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What's in the box?

Collard Greens

Herb Pot

Green Onions

strawberries

Red Romain (Full and half)

Salad Mix (Full)

Green Leaf lettuce (half)

Hakurei Turnips

Notes on the box...

Another week of beautiful salads!  Keep lettuce in an open plastic bag in your crisper.  Give it a rinse before eating.  

Hakuri Turnips are the white orbs with green leaves and may be new to you.  To store, give them a good rinse and remove the tops.  Tops and bottom are edible.  Cut a thin slice of the turnip and give it a taste.  It's mild, sweet, and slightly spicy.  It's a wonderful addition to salads, sandwiches, as a snack on its own, or diced and added to stir fry.  These turnips are one that we decided to try out because they are beautiful and good for an early season crop.  The seed is so expensive, so we were a little leary, but they are SO GOOD that we have decided to grow them every year.  Give them a try and let us know what you think!

If anyone has some of their favorite Salad dresssing recipes they would like to share please do so! this has been a wonderful season for lettuce. 

This could be the end of the strawberries... a short but sweet season. 

Summer harvest is right around the corner, with fall already on our radar. 

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a green tomato family

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fall transplants on the wagon, will be planted while you are picking up your box.baby tomato- 3-4 weeks from harvestan almost empty greenhouse, fall crops still waiting to go in because it is toooooo wetsummer squash, next week! staking tomatoes

Recipes...

[yumprint-recipe id='32']Scallion (green onion) Pancakes

 Roasted Hakuri Turnips with Israeli Couscous Salad

On the farm...

As usual, the Spring has been an exciting time with lots of unexpected challenges and weather that is making us want to pull our hair out (cut Hay on two different fields and got rain on them both times!) But the veggies seem to be doing mostly good with the exception of a few direct seeded crops getting washed out and having to be replanted.  The weeds are difficult to get rid of when everytime you cultivate more rain comes and replants those suckers in a different spot.  It's pretty frustrating!  But hopefully July will be a little drier (but not NO RAIN dry, right?)  Farmers sure are picky about what they want from the weather, right?!  Anyway, things are looking good in the fields despite the challenges.  

The first delivery seems to have gone pretty well with just a couple of hiccups.  If you had any problems, but didn't let us know, please contact us so that we can make it right!  Also, please remember to take the produce from the box with your name or your share partners name. This is super important to do so that everyone gets a box and we know who to contact if a box is left behind.  We are changing around some of the drop orders, which will affect the times, so please go by the email that notifys you of when your box will be there. And i promise not to mislead you again by sending out the email in anticipation of when the delivery will arrive. 

So, have you been watching Around the Farm Table on PBS Tuesday nights at 9pm? We were on one of their pilot webisodes that you can see here.  They are doing a fundraising campaign to help with production of their next season.  Here's a link to the video and information.  Inga, Joe, and Rick are really great people who make a really nice show.  They are farmers, too!  

We have to let you know about this, too!  Red Clover Apothecary is part of the Hungry Turtle Farmers Coop.   Nancy is an AMAZING herbalist and she is offering herbal CSA shares!  They are a one time delivery that we can deliver with your CSA box (let her know that you are a member of Turnip Rock Farm when you order from her).  She makes wonderful tinctures, salves, teas and more.  She has offerings right now that are especially good for Summer time including bite and burn salves, a sore muscle salve, cooling tea, Lymes relief tincture, and many more great offerings to keep you healthy.  Everything she makes involves sustainable hand harvesting and small batch preparation.   We are so fortunate to have her in our farming community and we hope you can get an herbal CSA share from her.  

Our farmers Coop will be at the Linden Hills farmers market every Sunday from 9am-1pm. stop by say HI! 

Welcome to our new members and welcome back to our returning members!  We are happy to have the first box of the season out to you.  This is our online newsletter.  It will follow a format each week.  A picture and list of the contents of the weeks box followed by notes about the veggies and storage tips.  Next a few recipes focusing on veggies that you may not be familiar with or that we have in quantity.  Finally, pictures of what's been going on at the farm, musings from your farmers, and news about farm events or announcements.  Your CSA experience will be greatly enhanced if you look at the blog each week!  It will help you feel connected to the farm and use up your veggies.  So here we go... What's in the box?

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red lettuce

green lettuce (full shares)

salad mix (single shares)

rainbow chard

garlic scapes

french breakfast radishes

green onions

strawberries

herb pot

Notes on the box...

 Rainbow Chard may be new to some of you.  Give it a good rinse and store in an open plastic bag in your crisper.  The colorful stems are edible, but you should begin cooking them before the leaves because they take longer to cook.  You can use the chard as you would spinach.  We prefer it cooked, but it can also be eaten raw.  

Garlic Scapes may also be new to you.  These beauties are the stem of the flower sent up by the garlic bulb as it grows.  It's a true seasonal treat that we only get to enjoy once per year!  It has a mild garlic flavor and can be used fresh in place of green onion, but it will have a garlic flavor.  It is also great chopped and added to stir fries.  And it makes a really wonderful pesto!  

Lettuce will store best in an open plastic bag in your crisper.  We do our best to clean it for you, but all the rain splashes soil back onto the leaves, so another washing is suggested.  

Herb pots should be placed in a sunny window and watered regularly.  If you want the herbs to really thrive, you can pot them out into their own pots or into your garden if you have space.  Pinch leaves as needed for cooking.  

