More squash and greens

The strawberry planting workshop was a success! We had so much fun. It was the first time that Guy or I had the chance to work with real farm equipment (i.e. tractors and attachments). We are used to doing all the work by hand. I can hardly wait to taste these delicious strawberries next Spring. Yum!

Here's our share for this week:

From the top left, anticlockwise: Green tomatoes, delicata squash, jalapenos (these were freebies from Farmer Jones at the market; thanks!), radishes with greens, turnip greens, daikon radishes, some kind of winter squash/pumpkin, and spicy greens mix (chard, arugula, and mustard greens).

Here's last week's haul:

From A Guy, a Girl, and a Dinner Plate

We got more spicy greens (lamb's quarter, mustard greens, and arugula).

From A Guy, a Girl, and a Dinner Plate

More delicata squash, two crookneck squash, a bunch of radishes with greens, and a late honeydew melon! That melon was the best honeydew I'd ever had. It was so ripe it could only be described as luscious.

From A Guy, a Girl, and a Dinner Plate

Turnip greens.

From A Guy, a Girl, and a Dinner Plate

A few garlic greens (I want more!), two zucchinis, a cucuzza, and a Japanese (SuYo Long) cucumber. Those cucumbers are just asking to be pickled. Too bad we only get one little guy every now and then.

Funny story about the squash blossom: we were given it as a special treat by our lovely Farmer Marie with instructions to stuff it with our homemade cheese, fry it, and post pictures. But when we went to stuff it, we found out a little caterpillar was already making it his dinner! He had destroyed the whole inner flower and it was inedible (for us, that is). Maybe next time...

More shares!

The garden is in full swing now and our shares are pouring in.

The last two weeks we have gotten more squash, spicy greens, and turnip greens.

At market this weekend, we also bought jalapeno relish, green tomatoes, and a sweet potato from one of the other vendors, Farmer Jones. This was the first time they sold produce at the market and I really hope they come back next time.

Tomorrow morning we have a strawberry planting workshop out at the farm. Guy and I are really excited about that. As CSA members we get to participate for free!

Summer make-up shares

Well, folks, after a long, dry, hot summer with very meager shares, the CSA is finally producing again.

Normally this is a little break period where the garden is ramping up for the coming fall harvest and Farmer Marie sells the small amount of available produce to supplement the farm's income. But this year she's giving that produce to those of us who stuck with the CSA through the tough summer months. I think half of the shares ended up leaving.

It was very interesting for us to see first hand the hardships that farms deal with. It certainly made me appreciate my vegetables and my farmer more.

Last week we received 3 lbs of summer squash, plus purslane and summer spinach. This week it's: 3 lbs of summer squash (a tiny cucuzza, some patty pan, a crookneck, and two varieties of zucchini), 3.5 oz of purslane, 3.5 oz of summer spinach, and 10 oz of spicy green salad mix (arugula, baby mizuna, and baby mustard greens).

Perhaps you're not familiar with purslane or summer spinach (both pictured here); I wasn't until this summer. Purslane is delicious raw or cooked (lightly steaming brings out the tartness).

The mysterious "summer spinach" may be malobar spinach but I'm not really sure. It doesn't look like any pictures I've found, but, whatever it is, it's delicious, especially raw.

CSA haul #20

Oh my! We finally got the carrots out of the ground and our share alone had 121 carrots! I see carrot soup, lots of juices, and salad on our plate in the near future. Plus, the first batches of tomatoes are starting to come. We will soon be overrun with tomatoes, a problem I would love to have.

Our share this week:

3 colors of carrots, 11 tomatoes (3 are huge!), and lamb's quarter.

Today on the farm, I helped some other work share members pull up all these carrots. Over 100 pounds! It was a lot more work than I thought pulling carrots would be. In the cartoons, it looks so easy.

Guy spent the whole time cutting down lamb's quarter and getting it prepped for the shares. Also a big job and he didn't have any help!

Plus, we got a little special addition to our share.

Farmer Marie knows we love to make raw sauerkraut and she had a whole row of cabbages that weren't really suitable for putting in the shares.

