🌾 On the Farm and In the Field with Farmer Richard!
"If you tickle the earth with a hoe, she laughs with a harvest."-Douglas Jerrold
Every year is different and brings its own opportunities and
challenges. This may be the new record
for the longest, coldest, most wet spring in my 40 plus years of vegetable
farming. Despite the weather challenges,
our crew has done a super job of seizing each small window of dry weather to prepare
fields, plant, cultivate and put row covers on crops for heat gain and to keep
away the dreaded flea beetles. We started
our weekly “salad greens” plantings on April 10 and have only missed one
planting due to rain. We have kept up
with weeds (it helps when everything is growing slowly!), both with hand weeding
and as much mechanical cultivation as we can.
While the season has had a bit of a slow start, we’ve been enjoying the
special spring greens and radishes, but change is in sight! All of our heat loving crops are planted and
ready for some warmer weather! If you
have not been checking our weekly blog, this is the week! I took some pictures earlier this week as I
made my rounds through the fields to check on crops. Join me as I show you what’s
happening here at the farm!
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Sugar Snap Peas: 3 Crops Planted, No Blossoms Yet |
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Salad Lettuce & Greens: Next Week's Crop |
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Looking Great for a Full Season of Onions! |
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Zucchini Under Row Cover for 3 Weeks, Now It's Time for some Warm Sun☀️ |
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Kohlrabi & Green Curly Kale, Ready to Take Off! |
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Celeriac, Coming Up Nicely |
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Green & Yellow Beans, Peaking Out for Warm Weather |
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Basil, STILL Undercover Waiting for Summer! |
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3rd Year Strawberry Field is Full & Blushing, We'll Start Picking This Week 🍓 |
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1st Year Strawberry Field Just Planted--No Weeds!🌿 |
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Lupines in Full Bloom by the Strawberries (I had to take a picture!) |
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First Planting of Tomatoes
Organic
sweet potato plants from New Sprout Organics in North Carolina will arrive
later this week—field is ready
Ok, so some things might not look like much, but they are in
the field, rooted and ready for some warmer weather. If we get even 75/80°F they will explode and
take off. Trust me, I’ve seen this
happen for 40 years! We are in the welcome
calm before the storm of weeds, summer harvest, and for you, lots of
cooking!
So enjoy the radishes and wild
greens of spring and get ready to pick some strawberries! Hope to see you at Strawberry Day coming up
on Sunday, June 18! 🍓🍓🍓
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Baby White Turnips
Baby white turnips are a beautiful little
vegetable….”pristine” is the word we often use to describe them. They are classified as a salad turnip and are
tender with a sweet, mild flavor. Both
the roots and the green tops are edible and may be eaten raw, lightly sautéed
or stir-fried.
We plant baby white turnips for harvest early in the
season. This cool weather spring vegetable
is harvested while still small and tender when the sweet flavor matches its
delicate appearance. Compared to the
common purple top turnip, or other storage turnips, salad turnips are much more
sweet and subtle in both flavor and texture.
The turnips we grow in the fall are meant for storage purposes and have
a thicker skin compared to the thin skin of a salad turnip. Baby white turnips also mature much faster
than beets, carrots and fennel, etc so they are a very important part of our
spring menus until other vegetables are ready for harvest. To prolong the shelf life, separate the
greens from the roots with a knife and store separately in plastic bags in your
refrigerator.
To prepare the turnips for use, rinse the roots and greens
thoroughly and trim the root end of each turnip. Salad turnips have such a thin exterior
layer, they do not need to be peeled.
They are delicious eaten raw in a salad, or just munch on them with dip
or hummus. The greens may be added to raw
salads, or lightly saute' them in a little butter.
When cooking baby white turnips, remember to keep the cooking time short
and the preparation simple. Cook them
just until they are fork tender. Honestly, they are tasty just simply sautéed
in butter with the greens wilted on top.
You can also stir-fry or roast them and they are a nice addition to light
and simple spring soups.
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