Summertime

Summer is officially here and so is the heat! The garden is soaking up the sunlight on these ultra-long days and growing fast.

In Fields 2 and 3 are potatoes, garlic, onions and various cover crops. Nearby are the two greenhouses. The old greenhouse in front is home to the tomatoes and the new greenhouse behind is still where seedlings mature before moving out to the field as transplants.

Through the roll-up sides of the old greenhouse (put up in the daytime for ventilation and put down at night for warmth) you can see the tomatoes are getting tall.

Inside view of the tomatoes growing up the string trellises.

Tomatoes!

In Field 1 are the peas, broccoli, eggplant, radishes, lettuce, spinach, bok choy, kohlrabi, beans, turnips, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, corn, carrots and beets. Most of the mid-late summer veggies are still small but growing by leaps and bounds every day.

Lettuce is one of the first late spring veggies to appear and we've been eating it for the past couple of weeks. It's so exciting to start digging into fresh garden produce after a long winter of root cellar veggies, preserves and pickles and the few things we buy at the grocery store. I'm never disappointed at the amazing taste of the food our land gives us.

Veggies aren't the only thing growing at the farm this season. Baby #3 is due to arrive in two months with all my late summer favorites like corn, peppers and zucchini.

The kids have started their own little garden in the front near the house. They check daily on the progress of the cherry tomatoes, beans, peppers, cucumbers, peas, carrots and lettuce. There's also a small corn plot nearby.

Stay cool during these sweltering days! Visit our CSA page for info on our local pick-up options.

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Recipe: Raw Kale Salad

While I mostly boil or roast kale, I've learned to appreciate the speediness and tastiness of preparing it raw by massaging it. This sounds like a strange thing to do, but it turns out that a little elbow grease and the right kind of dressing will break down and soften kale's tough fibers and cell walls much in the same way that cooking does. Any oil plus an acid (like a vinaigrette dressing) can be used to wilt raw kale with a few minutes of rubbing the dressed kale between your fingers. Even just marinating raw kale in vinaigrette for several hours in the fridge will soften it, but the massage method is my new favorite go-to prep for its speediness and simplicity.

Ingredients:
- handful of kale
- handful of basil
- 1/2 pint shelling peas
- 1/2 pint snow peas
- 2 tbsp. lemon juice
- 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 tbsp. sesame seeds

Steps:

1) Place each leaf upside down (stem side up) and using a small, sharp knife cut the stem out.

2) Switch to a larger knife and slice kale into thin ribbons.

3) Place kale ribbons into salad bowl and add lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and olive oil. Massage for 2-3 min to tenderize. Put aside to continue softening while you prep the rest of the salad.

4) Slice basil into similarly sized ribbons and combine with both types of peas (snow peas coarsely chopped and shelling peas shelled).

5) Add all to salad bowl along with sesame seeds and mix well. Other seeds like pumpkin or hemp or nuts like walnuts or pine nuts are delicious possibilities too.

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Recipe: Lettuce and Pea Soup

It may seem strange to cook lettuce and make soup out of it, but chilled soups for hot weather tend to follow different rules than the heavy soups of winter. Here wilted lettuce with sweet shelled peas makes for a light and fresh-tasting lunch on a sweltering July day. If you've grown a bit tired of salads through the leafy spring this cold soup is a refreshing change as we await the meatier (so to speak) veggies of mid-summer.

Ingredients:
- 1/2 head of lettuce, chopped
- 1/2 pint of peas, shelled
- 4 garlic scapes, chopped coarsely
- 1 tbsp. butter
- 1 cup vegetable or chicken stock
- 1 cup milk
- salt to taste
- a handful of parsley, chopped
- (optional) a handful of mint, chopped

Steps:

1) Heat pan on medium-low and melt butter. Add garlic scapes and lettuce and sauté until leaves are wilted, about 1-2 minutes.

2) Add stock and simmer on low for 5 minutes.

3) Add peas, parsley and mint and stir for 1 minute.

4) Remove from heat, add milk and puree. Taste and add salt as needed.

5) Chill and serve cold with a dollop of yogurt and mint garnish. Makes 2 large or 4 small bowls of soup.

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Spring peas

The ground is finally warm enough for planting. First up: peas! Eric was on the fence about including them in our first year, but I'm an insane pea lover and with some gentle persuading (ie, harassment), he was convinced. You're welcome, fellow pea fanatics.

That said, even after I talked Eric into it, the snow took so long to melt this year that we almost missed the window for planting. I would have been a sad pea enthusiast indeed...

Dried peas are soaked in water overnight and then planted.

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Eva Mae Farm