Basically we got the last ditch effort that these cabbages could make after they'd been harvested earlier. She was going to compost them but thought of us first.

Guy has started them fermenting, so we'll see in a week or two if they are suitable for kraut.

Next week, my mom will be visiting from Missouri and she's going to join us out on the farm! Fun, fun!

CSA haul #19

This week at the farm we mulched rows to prepare them for melons, pumpkins, and squash, as well as doing a little weeding of the tomato plants. I love weeding, especially tomatoes because the smell of tomato plants makes my heart sing!

Anyway, we got a pretty small haul this time but every single item is a favorite of mine, so I'm happy. We got 1 lb of tomatoes, 1 lb of yellow squash, 1/2 lb of cucumber, and 1 lb of peaches. We had another peach but it didn't make it home for the picture. :grin: The peaches, cucumber, and squash are all from Larken Farms, but Farmer Marie splurged and bought them for us because our farm's been so slow to produce.

This week was also market day, so we bought a pound of organic Fair Trade coffee from Fresh Life. They started coming out to market day last time, but we didn't need coffee. I'm so excited to have a Bold cup of coffee tomorrow morning!

CSA hauls #17 and 18

Our last post saw the last of the winter hauls and I thought we were going to have a couple weeks off. We were gone over Memorial Day weekend and there was no pick-up for shares.

Last weekend we went to do our work share, pulling turnips out of the ground for two hours, but figured we would have no share again.

Ha!

We got blueberries and squash from our friendly neighbor farmer John, plus 2 lbs of onions and 1 lb of garlic.

Summer is here!

This week we kicked dirt around looking for any potatoes left behind after Marie had turned the soil. We found quite a few.

It was really fun, like a treasure hunt or an archaeology expedition! Plus we came home with 5 lbs of potatoes and 1 more lb of onions. Good gracious, we have a lot of onions!

And just because we're so special, Marie sent us home with this beauty of a tomato,

a "mortgage lifter".

They're just starting to ripen so there aren't enough for everyone. There are definitely perks to being a work share!

CSA haul #16

This is the last haul of the cold season. It looks a lot like last weeks, which is great because we really enjoyed it.

Above: 2 red cabbage "heads", snow peas, braising greens (mostly turnip and chard), and 5 onions with greens!

Below: Spring salad mix, a lot of lamb's quarter (Guy loves that stuff!), and "green" garlic
I'm excited to try the garlic. We received garlic greens earlier this year, but these are our first heads. They are pretty small, so they should be mild, but hopefully tasty.

Today at the farm was a lot of fun. We harvested onions and snow peas and cabbage with a fellow work-sharer. It was really laid back and the weather was beautiful!

Tomorrow is the annual CSA member potluck at the farm. We'll be bringing mashed potatoes made with our onions and garlic from the farm.

CSA haul #15

From top left, anticlockwise: cabbage, several small onions, snow peas, braising greens, radishes with greens, and a lettuce mix

This is quite a haul!

We also had a good time working really hard on the farm with other work shares, harvesting onions and mulching between rows. What a workout!

CSA haul #14

Guy had a stilts gig this weekend and I had a lot of work to do so we missed our work share. I did drop by and pick up our haul though.

From top left, anticlockwise: salad greens, 5 small onions with greens; snow peas; braising greens including turnip, kale, and chard.

CSA haul #13

Lucky number 13.

This week there was not an official weekly share this week because it was Earth day and Marie was busy. The lettuce and greens also needed a week to rest if we want a share next week. But Marie allowed any of the members to come out and cut a little greens if they wanted some.

Since we were out there working (smishing caterpillars and weeding tomatoes), we grabbed some lettuce mix and a ridiculous amount of lamb's quarter, which was way overgrown.

CSA haul #12

This week we were all told we could come by the farm for a small share. Several of the plants (lettuce in particular) needed to rest and regrow.

Our haul included lettuce mix that was heavy on the arugula and lamb's quarter, turnip greens, lavender, and garlic greens.

We hadn't finished our lettuce or garlic greens from last week yet though so we still have plenty of veg for this week. So far, we've been consuming all of this raw as salads, even the turnip and garlic greens. It's very good.

