Today’s share includes rainbow lacinato kale, early wonder and touchstone gold beets, a head of napa cabbage, green onions, snap peas, radishes, and 4 lettuce heads – 3 mini heads called “australe” and 1 very delicate butterhead “pirat” which you’ve had before. The napa cabbage is great in a slaw – be sure to wash it very well as it has lots of nooks and crannies gunk tends to get stuck to. The green onions are sizing up nicely – you may have to pick out a few brown leaves from them. If you find any aphids on the kale, brush them off or let them soak a while in cold water so they release their hold on the leaf. They are harmless. I found very few so hopefully you’ll find hardly any. This variety of kale was bred by Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed (Philomath, OR), one of my favorite seed companies. It has quite a diversity of leaf shapes and colors so makes for nice-looking bunches. The bunches today have some side shoots included so you may need to separate out some of the small leaves that are attached together at the base. The snap peas are probably done. As you can see the quality of the peas is still decent but headed south a little bit and the plants are done producing new flowers and fruit. Snow peas are next! If you are backed up on radishes, you could try doing a quick pickling – something like this: http://www.marthastewart.com/336493/quick-pickled-radishes
The first planting of beets has been less than stellar, but I was happily surprised with some of the beets that come out of it today. The second planting looks much better. Pretty soon we will have carrots, too!
Here’s a photo of lettuce starts from the greenhouse – this planting is now in the ground and each plant is about 5″ wide. What a glorious spring we have had! Happy summer solstice and may the bounty continue.
Cully Neighborhood Farm 