week 5

Hello CSA gang, sorry for the newsletter delay, it's the 5th week already and the main season crops are starting to really come in, cukes and zukes in particular. This week we'll include recipes for chilled cucumber yogurt soup, stuffed summer squash, and a zucchini crumble. Having CSA pickups and farmers markets spaced pretty evenly around the week has helped a lot in balancing out our harvest schedule and keeping the produce really fresh. However, we've still been faced with large quantities of food and no way to keep it cold for a day or two between pick ups. Now, with thanks to Frenchy, owner of the Bagel works here in Manchester, we are building ourselves a nice walk in cooler. Hopefully it will be up and running by the time you come this week to pick up.

In other exciting (to us) farm news we have finally gotten our flail chopper running. This machine consists of dangling knives that swing and chop tall grass. The clippings land in an auger which crams them into a sort of fan that blows them up a chute and into a wagon towed behind. The chute is aimed by turning a crank reached from the tractor driver's seat. The whole operation is quite a sight to see, and since the machine is a 40 year old hunk of rust and rubber it is all the more impressive. The hens are loving the fresh cut grass. It provides forage and recreation for the birds, a good fuel source for the compost action and a nice odor blanket for the smelly summer coup.

The flail chopper and walk-in cooler projects have both been helped along tremendously by Yochai, our newest wwoofer who came to us directly from Israel along with his wife, Efrat, and their children, Eitai, Dana and Guy. They are spending 2 months traveling the USA wwoofing on different farms- quite an interesting family vacation. The kids have been our official egg collectors and they have been keeping detailed records of how many they bring in each day. The good news is that the numbers keep going up and all full shares should be able to take a dozen per week from this point on.

Besides eggs, this week we'll have cukes and tomatoes, baby bok choi, zucchini, broccoli, tender salad greens, and a bit of early cabbage. And as always, pick your own herbs, flowers, scallions and greens.

Veggie joke of the week: What do you call it when worms take over the world?
Global Worming

Cucumbers

Easy to use in the kitchen, loved by children for snaking, refreshing in salads and exotic if cooked (for those very brave). We grow mostly the small pickling varieties but also some of the fancy long European and Japanese types, let us know what you prefer.

Storage

Store unwashed cucumbers in a sealed plastic bag in the vegetable crisper bin for about a week. Keep cucumbers tucked far away from tomatoes, apples, and citrus—these give off ethylene gas that accelerates cucumber deterioration.

Handling

You can do a lot of fancy things to the skin of a cucumber, and when it is young, fresh, and unwaxed, it really only needs to be thoroughly washed. However, if the skin seems tough or bitter you can remove it; if the seeds are bulky, slice the cucumber lengthwise and scoop them out.


have fun in the sun