Lov’n Lisianthus

I’ve been channeling Khaleesi lately as I slay hundreds of Japanese beetles and decimate crabgrass and other ferocious weeds in an effort to save my precious dragon babies. With the warm weather, our snapdragons have been exploding! Unfortunately, so are the pests and weeds. Since we follow organic farming practices, fighting off these enemies requires a lot of manual labor and a little ingenuity. For most of our crops, we use landscape fabric to help fight the weed compaction and minimize soil runoff. I couldn’t imagine growing without it but it’s amazing how some weeds can still manage to invade, especially on recently converted land such as ours.

Our hard work is paying off with the best crop of snapdragons we’ve had thus far with long straight stems and a wide array of popping colors. They’ve been the showcase of our bouquets for the past two weeks combined with bacehlor buttons, sweet sultan, flowering tobacco, cerinthe, yarrow and recently celosia.

Produce Share

We’re a few weeks into our produce share but still taking on new customers each week. Our last couple deliveries have included the following garden goodies, among others!

Green Beans

Just as our peas were coming to an end for the season, our green beans showed up in abundance. I typically plant both pole beans and bush beans. From a garden perspective, I prefer pole beans as they’re easier to pick and provide a beautiful trellis in the garden. However, after growing bush beans for the past two years, I think I’m happier with their quality. The ones we’re growing this year are smaller, like French-style beans, more tender and without the strings you often find in pole beans. This is the first year I haven’t planted pole beans. I meant to plant them but couldn’t find the seed packet when it came time to plant. I expect they are in one of our fields along with a pair of my glasses, which I seem to lose daily on the farm.

Squash

We have three types of squash in season right now - yellow summer squash, zucchini and patty pan. It’s possible that I started growing patty pan squash just because I like the name and they look cute However, it quickly became a favorite of mine even though it’s a little harder to sell as people aren’t really sure what to do with it. It looks a bit like a small pumpkin but is tender like a squash. It can simply be divided and baked, sauteed or grilled like any other squash but can also be stuffed for an elegant side.

Berries

We’ve been picking raspberries daily for the past two weeks and our blackberries are about a week out from being ready. One of the early mistakes I made in gardening was planting berry bushes in our raised bed garden because they took over the garden within a couple of years. Now our raised bed garden is strictly dedicated to berries and herbs with a few other vegetables where we can squeeze them in. Our berry bushes are screaming for more space so we may need to transplant them to a dedicated field in the fall.

Bok Choy

Bok Choy, also referred to as pak choy or pok choi, is a type of Chinese cabbage. It’s base is white and looks similar to celery with wide flat leafs. It can be eaten raw or cooked many different ways. One of the easiest ways is to saute it with in a little olive oil with garlic, shallots, sesame oil, soy sauce and optional red pepper flakes. It is also nice grilled with a similar marinade. I prefer keeping the stalks intact and quartering them but they can also be chopped. Sauteed Bok choy makes a great base for serving fish. I particularly like it with Salmon.

Lettuce

In addition to spinach, kale and arugula, we’re growing 6 different kinds of lettuce this summer, with more to come for the fall. Because I’m a little OCD about symmetry, we’ve got red and green varieties of butter, romaine and frisee. We try to include 1-2 varieties in each of our weekly shares.

Swiss Chard

Again, it’s likely that I started growing this for aesthetic reasons. I confess that I like the rainbow row in the middle of my garden. Plus, it’s turned out to be a real work horse in the garden. The more you cut, the more it produces. As a hearty green, it is often overlooked compared to Kale. It is actually a relative of beets. It can be eaten raw or cooked and makes a great addition to pasta, soup or quiches. Or, you can saute it with simple seasoning of your choice for a beautiful and nutritious side dish.

Featured Farms

Over the past two weeks, we’ve featured some great local farms and businesses in our CSA deliveries. The first was Spring Valley Farm and Orchard, which I happened upon while driving my daughter to work at a camp in West Virginia.

Spring Valley Farm and Orchard

Eli and Misty Cook farm 345 acres in the rolling hills and valley of Augusta, West Virginia. I passed by one of their markets outside of Winchester, Virginia and was immediately drawn in. Upon entering, I was greeted by glorious tables of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as intriguing shelves full of their farm made canned goods. I purchased fresh peaches and peach salsa for our CSA members. Within the DC area, Spring Valley sells their produce and farm-made goods at farmer’s markets in Silver Spring, DuPont Circle and Mosaic in Virginia.

Chop Shop

Last week we featured Chop Shop in our CSA share. Though not a local farm, they are my favorite local butcher and they sell many local products. Owner John Grande and his wife, Nancy, opened Chop Shop on Darnestown Road in 2017 and we’ve been avid customers ever since. John, a former meat manager at Balducci’s, has, in my opinion, the best gourmet meat cuts in town. In addition, you can often find our Pleasant Hills eggs on their shelves when they are not sold out. I love their thick-cut bacon and handmade sausage. We included their broccoli-rabe and provolone sausages in last week’s produce share, along with our homemade zucchini relish, which I think is perfectly paired with it and John agrees!

Deer Run Farm

I was introduced to Deer Run Farm a few years ago when my first chicken flock was decimated by a raccoon attack. I woke up to an absolute crime scene in our back yard and was desperate to protect our kids from the devastation so I proceeded to try and collect every feather left behind and thought I could simply replace the chickens with identical ones before they returned from school. I soon realized that was not possible and now appreciate that children on a farm need to learn the facts of farm life, some of which are more difficult than others. Regardless, a friend introduced me to Allison at Deer Run farm, who provided me with our replacement chickens and we’ve been getting chicks from them ever since.

Deer Run Farm has been operating in Frederick County since the 1990s raising Registered Red Angus cattle. In 2017, they acquired a successful preexisting poultry operation, which they have taken to the next level. Their hatchery is currently focused on four chicken breeds - Ameraucana, Welsummer, Marans and Delawares. They can proudly boast that they have shipped chicks to all but one of the 50 states and we are working on getting that last state (South Dakota!!!) checked off the list. Deer Run sells their farm goods, including beef cuts, pasture raised chicken and eggs online, at their onsite farm store and at four local farmer’s markets including the Fulks Corner Market in Gaithersburg. For this week, we’ve included their amazing beef jerky snacks in our CSA shares.