Sauvie Island Organics Farm Blog

This Week’s Share:

• Arugula
• Carrots
• Fava Beans
• Garlic
• Lettuce
• Potatoes
• Stir-Fry Mix

Arugula - This nutty, mildly spicy green, can bring its signature flavor to just about any dish you dare. Try it chopped in scrambled eggs with fresh herbs and garlic, wilted on soups, sprinkled on pizza right out of the oven, as a welcome addition to any pasta dish (just toss with warm pasta right after draining), or use it to liven up cool summer salads be they green, pasta, orzo, couscous, or potato (see recipe below).

Carrots - That’s right, this week’s share has the first carrots of the season. Baby carrots are young carrots harvested earlier than their soon to be larger more mature siblings. Baby carrots are crisp, tender, sweet, and delicious. If your baby carrots survive the journey home to your kitchen you can try them in the Golden Sesame salad dressing recipe below.

Fava Beans – New for the CSA this year we’re trialing three varieties of Favas. They all taste great and none should need the double shelling sometimes associated with these fat beans. For more information on favas there’s a great article in the Spring 2007 “Edible Portland” as well as a recipe for Egg Noodles with Fava Beans, Leeks and Morels. Since leeks aren’t in season you can leave them out or substitute fresh garlic, or onions. If you have leftover fennel from last week that would be a great substitution as well.

Garlic – The garlic in your share this week is called Romanian garlic which is a sub-variety of Porcelain garlic. Porcelain garlic, one of eight distinct garlic varieties, characteristically has larger cloves, a strong flavor, and stores up to eight months. However the garlic you are receiving this week is uncured. Uncured garlic is mature garlic that has not yet been dried for storage (for more information on curing garlic at the farm see the Field Notes section below). Still being moist the skin covering the cloves does not yet have the familiar papery parchment-like quality, but is still a bit tough and is better removed than eaten. Because the garlic has not yet been cured it should be stored in the refrigerator and has a milder flavor than it will eventually develop during the curing process.

Lettuce – Summer means fresh green salad. Top with Golden Sesame Dressing (recipe below), then sprinkle with a mixture of toasted sesame, sunflower, and poppy seeds.

Potatoes – Potatoes are traditionally cured after harvest to thicken the skin. This week you are receiving new potatoes. These freshly harvested, uncured potatoes have a thin delicate skin and are particularly flavorful. This week we have three varieties: the red is called Sangre, the blue is All Blue, and the white is Yukon Gold. Note the festive color scheme for the upcoming holiday, and enjoy them in the recipe below.

Stir-Fry Mix – This week your stir-fry mix is a blend of Red Russian kale, tatsoi, and mustard. Tatsoi is the smallest of the chois (you may recall other chois from earlier shares like Joi Choi, Mei Qing, and Fuyu Shomi). This hearty little green can withstand temperatures down to 15 degrees Fahrenheit and can be harvested from under the snow. Try cooking the stir-fry mix in a wok. Heat the oil (try peanut oil with a little sesame oil) over medium heat. Quickly cook some minced garlic and grated fresh ginger careful not to burn. Add greens and toss for a couple of minutes. Add a splash of rice vinegar or tamari, and toasted sesame seeds if desired.

Recipes

Tricolor Potato Salad with Arugula and Garlic-Mustard Vinaigrette
adapted from:Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings;
by Edward Espe Brown
serves 6-8 people

• 3 pounds red, white and blue new potatoes
• 6 large shallots, thinly sliced; or 1 small or 1/2 large sweet onion, minced
• 5 or 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• 4 1/2 tablespoons sherry wine (or balsamic) vinegar
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1 bunch arugula (about 4 oz)

Wash the potatoes and cut into bite-size chunks: halves, quarters, eighths, depending on the size of the potatoes. Cook the potatoes in boiling, salted water until tender (they should slide easily off a fork), about 6-8 minutes.

