Sugar Camp Farm CSA Week 8 and you're getting green peppers this week!
Hello sweet CSA members, Family, Friends, Former/Current/Future WWOOFers, Credit Members, and beyond!
I can't believe this is Week 8 and tomorrow's July!!! Time flies when you're farming. The garden is constantly reinventing itself and things are constantly changing. It's a beautiful thing. Not a lot of action this week except that TOMATOES ARE HERE!!! And we've been eating them and you will be too starting this very week!! We don't have a ton yet. But enough to give everyone at least one good sized tomato. They are beautiful and glorious in all shapes and sizes and colors. We have been working hard over the past few weeks to string them up, hoe and hand weed them, and now mulch them. We are mulching with about 4 inches of hay. Mulch is awesome for longer crops like peppers and tomatoes because it keeps weeds out and holds moisture in. Last year we mulched about a fourth of our tomatoes. Those we mulched were healthier, less susceptible to disease and lasted about 2 months longer. So now we are mulching all 1300 bed feet of it. So a little more than a tenth of an acre. The only potential drawback of this is that we could be introducing new weed seed into our garden. But we're willing to risk it! Otherwise we have mowed down most of the spring things and will be prepping beds for fall planting or cover crops here in the next couple of weeks.
In other news, little baby lamb that we've been bottle feeding is doing great! He's super feisty and is even eating grass on his own now. We all enjoy taking a trip down to see the little guy and give him the bottle. We also went mushroom hunting and found some beautiful chantrelle mushrooms that we will cook up for lunch tomorrow. This weekend we are planning a sort of kind of "getaway" with Jesse's family. We convinced them to rent a house on the Piney River right down the road from us this weekend to celebrate the 4th. So we can still do our farm chores and then join them for festivities and swim in and float the river!! YAY!! This week we have 2 great WWOOFers in addition to our more long term WWOOFer, Devan. They are Monica and Adam!! They have been super helpful and fun!!! We're very grateful for their help and their good company! Our very first WWOOFer, Megan, is returning this season for the month of July and we are soooooo excited because she's an awesome person in addition to being an awesome worker. We're just going to weed everything in sight with this dream team.
If y'all need stuff for the fourth and you're CSA pick up isn't till Tuesday, then come and see us at Richland Park Farmers Market this Saturday from 9am-12:30pm! It's a really fun market! There are over 40 vendors and live music every week, food trucks, iced coffee, baked goods, meat, cheese, veggies and oh so much more. We'll give any CSA members 10% off for they're 4th of July veggie needs! We'll also have a discount bin this week where less fresh produce will be $1/lb.
And now, drum roll please, Your Week 8 CSA! (Over head photo will be added on Friday after harvest! and emailed out separately!):
1 or more tomatoes! potatoes! summer squash! cucumbers! basil! carrots! green peppers! Green onions! dill or cilantro! Beautiful farm grown flowers!
We're excited to give you green peppers as this is a way we can preserve some of the peppers that were raided by the sheep before they get sun scorched! HOOORAY!!!!
Here are a couple things we've made this week:
Either we really like green beans tomatoes, and grass fed ground beef from Peaceful Pasture or we're really boring. Our meals have been very simple lately because the food is so tasty it doesn't need much preperation. Simple salads, roasts and sauteeing with garlic, butter, salt and pepper is hitting the spot right now!!
I feel like most people know what to do with potatoes and tomatoes. But here are more ideas for cukes and squash. Eating seasonally means that you'll get a lot of the same thing over the weeks. So we will try to keep the recipes flowing to keep things interesting.
CUCUMBERS! (Pickle recipe includes squash)
Marinated Cucumber and Peach Salad
Honkytonk Salute Cocktail with Cukes
SUMMER SQUASH
Sauteed Summer Squash with Basil and Feta
Zucchini and Summer Squash Recipes from Martha Stuart
Please, feel free to reach out for more recipes. We could all this food every single day!
I'll leave you with this lovely photo of our WWOOFer Monica weeding basil at sunset when it's coolest in the day. and my personal favorite time to work in the garden.
Thanks everyone for your support!
Much love, your farmers,
Lizzie, Jesse, Tony, Devan, Monica, Adam, Winnie (wistful pond gazer), Stormy (rough houser), sheed, ducks and cows.