In this week’s box:
Bean Mix: Carson (yellow) & Empress (green)
Baby Beets: Ace (red), Chioggia (striped) and/or Golden
Cabbage: Golden Acre (round) or Jersey Wakefield (cone)
Choi: VividGreen-top Shallots: Ambition (tan) and/or Prisma (purple)Head Lettuce: assorted varietiesSummer Squash: 8 Ball (round, green), Golden Glory (yellow zucchini), Patty Pan (green or yellow, round scallop), Safari (dk green zucchini with light stripes), Slik Pik (lt. yellow, long), Zephyr (yellow & light green) and perhaps one of the following:Broccoli: Gypsy (main head or side shoots)Cauliflower: Song or Snow CrownCucumbers: Marketmore (traditional English) or Suyo Long (long, Asian-type)Eggplant: Orient Express (thin, dark purple, Asian-style) or Orient Charm (thin, neon purple, Asian-style)Jubilee Cherry Tomato MixSnap PeasSnow Peas
For those with the Herb option: Sweet basil, mountain mint, anise hyssop
Choi: Vivid
Green-top Shallots: Ambition (tan) and/or Prisma (purple)
Head Lettuce: assorted varieties
Summer Squash: 8 Ball (round, green), Golden Glory (yellow zucchini), Patty Pan (green or yellow, round scallop), Safari (dk green zucchini with light stripes), Slik Pik (lt. yellow, long), Zephyr (yellow & light green)
and perhaps one of the following:
Broccoli: Gypsy (main head or side shoots)
Cauliflower: Song or Snow Crown
Cucumbers: Marketmore (traditional English) or Suyo Long (long, Asian-type)
Eggplant: Orient Express (thin, dark purple, Asian-style) or Orient Charm (thin, neon purple, Asian-style)
Jubilee Cherry Tomato Mix
Snap Peas
Snow Peas
For those with the Herb option: Sweet basil, mountain mint, anise hyssop
What’s up on the farm?
Precipitation in the past week: 0.42"
Everyone on the farm sure enjoyed the cooler than normal temperatures last week, people, animals and crops alike! It looks like that luxury is done for now as is the rain. We took advantage of the conditions and spent the week trellising, harvesting , weeding, clearing spent crops, preparing beds and planting. It's hard to believe it's that time already, but we sowed fall carrots, beets, radishes, and turnips in the fields and sowed transplants for fall lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and napa.
We were so lucky to have extra hands on the farm this week. We were thrilled that our friend Donna from our Houston days spent most of the week on the farm helping out in a myriad of ways. We weren't so happy when at the end of the week she went back home, taking our crew member Alyssa (her daughter) with her. It was great having Alyssa on farm with us for 6 weeks and we wish her well as she returns to her college studies. Her great attitude and cheerful smile will be sadly missed.
And now it's time to start talking about the most important subject, TOMATOES! We are at the cusp of the season so it's time for the official introductions, just to whet your appetite. Tomatoes are on the "perhaps list" so not everyone will see them this week, but we promise they are coming soon! 
The smaller varieties tend to ripen first so we'll start with those. As you can see, we raise a variety of colors of tomatoes, so color isn't your best indication of ripeness, touch is. A ripe tomato should yield to a gentle squeeze of your fingertips. If it feels hard, it's probably not quite ripe. Just leave it out on your counter for a day or 2 and try again. Here are the tomatoes that go into our "Jubilee Cherry Tomato Mix" also referred to as snacking tomatoes:
Black Cherry: Beautiful black cherry tomato with rich flavor.Blondkopfchen: Small yellow 1” cherry tomato with excellent sweet taste.Blush: yellow fruit with orange blush when fully ripe. Very low acid, meaty, and super sweet.Glitter: sweet, brilliant orange mini-romaGolden Rave: Small 1–2 oz yellow, plum shaped tomatoes with good tomato flavor. Honeydrop: sweet, fruity, yellow bite-sized tomatoesJuliet: Small 1 – 2 oz red mini-roma, perfect flavor and shape for slicing onto pizza or salad.
And lastly, talking with a CSA member about recipes this past Tuesday, I realized that I have a big Pinterest board full of CSA recipes. I add to it fairly regularly, but then I forget about them when I'm researching for the weekly newsletter. So I decided to just post the link and let you all peruse your way through them at leisure. Not sure if you have to have a Pinterest account to see them or not, but I figured some of you might enjoy it, so here you go!Pinterest Recipes: https://www.pinterest.com/jillbee/csa-recipes/
Snapshots of the past week:
Fun Farm Facts: Blue Gate Farm was established in 2005 but the ground we are on has been farmed by the Beebout family for 3 generations. It was originally homesteaded by Hiram Moon in 1864. We are related to the Moon family by marriage.