Whisk shallots or onions, garlic, mustard, salt, pepper, together with the vinegar in a large bowl. Whisk in the olive oil.

Drain the potatoes, toss with the vinaigrette, and let cool for 20 to 30 minutes.

Fold the arugula into the potatoes. If you do this when the potatoes are still hot the arugula will cook slightly, soften and sweeten. The cooler the potatoes are the crisper and more pungent the arugula will be. I prefer somewhere in the mid-cooling range. This dish can sit for a while before serving, remember to check and adjust seasoning (salt, pepper, vinegar) just before serving.

Golden Sesame Salad Dressing
adapted from: The Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Garden;
by David Hirsch

• 1/2 cup grated raw carrot
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (organic of course)
• 2 tablespoon chopped scallion whites
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup tahini

Puree the carrot, lemon juice, scallion, water, mustard, and salt in a food processor or blender until smooth. Slowly add the tahini while continuing to blend. The dressing will thicken as it sits. Keep refrigerated for up to 10 days.

Introductions

Hello, my name is Michael. As a first-year apprentice I have a hand in many aspects of the farm; from seeding and watering in the greenhouse to weeding, irrigating, transplanting, and harvesting in the fields. It’s a great way to learn sustainable farming practices and participate in alternative food systems. I also value the opportunity to interact with some of you shareholders at the SE Ankeny CSA pick-up site which I facilitate every other Tuesday night alternating with our Crew Leader Shannon.

I first became interested in sustainable agriculture and food politics through a career path in education, which found me participating in the Teacher in Residence Program at Slide Ranch, in Marin County, California last year. Slide Ranch is a field trip destination for San Francisco Bay Area youth. Getting them out of the city and onto the ranch gives them an opportunity to discover their connections to the natural world by exploring where their food comes from by milking a goat, feeding chickens, and cooking from the organic garden.

The experience I had at Slide Ranch helped me refine my goals: I would like to start a small market garden at a school or other community space in an effort to help children and adults make connections with the natural world while modeling and educating about alternative food systems.

It is both a privilege and an honor to be working towards my goals at SIO where the produce, the farm, and the people have been so good to me.

Field Notes

As the intensive spring plantings transition into the more measured pace of summer planting we have found time to catch up on other aspects of fieldwork like weeding, covering and uncovering recently planted beds with a floating row cover (better known as re-may) for pest control and as protection against cold nights, and continuing to tie the growing tomatoes to vertical stakes to maintain good health and manageability for future harvest.

Josh, our Special Project Manager, is at it again. Last Friday he finished building the handsome stackable garlic drying racks he designed just in time for our first garlic harvest. Designed for compact stacking while maintaining proper air-flow for curing, this welcome addition will allow the garlic to dry for winter storage while bringing flavor and pungency to its full intensity.

This week’s share

• Broccoli
• Cooking Greens
• Fennel
• Garlic Scapes
• Lettuce
• Mizuna
• Onions

Broccoli- I hope you have been enjoying the broccoli as much as I have enjoyed harvesting it for your shares. Broccoli is harvested first thing in the morning, we walk down between the rows, knife in hand, pausing to inspect the large heads. How’s the size? How’s the color? Too tight? Too loose? Just right! Whack and a toss over the shoulder into the broccoli back pack and on to the next plant.

Cooking Greens- Cooking greens are delicious way to get your vitamins, they are high in calcium and make a great side dish. Top with chopped and sautéed garlic scapes and walla walla onion, butter, lemon juice or vinegar with salt and pepper for a quick and easy side dish.

Fennel- Fennel will make its debut in your share this week, we grow two plantings of fennel a year- one in the spring and one in the fall. Enjoy this delicious lightly licorice scented and flavored vegetable cooked or raw. Try it simply sautéed in butter until tender for a decadent dish. I am a fennel fanatic and slaw addict so below you will find one of my favorite recipes combining the two.

