Last week's deluge provided some much needed water for our crops in the field. And if you can believe it, just two days later, we already had to start irrigating again. On Wednesday we used the rainy weather as a window to get caught up on all our fall crop seeding in the greenhouse. Casey, Sophie, and Joe seeded an epic number of trays of lettuce, spinach, and salad mix while the falling rain made a racket on the plastic roof of the greenhouse. We also transplanted out into the field lots of broccoli, kale, and beet seedlings and then seeded rows of fall radishes, mustard greens and the last green beans of the summer.
One of our major challenges this season, like last season, has been crop loss due to pests. One of our big investments this spring was the 8 ft high fencing around our largest field. The fence was designed to limit access to our tasty veggies from the local (abundant!) deer population. Last year the deer ate through several thousand dollars of produce and showed a special fondness for our fall lettuce crop. While the new fence has been doing a great job keeping the deer out of our Main Field, our three other fields remain unprotected. We have seen losses of spring greens, cabbages, squash, and lettuce, among other things. Even more surprising and disappointing, the deer decimated our first succession planting of tomatoes and our entire pepper crop this season. This is particularly odd because deer are not known to go after peppers or tomatoes. Last year we had large plantings of both those crops in the same field and both remained almost untouched.
In addition to the deer, we've also been combating groundhog damage again this year. While our trapping has been very successful this year (19 and counting!), the groundhogs have still managed to do damage to a variety of crops (spring lettuce, fennel, green beans, cabbage, as well as almost a third of our fall brussels sprouts). To top it off, these furry varmints like to taunt us by hanging out at the field edges and watching us make their dinner. If anyone could put me in touch with the head groundskeeper at Bushwood Country Club, please let me know!!
As a result of these particularly challenging pests, we're supplementing some of your shares with produce grown by local farms. We'll be bringing in green peppers and slicing tomatoes this week from Langwater Farm in North Easton, which is certified organic, not to mention award-winning. While this takes a bite out of the CSA budget, we don't want to completely deprive you of these tasty summer classics. This may mean we won't have the funds to buy in seed garlic next month, thereby having to reserve more of our own crop this year for seed stock--we'll see how the numbers shake out this month.
Enjoy your veggies and flowers this week!
Recipe of the Week
The first time I ate squash blossoms I thought they were just the fancy foodie way of eating fried cheese without having to admit you were eating fried cheese. I later found out that they've been traditionally used in Mexican and Central American cuisine in many ways, not just stuffed with cheese and fried. I've never made the tomato sauce that's included in this recipe originally, but you can follow the link if you'd like to have dipping sauce for your blossoms. A note about keeping your blossoms--they have a notoriously short shelf life, so it's best to use them within a day or two. When you get them home, wrap them in a slightly damp paper towel and put them in a sealed tupperware and keep them in the coldest part of your fridge (but don't let them freeze).
Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Ricotta
from epicurious.com
1 cup whole-milk ricotta (preferably fresh)
1 large egg yolk
1/4 cup finely chopped mint
2/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, divided
12 to 16 large zucchini squash blossoms
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3/4 cup chilled seltzer or club soda
About 3 cups vegetable oil for frying
Equipment: a deep-fat thermometer
Stir together ricotta, yolk, mint, 1/3 cup parmesan, and 1/8 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.Carefully open each blossom and fill with about 2 rounded teaspoon ricotta filling, gently twisting end of blossom to enclose filling. (You may have filling left over.) Whisk together flour, remaining 1/3 cup parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and seltzer in a small bowl. Heat 1/2 inch oil to 375°F in a 10-inch heavy skillet. Meanwhile, dip half of blossoms in batter to thinly coat. Fry coated blossoms, turning once, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes total. Transfer with tongs to paper towels to drain. Coat and fry remaining blossoms. (Return oil to 375°F between batches.) Season with salt.
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