Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Cauliflower OR broccoli OR arugula rapini — We thought all three of things were special enough to be made options up against one another. Over-wintered cauli is something we’ve tried to grow every year and only had large scale success with once. Unfortunately, we may not grow it again for a few years, because it takes up a lot of space without consistent results. The bunched broccoli was also an experiment in seeing if we could over-winter young broccoli plants for spring picking. Looks like yes (for some varieties at least)! And the arugula rapini is a late winter standard that we know some of you love love love! It’s so good in all things Italian. Yum!
- Dino kale rapini
- Rapini OR Collard greens — Want to take your greens in a different direction? This week we enjoyed an Asian inspired sautéed collard green dish (made up by Casey on the spot). It featured very well sautéed/steamed (or braised — whatever you want to call it, the collards were in a pan with a little liquid and we covered them). For liquid, Casey added soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. He also sautéed some leeks, and then tossed in some leftover chopped pot roast. We ate the results over quinoa.
- Cabbage
- Popcorn
- Potatoes
- Rutabaga
- Shallots
- Garlic
When thinking about our week, one main element comes to mind: rain, rain and more rain.
Obviously we live in the ‘wet’ Pacific Northwest, where it’s supposed to rain all the time. But we know the truth: there are wet seasons and there are dry seasons, but it definitely doesn’t rain all the time.
March is usually somewhere in between. We do get a lot of precipitation in March, but typically we also start getting some of our nicer and warmer weather — nothing hugely significant, but a few days to bring smiles to everyone’s winter worn faces and start the slow spring soil dryout process.
Yes, this week brought us a few glorious sunbreaks (rainbows against dark clouds in the distance! Ah!), but it also brought a lot of wet, gray, dismal, dark days.
In spite of the challenges and lack of properly worked up ground, our two new employees Jesse and Emily managed to plant some of our earliest spring crops into the field. We normally plant using hands as ‘spades’ of sorts to make divots in softly worked ground, but they had to use ‘lettuce knives’ instead, jamming them into the ground and pulling aside the mud to drop in the plants. It was hard work, performed in uninspiring weather, but it was also a start.
We’re not doing things the way we hoped to, but planting is happening (first in the greenhouse and now in the fields). Spring work is creeping along, in spite of the dampness.
Naturally, everything we can do in rainy weather is being well taken care of — the greenhouses are full of starts, including our newly germinated tomato and pepper plants (so hard to believe it will ever be the proper season for those fruits!).
I think it’s right about now every year that I seriously wonder if the leaves will come back this year. But, today I noticed tips of colors on the lilac buds, and daffodils continue to bloom everywhere. Even the blackberries are starting to send out new fresh growth, so leaves on trees can’t be too much behind.
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Casey & Katie Kulla
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Quarterly payments due by April 1!
Make checks out to “Oakhill Organics.” You can bring checks to pick-up or mail your payments to us: P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville, OR 97128.
Large share quarterly payment = $243
Medium share quarterly payment = $157
Double medium share quarterly = $304
