What’s in the box?

Zucchini, salad turnips, fennel, iceberg lettuce, kohlrabi, beets, green onions, broccoli (maybe).

extras – garlic scapes.

Fruit share – sweet cherries.

• It’s zucchini time! We picked the first ones last week and our customers were very excited to see them at market on Saturday. We picked again this morning – after the hot weekend, the zucchini grew large. You can expect plenty of good eating in each one!
• Salad turnips are considered an early spring vegetable but they surely took their time growing this season. Salad turnips are small, round, white turnips that resemble radishes, but without the bite! Mild in flavour, crisp, and quite tender, they are best eaten raw – simply wash, cut off the tops and enjoy! They can also be stir fried, sautéed, or steamed – both the turnips & the green tops.
• Nothing smells better than fennel bulbs when we are harvesting! They have a beautiful licorice scent – and flavour. The bulbs are delicious grated into a salad or slaw. The taste is light and refreshing. Roasting or sautéing fennel results in a milder and very delicious flavor.

• The lettuce this week is iceberg. Crisp & crunchy, delicious leaves in a small round shape – it could be my new favourite lettuce!
• Kohlrabi, beets & green onions are back again.
• We are picking broccoli this week – and hoping there will be enough to put in the box.

• Those CSA members who purchased a fruit share will enjoy sweet cherries this week. The cherries come from Amy’s cousins at Wall Farms located just a few roads east of us towards St.Catharines. Their cherry crop is very light this year (like most farmers in our area) due to cold weather during blossom time which resulted in poor pollination. This will be the only week for cherries – the next fruit is a few weeks away.

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Around the farm this week …

It was hot last week! Too hot for humans, animals and vegetables.

But what did enjoy the heat & humidity and also the frequent rains we experienced last week were the weeds. They absolutely thrived, so we have no shortage of work this week!

Most of the vegetables that were already established & growing, handled the scorching temperatures ok. We covered a few beds of lettuce with shade cloth to try and save it – which was successful. I did transplant some lettuce that was getting too big and needed to be in the ground – but it did not survive. Overall we were fortunate to not get the damaging storms that parts of the province experienced. And the rain (more than we wanted) did help our vegetables stay alive.

The cooler temperatures this week are quite welcome – today we were very comfortable weeding & working.

We have made 6 plantings of sunflowers so far. Here are the newest, the oldest and some in between. Our first harvest should happen towards the end of July.

A beautiful sunrise on our way to market on Saturday. This was followed by an intense thunderstorm while we were setting up. Fortunately the skies cleared and sales were ok.

Sage’s new favourite snack – serviceberries.