Last week we planted out hundreds of corn seedlings, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and Brussels sprouts, head lettuce, salad mix lettuce, fennel, bok choy, and two kinds of parsley. We plant out some of that every week, but this week was a bigger load than usual, and by golly we got it done. It’s a true case of many hands making light work, and miraculously so. We make the list of work to do and make worried faces at each other about it, apologetically ask our crew to help us do it all, and then have a great time getting it done.

Everyone gets peas this week, but not all the same variety. This happens every year, the peas come on, but not enough of one type to list in the CSA as just one type. If your peas are flat looking, they are snow peas, eat them raw or stir fry them, or steam them. If your peas are roundish and fullish looking, bite into one and if the shell is fibrous and kinda icky, then it’s a shelling pea, and you need to get the little round bits out to enjoy them. If the bite is good and sweet and tender, then you’ve got sugar snap peas, and you should just keep on biting.
I can’t believe we’ve been filling your CSA shares and our farmers market tables all this time without carrots and potatoes. It’s like saying “I can do that with one hand tied behind my back.” Well, now that the carrots and spuds are on, and the marathon of farm season gets a burst of speed and turbo power. We now have to divide our harvest efforts over the entire span of the week in order to get it all in. We also now have more choices when it’s time to eat. Yippee!!

Speaking of choices when it’s time to eat…anybody want to buy a chicken? Or another chicken if you already did? We have two more chicken harvest dates, August 25, and October 6. The cost is five dollars per pound, and you should call or email to reserve yours today. We are raising these birds in chicken tractors, pens that move each day to fresh pasture, so the birds eat grass, bugs, and the organic grain we feed them. We then kill them with as little trauma as possible, both to the chicken and ourselves, and make them ready for you, as whole, dressed roasters/fryers. The whole roaster/fryer thing is about size I guess, as you can choose how to cook it no matter what it’s size.

One night last week, our neighbor to the east phoned to ask for the number of our friends who keep bees because he had a swarm in his garage that he thought they might like to capture. The next morning when our friend came out to check on it, the bees had left, but he came over to say hello to us, and lo and behold, the swarm was landing on our barn and setting up shop inside the walls. I thought this was a very lucky thing, a good omen, a blessing. I had just finished explaining to some of my crew members why I don’t have any hives of my own, (basically, too busy) when with no effort on my part whatsoever, bees came to me. I like that they will pollinate things, and I like that they prefer my barn to my neighbors garage. It makes me feel special, chosen. I know I won’t harvest their honey, (again, too busy) and I’d have to tear a wall off the barn or something, and I think that the bees intuit this information and probably it was a major factor in their choice of location. The hum of the bees as I go in and out of the barn all day is something like the chatter of the chickens as I cut the lettuce, just some nice company around the place.


Favorite Market Shopper Frank has been at it again with the great recipe sharing that makes him a favorite. (Recipes and the cookies he sometimes brings me.) So Frank told Colin this recipe on Sunday at the market and then Colin told me and now I’m going to tell you, and chances are like in the childhood game of telephone, or pass the secret, there will be a missing link, but I like to try anyway. I think Frank said the recipe originally came form a cookbook called Mediterranean harvest. So first you cook some asparagus until tender, then you drain it, reserving the water to cook some pasta in. When the pasta is done you drain it and save a little of the water to mix with some fresh ricotta to make a creamy sauce for all of it, toss it together and serve over a bed of arugula. Salt and freshly ground black pepper are invited to join in and some prosciutto on the side is nice. This hot, creamy, cheesy pasta business wilts the arugula on the plate in a nice way. There could be olive oil too, I’m not sure.