CSA Newsletter, July 25 2008, Good Sam Pick Up

This Weeks Veggies

Cabbage – This week you’ll receive your first cabbage. It is a young and tender Savoy with beautiful blue green crinkly leaves. I suggest you use a simple recipe so that you can experience its flavor. I will steam mine and then sprinkle a little good quality rice vinegar on it at the table. You will be receiving more of this cabbage in the coming weeks so you’ll have an opportunity to try more complex recipes later.

Chard

Romaine Lettuce

Beets or Fennel – Your choice. I love oven roasted beats served at room temperature with goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. And, the beat greens can be sautéed with your chard.

If you select the fennel, you might try grilling it. Remove the stems then slice the thickened stem. Coat the pieces with olive oil then drizzle with balsamic. Grill until done. If you have a grill basket you might want to use it so that the pieces don’t fall thru the grate.

Don’t forget that the fennel greens can also be eaten. Snip the tender top two or so inches of the greens and toss them with your salad.

Farm Life

This week has seen weeding, weeding, and more weeding. I have hired a laborer who is doing nothing but weed the Canada thistle. He started in the tomato beds and then moved to the onions. Now he is weeding eating around the fence lines in order to keep that thistle from producing seeds. A Canada thistle seed is viable for at least seven years so any seeds that hit the ground now will be a problem for years to come.

While Roberto was weeding, Nathan transplanted onions, more than 1,000 individual onion plants. Hopefully, they will mature before the rainy season returns so that we can harden them off well before distributing them in the fall.

Nathan has also been building trellises for pole beans and tomatoes. This is a harbinger of good things to come. It means the tomatoes are doing so well that they need a trellis to support them. So far, the Golden Nugget cherries have the most fruit. We will see which ones actually ripen first.

Speaking of fruit….. the apple trees are doing very well. Though I have seen a few adult Codling Moths, the apples do not appear to be too wormy. If the fruit continues to look so well, you will have apples in your share in August.

Featured Veggie of the Week

Your cabbage is the featured veggie of the week. As you will see when you go to this link http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2376/2

Cabbage is a good source of Vitamin C and the mineral Magnesium. This link assumes that the cabbage has been boiled. If you steam it, the nutritional content will be greater.