Farm News Crop Forecast
U-Pick Recipes Nuts and Bolts
Greetings!
Woooeeee! Thank goodness for a dry sunny week ahead!!
Hopefully your basements are dry enough and nothing has gotten moldy or floated away. What a ride this has been. On this farm it’s been 6 weeks of rain every few days, 15″ from May 22- June 22 and now 4″ in the last 2 weeks. We read that parts of Rice County got 30″ in that 6 weeks. Wow!
Fortunately nothing has floated away here. A few squash plants in the lowest spot on the farm, down by highway 3, sat in water for a few hours at a time, too many times, but are still alive. As for mold – in the veggie case it’s fungi and bacteria that we look out for the most, and a few are starting to damage crops. You may have heard us say, those 15″ were mostly gentle. But a couple thunderstorms pounded us pretty hard the last week of June, and a week later we saw the first sick plantings.
The basil is the worst of those. You may have seen it, or had some leaves melt at home. It’s basil downy mildew, a fungus that got established and spread in many states in the wet years of the mid-2010s. Seed breeders worked very hard and quickly to breed varieties with some resistance to the fungus, but it’s hard to resist fungus with that many wet days and nights. Luckily the dry warm weekend has helped some of the basil plants grow out of the disease but it might be temporary depending on the weather in future days and weeks.
So for basil — we might have some, sooner or later, but if you can we recommend planting some in a pot at home or buying a plant or two. It’ll take a lot of sun for ours to do well now, but at home it’s isolated and tends to avoid this rot. The infected leaves have a bronzy sheen and spots — they work fine in recipes if used the same day as picking but quickly deteriorate after that.
The next few weeks will be, like the weather has been, a slow transition from spring to summer. Recent years have had so much more heat and sun by now to bring us a few tomatoes and peppers in July, and lots of sweet oniongs, but we’re unlikely to get that this year. Some crops are showing some signs of infection, but nothing that has affected yields yet. They mostly need sun and warmth, so this forecast is great!
Last year we needed more rain, this year we need more sun! The temps and sunshine of the next few weeks will determine the size and quality of the major harvest season. For now, we eat what the weather and fields give us, and watch everything take off in this warm sunshine.
On a brighter note — lightning bugs!!! There are lots in town, and lots on the farm. And you might find some in your greens and lettuce — if so set it outside and enjoy the evening magic! They’re so pretty but their larva are voracious predators — little dragons, like ladybug larva. They eat slugs, snails and cutworms, by paralyzing them with a neurotoxin, then injecting a digestive enzyme. Once the prey is liquified they chow down. Such a showy, gorgeous insect, and it does us all a great service!
Crop Forecast
It may sound odd, but the sweet onion is one of our favorite July crops for sprucing up meals, from sandwiches and eggs to soups and anything complex. But they are half the size they usually are, looking good but as far as we can tell, they just need some more sun and warmth. We may have a few ones next week, but they probably need two more weeks til we can pick a lot. Our current prediction for first tomatoes in the share — July 29.
So for the next couple weeks — Beets, carrots, summer squash and zukes, broccoli, cabbage, salad turnips, boc choi, kohlrabi, kale and chard. Salad Greens and leaf lettuce look great. And cucumbers will start trickling in this week! Hopefully we’ll have less limits of carrots and squash, as they grow bigger. We’ll have a few scallions and radishes, but the radishes were stunted by nearby walnuts (even we have that problem! so we’ve begun taking them down on field edges) and somehow we ended up with fewer scallions than most years.
Head lettuce is done for the season. We have another small final amount of scapes for this week.
What’s for U-Pick?
It’s Pea and Bean Time!
Peas – They’ll have a flag and they’re staked with fence posts, in front of your cars. Peas season is 2-3 weeks depending on temps (including last week)- and also on plant health. There is a disease taking some plants, and if that keeps spreading quickly it could end pea harvest before next week. They haved love these cooler temps, but the sunshine might be too late to help them stay healthy for a full harvest.
Pick peas with two hands – hold the plant with one hand and pull off the pea with the other. Or get fancy one-handed and hold the stem between two fingers while your thumb pops the pea off. The key is don’t yank on the vine.
Beans are here, and should be abundant all summer. Hopefully we can go unlimited this week or next. They outgrew a beetle attack in early June, which is always great to see. If you keep the biggest and plumpest picked, the plants will keep producing new flowers and fruit. We plant mostly green beans, but the white signs mark where there are also yellow peans, purple beans, purple spotted beans, and later, edamame.
And Oh Strawberries… had a great few days, but not the few weeks of most years. We’re sorry if you didn’t get much good picking, and thanks for understanding. Kudos to the patient pickers who’ve scrounged through the squishy ones last week and before. We’ll mow them down this week, weed and fertilize them this summer and fall, and hope for sunnier skies next June.