Garlic Scapes- Garlic scapes are one of my favorite spring treats, they are here for such a short time and give us the garlic we crave before the bulbs are ready. Garlic scapes are the immature flower buds of the plant, we pinch them so the plant can focus it’s energy into producing large bulbs. Fire up the grill and toss the garlic scapes with olive oil and a pinch of salt, they take only a few minutes on the grill to become tender and are of a milder garlic taste than the green garlic.

Lettuce- We grow many kinds of lettuce here at the farm, it is one of our mainstays in our CSA bounty, indispensable for it’s versatility. Try it with different salad recipes and no sandwich is complete without it.

Mizuna- Mizuna is one of our key salad mix ingredients, it is milder in taste than the more familiar arugula. This makes it good companion to many tastes be it sweet or savory, my favorite recipe combines the both and is listed below in the recipes.

Onions- Walla Wallas are the sweetest, juiciest onion you’ll ever taste. I’ve been dreaming of walla walla onion rings since the onion starts went into the ground and now their finally ready. They are so sweet you can eat them raw, though I highly recommend sautéing or grilling them with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. They make a great addition to just about any meal.

Coming Soon: Carrots
Crisp and sweet the first carrots of the season are on their way.

Recipes

Fennel Slaw

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
• 2 bulbs of fennel thinly sliced

Whisk together all ingredients except fennel in bowl. Add thinly sliced fennel and toss until evenly coated. Season with additional salt and pepper as desired.

Mizuna Strawberry Salad

• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 bunch of mizuna
• 1 cup of strawberries
• crumbled goat cheese (as desired)
• chopped walnuts (as desired)

Combine first five ingredients in a bowl and whisk together to make the dressing and set aside. Place the mizuna on plates and sprinkle with the strawberries, walnuts and goat cheese. Drizzle with the dressing.
(Many seasonal fruits work well with this, so experiment and enjoy)

Introductions

Those who pick up their shares at the Wednesday SE Elliott site may know me, I alternate weeks with Scott our field assistant. For those members who I haven’t met I’m Becky and I am a second year apprentice along with Vanessa. As of May 1st we experienced an entire year at Sauvie Island Organics and are now entering the final season in our 17-month apprenticeship. It has been and is a truly amazing experience, education through hands on work, practicum and classes. I got my first taste of farming in 2001 working at a small farm in Massachusetts. I moved to Portland 3 years ago and was inspired by the agricultural scene. When I first heard about CSA farming I was immediately curious to find out how it worked. Over the past year I have come to learn the value of a CSA, of building a direct relationship between the farmer and those eating the beautiful food we grow.

Flower Shares

This winter I spent much of my time working on the flower share planning for the 2007 season. With the help of Tanya we experimented with creating a flower share projection similar to how we plan our food crops. This involved me awakening math skills long dormant in my brain to figure how many stems can each plant produce based on its growing habits and seasonality. This then led to how many to seed in the greenhouse thinking far along and taking into consideration some wouldn’t germinate, some would get eaten by birds and perhaps a few would die in the field. So with a cushion on the flower count and an armload of paper work I placed the seed orders based on what flowers have proven themselves to be sturdy enough and long enough for cutting, have a decent vase life (my goal is a week) and can produce nice re-growth or be easily planted in succession, and most importantly be easy on the eyes. This week the final seeds were started in the greenhouse and the last plant out will coincide with the first harvest. Every week will feature a unique arrangement to show off the colors of the season as it progresses. There are still a few flower shares left, the share is for ten weeks and starts the first week of July. The cost of the flower share is $150. Contact the office if you would like to sign up.

  Field Notes

This week the peppers left the warmth of the green house to be planted out next to the eggplants, both are snug now under their billowing sheets of remay protecting them from the cool nights that are still upon us. The remay came off the summer squash revealing plants doubled in size since they were transplanted two weeks ago and free of cucumber beetles, there are already a few squash flowers and you can anticipate seeing them in your share in just a few weeks. The onion fields are almost all weeded but as the crops grow so does the weeding list, high on priority are the broccoli and potatoes. The last of the tomatoes are being staked and some are soon to be taller than some of us farmers and we are tying and wheel hoeing weekly. Our first corn planting is shin high, right on schedule for knee high by the fourth of July. I know I already mentioned the carrots but carrots are almost here, so are the beets!

