Out with the old; in with the new

(CSA Newsletter: Week 14)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

We are at a turning point this week — we’re beginning the shift away from shares laden with over-wintered produce. As you’ll note, this week you are receiving the last of the season’s leeks, potatoes, and garlic. Although you’ve been eating these vegetables all winter, we hope you can savor them this week in anticipation of many months without them.

Or, you can simply be excited about the new flavors. Rhubarb is making its first appearance ever this week in our CSA shares. We planted this rhubarb last spring, and it is enormous! Even though we knew that rhubarb plants grow vigorously, it was still surprising to watch them creep up through the winter grass and grow and grow and grow. Enjoy this uniquely dessert-appropriate vegetable!

And, of course, the other exciting new item: salad mix! Everyone’s favorite! The spring lettuce is growing beautifully, reminding us just how tender and sweet lettuce can be in this early season. If all goes well, we will be enjoying salad mix and head lettuce every week for several months from here on out, so prepare to enjoy some delicious salads!

Other spring flavors aren’t far behind: radishes, turnips, Asian stir-fry greens, and green garlic will be arriving soon.

Hopefully we’ll be able to plant more crops this week too. The excessively wet weather over the last two weeks put off some of our planting until now. Rain is part of spring, so we certainly weren’t surprised or upset, but we will be glad to get more crops in the ground. Later today (Monday), we’ll plant our sweet potato plants and later this week we’ll plant more spring vegetables and our potatoes!

This is the time of year when the fields feel the least abundant to us. Many crops are in the ground and growing, but there’s always a slightly gap between the abundant over-wintered crops and the true arrival or our spring crops. It is a very temporary feeling, and somewhat an illusory one at that. So far, we’ve always had enough for each week’s share, but as we look ahead it’s sometimes less easy to see what we will pick for next week’s share. So much depends on the temperature and the weather right now. Warm days and nights can kick start plantings in unexpected ways; and slightly cooler or wetter weather can slow it down significantly.

From now through mid- to late June is probably the only time of year where we find ourselves picking every single mature vegetable for the CSA shares. The rest of the year, we usually have many possible items to choose from each week’s share, and we get to assemble the best combination for you with some sense of abundant and luxury. Now, we more or less give out what we have. It works too, but we feel like we’re working on a tighter margin of success each week.

Much of this season is about faith and trust that the season will do what it always does: provide growth and vegetables just when we need them. We’re usually cautiously optimistic right about now, but also slightly nervous, as we watch crops grow and hope that the timing turns out right for the CSA shares.

This year, as with last year, our move to our summer outdoor location at the church parking lot (May 26) also marks an increase in the CSA size. Right now, we are harvesting for 89 ‘shares,’ and beginning on May 26, we will be harvesting for 126 ‘shares.’ The increase in size doesn’t actually represent an increase in production, since we will no longer be selling at the McMinnville Farmers Market. Either way, however, this time of the year is always a little more stressful than others, because we know we have an increase in production coming up.

As in prior seasons, I’m sure our nervousness will prove to be unnecessary (except as incentive to keep weeding, irrigating and working!).

We hope that you all have been able to be outside on the perfect spring days we’ve had lately (intermixed with rainy spring days of course). Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

Open House this Saturday!

Join us this Saturday, May 16 for an informal Open House at the farm! Stop by anytime between 2 and 4 pm for refreshments, farm tours, and friendly conversation. Directions to the farm can be found in last week’s newsletter or on the blog. Call us if you have questions: 503-474-7661. Hope to see you there!

Moving to the First Baptist church parking lot soon!

As warm dry weather approaches, we will be moving to our outdoor summer CSA pick-up site. Beginning on May 26, we will meet from 3:30 – 6:30 at the First Baptist Church parking lot at the corner of 1st and Cowls Streets. This date is one week earlier than the date on the calendar I sent you earlier this year — that was a typo! I’m sorry and hope that you can easily shift the date now. I’ll remind you again next week!