Our primary concern this week was water…water for the plants to ensure they continue to grow. We haven’t had a good rain for a few weeks. These hot, windy days take the moisture and humidity away and stress the plants. This link about carrots, and what they need provides a good overview of what aspects including watering that we evaluate in order to have a good crop.  http://bit.ly/M2qLZM   In general, about an inch of moisture each week is what we are aiming for.

We received 1/10 of an inch on Sunday night. Keith’s perspective, “That’s good. We really needed some rain.” We are hoping that the projected rain for later this week brings rain. We always pray that when the storms blow over that God protects the crop and that hail, strong winds and tornadoes are not present in that storm.

Do you think these are working right?

On Saturday, Steve hooked up our irrigation system for the garden which is primarily a drip system. A drip irrigation system will not cause the soil to splash up on the plants. This will help prevent fungus and bacterial plant diseases which are naturally present in the soil. These issues can damage the crop. The following sites explain some of these diseases.  http://bit.ly/K0wYpv  http://bit.ly/NwV2WU

Our irrigation system will eventually run solely off of a water tank that will collect rain run-off of our shop through a gutter system.

In addition to installing the irrigation, we accomplished a lot of weeding this past weekend. We also planted cabbage, kohlarabi, Simpson Elite lettuce and Red Oak lettuce.

6-13-12 installation of irrigation

Box of Spring Produce

YOUR BOXES OF PRODUCE

This list is prepared before we harvest your share. Some guesswork is involved! We do our best to predict which crops will be ready to harvest, but sometimes crops are on the list that are not in the share, and sometimes crops will be in the share even though they’re not on the list.

Look for new links on recipes etc. Also remember food safety when preparing, always wash your before eating. http://bit.ly/MBhskn

Rhubarb – Not in this weeks box. It needs time for a good regrowth after very little rain and hot and windy days. It does look promising for next week. In the meantime, check out some options for recipes in the future. I found yet another useful site on rhubarb courtesy of the Lanesboro, Minnesota’s Rhubarb Festival. Check out these award-winning recipes http://bit.ly/M2mkOO.  Thank you Kraby family for sharing a yummy recipe. http://bit.ly/LTvfUD

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce – wash, cut off longer stems. Enjoy in salads or sprinkle a little bit of sugar over it.

Spinach – wash, cut off longer stems. Great for salads. There will be two types of spinach in this weeks box. An early season variety and a variety that really grew this last week. http://bit.ly/LjbXsx

Beet greens – wash, cut off longer stems. Great for salads. Some additional ideas for beet greens http://bit.ly/Ljc0oe

Radishes – wash, cut off the tops and also the bottoms, slice and enjoy in salads. Some enjoy dipping in salt. http://bit.ly/KrSM3l

Turnips – NEW this week. great cut up and eaten raw in a salad. The turnip greens are also edible and could be used in a salad.

Herbs – chives, lemon thyme, basil, cilantro, oregano and orange thyme (NEW) – wash then chop up chives into small pieces. http://bit.ly/LHQpIZ

Fresh cut arrangement – includes Hosta leaves. These last forever in a vase of water. Give them a fresh-cut when you get home and place in a vase of room temperature water. http://bit.ly/LHQIUb