Apprentice Rotations

As second year apprentices Vanessa and I get to take on more responsibility in the operation of the farm. There are three rotations that we switch off so we can gain as much experience and knowledge as possible before we graduate and apply our new found skills towards our goals.

Field Jedi- Field Jedi coordinates with Scott our field assistant and is responsible for mixing and spreading of soil amendments, the irrigation of crops by drip tape or overhead watering, everything on the farm needs an inch of water a week, this makes for a tight watering schedule and a lot of laying out drip and moving pipe as crops get planted out into the field. Field Jedi is also responsible for the management of our compost piles.

Greenhouse- Greenhouse rotation manages the daily opening and closing of the greenhouse and maintaining of proper temperature, airflow, and watering needs of all our seed starts. We seed all of our crops according to the farm’s schedule which is planned out over the winter. We keep records on all greenhouse seedings to ensure we get the right count to be planted out in the fields.

Barn Owl- Barn Owl is responsible for keeping the yield records of the crops as they are harvested, we weigh and wash and pack and divide up the goodies for all our CSA members and the restaurants we sell to. In addition to this Barn Owl gets the opportunity to go on Friday morning field walk with the managers, this is when we set the week’s harvest and make our weekly to do list.

Egg Notes

Just a reminder to those who receive egg shares, if you share a dozen egg share please make sure you take a full dozen to split with your share partner. Pre-packed half dozens are for those who ordered a half-dozen share. In addition Kookoolan Farms can only take back their own egg cartons. We will gladly take the cartons back and return them. We cannot accept egg cartons that are not from Kookoolan Farms.

Sharing a Share

If you share a share make sure you coordinate with your share partner, if you are the one picking up you can put your share partners half in a paper bag provided at the pick-up and write their name on the bag.

Compost Buckets

Please remember to bring back your compost bucket each week to replace it with a fresh one. We gladly will take all your vegetable and fruit scraps as well as coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, eggs and egg shells, bread, dairy (in small amounts) leftovers without meat. Please do not compost any meat, fish, bones, paper, rubber bands, plastic or other non compost items.

This Week’s Share

• Arugula
• Bok Choi
• Broccoli
• Green Garlic
• Lettuce
• Spinach

Arugula – This spicy green is one of my favorites. I enjoy it fresh sprinkled with olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper. Or mix it with some of your spinach for a tasty salad.

Bok Choi – This new variety of Choi is called Fuyo Shomi. The Johnny’s seed catalog describes it as, “New last year! Medium-green, spoon-shaped leaves. Very uniform, dense plants. Wide, light green petioles. 10-12″ tall.” Try a quick stir fry by heating oil in a wok or pan, quick cooking some green garlic and sesame seeds until tender, and then add the chopped Fuyo Shomi (put the stalks in first because they take longer, then add the leaves). This quick stir fry is sure to delight.

Broccoli- Hearty and healthy, broccoli is a wonderful vegetable. Broccoli is the flowering head of this leafy plant. When we harvest your broccoli it’s a few days away from flowering. You can enjoy this veggie in a variety of ways, but there is a recipe for you below in case you need some inspiration.

Green Garlic – This immature garlic can be used in so many ways and is a good companion to many of the other produce in your share this week. Sauté with broccoli or Fuyo Shomi. It also makes a spicy and delicious salad dressing when blended with olive oil, sesame oil, salt and a smidgen of rice vinegar.

Lettuce – This week you will get two heads of Romaine in your share, and that means this is a good week for a Caesar Salad. See below for a simple Caesar dressing recipe. The large, long, ribbed leaves of Romaine are also great for making lettuce wraps. Tabbouleh, rice salad and pesto make a great stuffing for those big Romaine leaves.