Crew Corner: LuciThis week we are moving on to the four-legged crew members. Luci is a Jack Russell Terrier and at 12 years old is the grand dame of our pack. She loves all things on the farm, except Sky (dog #3) who is an ever-present, pesky little sister. Her favorite activities are supervising harvests, riding in the Ranger, pest patrol and when the crew clocks out for the day (the time sheets are kept within reach of the treat bucket, and Luci is VERY convincing). Her least favorite things are thunderstorms and fireworks.
A little detail on your produce this week:
Precipitation in the past week: 0.42"
Everyone on the farm sure enjoyed the cooler than normal temperatures last week, people, animals and crops alike! It looks like that luxury is done for now as is the rain. We took advantage of the conditions and spent the week trellising, harvesting , weeding, clearing spent crops, preparing beds and planting. It's hard to believe it's that time already, but we sowed fall carrots, beets, radishes, and turnips in the fields and sowed transplants for fall lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and napa.
We were so lucky to have extra hands on the farm this week. We were thrilled that our friend Donna from our Houston days spent most of the week on the farm helping out in a myriad of ways. We weren't so happy when at the end of the week she went back home, taking our crew member Alyssa (her daughter) with her. It was great having Alyssa on farm with us for 6 weeks and we wish her well as she returns to her college studies. Her great attitude and cheerful smile will be sadly missed.And now it's time to start talking about the most important subject, TOMATOES! We are at the cusp of the season so it's time for the official introductions, just to whet your appetite. Tomatoes are on the "perhaps list" so not everyone will see them this week, but we promise they are coming soon!
Here are the tomatoes that go into our "Jubilee Cherry Tomato Mix" also referred to as snacking tomatoes:
Black Cherry: Beautiful black cherry tomato with rich flavor.
Blondkopfchen: Small yellow 1” cherry tomato with excellent sweet taste.
Blush: yellow fruit with orange blush when fully ripe. Very low acid, meaty, and super sweet.
Glitter: sweet, brilliant orange mini-roma
Golden Rave: Small 1–2 oz yellow, plum shaped tomatoes with good tomato flavor.
Honeydrop: sweet, fruity, yellow bite-sized tomatoes
Juliet: Small 1 – 2 oz red mini-roma, perfect flavor and shape for slicing onto pizza or salad.
Orange Paruche: 1" glowing orange globes that are sweet and flavorful.
Red Torch: Yellow-striped red mini roma
Sunrise Bumblebee: Bite sized swirls of red and orange, inside the fruit and out with a sweet, fruity taste,
Sweetie: Bite-sized, sweet red cherry tomato
Tommy Toe: Large round red cherry with big tomato flavor
And lastly, talking with a CSA member about recipes this past Tuesday, I realized that I have a big Pinterest board full of CSA recipes. I add to it fairly regularly, but then I forget about them when I'm researching for the weekly newsletter. So I decided to just post the link and let you all peruse your way through them at leisure. Not sure if you have to have a Pinterest account to see them or not, but I figured some of you might enjoy it, so here you go!
Pinterest Recipes: https://www.pinterest.com/jillbee/csa-recipes/
Snapshots of the past week:
Fun Farm Facts: Blue Gate Farm was established in 2005 but the ground we are on has been farmed by the Beebout family for 3 generations. It was originally homesteaded by Hiram Moon in 1864. We are related to the Moon family by marriage.
Crew Corner: Luci
This week we are moving on to the four-legged crew members. Luci is a Jack Russell Terrier and at 12 years old is the grand dame of our pack. She loves all things on the farm, except Sky (dog #3) who is an ever-present, pesky little sister. Her favorite activities are supervising harvests, riding in the Ranger, pest patrol and when the crew clocks out for the day (the time sheets are kept within reach of the treat bucket, and Luci is VERY convincing). Her least favorite things are thunderstorms and fireworks.
A little detail on your produce this week:
Basil hates the cold and will turn black with exposure. Keep long stemmed basil in a glass/vase of water on your counter top (out of direct sunlight). Stems that are too short (trimmings/tops) should be placed in a plastic bag, with a dry paper towel. Then put inside of a paper bag (for insulation) and put in the warmest part of your refrigerator (usually the door) or on the top shelf towards the front.
Beans: Fresh beans are an easy "store." Just leave them in their plastic bag and keep them in the produce drawer. Can last up to 2 weeks.
