Notes from the field

Posted on June 19, 2007 by Oakhill

CSA Newsletter: Spring Week 5

Meet this week’s vegetables:


(We couldn’t fit both heads of lettuce in the basket!)

  • Carrots — The first of the season! We’re excited about the carrot potential of our new land: so far all of the many plantings look great. So we hope everyone likes carrots as much as we do, because we think we should have plenty as the season progresses.
  • Sugar Snap Peas
  • Lettuce — Two heads
  • Green onions
  • Garlic whistles OR Fennel bulbs — A choice between two flavorful options. Fennel bulbs are an Italian vegetable that is often added to other dishes for a flavor boost (similarly to garlic whistles, but with a much different taste). We love to dice fennel, sauté in butter and then add to omelets or frittata with cooking greens.
  • Broccoli
  • Kale OR Chard — Rather than over-whelming you with both cooking greens, we’re letting you choose your favorite.
  • White turnips OR rutabagas — Don’t laugh! Yes, we really did grow rutabagas this spring. I’d say we were most inspired by the seed grower, Frank Morton, in this choice. If he grows it, we’re willing to try it, although we were skeptical until our first bite the other day. We didn’t think it’d be true, but we love rutabaga. The flavor is similar to the mild white turnips, but without the bitter heat (which some of you may love). We enjoyed rutabagas two ways this week: first, peeled and sliced raw (sweet!); second, peeled, sliced and then pan-fried until crisp. We salted our rutabaga ‘chips’ and enjoyed every single bite.
  • Sweet onion

    • Now that our market & CSA seasons are in full swing, mid-week we spend much of our time thinking about harvest, harvesting, or marketing our harvests. Unfortunately, this means that our ‘field work’ sometimes gets neglected, or at least ignored for days at a time. This week we had the pleasure to have all of Friday and Saturday free from harvesting and trips to town. We also have a temporary lull in our planting schedule, so after a spring of planting like crazy we were able to set that aside for two days as well.

    The result of this two-day, focused field work time was fabulous. We weeded the onions (one crop that always requires us to hoe in addition to using the cultivating tractor). We ‘trained’ tomatoes (a method of trellising). We walked the entire field removing particularly noxious weeds before they could seed. We pulled out some earlier succession plantings and tilled ground to plant into again soon. We mowed paths that still had cover crops growing in them. And, we prepped our pumpkin patch.

    All in all, it was a productive two days, and the fields were transformed by our attention. Everything looks amazingly (& relatively) tidy for mid-June. We’re hoping that we can continue to keep up on the field work, even as we begin to think more seriously about the fall garden, which we will begin sowing within a few weeks.

    And, speaking of upcoming seasons, we want to remind everyone that we have only one more week left of the spring CSA—so if you haven’t signed up for summer yet, do so soon. If we don’t hear from you by the end of June we will begin opening up spots to people on our waiting list. Don’t miss out on summer! The vegetables just keep getting better!

    But for now, we hope that everyone is enjoying their spring greens, roots, and other yummy treats. In addition to the usual serving suggestions, we’ve included several recipes in this newsletter (and shortened the ‘news’ portion). Hopefully the recipes help you find new ways to enjoy this week’s vegetables!

    Your farmers,

    Katie & Casey Kulla
    Oakhill Organics

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    One Response to Notes from the field

    1. MICHELE says:
      June 21, 2007 at 5:18 pm

      I actually got my non-veggie eating kid to eat the Rutabagas :) I took a variation of your pan frying and coated them in non-stick spray, then baked them in a 450 oven until browned. Of course, I told him they were potatos….so he added ketchup and ate them.

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