Week 7

Week 7-- oh my goodness over 25% of the growing season is over.  I know we say 20 weeks of veggies and eggs, but with our temperatures it may be more like 24 weeks.  We'll play out the last weeks and see what we've got!

I didn't get a video of the beans-- but the beans are growing.  There will be 2 varieties of beans you'll get tomorrow.  Yellow wax beans and Royal burgundy beans.  The burgundy beans will turn green when you cook them.  Thanks to CSA members for agreeing to come pick up on Thursday rather than Tuesday.  The beans just needed 2 more days to be perfect for the first picking and by next week they'd be too big.  I am a fan of having you try the vegetables at all the stages of life.  This is why you got baby zucchini one week and this week you'll get bigger zucchini.  You got green tomatoes last week and you might get green tomatoes again next week as they are still not RED!!!  ugh-- but the good news is that there are A LOT of green tomatoes.  So the beans you must also try when they are small and thin.  

I keep missing harvesting day and pickup day due to work travel-- so Mike is left with all the work of picking the beans.  We could wait for the beans to get bigger as then you don't have to pick as many to give to folks as they have more weight.  But then that's the point of a CSA.  You'd never get these succulent beans in a grocery store because it is a lot of work to pick them so small.  But for 1 week, you get them nice and small and then they'll be growing so fast that we'll have a hard time keeping them picked.  So enjoy the various stages of the veggies- it's a wonderful food experience in my opinion.

This week we hung shallots and the first batch of onions to dry.  The garlic has been drying for almost 3 weeks so time to cut off tops and trim off roots.  

This week's variety of garlic is Russian Red Garlic from Johnny's- I bought the organic bulbs.  If you happen to look at the link and see the price per head of garlic and choke when you see it costs $5 per bulb for planting stock, then you'll be in the club with Mike.  I think he nearly fell over last October when he saw the bill for the garlic he planted.  However once you taste the different varieties of garlic, you get hooked.  And this year I'll save 5 lbs for seed stock for next year- so that's like saving $100!!!  And that's just 1 variety.  In that yellow basket is 11 lbs of garlic.

Below are the shallots and onions ready to be hung up to dry and the garlic ready to come down and be cleaned up.  So now I'm also addicted to garlic, shallots and onions in the same way I am with tomatoes.  Do you know how many varieties of garlic, shallots and onions there are?  Oh so many, so many....

I think we may just turn into a salsa CSA---  We've made salsa 2 times in the past week but still with store bought tomatoes.  But soon you'll have tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalepenos, cilantro and other peppers to make fresh salsa.  All you need from the store is a lime.

For dinner on Monday night we cooked pork chops and then had salsa and chips as our side dish.  Then the leftover salsa was put on the top of scrambled eggs at breakfast with chips.  Yum!

Don't forget that the herb garden next to the CSA pickup is pick your own.  Lots of herbs and I think they are pretty well labeled.  Parsley, sage, thyme, basil, dill, oregano, tarragon, etc

And more dill, cilantro and basil is across the road so please help yourself.  As it is picked, I just sprinkle more seeds into that space.

We are ready for meat sales.  Chicken processing is this week for the Red Rangers.  They look fabulous.  Mike is also taking orders for pork.  It's not pastured pork this time,  just plain old pork as the pigs lived and ran around inside the barn most of their lives.  The next batch we'll put on pasture as we've now learned enough about what they need.

Lambs and ewes were separated this week.  Below is a clip of the pasture at night and the sound of the babies calling for mama.  It can sound sad but keep in mind that some of these babies are almost 80-90 lbs and almost as big as their mothers.  The mothers need a break before the ram comes in October.  Most of these lambs will also be available for meat sales soon.  

Beef is available in October/November but Mike needs to ultrasound for ribeye marbling.  I had no idea that's how you checked to see if a grass fed cow was 'ready' to be good to eat.  Now I know.  

I love our hens and they love me (or so I think).  These ladies were far away from their house.  I thought they just wanted to come see me as they do on occasion but I wasn't 'listening' to them properly.  They were coming up to me to say, "Hey lady-- there is a problem with our water supply-- could you please come fix the hose?"  I figured that out an hour later when I went to gather eggs.  I have to remember that the animals do talk to you and to listen to them.   (and to think I still haven't turned vegetarian--)