Spinach – A cool welcome to spinach! This satisfying cool weather crop is packed with nutrients and can be eaten fresh or cooked (or steamed, sautéed, braised…you get the point). You can make spinach the center of a hearty salad, or steam it as the bed for a delicious garnish. This leaf is where it’s at. Spinach only comes around twice a year, spring and fall, when it is not too hot for it to flourish. Enjoy it while it’s here!

Recipes

Caesar Salad Dressing
adapted from cooks. com

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp Worcestershire
• green garlic to taste
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/2 c Parmesean cheese
• 1 tbsp of milk or half and half

Add hard boiled egg, bacon pieces, croutons and other goodies. Try including some chopped spinach from your share with this salad too.

Farmgirl Susan’s Super Spinach Soup
adapted from the Farmgirl Fare Blog

Makes 4 cups

• 1/8 cup nice olive oil
• 1/2 pound yellow or white onions, chopped
• 3 cups (48 ounces) chicken stock or vegetable stock
• 1/8 cup uncooked white rice
• 4-8 ounces fresh spinach
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon good pepper

Heat olive oil in a large pot and cook onions, stirring frequently, over medium heat until translucent and just starting to turn golden at the edges, about 7 to 10 minutes. Add stock, bring to a boil, add rice, turn down heat, and simmer, with the lid cracked, stirring every so often, for 20 minutes. Stir in spinach, salt, and pepper and simmer another 5 to 7 minutes. Carefully puree the soup using a blender or immersion hand blender. Serve hot, garnish if desired (but it really doesn’t need it) with dollops of sour cream or crème fraiche and a few chive blossoms if you happen to have any laying around.

Garlic & Lemon Broccoli
adapted from Southern Cooking

• 3 tablespoon butter
• ¼ c green garlic, chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• salt, to taste
• pepper, to taste, optional

Steam broccoli until tender but firm, about 5 to 7 minutes. Heat the butter in a heavy nonstick skillet over medium heat; add the garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add the cooked broccoli, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste, cooking briefly to combine.

Introductions

Hi! My name is Vanessa and I am a second year apprentice at the farm. I became interested in sustainable farming a few years ago and have been passionate about the topic ever since. My long term interests include teaching youth the importance of healthy food and how to grow it, bringing local food to schools, raising poultry or working on food policy issues. I also have the fantasy of growing acres of nothing but heirloom melons or opening up a rural breakfast spot where diners can watch the chickens pasture while eating delicious eggs! We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. In the mean time I am learning valuable knowledge about every aspect of farming and I am enjoying growing and caring for your food on a daily basis.

The Apprenticeship

Sauvie Island Organics offers a unique opportunity for people who are interested in gaining a complete and long term farming experience. The apprenticeship program is 17 months long and three new apprentices are brought on to the farm every May. The apprentices overlap for the summer season (when the most labor is needed) and work together under the crew leader to do almost all the labor on the farm. Whether seeding, transplanting, irrigating, weeding, harvesting or washing and packing out, us apprentices are in on most of the action. It’s a great way to work and learn at the same time! In September the second year apprentices graduate from the farm and the first years hold down the fort until the new apprentices come in May.

In the Fields

June is a huge month for transplanting at the farm. This month almost all of the summer transplants leave the warm protection of the greenhouse for planting in the open fields. This includes corn, peppers, eggplants, melons, basil, winter squash, and the weekly lettuce plantings. Field preparation and irrigation must be carefully coordinated with each planting, making for a well choreographed schedule of plantings throughout the week. It will be so hard to wait for all these juicy, colorful vegetables to grow and ripen in the fields…I can just taste the melons now!

