We are deeply immersed in our annual garlic harvest as I write this! It is an amazing amount of work, but worth it for such a delicious crop.  We use garlic in pretty much everything savory from morning eggs to aioli on a lunch sandwich to dinner fish or pasta.  We have a lot of garlic seconds, which you have some of in your share today.  If you would like to get more of this garlic to process and store or use in pickle making let me know as we are offering it for less than half the price of our storage garlic.  This week you have a lot of produce in your share!  You have fresh beans, both green and purple!  You also have potatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, and scallions.  If you were lucky enough to end up with a patty pan squash try stuffing it (recipe under Summer Squash). . . YUMMY!  If you ended up with a large zucchini, try our Zucchini Parmesan rolls or make up a favorite sweet zucchini bread recipe.  The larger ones are SO much easier to grate!  Another delicious summer squash dish is a chowder.  You could use either squash or zucchini for the soup.  Don’t forget how well a squash puree freezes too so that you can have soup made with summer squash during the winter.  One of the benefits of all this amazing food is putting up some for winter!  If you are ever over flowing with veggies make up a soup to freeze.  Another trick we use here at Grassland is that we save our veggie scraps to make vegetable stock.  We keep the onion and carrot tops, wilted beet greens, and so on in a gallon size bag in the freezer.  When it gets full we add all those goodies to a pot of boiling water and then simmer for a few hours.  We often will add salt, fresh herbs, and garlic too!  Then we have stock all ready for fall and winter soups.  Grocery store, canned stock is very high in sodium and usually other junk we don’t want to eat. Please pass along any creative recipes you come up with using our produce and we will gladly add it to our blog. Eat well this week!

Farming is never quite perfect no matter how much you pray for rain or sun or whatever it is that you can’t control.  This summer, however, is coming the closest that we have ever seen.  Despite many mechanical challenges here at Grassland, the weather has been just right.  Recently, it has been quite dry here, so the rain yesterday was much appreciated by all living things cows, veggies, and farmers alike. I was having my Orono and Waterville farmers’ market inspection at that time, and none of us complained about walking around in the rain.  My crew was mulching the winter squash plants and worked away smiling.  Farming is so amazing and rewarding. . . Lest I forget. . . CHALLENGING!  There is bad news lingering though in Waldoboro.  The first late blight has been discovered on tomatoes in a home garden.  If you are growing tomatoes or potatoes, be diligent to check for disease and follow correct protocol for removing the disease to help control the spread to other farmers/gardeners crops.  For more information about what you are looking for or how to control it, go to http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/FactSheets/lateblight/late.htm.  You can also find info by searching “late blight” at www.mofga.org.  We can only hope that we get tomatoes this year after last year’s debacle.

This week in your share you have the first cucumbers!!  Also, summer squash and zucchini, mixed varieties of beets, kale, salad mix, carrots, young onions, and kohlrabi.  You will notice that the golden beets (yellowish color) and the Chioggia beets (pink skin, white and red swirled center) are sweeter than the dark red beet.  Bulls blood, which has the dark red greens, has the most “rooty” beet flavor and is grown particularly for the leaf.  Young onions can be used like scallions, but have a stronger flavor.  Use them in cooking or raw in salads.  You may have a yellow cucumber!  Interesting, eh?  This is a classic Maine variety called Boothby’s Blonde.  You will find that it is sweet and delicious.

Be sure to let us know if you have questions, concerns or love stories about any of our produce, recipes, or notes here in the newsletter.  We love to know you are out there keeping us with your farm!  You are invested, it’s true, and we hope to make it worth your investment in many ways.  Happy eating this week!

Summer is rolling right along here at the farm.  We still need to plant our fall carrots and transplant out our fall broccoli, but other crops are finishing out their annual lives.  We are about to pull our pea plants and till in a bunch of lettuce mix in order to plant cover crops in preparation for next year.  This week in your share bag you have: Summer Squash and/or Zucchini, two heads of Romaine Lettuce, a bunch of fresh garlic, 1 pound of Swiss chard, Shell Peas, and kohlrabi.  If you are not familiar with kohlrabi, you are in for a treat!  Kohlrabi is known as the Apple of the Cabbage family.  It tastes mildly like turnip, but has the crispness of an apple.  To prepare it, you simply cut away the leaves, peel off the thin green skin, and the cut into chucks or slices.  Try eating it raw on a salad or as a veggie with dip OR cook in a stir fry or soup.  The leaves are edible too so use those in a stir fry as well.  Fresh garlic is more mild than dry garlic, but is moist and delicious!  Use it just as you would dry garlic. . . For our family, that means adding it to everything from stir fry to soup to pasta to mashed potatoes to mixing with our ground beef for hamburgers.  Garlic is very good for you and is delicious so be creative!  Don’t forget that it is time to start thinking about what you will eat all winter.  I know it sounds crazy to be thinking winter in July, but it is time to start freezing and canning summer foods to eat in January.  If you would like to get some bulk veggies for processing such as freezing chard or kale talk to me and we will give you a good deal.  Have a wonderfully delicious and nutritious week!