Beets: Cut off greens, leaving an inch of stem. Refrigerate the unwashed greens in a closed plastic bag and use with your chard mix as beets and chard are closely related. Store the beet roots, unwashed, with the rootlets (or “tails”) attached, in a plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator. They will keep for several weeks, but their sweetness diminishes with time. Just before cooking, scrub beets well and remove any scraggly leaves and rootlets. If your recipe calls for raw beets, peel them with a knife or vegetable peeler, then grate or cut according to your needs baby/young beets usually don't need to be peeled.
Broccoli/Cauliflower: Wrap loosely in a plastic bag and keep it in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator for up to a week. Immediately before cooking, soak head down, in cold, salted water (1 teaspoon salt to a 8 cups of water) for 5 minutes. Any [organic] critters will float to the top where you can rescue them or allow them to suffer a salty death. (Note: If soaked in salt water before storing, it will become too rubbery and wilted to enjoy.) Slice the juicy, edible stems and use them wherever florets are called for. Peel particularly thick skin before using.
Cabbage: Store dry, unwashed cabbage in the refrigerator, preferably in the vegetable bin. The outer leaves may eventually get floppy or yellowish, but you can remove and discard them to reveal fresh inner leaves. Cabbage can keep for more than a month. Once it’s cut, seal it in a plastic bag and continue to refrigerate for several weeks. Rinse the cabbage under cold running water just before use. Peel away a few of the outer leaves, then cut the cabbage according to your needs with a big, sharp knife, and then chop, sliver, or grate. Our favorite way to eat raw cabbage is as a "walking salad" which is to simply spread peanut butter over a leaf of cabbage, sprinkle with your favorite dried fruit, roll it up into a tube and enjoy. This is a kid-pleaser for sure!
Cucumber: Store unwashed cucumbers in a sealed plastic bag in the vegetable crisper bin for about a week. Keep cucumbers tucked far away from tomatoes, apples, and citrus—these give off ethylene gas that accelerates cucumber deterioration. You can do a lot of fancy things to the skin of a cucumber, but when it is young, fresh (and unwaxed), it really only needs to be thoroughly washed. However, if the skin seems tough or bitter you can remove it; if the seeds are bulky, slice the cucumber lengthwise and scoop them out.
Eggplant: Eggplant prefers to be kept at about 50° F, which is warmer than most refrigerators and cooler than most kitchen counters. Wrap unwashed eggplant in a towel (not in plastic) to absorb any moisture and keep it in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator. Used within a week, it should still be fresh and mild.
Basil hates the cold and will turn black with exposure. Keep long stemmed basil in a glass/vase of water on your counter top (out of direct sunlight). Stems that are too short (trimmings/tops) should be placed in a plastic bag, with a dry paper towel. Then put inside of a paper bag (for insulation) and put in the warmest part of your refrigerator (usually the door) or on the top shelf towards the front.
Beans: Fresh beans are an easy "store." Just leave them in their plastic bag and keep them in the produce drawer. Can last up to 2 weeks.
Beets: Cut off greens, leaving an inch of stem. Refrigerate the unwashed greens in a closed plastic bag and use with your chard mix as beets and chard are closely related. Store the beet roots, unwashed, with the rootlets (or “tails”) attached, in a plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator. They will keep for several weeks, but their sweetness diminishes with time. Just before cooking, scrub beets well and remove any scraggly leaves and rootlets. If your recipe calls for raw beets, peel them with a knife or vegetable peeler, then grate or cut according to your needs baby/young beets usually don't need to be peeled.
Broccoli/Cauliflower: Wrap loosely in a plastic bag and keep it in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator for up to a week. Immediately before cooking, soak head down, in cold, salted water (1 teaspoon salt to a 8 cups of water) for 5 minutes. Any [organic] critters will float to the top where you can rescue them or allow them to suffer a salty death. (Note: If soaked in salt water before storing, it will become too rubbery and wilted to enjoy.) Slice the juicy, edible stems and use them wherever florets are called for. Peel particularly thick skin before using.
Cabbage: Store dry, unwashed cabbage in the refrigerator, preferably in the vegetable bin. The outer leaves may eventually get floppy or yellowish, but you can remove and discard them to reveal fresh inner leaves. Cabbage can keep for more than a month. Once it’s cut, seal it in a plastic bag and continue to refrigerate for several weeks. Rinse the cabbage under cold running water just before use. Peel away a few of the outer leaves, then cut the cabbage according to your needs with a big, sharp knife, and then chop, sliver, or grate. Our favorite way to eat raw cabbage is as a "walking salad" which is to simply spread peanut butter over a leaf of cabbage, sprinkle with your favorite dried fruit, roll it up into a tube and enjoy. This is a kid-pleaser for sure!