Grass Roots

I filled out much of last year’s newsletters talking about sayings that originated in agriculture but have become common place in our lexicon. Phrases like nip it in the bud (which originated in the late 1500′s as nip it in the bloom and referred to the de-budding of plants), redneck and even the idea of a brand name. Grassroots was on the list last year, but it wasn’t until weeding the perennial herb bed early this spring that I really came to have a thorough understanding of those real grass roots. Those tangled, deep-diving runners just kept going endlessly. No matter how many clods of grass I dug up and threw into the road or how many roots I chased down, unburied from the earth and tried to destroy…the grass sprung up almost immediately and after a few weeks was back in full force, blanketing the herb bed with its bright green blades. As members of this CSA, you are all part of a very Grassroots movement to support local food and bring it to the forefront. I hope that together we can all spread our grass roots and continue to help the local food movement thrive and multiply.

Good Reads- Edible Portland

If you are not yet familiar with Edible Portland, now is the time! The summer issue of this wonderful publication, with a focus on “Celebrating the abundance of local foods, season by season”, just came out and is full of juicy recipes, exciting events and food related issues relevant to us North westerners. Read more at www.edibleportland.com or pick up a copy at New Seasons or the Ecotrust building.

Good Entertainment- The Endless Feast

The Endless Feast is a 13-part PBS series that brings together local farmers and food artisans, food lovers and star chefs to explore the connection between the land and the food on our tables. In each episode, a rotating group of chefs celebrate the bounty of a particular region by creating tantalizing menus with local specialties. The dinners are staged in beautiful outdoor locations, from farm fields to vineyards to urban community gardens, celebrating food at its source. Our farm will be featured Sunday June 17 at 2:30 pm and again at 11:30 pm on OPB channel 10.

 Community Corner

CSA member Amy Aycrigg runs City Dog, Inc.  She welcomes dogs into her home for kennel-free boarding where they become part of the family.  Your dog will enjoy walking in the neighborhood on leash or going to Forest Park for a romp. Four-legged guests are given plenty of TLC. Amy’s family includes Kathy Saunders, who works for the City of Portland, China their 12 year old Australian Shepard, and 2 cats-Tinto and Patches. Email Amy at adaycrigg@hotmail.com if you are interested in finding out more about City Dog, Inc.

This Weeks Share:

• Braising Mix
• Broccoli
• Garlic Scapes
• Lettuce
• Mizuna
• Onions
• Turnips or Radishes

Braising Mix – More delicious spring greens are in your share this week. Look for a tender mix of leaves such as kale and mustard to gently wilt down to top a juicy hamburger or jazz up rice. These leafy greens are a powerhouse of calcium, vitamin A and B6, and anti-oxidants, but shh don’t tell the kids. Just mince them up fine and hide them in lasagna or enchiladas!

Broccoli – The goldilocks of the vegetable world, broccoli is unrepentantly sensitive to the heat and bolts (begins to go to flower) early if it heats up to fast and grows too slow if it is too cold and rots if it is too wet. It is making an unpredictable and welcome appearance and may appear in your share this week or next.

Garlic Scapes – Bolting into action this week is our garlic! When garlic ‘bolts’ it is sending up a pungent flower stalk to do what all of nature does in the spring. Sadly for the garlic and happily for us, we literally nip it in the bud, plucking off this spring treat to flavor stir frys and sauces. Picking the bolting flower bud lets the garlic know this is no time for hanky panky and it should send its energy down into the bulb for a heavier harvest in July. Some folks prefer roses, but I’ll take a bouquet of garlic scapes for my grill any day.

Lettuce – Darkland, Oscarde, Rouge d’ Grenoblouse, Ermosa, Salad Bowl, Nevada, Mascara, Four Seasons…This is a small sampling of the many varieties of head lettuce we plant at SIO. Different varieties are grown for their seasonality, flavor, appearance, ability to hold in the field, and dependability. I hope you are enjoying the varied textures and colors as much as I enjoy the succulent sound my harvest knife makes when I harvest them early in the morning for you all.

Mizuna – Back again this week. Mizuna is in the Brassica family that also includes Arugula, Broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. It Japan, where it has been cultivated for thousands of years, its name means ‘water vegetable’ and is eaten fresh as much as it is thrown into soups and stir fry. I enjoy it in the wilted salad recipe below.

