Bugs and Weeds

WEEK 7 OF VEGGIES & FLOWERS DURING COVID-19

This week’s offerings include:

Mixed Veggie Box

  • Salad mix

  • Confetti microgreens

  • Mint

  • Rapini OR Purple sprouting broccoli

  • Baby boy choi OR Bok choi rapini

  • Butter lettuce

  • Spinach

  • Overwintered cauliflower

Salad Box

  • 1 Salad mix

  • 1 Spinach OR Arugula

  • 1 pint Confetti microgreens

Bouquets for the Good of the Realm

  • Tulips!

  • Ranunculus

  • Anemones

  • Geum

  • The last of the honeywort

FARMER APPROVED RECIPES!

Here are some farmer-approved recipes for this week’s veggies!

Cauliflower

  • How to use cauliflower: These gorgeous heads of overwintered cauliflower were planted last August! Can you believe it? Because they grow so slowly in the coldest time of year they are incredibly sweet and tender. YUM. I almost always roast my cauliflower (cut into the size pieces you want to eat, toss with olive oil & salt, roast at 400-450* until the edges are browning), because it is just so dang good that way. Cauliflower pairs super well with cheese, mustard seeds, and warm spices like curry. Enjoy!

  • Roasted Cauliflower with Gremolata Breadcrumbs. Taking simple roasted cauliflower up a notch with herby, crispy breadcrumbs. The recipe calls for parsley, but the mint in this week’s box would work great as well!

  • Spice Merchant Cauliflower Couscous. This is a great recipe for experimenting with spices and cauliflower. If you don’t have za’atar on hand, cumin, paprika, and caraway are nice with cauliflower!

  • Cauliflower Paprikash. I haven’t made this recipe, but I LOVE paprikash and cauliflower is so tasty with warm spices… I might have to make this this week!

Spinach

  • How to use spinach: I’m sure you guys probably have to-do recipes for spinach! What I really love to use spinach as is a cooking green. This winter I’ve been blanching spinach super fast (1 minute at most), and then draining and chopping it. Then it is perfect to use in soups, stews, pastas, etc. My other go-to is throwing it in smoothies! It’s a great nutrient boost and a mild flavor that hides behind fruit very well. If you’re in a spinach rut, here are a couple of other ideas!

  • Better Than Creamed Spinach Spinach. A nice twist on a classic, with a little added acidity and some chili in the mix (I would use chili flakes since fresh hot peppers aren’t in season until high summer).

  • Spinach Soup with Toasted Chickpeas. This soup sounds so warming and nice, but also not heavy. Perfect for spring!

Bok choi

  • What to do with bok choi: Last spring turned me into a bonafide box choi lover. I almost always do the same thing with with it (recipe below), but it also makes a very excellent salad green (so crunchy!). I’m including my fave bok choi salad recipe here too.

  • Miso Butter Baby Bok Choi. This recipe is great grilled for sure, but also searing the bok choi in a cast iron skillet works perfectly.

  • Bok Choi Salad with Miso Tahini Dressing. Bok choi is a surprising salad green. SO crunchy and delicious. Give this a shot!

NOTES FROM THE FIELD

"May and June.  Soft syllables, gentle names for the two best months in the garden year: cool, misty mornings gently burned away with a warming spring sun, followed by breezy afternoons and chilly nights.  The discussion of philosophy is over; it's time for work to begin."  
-  Peter Loewer  

The farm really clicked into a new, higher gear this week. Warm weather, rain (yay!), and soooo much growth in the plants. It’s feeling more like the busy season by the moment, as the trees leaf out nearly overnight, the grass grows inches in a week, and the field planted crops are finally showing the kind of rapid growth we wait for in the spring. Our feet are tired at the end of the day, and we fall into bed to sleep the sleep of a farmer in the middle of the growing season.

Of course, as the crops kick into gear that also signals two things: the weeds are also off to the races, and the bugs return. All in one week our nemesis the flea beetle returned, and the fields were carpeted with millions of tiny, freshly germinated weeds. And now we are farming for real! Organic farming is a constant battle with both, and our tools are our hands, hoes, floating row cover, mowers, and diligence.

When it comes to bugs, our best option is prevention. All of those white floating row covers you see in our photos on Instagram are there to insulate the plants a bit, but also to cover and protect them from bugs. Our biggest challenge with bugs in spring is the flea beetle, a tiny shiny black beetle that bites cute little holes in the leaves of all of our tender brassica crops. If you got arugula in your salad box this week, or bok choi in your mixed veggie box, and see some little holes—those are the work of flea beetles. These little buddies arrive with the warmer days in spring, and while we do everything we can to prevent them damaging things, they also hatch in the soil which means that even covered beds can be affected. So, forgive us our occasional holes in leaves: just think of it as proof that we are growing using good, organic practices instead of harmful chemicals! Hopefully we can keep ahead of them in the weeks to come. *crosses fingers*

This week’s main priority was to manage weeds. We were between weekend rain storms (past and forecast) and knew that beneath all of those floating row covers out there were zillions of weeds germinating and growing so fast (faster than our crops). So methodically over the course of the week, we weeded. The paths between the onions. The dahlia patch. And then the entirety of our spring field plantings thus far. It is no small job to manage weeds using hand tools, but it is necessary to have successful crops. This spring we have been lucky with the weather and able to open (till) nearly our entire field before May. That also means that we are relatively on top of planting, which meant that cultivating the whole farm involved weeding over half of the beds on the farm. Huge props to the crew for keeping good attitudes and diligently working to ensure the crops have the best opportunity to grow this spring. Your future food is in good hands!

L to R, top to bottom: The spuds are up! // Greenhouse cucumbers getting planted out tomorrow, if all goes well! // Our overwintered fave beans are in full flower & are fully trellised for the first time EVER. I can’t wait to pick these big, beautiful beans off of nice, upright plants! // Our first carrot crop of the year germinated this week! A victory after a series of failed earlier seedings in the tunnels. Hooray!

With a thorough cultivation under our belts this week, we are looking forward to lots of planting and other tasks next week. We are grateful for the rain this weekend, after one of the driest Aprils we have had in a few years. The crops are soaking up all of this goodness and will be clicking into high gear so so soon. We can’t wait to share the bounty with all of you so soon!

Til next week.

Your farmers,

Beth, Erik, the crew & Maddie the farm dog too