Month: June 2025

Lucking out in ’25

June 30, 2025

What would a farm newsletter be without some weather talk?

Sure I could write about the spring of 90-degree desert climate followed by a cold rain that lasted 10 days, but my memory is only so good. Those stretches both caused problems, but I only remember they were back in the past. May sometime?

Instead, let’s talk the last week – that I remember. We are again in a rain pattern, but with all the heat and humidity in the air, it’s a more dangerous weather. The big story here with recent rains is we’re lucking out.

Just Saturday night we were running around closing up the greenhouse, battening down the hatches, getting ready for some high winds with some hail. I typically hide in the basement when hail comes because I just can’t listen to it and picture those hailstones ripping the greens to shreds. But on Saturday I didn’t have to because the purple on the radar just vanished when it hit Lakes Lida, Crystal, and Franklin to the West. Incredible.

Well, maybe the Lord is looking out for us. There have been a few times recently when we were ready for the worst, and luckily only ended up with (another) heavy rain. These heavy rains do cause problems with disease and beating up small plants, but it’s better than a heavy rain with a tornado or heavy rain with a 100 mph wind with hail. We did have a light hail about two weeks ago – you may see evidence in the outer leaves of the Napa – but, all told, I’m simply thankful for the good weather we have had. Although, honestly, it could stop raining at this point.

In the box:

  • Salad mix
  • Zucchini: I’m a huge fan of morning zucchini fritters – grate zucchini and add an egg and a little flour (less than 1/4 cup for a few fritters) and saute on frying pan, flipping when bottom gets firm. Fritters lend themselves to lot of variation – saute the chard with a scape or two and put on top of the fritter, melt cheese on top, put sauteed kale on top. You get the idea.
  • Radishes
  • Dino Kale: Dark green bunch with a blue band. Unlike standard curly kale which works in a salad, dino kale needs to be cooked.
  • Swiss Chard: Colorful bunch that may think is rhubarb..has great mild flavor here at the beginning of the season.
  • Garlic Scapes: Small bunch of curly green things. Mince and use anywhere you’d typically use garlic.
  • A couple of big beets: I got this recipe when googling “Beet Recipe for people who don’t like beets.” I’ve done a similar recipe in the past and the mix of nuts, goat cheese, and beets totally works: https://alphamom.com/family-fun/best-beet-recipe-with-onions-goat-cheese-pecans/
  • Napa Cabbage: Don’t get intimidated by the size of this thing. It could keep in the crisper in your fridge for a month easy. This is the main ingredient in kimchi if you’re a fan and a very versatile crop for both Asian stir fry recipes and some salads like this favorite – https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/18517/napa-cabbage-salad/
  • Fresh Mint
  • Fresh Basil

New Season New Energy

June 23, 2025

Well, season 21, here we go!

Our lives unfold each year with different color and energy and each farm season is no different with different weather, issues, and crew. For the beginning of the season, we had Gen Z Farm going on with the Sylvia and Camila show (both 20 years old) until Sylvia went to Ann Arbor to study biostats. With this much youthful labor we were keeping up on things even as the weather was throwing us some curveballs – 90 degree heat and dry in May, followed by 34 degrees and wet. Some crops were casualties, but others did awesome. All told, I’m feeling great about the state of the farm as of mid June.

We also try new things each year. This year I went deep into changing up the production system to permanent raised beds in our two oldest fields.

For the last 6-8 years we’ve been moving towards more intensive plantings of crops on smaller 30-inch beds in contrast to a typical 60-inch bed made with a tractor. Although the effort is great on the front end to built up these beds, the end result is beautiful. Each bed is easier to handle, really productive, and standardized so irrigation and covers planted really intensively and producing well. The big thing is we’re focusing our energy on these small intensive plots instead of a larger space and things are going well. I’m sure I’ll recap the experiment as we move through summer, but right now it’s looking good:

In the box:

  • 2 Bok Choy: We made a great rice noodle dish just a couple days ago which used bok choy. An example is at https://choosingchia.com/15-minute-sesame-ginger-noodles/ but I just made one up. Sautee the stalk together with an onion, add the leafy part after the onion and stalk soften just before the sauce (mix of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, hot sauce, with a T of corn starch or a person could just use a pre-mixed sauce like Bachans). Top this over the prepared and drained noodles, mix, and serve.
  • Basil
  • Garlic Scapes: The bunch of long curly things. Wherever you would use fresh garlic, use scapes. They are a bit more mild than garlic cloves.
  • 2 Big Beets: These greens are about as good as beet greens get, so you can certainly put into a salad, smoothie, or saute
  • Green Leaf Lettuce: This is just straight-up lettuce – pretty delicate with good nutty flavor grown in the high tunnel.
  • Salad Mix: A mix of lettuce colors and varieties in the produce bag.
  • 2 Radish Bunches
  • Swiss Chard: The rhubarb-looking stuff for those of you not familiar with chard. Taste just like beet greens. One idea I do most mornings this time of year is to saute with those garlic scapes and top your morning eggs or fold into an omlette.
  • Kale: Standard curly variety called Winterbor. Can be used fresh or cooked.
  • Fresh Mint: Mojito anyone?
  • Fresh Terragon: Pairs nicely with chicken – think Mediterranean French cooking 🙂