Onions – Also bolting are our early Walla Walla sweet onions. As these onions bolt, their growth slows, making it worthwhile to remove the flower and harvest the bulb for an early allium treat. These are a sweet onion and can be eaten raw in salad. So sweet that I once had them cut up with apples and sugar and baked in a pie! You will be seeing these for the next few weeks so experiment with their unique flavor and let us know your favorite preparation.

Turnips or Radishes – Some of you had Cherrybelle Radishes in your share last week and others got deliciously sweet Hakurei Turnips. This week, you’ll get the opposite of what you had last week. Both are a simple and quick snack when smeared with butter and layered on some good bread. Add a dash of salt to a radish sandwich or a pinch of sugar to you Hakurei sandwich.

Recipes For Your Plate

Spring feels just about to burst into summer fattening up the peas, hurrying along the baby carrots and teasing the tomatoes to put on buds. The kitchen feels like it has relaxed from early spring stiffness; cooking is a pleasant moment again instead of a head scratching moment.

Japanese Mizuna Salad

• 1 Bunch Mizuna
• 2 cups assorted Asian mushrooms such as Enoki, Shitake, Oyster, King
• A handful of minced garlic scapes
• Butter or canola oil for sautéing
• Soy Sauce
• Rice vinegar
• 1 Tbs sugar

Saute garlic scapes and mushrooms in oil or butter until soft. Add a few dashes of soy sauce and rice vinegar. Stir in sugar until dissolved. Remove from heat and toss while warm with mizuna. Serve immediately.

Classic Grilled Toppings

• Thick slices of Walla Walla Sweet Onions
• Whole Garlic Scapes
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

Toss garlic scapes in olive oil and salt and place onto the grill. Brush Onions with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and place onto the grill. Cook until desired softness

An Introduction

Hello, my name is Shannon and I am the new Crew Leader this year. I was an apprentice here in 2000 and am very excited to be back again at this beautiful farm. When I arrived here in January from the east coast a few carrots and leeks were still being harvested for restaurants and the greenhouse was cold and weedy. Now those carrots and leeks have long been tilled into the soil and new ones 6 inches high are fresh in the ground. The greenhouse has burst with seedlings, emptied out and filled up again as the wave of transplants ebbs and flows.

We have a great crew this season whom you will all meet as the season rolls on. It has been remarkable to see second-year apprentices, Becky and Vanessa, step up into additional responsibilities in the greenhouse, on the tractor and in the irrigation schedule. The new apprentices have dug right in and without hesitation have become indispensably adept as transplanting, weeding, and harvesting ramps up.

There are innumerable details to learn here from the masterful farm managers, second year apprentices, field crows and ladybugs. One vastly important detail to master in farming is counting. It sounds simple but, when you are learning to keep track of 200 rubber bands, 64 beds to transplant, 25 beds to weed, 8 crops to harvest, 6 different drop sites, 4 kinds of labels and 2 greenhouses, counting can become a highly skilled challenge.

Splitting a Share

An important detail for returning members and new members to know is that we meticulously count how many bunches, pounds, heads and so on each share member gets each week and exactly pack those specific amounts into the bins we bring into town each week. Many members split shares and the amount each split share is not pre-measured. Whole shares are counted out. It is up to you to split your share in two. If the tag at drop says 4 oz. each, that is for one share and you should grab an extra bag to divide it into 2 oz portions. It is terribly distressing when the count is off and a member is shorted her/his arugula. The same goes for all bunched crops such as Hakurei turnips and mizuna. You get one bunch and shared shares must split that one bunch. Drops have a ‘free’ bin if you want to leave those radishes for someone else. Enjoy!

Egg Cartons

KooKoolan Farms will take ONLY Kookoolan Farms egg cartons back. Lets hear it for re-use! Bring them back to us and we will bring them back to them. Thanks.