Recipes...

 Garlic Scape Pesto is great to spread on a grilled cheese (or other) sandwich.  It can be mixed into pasta.  It can be an addition to a dip (or you can use it alone as a dip).  It can be used as a condiment on eggs.  It's super versatile and super tasty!

[yumprint-recipe id='30'][yumprint-recipe id='31']GarlicScape and Brie Pizza This is another place that you could add your Chard!  

  Salad Dressing Tutorial

First delivery information for new members:

We are so happy to be your farmers!  Thanks for signing up.  A few things to remember to make your Summer of vegetables more enjoyable:

1. Don't forget to pick up your box! We send an email when your box is delivered.  Picking up sooner on hot days will help keep your veggies fresh longer.  Always only take veggies from the box with your name on the label.  If you are unable to pick up, let your host know so that they may hold it for you until you can pick up or even better, arrange to have a friend or neighbor pick up your box.  Certain dropsites (such as the co-ops) are sometimes unable to hold your share.  If you have any problems or questions, please contact your host or the farm as soon as you can.

2. If you are splitting a box it is your responsibility to decide how to divide the share.  Some members alternate weeks picking up.  Some members get together and decide who gets what.  Some members cook dinner together and then split up what wasn't used.  It's up to you!

3. We wash greens and lettuce before delivering them, but we suggest another rinse just in case of lingering dirt or sand.  

4. Some veggies hold for a long time, and others have a shorter shelf life.  When deciding what to cook, keep this is mind to get you box used up!  For certain crops such as tomatoes, we try to pack some of varied ripeness so that you have some to use earlier in the week and some to use later.  Try to use up veggies from the previous week before getting your next box so that you don't get overwhelmed and veggies don't get lost.

5. Be sure to read storage tips to get the best flavor and value from your veggies.  Little things, like taking the tops off of radishes and carrots or putting a head of lettuce in a plastic bag will make these veggies hold a lot better.

6. If you have any questions or issues or comments or suggestions, contact us.  We will do our best to get back to you right away.

Here's a few more suggestions from Serious Eats.

On the farm...

Miranda, Haley, and Dana working on the barn when it was too wet to be in the field.

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garlic scape harvest

scapes!

fun on the farm. Miranda and Otto trying to trap chickens (no chickens were harmed or sucessfully caught).

Happy Haley aka HayBales

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Rain Rain Go Away! 

A lot has happened in a month!  We have just about met our CSA membership goals.  We have a handful of openings left and if you are considering joining, we invite you to do so.  We will be sending out emails with specifics about your dropsite and pick-up directions closer to the first delivery and when we have everyone signed up.   Our planting timeline for this Spring is pretty similar to where we were last season.  Another late late wet Spring....  But the good news is that we are WAY ahead of where we were last season since field prep was done ahead of time this year.  The first round of plants are all in the ground (about a month later than most other seasons) and we will be putting tomatoes, peppers, and other summer crops out as soon as the ground is dry enough again.  Hoping that the cold temps are over with!  The trees are just starting to leaf out around here!  The plants that are out in the fields will be off to the races with the warmer weather, but we will still have to push our first delivery a couple of weeks later.  We are hoping for June 26th, but if cool temps stick around, it may be the first week of July!  Eesh.  So much later than we like to go, but we will handle it the same way we did last season and just deliver boxes later into the fall.  Hopefully we will still get an extended season share out to those who want it, though.  It will just depend on the weather this fall.  But that's still lettuce and carrots and green beans and sweet corn and tomatoes away!  

Here's a little of what's been going on around the farm.  

the garlic is growing!

the greenhouse is the greenest!

look at lovely lettuces

more!

when it was too wet to plant, we helped our friends at Blackbrook Farm move a building by lifting it

and we made it to the May Day Parade

and we did some bird watching

and we watched some birds watch us

the plants were perfect and ready to get into the ground

so we got to work spreading soil amendments

planting onions

planting onions

planting onions!

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Sadie and Rama doing some direct seeding

loading up the transplanter

with all the beautiful plants

freshly planted fields! grow plants, grow!

there are plenty of worms out in the fields!

and we are feasting on yummy cheese from our farm while we wait for the veggies to grow!

We are excited to share some dates for classes put on by our friends and neighbors at The Hungry Turtle Farm and Learning Center.  There are lots of classes during the season.  Classes range from brewing coffee, cooking seasonally, home french cuisine, to gardening.  

We are also very happy about the start of the Turtle Scouts!   Turtle scouts are open to all ages.  The next event is on May 31 and it's the digestion workshop.  In this class Scouts will walk the Hungry Turtle property with herbalist Nancy Graden and learn about identifying wild edibles, how to harvest them ethically, tasty ways to eat them and what these plants can do for our health.  See the link for more about the Turtle Scouts and to sign up.  

If anyone attends any classes or Turtle Scout meetings at the Hungry Turtle, let us know!  We aren't far from there and would love to have you out for a visit to Turnip Rock!  We are finalizing dates and times for some events at Turnip Rock this season as well.  We will have a cooking class on the farm, a kids day, a couple of work days, as well as the harvest party.  We really want to give you a chance to make it out to the farm to see where your food comes from!  If you can't make it to any of the events but want to come out, just send us an email and let us know when you'd like to visit.  We would love to show you around!  It's an open invitation!  

Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.  We are looking forward to the first delivery and will keep you up to date about when it will be.