Arugula (in the small bag) Asparagus Braising Greens Mix (Tatsoi, Tokoyo Bekana & Amara) (in large bag) Braising Greens Mix Garlic Scapes (the curly green things) Head Lettuce: assorted red & green Mountain Mint Napa Cabbage Strawberries Swiss "Cheese" Chard: please forgive the extra holes and perhaps one of the following: (please see **NOTE after "A Little Detail...) Snap or Snow Peas For those with the Egg option [full shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (asst. colors) For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature Featured Recipes: Strawberries with Lemon and Mint Simple Garlicky Greens Garlic Scape Pesto Lime Cabbage Salad *see recipe below

BGF NEWS - JUNE 9, 2020 - VOL. XLV, NO. 2

In this week’s box:

Arugula (in the small bag)

Asparagus

Braising Greens Mix (Tatsoi, Tokoyo Bekana & Amara) (in large bag)

Braising Greens Mix

Garlic Scapes (the curly green things)

Head Lettuce: assorted red & green
Mountain Mint

Napa Cabbage
Strawberries
Swiss "Cheese" Chard: please forgive the extra holes

and perhaps one of the following: (please see **NOTE  after "A Little Detail...)     
Snap or Snow Peas

For those with the Egg option [full shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (asst. colors)

For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature

Featured Recipes:  

Strawberries with Lemon and Mint

Simple Garlicky Greens
Garlic Scape Pesto
Lime Cabbage Salad *see recipe below

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past week: 0.45"

As I write this, the first sprinkles from what was Tropical Storm Cristobal have begun. This has been our driving force for much of the past 5 days as a predicted 2-3" rain will keep us out of the fields for several days, at the very least. 

To that end we have been harvesting, cultivating, sowing and transplanting as fast as we could in the heat, all the while running "round robin" with the irrigation, trying to keep everything watered until it rains. 

To give you an idea of how dry we were, the photo on the right is what it looks like when you till & cultivate on a windy,  90° day. This was on the inside of my work pants. I definitely should have hosed down before coming in the house! 

But it was a successful, if hot, week and we were able to cross off many items from the to-do list. We transplanted: melons and okra, plus more cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, lettuce and flowers. We also sowed new beds of edamame, arugula and choi and cultivated much of the gardens and fields. Finally, the last of the irrigation system went in, just in time for the higher temps.

Harvesting garlic scapes

This heat is really pushing some of our earliest crops and will mark the end of a number of crops including asparagus, braising greens and early choi. We've started clearing beds and replacing them with warm-weather crops. The heat isn't all bad though, as long as we can stay ahead with rain or irrigation it really pushes the warm weather crops forward. The summer squash and zucchini plants are all blooming and starting to set fruit and the strawberries...holy berries, Batman! We spent a couple of hours harvesting strawberries yesterday and this was just the first big ripening. So now we have a bit of a problem and are suddenly short on berry containers. In response to that shortage, you will notice that your strawberries are in some nice blue quart containers, please, please return those at next week's delivery. They were intended for use in market display (which will eventually start up again) and are expensive to replace. 

Also, if you have any (clean) quart or pint berry containers, we would love to put those back to work. We really only need the pint and quart sizes, if you have others, please recycle those. A reminder that we will also accept returns of your clean egg cartons. 

Another reminder, there is still time to sign up for any of the options with your CSA share. Egg and Herb Shares from BGF are still available, as are the Partner Shares we are coordinating with our talented friends at other local farms including:

Des Moines-Ebersole Cattle Co (Meat) & Lost Lake Farm LLC (Cheese)

Knoxville- Crooked Gap Farm (Meat) & Farmyard Fancies (Bread)

A little detail on your produce this week:

Asparagus: Keeps best stored upright in a glass with about 1" of water, in the refrigerator. Delicious raw or cooked. 

Garlic Scapes: One of our favorite crops of the year. These curly green "springs" are the emerging flower stalk from a hardneck garlic plant. We remove them to redirect more of the plant's energy into the bulb, but it also provides us with a delightful fresh garlic treat. These keep very well in a plastic bag in your produce drawer and can be used in any recipe calling for garlic. They make a great pesto and can be minced and added to room-temperature butter, which is then stored in log shape, in the freezer for a last minute dollop of goodness for vegetables, breads or meat.

Mountain Mint: not a true member of the mint family, Mountain mint has a softer mint flavor and can be used in any recipe calling for mint. We like it in mint syrup and in fruit salsas or as a refreshing iced tea. Store upright in a glass of water, loosely covered in the refrigerator.

Napa Cabbage: 

Store Napa cabbage whole in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for up to a week. These Napa are fairly immature and wont have a large formed head but are still tasty and can be used in any cabbage recipe.

Peas

are best kept in a plastic bag or glass container in your refrigerator. Use within a week.

Strawberries keep best in your refrigerator in a vented container. Use within 3-4 days.

A few other details: 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.  

** 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 and you want to read more about our daily adventures or see pictures of the farm?  Follow us on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or share your recipes, experiences and questions with other BGF members at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That’s about it this week, if you have any questions or comments be sure to let us know. 

