- Salad Greens
- Green Onions Watercress and Green Onion Soup
- Garlic Chives (use in place of onions for a light garlic flavor)
- Watercress Egg Sandwich with Bacon and Watercress
- Asparagus 2# Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Vinaigrette
- Rhubarb 1.5# Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp (uses 4 cups of rhubarb)
- Eggs
Short blog article from Practical Farmers of Iowa, “Washing Away Our Black Gold”. This article resonates with many of us up and down the Mississippi River. Ditches in the fields are more abundant and are running deeper. For some that have had cover crops, they have not been able to turn them under due to the late spring and extremely wet cool conditions. Some have opted to not even plant their crop since the fields are water logged and there would not be enough time for it to mature before frost. Feed supplies are running out on farms from the drought last summer and long hard winter.
The late spring, overly wet pastures, loss of many acres of hay due to the hard winter freeze/thaw conditions, and now a late planting in the spring have created a set of bad conditions for many farmers. And the problem is not just short-lived, but will have multiple year consequences as it takes a year’s time to get a newly reseeded hay field to yield good tonnage.
Some animals will be sold off due to a farmer’s inability to cost effectively feed them and have enough feed for the winter. Meat costs will go up. Harvests will be affected. People will be affected.
Since we are a small scale farm and use lighter equipment, we can get in the field easier than larger scale farmers. However, we have been forced to work the soil in less than favorable conditions in order to simply get crops planted or just mudded in. Succession plantings are not in order due to the off timing of the season.
Cool, wet conditions remind us more of living and working on the west coast than the Midwest. When the sun and warmth return, plants will jump and we’ll see more growth but for now things are slowly hanging out in the field. Some seedings have come up spotty as they have simply rotted in the wet, cool dirt. We will seed again, but there will be some delays in getting the crops to you. Be patient. Keep us farmers in your thoughts. We are all in this together. We are working hard in all the weather conditions in order to grow healthy, nutritious, tasty food for you. We care deeply about what we do, but the challenges are disheartening at times.
I write this to be real, to share the frustrations that are beyond our control, but to also let you know that we remain hopeful and always keep moving forward. Tomorrow, the sun will shine…or maybe Friday instead.
Next week will be the last Spring CSA delivery.
Wednesday June 19th will be the first Summer CSA delivery. I will notify members of their even/odd delivery schedule soon.
For pick-up times, locations, directions, the info is on our website: https://suncrestgardensfarm.com/csa/info/
CSA Calendar: https://suncrestgardensfarm.com/csa/csa-calendars/
Until next time,
Eat Well. Smile Often.
Your Farmer,
Heather