Weekly news from the farm!

Greetings Everyone,

We’re resuming our normal harvest schedule this week! We’re proud to have both the hot tub and front-end loader repaired.  We feel fortunate that the guest who stayed at the Thistle while the hot tub was broken still gave us a positive review!!!  For those doing rentals – do you always worry about someone being comfortable and happy like we do?  Perhaps that is something one gets over once they have enough experience.

See notes below on summer squash because they are large this week and may contain seeds. We also had an opportunity to get some fall crops transplanted; however, the ground hogs have discovered them and we haven’t had time to evict them off the farm.  Anyone need a groundhog at their home?

This article in Science Daily titlted, “Crop yields for apples, cherries and blueberries across the United States are being reduced by a lack of pollinators, according to Rutgers-led research, the most comprehensive study of its kind to date.” confirms what we’ve been noticing at MHO.  We had hoped the situation was just in our little valley, but the issue appears to be everywhere.  This fall we’ll be evaluating the farm and doing an assessment so we can improve upon our habitat.   

Here is a link to the online store to place your order.

Your Farmers (and cleaning staff),
Carl and Julie

NOTE: Your’re receiving this eNewsletter because you’ve either been a subscriber to MHO in the past OR if you’ve registered for our newsletters from our website.  Feel free to unsubscribe if you no longer wish to receive this eNewsletter!  All orders are due by 8 AM on Tuesday.  Pick-ups in Spring Creek are either Wednesday from 1pm – 8pm OR Friday from 8am – 8pm. 

We’re roasting peppers this week!!! While we don’t expect that y’all eat as many roasted peppers as us throughout the season, we’ve decided to fire up our pepper roaster this week because the greenhouse peppers are ripening in mass. BE VERY CAREFUL ORDERING PEPPERS THIS WEEK. Those labeled “fresh” will be unroasted, while those that have the “roasted” included in the description will be roasted. We’ll roast the peppers, then sweat them in large pots, once they’ve sweated we cool them down in our walk-in and finally bag them in ziploc bags. If you’re planning on freezing your peppers for your winter stash, you’ll be able to simply put them in your freezer, but you’ll probably want to pick-up your share from the farm sooner rather than later just to get them in the freezer as soon as possible. Our pepper roaster, along with Carl, does an excellent job of roasting peppers to perfection.

How to prep and use roasted peppers:  Over the years, the Italian Roasting Peppers are the most popular in sales at the Farmers’ Market. These are the peppers one normally finds in the jars of roasted red peppers at the grocery store.  Over the years, poblano peppers was always most popular with the MHO farm Crew.  These always disappeared quickly out of the freezer for use in our farm lunches.  The farmers eat a 3/4 BU box of these frozen peppers throughout the winter.  The anaheim roasted pepper is a bit milder than the krimzon so it is very popular for those who enjoy a little heat for pepper dips, sandwiches and burgers. Above is roasted Krimzon Lee peppers, among our favorite, because of their sweet and spicy flavor. When we have the time, we don’t normally wash our peppers, but gently scrape off the outer charred skin with a knife, then deseed the peppers. 

We missed a harvest of summer squash so they are large!  This squash is perfect for broiling or grilling when cut into 1/4 inch thick slices and basted with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.  YELLOW SQUASH  will be a blend of zephyr and crookneck. The last seeding of our zephy squash didn’t germinate. The crookneck tends to have more seeds when larger, but still tasty on the grill.

Above is Southwestern Corn and Black Bean salad which is nutrient dense, vegan and super refreshing!  We eat this salad as a meal.

This week’s Farmer’s Choice Share includes: (share contents are subject to change based on our actual harvest.)

We’re offer both a Farmer’s Choice Veggie (FCV) and Farmers’ Choice Veggie & Meat (FCVM) Share.  Items common in both shares are listed first, followed by items specific to the veggie share the finally the veggie/meat share. The Farmer’s Choice Veggie & Meat share normally has smaller portions of vegetables. )

• Lettuce:   Romaine for the FC Veggie and Oak Leaf Bunches for the FC Veggie & Meat Share.
• Tomatoes:  Mixed slicing and paste. he FCV share will have a larger portion size than the FCVM Share!  These tomatoes are perfect for the above salad because they have a great flavor but not too juicy.
• Scallions:  These are amazing grilled!
• Carrots  Great for a salad! 
• Sweet Corn:  4 ears for a couple meals!!! So great boiled and served with beans.  
• Peppers: Roasted Anaheim:   Check out all our recipes for frozen peppers listed in the online store. Fabulous with the char removed and eaten as a snack!   
• Basil:  Thai which is great for soups, salads and spring rolls.

The following are included only in the veggie share:

• Sweet: Peppers: A mix of Rainbow Baby Bells
• Cabbage: Green: A new variety for us so tell us what you think of it! The old variety we’ve been growing for about 15 years no longer performs well for us.  We wonder if it is the warming of our soil temperatures combined with rain, so we’re adapting by trying new varities.

The following are included only in the meat share

• Beef: Ground (Hamburgers) Great for stuffing peppers!