Don’t you just love cauliflower? Well, us farmers love them too. Those beautiful white heads shining up at you through brilliant green leaves. What a treat they are to harvest. Not to mention they are delicious. I’m sure many of you shareholders noticed their dazzling appearance in last week’s share. We have been working very hard this year to trial different varieties of cauliflower and figure out which ones are the most productive here on the farm. We planted about eight different varieties and have been carefully monitoring their performance and yields. In addition, we have been blanching them, or taking the outer leaves and covering the developing head by wrapping the leaves with a rubber band, in order to protect them from the sunlight and rain. This has been a fun experiment and it is one of the reasons why they are so pearly white (The sunlight often turns the heads yellow). By performing these experiments, we hope to learn a little more about growing this wonderful (and at times challenging) plant and ultimately to provide more cauliflower next season. If anyone is interested in chatting more about this fun and exciting topic find me at pickup! Yeah for farming and all it’s bounty.

Farmer Katie

Hello friends,

The summer share is sadly over but do not fear because the fun has just begun! All those amazing winter veggies are on the way and guess what that means folks…fermentation fun! Since ancient times, people have enjoyed the healthy and tasty benefits of fermentation. Almost every culture has its own version of fermented food. One of my all time favorites is Kimchi, a simple and delicious korean dish made with vegetables and various seasonings. Traditionally, the greatest varieties of kimchi were available during the winter. In preparation for the long winter months, many types of kimchi were prepared in early winter and stored in the ground in large kimchi pots. November and December are when people would gather together in each others’ homes to help with winter kimchi preparations. To Koreans, Kimchi is so ubiquitous that even the Korea Aerospace Research Institute developed space kimchi to accompany the first Korean astronaut to the Russian-manned space ship Soyuz!

Kimchi is very flexible. Start with soaking cabbage (or any brassica) in a salt water brine over night. Strain the cabbage and save the brine in a jar. Cut up any type of root veggie, hot peppers, or fruit you have lying around. Be creative! Layer them with the cabbage in a big glass jar. Pour the brine in and place something in the jar to weigh it down and keep the cabbage mixture below the brine. (I often use a small glass jar or a plastic bag full of water.) Let it sit covered with a clean rag and keep tasting it periodically to see how strong you like it. Once it tastes fermented enough, cap it and store it in the fridge. It will store for a long time.

White Kimchi is one my favorites. It is made with salted cabbage, radish, parsley, pine nuts, pears, chestnuts, shredded red pepper, garlic, and ginger.

I hope you all enjoy Kimchi this winter and be sure to share all of your Kimchi creations!

cheers,
Katie

hey ya’ll,

May 29th our crew embarked on an awesome three day whirlwind farm tour. we visited Persephone Farm, Sweet Well Farm (where all those delicious eggs come from!), Farmer Brad’s Farm, and Oakhill Organics. Thanks to everyone for hosting us and sharing your amazing farms! here are a few pics…