I guess Mother Nature is truly making up for last summer with this heat!!  We aren’t complaining though.  As time flies by here I know it will be December as soon as I blink my eyes.  Then I will be longing for these beautiful summer days.  This week you have in your share: Scallions, carrots, kale, snap peas, new potatoes, and golden beets.  The golden beets are sweeter than a classic dark red beet and you use the greens just as you would normally.  They can also be substituted for Swiss chard in any recipe.  You could make a roasted veggie mix with the carrots, potatoes and beets.  Try marinating your scallions and grilling them along with your favorite steak!  They are delicious this way.  No matter how you eat the goodies up. . . ENJOY!

Once again I am amazed at how fast time is flying by.  We hope you have been enjoying your summer eating thus far and are looking forward to all of the excited veggies to come!  This week you have 1.5 lbs of snap peas, 1 lb. of garlic scapes, 1/2 lb. of lettuce mix,  bunch of carrots, scallions, and radishes.  It is a great “salad share” this week, but don’t forget to get creative!  Follow the recipe for scape pesto on our recipes page and try adding some scallions.  Don’t forget that radishes are delicious cooked as well as raw!  Add them to stir fry, roasts, or soup.

Here at the farm all is well!  We are having a small amount of trouble with cucumber beetles on some uncovered zucchini, but in general the crops have been in love with the weather pattern.  We are about to finish putting in our fall crops soon such as rutabaga and storage carrots.  We have been working on cleaning the commercial kitchen in hopes to get it up and running one of these days!! There are so many possibilities with regards to how we utilize that space. . . We haven’t decided exactly what we will be offering yet.  Any suggestions: cheese? reduced fat milk? yogurt? pre-made soups, salads or prepared foods? meatballs?  The sky is the limit for now anyway.

Keep in touch! Let us know if you have questions of comments about anything in your share!

It is amazing how last season at this time I was writing a newsletter to you complaining about how the rain was starting to damage crops.  What a difference a year makes!!  The rain/sun combination has been absolutely amazing and the crops are growing like crazy.  You will find that you even have PEAS in your share this week.  It is certainly the earliest pea crop we have ever had.  These are snap peas so be sure to eat them pod and all.  We will have shell peas for you, but they are not ready yet.  You will also find some dry beans in your bags as well!  What a treat!  We grew these last year and had some left over after seeding them for this season.  We thought you might enjoy having some.  There are a mix of beans, but all can be soaked overnight and then parboiled for an hour or so in order to use them.  Try making a bean salad with your radishes, salad turnips, and scallions or a bean soup with the braising mix of mustard, kale and asian greens.  Please comment back if you have questions about anything in the bag.  Enjoy and eat well this week!

Can you believe that two weeks have come and gone already?  Summer always flies by for us here at the farm.  We love all the hard work and energy it takes to produce this food.  This time of year is what we live for!  If you haven’t been out to our farm before we would love to have you for a visit.  We always suggest a call ahead to be sure someone is around to greet you. We have had a great summer so far and have gotten a lot of work done.  Yesterday the crew transplanted out corn, a little experiment we are trying. I seeded winter squash as well and what perfect timing with the nice soaking rain we got last night.

This week you will be enjoying salad turnips, lettuce mix, kale, beet greens, and garlic scapes.  The garden becomes more bountiful every day!  We have added kale to your bags today.  Aside from enjoying them simply steamed or in a stir fry try making Kale Casserole.  You will find a recipe at the top of the page under “Recipes”, “Kale” for our favorite version.  You can even mix the beet greens and kale for an extra delicious casserole!  If you want to get your children to eat kale as they would potato chips, try our recipe for Kale Chips.  This recipe is extremely simple and SO delicious.

Thank you mother nature for that rain, but we are happy to have the sun back.

This week in your CSA bag you’ll find spinach, lettuce mix, kale, salad turnips and green garlic!

Enjoy the salad turnips raw or cooked.  They are much sweeter and more tender than regular turnips and are milder than radishes.  And don’t forget about the greens– they can be steamed, sauteed, or eaten raw.

Please feel free to subscribe and post comments on this blog telling us what you enjoyed in your share and what you’d like more or less of.  If you’ve got great recipes using the CSA veggies please post and share them with the rest of the Grassland CSA customers!

Have a great week!

Hold on to your horses, CSAs are here!!

The weather has been beautiful here on Grassland Lane and things are shooting up in the gardens.  We’ve been busy planting and of course weeding!

This week in your CSA bags you will find lettuce mix, baby spinach, radishes, and green garlic.

For those of you who haven’t cooked with green garlic before, you can use it like you would use scallions.  They have a great garlicy taste and are a little sweet.  Try them in stir-fries, salads, or grilled– And remember to stay tuned to our ‘Recipes’ tab for more ways to use your delicious CSA veggies.

Take care and enjoy your week!

Last night we held our third annual Earth Dinner at the Old Mill Pub in Skowhegan.  As always it was a fabulous event with about 50 people and amazing food.  Everyone brings a dish made with as much local food as possible.  It is so awesome to see what we can find in Maine in April!  There was pumpkin goat meat penne, beef stew, scalloped potatoes, bison stew, egg salad, roasted duck, roasted root veggies, and salad with chives and feta cheese.  Don’t forget dessert. . . apple crisp, blueberry crisp, custard pie, chocolate cake with beets, AND chocolate milk.  What a decadent event!  We encourage everyone to have their own Earth Dinner this week in honor of Earth Day!  Even if it is just your own family around a dinner table of all local food. . . Make a statement!  Support your Earth by supporting foods that are grown consciously and travel only a short distance to reach your dinner table!