CSA haul #11

This week we had a pretty large haul.

In this first picture (left top, anticlockwise), we have brussel sprout greens (leftovers from last week, but we were so happy to get more!), lamb's quarters, garlic greens (also leftovers from last week), and arugula.

In the second picture, we have our salad greens (with kale, spinach, and endive), lavender buds, and chard.

Guy and I had a wonderful time out on the farm. CSA pick-up days are a lot of fun because we get to interact with the other members, who we don't see as often as the other workshares. I hope we get to know them better at the potluck in May!

CSA haul #10

Our CSA haul is the top row (from left): mixed greens (lettuce, endive, spinach, etc); two red onions; Brussels sprout greens; chard.

Below that, our market day purchases: Eden's Organic Farm honey (from the bees on the farm!) and (what's left of) a roasted green pepper focaccia from Bedford Bakery.

Most of the focaccia didn't even make it home! Delicious! (And well-earned after 3 hours of harvesting and weeding!)

CSA haul #9

We finally made our way back out to the farm again!

The weather could not have been more beautiful for our triumphant return. Farmer Marie was hosting a Dallas Morning News photographer, as well as us work share folks. We had a lot of fun talking to them as we harvested lettuce, kale, garlic greens, and more.

Guy and I spent a good portion of the four hours we spent out there (we missed it so much we didn't want to leave!) getting the lettuce mix ready for pick-up. We also spent plenty of time petting the kittens and talking to the chickens.

Here's our haul this week:

Left to right, anticlockwise: kale, beets (one red, one yellow), and turnips

From bottom left, anticlockwise: salad mix with arugula, lamb's quarters, endive, rose d'hiver, bibb, and red lettuce; garlic greens, arugula flowers, and mustard green flowers; beet greens, couple mustard green leaves, and chard

The turnips and salad mix were pretty much the same for everyone, although I may have made sure ours was a little heavier on the lamb's quarter and arugula. For the rest of the haul, however, we were allowed to pick and choose what we wanted and we opted for a small amount of everything, rather than loading up on all mustard greens or all chard or all beets.

I was so ready to eat this delicious haul that I almost didn't even get a picture of the kale. As you can see, it's already on the cutting board and ready to be added to the white bean soup I was making.

We're so glad the CSA is back in swing. Soon we'll all be gathering for the annual potluck, I've heard so much about. Guy and I will of course bring something delicious to share, but we'll also bring our juggling, hula hoops, unicycle, and other toys to play with and share. Fun for everyone!

In that vein, here's a picture of my beau, the hobo, with an eatable bouquet straight from the farm: our garlic greens, arugula flowers and mustard green flowers.

CSA haul #8

Finally! We got a call from Marie asking us to come out to work on the farm. We went out early Friday morning. The temperature was perfect, a breeze was blowing, and the sun was shining down on us. With the help of one of our other CSA members, the four of us pulled up row covers and drip tape and gleaned what we could from the rows of carrots and radishes that didn't really make it because of the crazy ice storms we had. Once we had prepared the rows, a tractor tilled them up for us, so now they're ready for planting!

Marie told of us some of her plans for what's to come and we couldn't be more excited. Plus, even though there isn't enough for shares yet, those of us that were working got to take home an armful of goodies.


Pictured above (top, anticlockwise): a variety of carrots, turnips, two red radishes, a diakon radish, and some mustard greens.

The turnips, daikon, and some of the carrots are destined to become fish stew this week. The rest of the carrots, radishes, and some greens will be showing up in salads. The rest of the greens will be sauteed and eaten with salmon and asparagus tonight. We love our CSA and are so excited to get a little taste of what's to come this season!

CSA Haul #7: End of the Fall Season

This weekend at the farm was even more fun than usual. Guy helped Marie run rows of drop tape while I harvested lettuce, Pak Choy, and Mizuna greens. Then we both harvested chard. Marie stayed in the field working, while one of the other girls and I went to the front of the farm to start sorting out the food for this week's share and help the other CSA members get their haul.

