We have planted several types of garlic at field three and the one of them is making scapes for us already! The scape is the flowering stem of the garlic plant, including the flower bud, and this is a tasty little number. You can chop the whole thing and saute with onions and other things in the pan as you would a clove of garlic. The flavor is more mild than the clove would be, and I think that the scapes have a soft, warm quality. You can chop the scape into a few larger pieces and steam, roast, or stir fry them, and then they turn out sort of like a garlic flavored green bean. We plant garlic in the fall, it flowers in June, and then we harvest the plants in July. So scapes are a fleeting treat available right about now. We still have four or five more types to go, so look forward to more scapes in weeks to come. Many growers pick the scapes off to encourage bulb size development in the plant. It’s just a nice bonus that they taste good and we like to eat them. If you are a student or teacher at Black Hills High School and you drive down that driveway, the garlic is the first main thing you see as you go by. Doesn’t it look fat and happy and green and lush? I think so. I am pleased so far. I am not even too much upset by the little tunneling animals that have eaten some of the garlic. So far, they have left enough for us.

After last week’s duck tragedy, only three crafty survivor ducks re appeared. We were so happy to see them, and still so worried about the others and not knowing what happened. Someone told us it seems likely that a pack of coyotes did it. Poor, sweet farmer Colin has been camping out next to the chickens (and four ducks) keeping watch over his flocks by night. The first night he sat up in a chair with a b-b gun. The second night he got a reclining chair. The third night he set up the tent. The fourth night he took out some extra padding and pillows. If he gets any more comfortable, he may not wake up when needed!!

Baby Beets are so sweet! Both in the sense of having a sweet flavor and of being so small and cute. For your first beet experience of the season, I recommend a simple preparation. Just wash them and cut the tops about one inch above the roots, and trimming the hairy end off. You can also cut the stem part separate from the leaf part, so that you have three piles of clean beet parts. Start your steamer with the roots in it, after four minutes add the stem parts, after one more minute add the leaves, and then only one more minute to tasty beets served with butter, or salt, or tamari soy sauce, or vinegar, or some combination of those. You mostly want to be tasting what a beet tastes like on June 16, 2010 from field two of the Kirsop Farm. Later on when the beets are larger and you’ve enjoyed them plain a few times, we can talk more about fancy ways to disguise them or involve them in more elaborate recipes. But for now, the first beets are enough, just as they are.

Last week we were shy a few bunches of broccoli raab, and substituted extra broccoli for some of the shares. This week, those shares will be getting the broccoli raab, and the shares who did get broccoli raab last week will be getting bok choy. Check last week’s newsletter for the cooking tips for broccoli raab. If you recycled it already, you can check our website, www.kirsopfarm.com, for old newsletters and lots of other recipes. While you’re at the computer, you can become a fan of Kirosp Farm on facebook. (if you’re into that sort of thing.) I keep on trying to get into facebook. I have a personal page and I made one for the farm, but when I try to post things for the farm, sometimes it goes through my personal page, not the farm page. And some times when I try to post a photo, so easy, it takes all day and is not so easy, darn it. One day I will magically understand all of this and there will be a flood of sweet farm photos from early spring to see.

On occasion we will need to have you all take turns getting a certain item in the box from week to week, but rest assured, we want all of you to have it all, and we do our best to make it all come out right. Also note, we provide a trade box at most pick up sites, so that you can swap out some thing you know you won’t eat for some other thing you are more likely to use. The trade box is the best idea we have come up with over the years to address the idea that “you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. If you pick up at one of our market sites, you can trade with the table.

We have been putting two or more heads of lettuce in the boxes thus far, because the lettuce patch has a lot to offer and they have been on the small side. Hopefully you are just eating them up in salads and on sandwiches. I know another neat way to eat lettuce. Make some kind of rice mixture or just plain rice or grain, cous cous, whatever. Then wash the lettuce leaves whole and serve with the grain and some condiments, like miso bean paste, and everyone at the table makes a little pocket package to eat. Hold a leaf, spoon some rice onto it, add a dollop of tasty sauce, fold it over and enjoy. This is a fun way to eat lettuce. I would do this with crumbled bacon and blue cheese, and hard boiled eggs.