Farm News Crop Forecast
U-Pick Recipes Nuts and Bolts
Greetings!
The first strong heat wave of the year came and went early, and got the veggies off to a strong start. It sure was a big swing though — in early- to mid-May there were two weeks with 3 nights of frost per week, and those 90 ish temps a few weeks ago were a little hard to get used to! Fortunately we have enough well capacity to keep baby plants watered through that. Now these mid-high 70s is warm enough, but higher temps would be nice to give an extra boost. And nights around 60 instead of around 50, wow that 50 feels kinda chilly! The rains have been gentle, thankfully, and mostly pretty small — even though we’ve driven through some hard downpours in town! So we’ve topped off with irrigation to get the different crops (at different stages of growth) their ideal 1-2″ of water per week. And of course so many bright sunny days is hugely in our favor!
On a farm with as many different kinds of vegetables as this — we grow over 40 crops and over 225 varieties, all for you and some of them for wholesale — May and early June is the most complicated time of year. Getting small plantings planted (radishes, kale, greens), and bigger plantings too (melons, peppers, carrots, beets), and keeping track of all the different varieties, takes a lot of coordination, communication and fast hands! Our experienced crew keeps rocking on all that, including holding new details and remembering old ones. Working here is a lot easier than it was 5+ years ago — thanks to better, smarter and bigger equipment and tools, but it’s still a demanding job, physically and mentally. We have high standards, and this crew keeps meeting them day after day!
Now that our biggest planting push is over, we’re on to two other main jobs — keeping up with weeds, and getting the winter roots planted and germinated. (Yes I just said the word “winter”! It is on its way now that we’ve passed the solstice ! Ope!! ) You probably know that we grow about 100,000 lbs of carrots, most of which are stored through the winter in the barn/coolers, along with smaller amounts of beets, cabbage, radishes and a smattering of other things. Most of those carrots will get planted this week, and watered a little bit daily until they germinate. Before they pop, if the timing works out, we’ll also run over them with an 8 ft propane flame weeder, to kill any weeds that germinate before the carrots do. Then in a couple weeks we’ll plant the fall beets and cabbage, and then the radishes.
Keeping up with weeds is of course a many hours job. We have a fleet of 5 small cultivating tractors, 11-37 horsepower, with specialized shanks for uprooting and/or burying small weeds in and around small crops. We make a couple passes with those before then hoeing and/or hand weeding the remaining weeds, followed sometimes by 1-2 more tractor passes, depending on the crop. The tractors hopefully get 95% or more of the weeds, but if left untouched that last 5 % can still swallow a crop, reduce airflow and increase fungal and bacterial pressure, and/or make it hard to find the veggies when you’re harvesting (or poke you in the face). And “1 year of seeding is 7 years of weeding”, as the old saying goes, so we all work hard to not have weeds going to seed in the field. That last 5% gets weeded by hand and consumes many hours each week!
So we’ll keep planting, watering and weeding, just like many before us and after us, and we’ll harvest as much food for you along the way as we can! Thanks for joining us!
Crop Forecast
These couple weeks can feel a little repetitive and are a transition from spring to summer crops, so we will have some new things but likely will need to have limits on the summer crops as they gain momentum. We’ll stick with the “numbers/counting” system for this week and maybe next week, then switch to volume by bag size.
This week — We’ll pick some carrots, red beets and summer squash, and hopefully some broccoli. They’re just trickling in but by next week there should be enough of those for everyone. We also have cabbage and chard. And continuing with Leaf and head lettuce, salad greens, scallions, radishes, salad turnips, boc choi, kohlrabi, and kale. For head lettuce we’ll have fewer varieties — since the butter heads and romaines don’t do as well in warm weather we switch the later plantings to more heat resistant types. We should have plenty of heads for this week and next.
Spinach still! We’ll also have some spinach still — it’s long gone by in the field, but we harvested a little more than we needed for the last 2 weeks, and it’s been storing well in the cooler. Our cooler is special in a couple ways compared to a home fridge — colder, moister and better circulation — so once you get it home this week you should eat it within a few days. Even in our cooler it’s barely hanging on, so you may have to sort a few leaves out too.
Next week we should have more summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers, and hopefully plenty of carrots and beets.