Cucumber: Store unwashed cucumbers in a sealed plastic bag in the vegetable crisper bin for about a week. Keep cucumbers tucked far away from tomatoes, apples, and citrus—these give off ethylene gas that accelerates cucumber deterioration. You can do a lot of fancy things to the skin of a cucumber, but when it is young, fresh (and unwaxed), it really only needs to be thoroughly washed. However, if the skin seems tough or bitter you can remove it; if the seeds are bulky, slice the cucumber lengthwise and scoop them out.
Eggplant: Eggplant prefers to be kept at about 50° F, which is warmer than most refrigerators and cooler than most kitchen counters. Wrap unwashed eggplant in a towel (not in plastic) to absorb any moisture and keep it in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator. Used within a week, it should still be fresh and mild.
Many people like to peel, salt, and drain their eggplant to draw out any bitter flavor; however, bitterness develops only in eggplant that has been stored for a while, so with farm-fresh specimens this is generally not necessary. Many recipes call for salting in order to make the vegetable less watery and more absorbent—much like draining tofu. Salting is not an essential step, but it can greatly enhance the taste and texture of your dish and is well worth the extra effort. The shape of an eggplant determines how it is best prepared. Slice a straight, narrow eggplant into rounds for grilling or broiling, and cut a rounded, bulbous eggplant into cubes for stews and stir-fries.
Shallots: These are freshly harvested shallots that haven't had time to cure yet. You can use them in any recipe calling for shallots or onions. Store loosely wrapped in the refrigerator for best keeping quality. Shallots have a rich, more delicate flavor than most in the onion family and are particularly tasty with vegetables, eggs and salad dressings. As long as the greens are still fresh, you can use them like scallions, or try out the baked onion top recipe in the 6/29/21 newsletter.
Peas: We grow snow peas (flat pod with little bumps showing immature peas inside) and sugar snap peas (rounded pods with mature peas inside). Both have edible pods and can be used interchangeably in recipes. They are particularly good in stir-fries and salads, though we tend to eat them fresh as a snack. Peas keep best in their plastic container in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.
Summer Squash/Zucchini: Refrigerate unwashed zucchini and summer squash for up to a week and a half in a perforated plastic bag or in a sealed plastic container lined with a kitchen towel.
Tomatoes: prefer to reside on your counter and not in the refrigerator unless they have been sliced.
All of your GREENS will keep best if stored in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator. Large leaf greens can benefit by being wrapped in a linen or cotton towel inside the bag if excess moisture is a concern.
** NOTE: You will notice over the course of the season that some box contents listed above say "Perhaps one of the following..." These are items that we can’t harvest in sufficient quantities for the whole CSA to receive at one time. We do track who gets what and we will do our best to ensure that everyone eventually receives each item. On some items this may take several weeks, so please be patient.
Is a weekly newsletter not enough for you? Do you want to read more about our life on the farm and see more pictures? Follow us on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm or on Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh. CSA members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.
That's about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.Best from the farm,Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)
Peas:
We grow snow peas (flat pod with little bumps showing immature peas inside) and sugar snap peas (rounded pods with mature peas inside). Both have edible pods and can be used interchangeably in recipes. They are particularly good in stir-fries and salads, though we tend to eat them fresh as a snack. Peas keep best in their plastic container in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.Summer Squash/Zucchini: Refrigerate unwashed zucchini and summer squash for up to a week and a half in a perforated plastic bag or in a sealed plastic container lined with a kitchen towel.
Tomatoes: prefer to reside on your counter and not in the refrigerator unless they have been sliced.
All of your GREENS will keep best if stored in a plastic bag, with the top folded over and placed in the produce drawer of your refrigerator. Large leaf greens can benefit by being wrapped in a linen or cotton towel inside the bag if excess moisture is a concern.
** NOTE: You will notice over the course of the season that some box contents listed above say "Perhaps one of the following..." These are items that we can’t harvest in sufficient quantities for the whole CSA to receive at one time. We do track who gets what and we will do our best to ensure that everyone eventually receives each item. On some items this may take several weeks, so please be patient.
Is a weekly newsletter not enough for you? Do you want to read more about our life on the farm and see more pictures? Follow us on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm or on Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh. CSA members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.
That's about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)
 |
| Indigo, Luci & Sky |
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