Week 3, 2017-18

A bit chilly at Steed Farm this week.  We started the week with lows in the mid-30's.  On Monday morning, as I was taking the kids to school, we looked at frosty ice on the windshield and roofs of houses. I knew that we would have some damage at the farm. You can imagine that green beans, roselle, squash, sweet potato, and eggplants don't favor this kind of weather.  They all wound up with moderate frost damage to the plants.  Not killed to the ground, but wounded.  The beans, yellow squash and roselle were the most affected.  Thankfully, I was able to close up the greenhouse to protect the tomato and pepper plants and nothing bad happened there.  So a minor set back but, God willing, things will be progressing again soon.  The other crops really responded well; cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower look better.  This weekend I hope to plant more peppers, cabbage, mustard greens, diakon, red onions, and turnips.

Frost damaged squash and sweet potato plants.

Week 2, 2017-18

Our first pick up went very well.  It is always great to catch up with our members who we haven't seen since May and greet our new members.  Jenn made zucchini muffins as a sweet add-on for everyone. 
It is always a little hard for me to shift back into harvest mode from production mode, as the work is under a time crunch.  I thank our volunteer friend Issy and the rest of the Steed family who made things much easier this time.
One thing that always happens at our first pick up is the question "What is that and what do I do with it?"  It is always fun to talk about the fresh produce we bring to the pick up tables and our favorite recipes that we use to eat them.  I never considered us to be "foodies" but since we have all this unique produce it sort of happens over time and I am now warming up to that definition.
Daikon radish is one of those vegetables we had at our first pickup. 
For all the folks who have no idea what to do with a diakon radish I have included some links with  recipes...

Here are a bunch of yummy recipes from Saveur Mag  https://www.saveur.com/article/collection/daikon-recipes

daikon fries - http://cookingontheweekends.com/2014/01/spicy-roasted-daikon-french-fry-recipe/

and these from New Hampshire NPR - http://nhpr.org/post/what-do-daikon-radishes#stream/0

We like to eat them roasted, fried, and in salads.

I hope this helps!

Week 1, 2017-18 Season

Harvest is set for this Saturday.  Looks like we will have loads of zucchini and yellow squash.  The green beans surprised with a good harvest of beautiful pods for this weekend.  Broccoli raab looks like it might have been a week early.  We will see if we can harvest enough for everyone.  Strawberries are starting to flower.  This is about a month earlier than last year.  To round out the baskets are diakon, turnips (which look excellent), roselle, patty pan squash, oregano, and garlic chives.  Things are looking good and doing well as the season starts.

We will be planting cabbage, broccoli, scallions, more bok choi, lettuce, and cauliflower grown from our own transplants for future harvests.