Best from the farm,

Jill & Sean (and Luci, Indigo & Sky)

Indigo, Luci & Sky

Lime Cabbage Salad

1/2 cabbage, finely shredded
2 limes, freshly squeezed
large pinch of sea salt
1/4 tsp cumin seed
1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil

Toss together & serve as a side salad or top with a saucy or spicy meat, like left over BBQ beef.

Recipe Source: Blue Gate Farm friend, Dana Foster

BGF News - June 18, 2019-Vol. XLII, No.3

BGF News - June 18, 2019-Vol. XLII, No.3

In this week’s box:

Baby Choi: Joi & Shanghai Green
Garlic Scapes (curly green bundles)

Kale: assorted

Lettuce Bouquet: asst baby lettuces

Mountain Mint (small bundle of smooth, green leaves with firm stems)

Strawberries 

and perhaps one of the following: (please see **NOTE  after "A Little Detail..." below)     

Asparagus, the final hurrah!
Snow Peas: Oregon Giant

For those with the Egg option [Full and Half shares]: one dozen free-range eggs (asst. colors)

For those with the Herb option: Herb share will begin in a couple of weeks as herbs mature

Featured Recipes:  ** indicates a BGF favorite 

Minted Simple Syrup

Strawberries with Lemon and Mint

Simple Baby Bok Choy and Snow Peas

Kale with Bacon, White Beans and Garlic Scapes

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past week: 12 drops

There was a lot of rain around the state in the past week. Unfortunately, all we saw at the farm was a very brief sprinkle. While this did give us more opportunity to catch up on our seed sowing, transplanting and cultivating, the crops could sure use a deep drink of water. But since the universe presented us with dry conditions, we took advantage of it. We got the herb bed prepped as well as the new rosemary bed and all the herbs are tucked into their new homes. We transplanted the melons and the last of the field peppers and sowed winter squash and popcorn. We also decided to hedge our bets a bit on the potatoes and planted one more bed with the remaining potatoes we had in storage. While they will be late season potatoes, we hope they will yield well. We have spent a significant amount of time recently in the original potato plot trying to give any potatoes that germinated a fighting chance. The wet conditions that kept us from cultivating earlier were great for germinating weed and grass see in those beds, so it was a real challenge (literally crawling on hands and knees) scouting out the tiny potato plants and hand weeding around them so we could come back and hoe the beds without fear of hitting them. We are nearly through the beds, and continue to find more potato plants alive than we first thought. It will still be a smaller harvest than we planned, but hopefully it will be better than we feared.

We did have a very disappointing discovery late last week. After spending hours transplanting hundreds of very nice cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, the deer discovered them and overnight ate or destroyed about 90% of them. We are just sick at the amount of lost time and product and having dreams of venison sausage. We do have broccoli and cauliflower in another location that they didn't find, so those should be fine, but they ate pretty much every cabbage on the farm. We are scheduled to start sowing seeds for fall cabbage this week, so there should be heads during the later season deliveries, but it will be a couple of months away. This is a new crop for the deer to bother, so we will have to go to greater efforts to exclude them from the east plot where the cole crops seem to grow the best (in the absence of deer.)

We harvested the final asparagus for the 2019 season this week, even though we thought we had done that last week. We know the boxes are a little thin so we wanted to send out everything we possibly could, including one last sweet celebration of strawberries! So what is coming next? The snow peas are just kitting their stride, so we will continue to send those out. The spring turnips are sizing up and we anticipate those being harvest-able in the next couple of weeks. Baby beets are likely to follow after that. We have lots of beautiful lettuces, kale and chard coming along and the zucchini, summer squash and cucumber plants are all blooming and preparing to fruit as are many of the pepper plants. We have a couple of  nice beds of carrots that are probably 3-4 weeks from harvest and some new greens that we are anxious to introduce to you. So lots of fun things to come!

Just a reminder, you can request a 12pk of  recycled, regular size canning jar lids . They have been washed and are ready for reuse in your fridge, pantry or craft room. 

A little detail on your produce this week:

Asparagus: Keeps best stored upright in a glass with about 1" of water, in the refrigerator. Delicious raw or cooked. 

Garlic Scapes: One of our favorite crops of the year. These curly green things are the emerging flower stalk from a hardneck garlic plant. We remove them to redirect more of the plant's energy into the bulb, but it also provides us with a delightful fresh garlic treat. These keep very well in a plastic bag in your produce drawer and can be used in any recipe calling for garlic. They would be perfect in last week's garlic salt recipe, make a great pesto and can be minced and added to room-temperature butter, which is then stored in log shape, in the freezer for a last minute dollop of goodness for vegetables, breads or meat.

Mountain Mint: not a true member of the mint family, Mountain mint has a softer mint flavor and can be used in any recipe calling for mint. We like it in mint syrup and in fruit salsas or as a refreshing iced tea. Store upright in a glass of water, loosely covered in the refrigerator.

Peas

are best kept in a plastic bag or glass container in your refrigerator. Use within a week.

Strawberries keep best in your refrigerator in a vented container. Use within 3-4 days.

A few other details: 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.  

** 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 and you want to read more about our daily adventures or see pictures of the farm?  Follow us on Facebook at Blue Gate Farm and/or share your recipes, experiences and questions with other BGF members at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That’s about it this week, if you have any questions or comments be sure to let us know. 

Best from the farm,

Jill & Sean (and Luci, Indigo & Sky)