Cilantro — new planting is ready!
Dill is plentiful.
Basil will be open this week, check the board for limits. Maybe a handful, but we’ll see. Remember if it has a bronze sheen it needs to be used the same day as picking.
This spot in the newsletter will keep you informed, and always check the U-pick board when you’re here to see what’s available and picking amounts.
Nuts and Bolts
From our neighbors at Little Hill Berry Farm:
We are excited to share that for the first time we are offering a blueberry share for the last three weeks of July! You’ll get a 2 pound container for the next 3 weeks on your chosen pick up day at a 20% discount off our regular price per container. Pickup days are Tuesday or Thursday from 3:00 to 6:00pm at Little Hill Berry Farm, which are our normal farm store hours. No more watching for our email to place an order for the week or missing out because we sell out. Simple and stress free. You can click here to sign up and find out more details.
From LuAnn in the Medicinal Herbs Garden:
Meeting so many new CSA members as well as returning friends visiting the medicinal herbs garden has been a delight for me these past weeks. If you spend any length of time with me, you will hopefully feel my enthusiasm for our healing plants, growing all around us! Want to learn more? HerbFest ’24 is happening on Sunday, July 14, at Keepsake Cidery, at 4609 135th St E, Dundas, MN, between Northfield and Faribault. I help to find the presenters and vendors for the event and am quite excited about our line-up this year. Click here for details on the classes and vendors and join me at Keepsake Cidery next Sunday! Rain or shine, it’s sure to be a good time for all ages and experience levels.
Bulk Produce for You
Check here each newsletter for what we have available for extra purchase.
To place a bulk order, simply email us at least 2 days ahead of the day you’d like to pick it up. Orders can be picked up at the farm during our regular pickup hours, but it doesn’t have to be your share pickup day. Usually we can make an order on the spot, too.
An email for TOMATO BOX PREORDER will come out soon.
This week’s selection is : Lettuce Mix for $6 / lb, Cabbage for $2/head, Kale and Chard for $3/ lb, Beets with tops $2/lb.
Share Pickup Hours TUESDAY and THURSDAY 1:30-6:30 pm.
Change Pick-Up Day Form — Click here. Please fill out this form instead of emailing us. Thanks!
Where is the farm? 4151 320th Street West, Northfield.
Please Drive Carefully —Children are everywhere.
If You Send Someone Else to Pick Up Your Share — Please forward them the basic pickup video in this link , which was also sent in an email earlier in June. Then just tell them to introduce themselves to us in the barn, just so we know and we can show them around.
We love having all of you come to the farm! Thank you for making it such a great place to be!
Your farmers,
Erin and Ben, with Allia, Alexandra, Elliott, River, Seneca, Grace, Sai Dang and Crew
RECIPES
Gorgeous Beet and Apple Salad
4 to 5 medium-sized beets, cooked , cut into large cubes
1 large Granny smith apple, unpeeled, cut into large cubes
¼ cup slivered red onion
1 Tbsp Canola oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp Dijon Mustard
1 Tbsp minced shallots
¼ tsp sugar or honey
Toss beets, apples, and red onions together in a medium-sized bowl.
Mix remaining ingredients to create the dressing.
Pour over vegetables and toss to mix well. Chill.
Serves 4.
Cabbage Slaw with Miso-Honey Vinaigrette
Salad:
¼ purple cabbage
¼ green cabbage
1 medium carrot, peeled
1-2 small daikon radish, peeled
4 green onions
Dressing:
1 tablespoon white miso paste
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sweet mirin vinegar
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
1 lime, juiced
Cut peeled carrot and daikon into 3- to 4-inch matchsticks pieces, set aside.
Remove outer layer of green onions, discard.
Cut off the darkest green at the top of the onion (just about 1”) and the root, and discard both.
Cut into 3- to 4-inch strips.
Cut cabbage into thin strips, keeping purple and green cabbage separate.
Toast sesame seeds in a small pan on the stovetop until they start to brown if using white sesame, or for about 2 minutes if using black.
Remove from the pan and reserve in a small bowl.
Combine all dressing ingredients in a mixing bowl, grating the ginger with a micro-grater and mincing the garlic with a knife.
Mix well to completely dissolve the miso, making sure there are no small chunks remaining.
Add sesame seeds, reserving a small amount for garnish.
Dress purple cabbage lightly and put in one half of your serving bowl.
Do the same with green cabbage and add to other half of the bowl.
Dress carrots, daikon and green onion and arrange on top of the cabbage.
Top with slices of avocado and sprinkle with extra sesame seeds and a handful of cilantro leaves.
Open Hands Farm 