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June 26th, 2023 Newsletter
Box Contents
1 bu Carrots
1 lb Summer Squash
1 bu Basil
1/2 lb Green Beans
1 hd Green Cabbage
3 pcs Slicing Cucumber
1 lb Scarlet Queen Turnips
1 lb Broccoli
Fourth of July Planning - The Fourth falls on next Tuesday. As with most holidays, it's pretty impossible to shut the farm down even for a day. We plan to deliver to all our regular residential drops on Tuesday but will bump the Tuesday drop at the Richmond Field Station to Wednesday and the Fatted Calf drop in Napa to Thursday. Please look ahead to next week and let us know via our website or email if you need to skip next week or add on some extra goodies for a little extra fun! All other days next week will roll out as usual.
While Summer has officially arrived we are still very much waiting for crazy Summer harvest to kick in, as are many of you! We have a smattering of cherry tomatoes as of last week and hope to have enough for your boxes by next week! Early Girls are still two to three weeks out and I don't foresee the Heirloom Tomatoes coming on strong before mid-July. We desperately needed the cool and wet rainy season, not it is time to pay the piper. We will have sweet corn at market by Saturday and will have it in your boxes next week. The only reason we will have Sweet Corn early and have Cucumbers and Squash now is that we started them in the greenhouse and transplanted them between Spring rains. The soil was too cool to germinate these crops from direct seeding. The Green Beans did germinate in the cool and are blessing us with their delicious Summer bounty as of today! This week's broccoli will probably be the last of it as we are forecast to be around 105F through the holiday weekend. See what really comes, a little serious heat might really kick summer harvest into gear. It will certainly end our Kale season.
There's still time to order ham and sausage for 4th of July and beyond - order now to have it on hand!
With the weather so deliciously cool we have been working a lot of overtime to take advantage of the great working conditions and stay abreast of all of the tomato trellising and hoeing. Days over 100F will bring that to an end. Supervisors, Irrigators and Tractor Drivers start at 05:30 with field workers and the packers starting at 06:00 so it's not very practical for us to start any earlier; high heat just means shorter days.
This week we are transplanting more leeks and chicories for Winter harvest as well as seeding lots more fall veg in the shade houses. We are direct seeding more carrots, summer squash and cukes as well. -Riverdog Tim
Carrots – Our Summer Carrot program is straight up orange Nantes types. The full color spectrum is going in the ground now for Fall harvest. We plant carrots almost every month of the year.
Summer Squash – We grow 12 different varieties of summer squash at Riverdog. Some of these varieties include: good ol' green zucchini, gold zuke, various colors of patty pan, and crookneck. Hopefully every week you get a variety of something you've never seen before and an old favorite. You can saute it in your favorite oil, steam it, bake it into bread, or hoard it to make a giant ratatouille. Best stored in any bag to help keep its turgor pressure so it holds it shape.
Basil – Basil stores best in a vase of water on a shaded spot on your countertop. Just like you would for flowers, trim the stems before putting into the water anything colder than 50F is too cold. Add it to salads to taste as well as your more traditional uses.
Green Beans – Raw, sauteed, steamed or baked these are an amazing treat. Along with Peas they are the most labor intensive veg we harvest. Eat them soon, there are more coming! Store them in the crisper, in a bag, but don't store them too long.
Green Cabbage – The humble green cabbage is so sweet and crunchy. Our toddlers love it best sliced thinly with a simple vinaigrette. Of course one can stuff, bake, soup or ferment it too! Have fun and enjoy it, we hope to have several more rounds before August.
Slicing Cucumber – We grow five different styles of cucumbers. The simple green slicer is the most prolific, if not the most exciting of these cucumbers. It is delicious and quenching and is one of our most resilient cucumbers. We rely on it to stand up against disease and pest pressure. I happily eat the skin, but my toddler daughter's absolutely refuse. You can also use slicing cucumbers in soups, smoothies, and dips, or a cold cucumber soup. My mom loved cold cucumber soups- it's also an easy way to get rid of a lot of cucumbers if you're not getting through them.
Scarlet Queen Turnip -- These are loose as the greens are feeling the effects of our warmish days. Bunched Scarlet Queens will return in the Fall. These are delicious raw, pickled, steamed and roasted. In warmer weather they have a little more kick than the Tokyo Turnips but they are still delightfully mild. Store the loose roots uncovered in the crisper unless you will hold onto them for more than a week.
Broccoli – Late June Broccoli is a bit of a miracle even if the bead color is not deep green. Even with the milder weather we've had, the June sun is intense. The whole plant is good food - eat the leaves, leaf stems, main stalk and the floret. My favorite prep is to slice the heads top to bottom, creating Quarter to eighth sections of broccoli, stems and leaves attached. Sautee these slices in a hot skillet with some garlic or onion, just until the leaves and exposed stalk browns a bit. The outside caramelizes just a bit and the core is still crunchy if you nail it right.