salt and pepper
Stir together the soy sauce, sesame oil, and oyster (or hoisin) sauce and set aside.
Heat the first tablespoon of oil in a large skillet or wok. Add the okra and peppers. Stir minimally (to keep the okra from getting gooey)—just enough to soften the vegetables on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Heat the pan again and add the greens and turnips. Push them around a minute or two until the greens have brightened up and wilted and the turnips are softened a bit. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the second tablespoon of oil to the pan and heat it up again. Add the chili, shallot (or scallions), garlic, and ginger. Stir until fragrant (about 30 seconds), then add the quinoa. Push the quinoa around until it’s hot. Then push it to the outsides of the pan, leaving an empty space in the middle.
Pour the egg into the empty space and scrape it around constantly until it’s softly scrambled.
Add everything to the pan that had been set aside (sauce, peppers, okra, turnips, and greens). Stir until everything is mixed and heated through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.
Coming Soon:
Salad greens, kale, and collards should continue for the rest of the season.
Bok choi, Chinese cabbage, and heads of tat soi will make appearances this fall. Bok choi will be first, probably weeks 21 and 22. The Chinese cabbage will be last, since we’ve only just transplanted it—probably week 26.
Butternut squash is coming soon, probably next week.
After a few weeks of these French breakfast radishes, we’ll probably start giving out Watermelon radishes, probably weeks 21 and 22. Hakurei turnips will continue for several more weeks. We expect some daikon radishes for week 26.
This might be the last week of ripe tomatoes.
Peppers, eggplant, and okra are just now showing signs that they have passed their peak growth rate. But they are still going strong and won’t end completely until we get some cold temperatures. Dare I say it, they might even survive until the end of the season.
Keep calm, garlic on.
Sweet potatoes are growing nicely. We’ll probably begin giving them out week 23.
Thank you for Supporting our Farm!
CLAGETT FARM
Wednesdays, 3:00-7:00 P.M.
Saturdays, 1:00-4:00 P.M.
DUPONT CIRCLE DC
Wednesdays, 5:00-7:00 P.M.
ANNAPOLIS
Thursdays, 4:00-6:00 P.M.