When Marie came up to join us, she even made us cocoa and brought us cookies! This was a great treat, especially since the temperature dropped 10 or 15 degrees from the time we got there.

Here's what we got in our last share of this season:

From top left, anticlockwise: red and green mustard greens, green tomatoes and red tomatoes, Pak Choy, some kind of squash (Calabash, maybe, I don't know but now we have two of them), baby beets, half gallon of milk, dozen eggs, one carrot, 3 turnips, 1 daikon radish, 2 turban squash, bay leaves, chard leaves, and red and green leaf lettuce. :whew: We paid extra for the milk and eggs, which has been well worth it. (We get a better price from the farmer's because we're in the CSA.)

Folks, that's the end of our first season. Overall, we are both really pleased. Guy likes the structure it brings to our meal planning. If we get a basket a food that needs to get planned into meals for the week, we don't just play it by ear. Now we generally know what we're having for dinner every evening. I like that I am eating foods I wouldn't normally buy, like turnips, beets, and sweet potato leaves. Plus, we both enjoy working on the farm with Marie.

CSA Haul #6

This week our CSA was supposed to be fairly meager because of recent freezes. In fact, we expect that there will be only two more hauls before the winter break. Our next 200$ payment is also due this month. But none of that was a worry for Guy and I as we were excited to get our hands dirty on the farm again after two weeks missed.

We spent our whole two hours pulling up the weeds (:shakes fist at bermuda grass:) and such from rows of old tomato plants, getting them ready to plant snow peas. The time went by very fast; we didn't even have time for grasshopper catching! (Of course we made time before we left so we could feed the hens. It's one of our favorite parts of visiting the farm each week.)

When we were leaving, Marie told us to just harvest what we wanted and to grab a few things from the farm house that she had picked earlier. From the top left anticlockwise, a few leaves of Pak Choy, summer and winter squash (another pumpkin, 4 patty pans, and some unidentified dark green squash), red and green mustard greens, red and green mizuna, red lettuce, green tomatoes and Habaneros.

Instead of being a meager haul, this was our biggest box yet!

Winter is on it's way, or CSA haul #5

Our fifth haul from the farm:

Above (from top left, anticlockwise): 3.5 lbs of green tomatoes, 2 lbs of sweet potatoes, a few ripe tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers (Habanero and Purple Hungarian), mizuna greens, and green leaf lettuce.

Below: Two adorable winter squash (approximately 2.5 lbs)

We actually could have taken 3 lbs of squash and 4 lbs of tomatoes, but we were rushed this week due to a heavy work load. We actually had to cancel our work share on the farm for this week because of it.

Thankfully though, Marie let us pick up our share at the Green Spot, so we didn't even have to drive all the way out to the farm. Unfortunately, we'll also be missing this week because we'll be out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Another week: CSA load #4

This week we worked at the farm on Friday and Marie let us take our haul home then so we didn't have to drive back out again on Saturday.

A full share received two heads of lettuce (your choice of red, green, or one of each), a bunch of Pak Choy, a Cucuzza squash, and one pound of "other veg."

There was a variety of things we could choose from for our other veg. We chose four Habanero peppers, two Rosa Bianca eggplants, and about half a pound of mixed tomatoes.

We could have chosen green beans, Mizuna greens, fingerling eggplants, or a variety of other peppers.

This was definitely not a big haul, but we still had a bit of peppers and a whole Cucuzza left from last week.

CSA haul #3

This is our newest haul of veg from Eden's Organic Farm CSA.

From top left going anticlockwise, we have two more Cucuzza squash, 4# of sweet potato, eggplant, purple bells, lemon basil (in the bowl), some kind of sweet green pepper, spicy purple peppers, Habaneros, fresh basil, Mizuna mix (2 kinds), spicy mustard greens (2 kinds).

This week our box actually started looking like it was meant for four people. Of course, we're still hoping that we get the overabundance that CSA's are sometimes known for. We're stocking up on canning supplies and learning about other preservation techniques.

In fact, we already started preserving. We're drying some basil and the rest of it got made into pesto with some walnuts and olive oil (and is now in the freezer). It was my first try at pesto and, boy, do I have a lot to learn...