CSA Week #3, June 22, 2010

What delicious organic veggies are available this week at Valley Dream Farm?

In Your CSA Bag
Swiss Chard
Bok-Choy
Lettuce - Red Fire Leaf
Cucumbers
Tomato
Strawberries - get 1 pint/pick 1

Also at the Farm Standproduced locally...
*Boyden Farm beef ~ *Fresh eggs ~ *Maple Shade maple syrup
* These items are brought into our farm stand to give you a larger selection.

Recipes of the Week
Garlic Scape Pesto
Fried Scapes
Spinach and Scape Frittata

News from the Field
Strawberries are available this week. You get a pint and you can come and pick a pint for free. You have up to a week to come and pick your free pint. Delivered members will receive a full quart.
The Strawberry Story - Our strawberries were planted last spring and weeded and cared for all summer at the farm. About a month ago we had a late frost. These low temperatures can kill the center of the strawberry blossom, which eventually will become a strawberry. Farmers with irrigation systems had their sprinkler pumps spraying water.
The water freezes and makes an ice coating on the blossoms holding the temperature of the ice, at 32 degrees. This will keep the berry in the center of the blossom from spoiling which happens when the temperature drops to a lower than freezing temps, usually anything lower than 30 degrees. The temperatures can drop very low usually when any of three things happen. 1. a cold front comes down from Canada, 2. There is a full moon, and 3. the skies are clear leaving no cloud cover for thermal warming and between 2-6am are the coldest before the sun rises. This ice coating process is also used on other fruit blossoms when a freeze is expected, such as oranges in Florida. Farmers without irrigation systems lost nearly all their early berry blossoms to freezing temperatures.
Please enjoy our fresh organic vegetables!- Anne Tisbert