Today marks our very first CSA delivery! I’m not calling this Week 1 since you’re only getting asparagus, but I think that freshly harvested asparagus is a pretty good way to kick off the season. From now on, the format of my newsletters will change a little bit to focus more on what you’re getting each week and will include a recipe or two to give you some ideas about how you might prepare your produce. I’ll also include some storage tips in case you can’t get to cooking your veggies right away and a mention of what’s going on at the farm each week. Let’s get started!
What’s in the Box this Week?
ASPARAGUS – The best way to store asparagus is standing up in a glass or jar with all of the ends submerged in an inch or two of water. Loosely cover the asparagus with a plastic bag and keep in the fridge for up to a week.
Our asparagus is harvested at its “snapping point” which is the lowest spot on the asparagus spear that is not fibrous and tough, meaning you can eat nearly all of it. However, if you do wait several days to eat it, I might go ahead and cut off the bottom inch before cooking in case it’s gotten a little woody sitting in the fridge.
Fun Fact: Did you know that you can actually watch asparagus grow? Especially on hot days, it can grow up to seven inches each day. Yesterday I harvested in the morning and in the evening, it grew so quickly!
Notes from the Field
The biggest news, of course, is that we have started the CSA on time with your first delivery of asparagus! I really do love asparagus. It is such a hardy, dependable crop. Even if the weather is generally failing to cooperate, I’m still able to count on having something green ready to enjoy this early in the season. The bad news is that, despite having some truly spectacular spring days this past month, the weather has not been all that conducive to growing plants. Between the cold in April, the cool weather last week, and the hot, dry winds of this past weekend, our plants have taken a bit of a beating. Every time something like this happens, it sets them back a little and lengthens their time to maturity and harvest. My best guess right now is that you will have a full share in about two weeks. The good news is that we should have at least a few more items to give you each week in the meantime. This year’s CSA will start off as a trickle rather than a flood!
This week starts summer vacation for the kids. I call them my “assistant farmers” as they often help out in the field. Sometimes this is reluctant help, but usually once we start working together, we have a lot of fun. They pitched in to weed the strawberries and spread some straw mulch this morning and were excited to end their work with a visit to the bluebird house where they discovered that some chicks had hatched!
Over the past week we saw a lot of germination in the fields. The parsnips, zucchini, cucumbers, and okra all sprouted, and the strawberries are in full bloom. Erik kindly put up the tomato trellises for me over the weekend, and this week I will transplant out all sorts of veggies: tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, ground cherries, and others. As you may recall, I seeded hundreds of plants back in April. These all germinated wonderfully, but then they all languished and none of them actually grew to a size that would allow them to be planted outdoors. I have started seeds in the same way for years with never any trouble like this. It’s true that they are always a little wimpy because I don’t have a greenhouse to provide them optimal growing conditions, but I’ve never had 100% failure before and my current thinking is that it has something to do with the potting soil. You can imagine how frustrating this situation has been.
Thank goodness for all of you, our CSA members. Because each of you paid for your veggies in advance of receiving them, I was able to take some of that money and purchase transplants from other farmers as it was too late to try and start over. (Thank you Sogn Valley Farm and Pearson Organics; their broccoli seedlings are on the left and mine are on the right). With farming as with so many other endeavors, it really does take a village.
Recipes
Here are a couple of recipes for asparagus that we’ve enjoyed over the years:
- Asparagus Pesto from the New York Times
- Roasted Asparagus with Parmesan from AllRecipes (you can drizzle olive oil on the asparagus if you don’t have olive oil cooking spray. Once you drizzle it on, move the asparagus around until it’s coated in the oil, and voila!)
Of course, you can always just stick in on the grill or under the broiler with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Or, if you’re like me and one of my other customers, you can grab it out of the fridge and snack on it fresh throughout the week. However you cook it, enjoy!
Middle Fork Farm 