Weekly news from the farm!

Greetings Everyone,

The weather in the mountains is amazing and gives us a sense of rejuvenation and enjoyment working outdoors yesterday and today.  We know y’all are enjoying it as well.  We’ve been in semi-retirement mode the last couple of weeks.  What is that you might ask?  It is where we only work about 9 hours a day, rather than 12, just so we can get a sense of what it might be like to retire in the next 10 years.  We don’t take vacations because we consider working a reduced work schedule during the winter as a “staycation”, but it is nice working a 9 hour day during the summer.

You will probably need to white list our email to receive correspondence from us because we have changed our email from farmer@MountainHarvestOrganic.com to Farmer@MountainHarvestOrganics.com (our email is organics plural).

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!

CSA Shareholders: You can access our online store using this link, if using a desktop you will log in by clicking the icon of the person in the top right hand side of the web page, if you are using a phone click on the menu icon and choose the login option. All orders need to be placed by Tuesday at 8 AM so that we will know what to harvest for your share! Please return your boxes because we re-use them.  Orders will be ready each Wednesday after 8 AM. 

You’ll find watermelon and cantaloupes are in the store this week!!! We have a hard time selling these wonderful summer fruits.  We can never tell by looking at them, smelling them, or knocking on them if they are peak ripeness and flavor.  That means we’re offering you a money back guarantee for these.  If you buy one, and it doesn’t meet your expectations, we’ll offer you a store credit for the amount you paid.  We used to have this offer available for market sales and it worked great, it made the farmers comfortable selling them, and the following week we always received feedback as to the flavor and texture. Occasionally customers mentioned they weren’t peak texture but were perfect for majitos which is a refreshing drink.

Stringless Green Beans!! Green Beans that range in length from six to seven inches long and are harvested when the pods are the size of a pencil.  They are stringless and especially tender so only need to be sauteed for a few minutes. NO BOILING THESE FOR HOURS!  A popular recipe for CSA Shareholders are these beans cooked with ginger and garlic.Another recipe that is loved by everyone is this maple roasted Green Beans.This simple recipe for vegan Szechuan Green Beans is our “go to” recipe for every day meals. Occasionally the beans may be tough due to hot weather, or if we are in the mood for a soup after our first garlic harvest, we love Green Bean and Garlicsoup. In the summer when we have an abundance of beans and squash, these burritos are excellent!

Acorn Squash is available!!!This squash is a winter squash so it has a hard skin. Acorn is excellent baked with fruit in it, a family recipe tradition that we acquired from Carl’s mother. This squash is excellent as a main entree when stuffed with wild rice, with kale and sausage, or with tomatoes, peppers and corn.  An easy “go to” side that works for almost all of our winter squash varieties is by either roasting or grilling them. This squash is tasty simply  baked, and while many recipes suggest using sugar for basting the squash pulp, we feel winter squash is sweet enough that we normally baste with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.

We appreciate you sharing your inspiring summer recipes with us!!!  We love how creative you readers are in your recipes with summers abundance. Maxine and Jack are ever inspiring trying to use up their gardens abundance and CSA Shares. With cool mountain temperatures, this recipe for Tomato Cobbler With Ricotta Biscuits is certainly going to warm the belly and soul.  Isn’t the Dalton’s cobbler beautiful?

How about tomato and basil risotto before tomatoes are gone?  This NY Times recipe is delicious because they use juicy tomatoes for the broth rather than water.  Tomato Cobbler With Ricotta Biscuits is certainly going to warm the belly and soul.  Isn’t the Dalton’s cobbler beautiful?

Above is a hoagie with grilled squash, eggplant, red onions, grilled eggplant, basil and roasted peppers all loaded onto toasted bread from Annie’s Bakery.  Who needs tofu, sausage or meatballs when squash is in season!!!

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

We’re offering both a Farmer’s Choice Veggie and Farmers’ Choice Veggie & Meat 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:  Summer Green Leaf This is Carl’s favorite lettuce for sandwiches and burgers.  It has an amazing “crunch” factor and doesn’t get bitter in the summer heat.
• Slicing Tomatoes: Mixed tomatoes of small slicing tomatoes and possibly an heirloom.
• French Filet Beans:  We’re loving these briefly steamed!!. 
• Shishito Peppers:  These have turned red so we wanted you to experience.  Since we’ve allowed these to ripen, you’ll need to cook them soon because they won’t store long. 
• Spaghetti Squash:  We simply roasted, scrapped out the pulp and seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper.   We’ve have on our meal plan to make these Spaghetti Squash Burrito Bowls.  
• Basil: Thai:   Excellent for seasoning our sandwiches and tomato dishes. We’ve been substituting this for our Genovese basil has a mildew.
• Garlic: We can’t live without this and add it to every meal!!!
• Hot Peppers:  A couple serrano peppers for seasoning your meals!!!
• Onions: Onions: Mixed Yellow Candy and Red bulbs.  We’re starting to take our onions down from the curing racks!

The following are included only in the veggie share:

• Potatoes: Satina, our favorite potato for roasting and storage.
• Greens: Red, and Green cabbage. These are small and the only things the groundhog left from spring!! Hope they aren’t such a pain to prep and eat.  Thanks for helping the farmers eat the small cabbages.

The following are included only in the meat share

• Ground Beef (for burgers!!!):   We’re cooking burgers for the 4th and thought you might enjoy doing so as well!! 

We’re building shelves in our equipment barn to use our vertical space.  Part of the scope for our Pizza Farm, is to build a public restroom, but we first need to free up space in our barn.  We are having to move 3 areas, each 14 foot wide by 14 feet deep, into just one 14 foot by 14 foot area.  We should have built these shelves a long time ago because it is a great way to better organize our tools and equipment. Part of freeing up space includes getting rid of some equipment we’ve been hoarding thinking it may someday be useful again.  As we’ve been scaling back on our production, we aren’t using nearly the number of flats we used in years past, so have gifted those to some of the new farmers in our area.

We’re certain that our fall crops are loving this cool weather.  Last week our irrigation pump broke, and we expect a part to arrive on Tuesday so are hopeful that Carl can fix the pump.  Meanwhile, as you can see the napa cabbage, green cabbage, red cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower are growing.  These crops like a lot of water, so we’re thankful for the rainfall to tide them over until we can run our irrigation pump.

This dahlia is called Ted’s Choice.  Isn’t the color stunning?