Looks like we’ll have scapes for a few more weeks — make garlic scape pesto! See the recipe below. It’s like pesto but with a mild garlic bite, a real treat for this time of year. Garlic scapes are the flower stalk of the garlic plant, and can be used the same as the main stalk, sauteed on their own or with eggs or any other protein, or raw on a salad. They have strong garlic flavor when raw (which hides in a salad) but are very mild when cooked. Nibble on the end for some excitement in your mouth. We also enjoy adding them to egg salad, tahini salad dressing, and stir fries of course.
The first tomatoes should be in mid-July — the earliest plants have fruit on them that are about half-size, and all the plantings of tomatoes look good.
What’s for U-Pick?
Peas should start this week! They still need to plump up, but could be open as soon as Tuesday’s pickup. They’ll have a flag and they’re staked with fence posts, west of the barn, down the hill. Please move the flag to the south end of the area you pick. They’ll trickle in , so we’ll probably have a small limit this week and it’ll probably be a quart or 2 (per full share) next week. Pea season is 2-3 weeks depending on temps. They love these cooler temps, and will be short-lived if we get into the 90s again. More low-to-mid-80s would be great all around!
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 or break the vine.
The Strawberries! The south planting, in front of the cars, was wild 2 weekends ago. It was some of the most loaded plants we’d ever seen — and we had more weekend turnout than we’ve ever seen. We’ve had berries go by before so we were so glad people came to pick these out! And we were surprised they were picked out by Saturday. Our apologies to folks who had plans and or didn’t make it out that weekend. It’s a tough one to manage; when they peak they peak. We have tried other varieties to spread out the harvest but these two have always been the best yielders and the best flavor for us.
The north planting was great last year but struggled in the shade and with the thistle pressure for this year. There are still more small berries coming, mostly smaller ones, and they’re easiest to pick in the south planting. We have the limit at 2 quarts per full share, like in the email from the weekend. Then next week we’ll probably keep them open for a final gleaning.
Please check the Upick board before you pick , so you know which planting is open and what the limit is.
Beans may start to trickle in next week, probably in two weeks. They’re south of the southern strawberries. Once they come in we’ll have lots.
Cilantro – we have lots!
Dill is looking nice and ready!
Basil will probably be open next week with a small limit. The best way to pick basil is to pinch the tops off, at a leaf joint which has new leaves waiting to grow out. That was the plants grow more growing tips or tops which can be pinched. Ask Erin or Alex if you’re unsure about this, we’re happy to show or explain.
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
OHF T-Shirts for Sale in the Barn! $15 each. We re-ordered the more popular designs and sizes, and added in xtra-small adult and kid’s sizes! Printed by Larson’s Printing downtown.
OHF History in last year’s newsletters : On our “Newsletters” page, linked here, scroll down a little to get to the ones from June 10, 24 and July 8, 2025. The history is written in 3 parts, in the upper “Greetings!” section of those newsletters. It’s a fun read – and has great pics – if you’re curious!
Bulk Produce for You
Check here each newsletter for what we have available for extra purchase.
You might know that while a lot of the produce we grow goes to you, some of what we grow is sold to wholesale accounts. Once we get going later in August , we deliver 2-3 times a week to Just Food Co-op, St. Olaf College, Carleton College; plus Minneapolis Public Schools, and distributors who sell to schools, restaurants and stores, and a couple food hubs/aggregators. Mostly for peppers, plus cabbage, carrots beets and other roots all winter. We don’t do it much in the summer — we’re plenty busy with harvesting your shares and tending summer and fall crops — but really get rocking with bigger harvests in August.
We like to offer you the same produce beyond what you get in your share, at or just above our wholesale prices, to use for parties, special events, serving guests, or just filling your family’s bellies each week.
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.
This week’s bulk selection is : Lettuce Mix for $6 / lb. Kale for $3 / lb. More next time!
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, Alex, Camille, River, Soli, Elliott, Sahara, Sai Dang and crew
RECIPES
Roasted Kohlrabi
4 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat an oven to 450 degrees F.
Cut the kohlrabi into 1/4 inch thick slices, then cut each of the slices in half.
Combine olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a large bowl.
Toss kohlrabi slices in the olive oil mixture to coat.
Spread kohlrabi in a single layer on a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven until browned, 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally in order to brown evenly.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Return to the oven to allow the Parmesan cheese to brown, about 5 minutes.
Serve immediately.
Scallion Drop Biscuits
2 cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
½ cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut in pieces
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup sliced scallion
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.
Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add buttermilk and scallions, and stir just until mixture forms a dough.
Drop by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden.
Makes 24.
Open Hands Farm 