The first produce boxes go out to our CSA members this week. I’m both nervous and excited to finally be embarking on the delivery side of the garden work. Will I have enough? Will I have too much? Will everyone love the food as much as we do? Will the weeds win the fight for the carrot patch? Will June tornado season bring the dreaded crop-destroying hail? Right now I feel like I’m swimming in gorgeous greens, but I have a hard time picturing what the next weeks will bring, mostly because you can never really know what will happen in farming. Anyway, here’s our packing list for Box 1. I thought this documentation of a spring harvest and some recipe suggestions might be of interest to all readers. Eat local! Join a CSA near you! Try something new!

In The Box June 16

Peas – Oh, the peas are fantastic right now! It’s a miracle any get in the box with the amount we eat as we pick. You’ll have snow peas, which are flat-podded and meant to be eaten raw or ribboned into salads, or sauteed in garlic or with stirfry. The variety is Oregon Giant, a tremendously large strain that stays sweet. You’ll also have snap peas, plump and crisp. These can be cooked lightly like green beans, or eaten raw. I like to cut them in one inch pieces and scatter them on a salad. Either way, you’ll want to remove the tough strings that grow down the concave side of the pod by pulling down from the tip. Peas are rather difficult to grow, in that they like cool weather and get tougher as the summer comes on. These were planted during a February warm spell, and have made it through lots of crazy climate ups and downs to produce a gorgeous screen of tendrils as well as delicious pods. I’m very thankful for this particular harvest and feel as though I taste a blessing in every bite. Peas won’t last long in the coming heat, but we’ve planted beans beneath them to move onto the trellises when they are done, and we’ll plant more peas in late summer to harvest in the fall.

Pea Tendrils – If you’ve never tried these, I think you are in for a delightful surprise. Picked from the tender tips of the pea plants, these are to be treated as greens. Toss in a salad or saute in garlic and mix with pasta. Circle M WorkShare Member, Kelli, tasted these during a harvest day a few weeks ago, and promptly planted some peas in her garden, just to have a steady supply of shoots.

Mixed Salad Greens – Slightly larger than the tiny greens you’d find in a mesclun mix, these small specialty lettuces are still very tender, with some more bitter bites of frisee endive. You’ll also find some small, succulent leaves of Claytonia, or Miner’s Lettuce, a European salad staple that is beautiful and delicious. Eat the mix like salad, or wilt slightly by pouring a warm dressing over top. Yummy with goat cheese crumbles.

Head Lettuce – We’ve got crispy Romaine and fancy frilled Red Flame. These head lettuces will keep longer than the greens, so eat the salad mix first, then slice into these.

Edible Flowers – We’ve enclosed some pots of calendula and viola, also known as Johnny Jump-Ups. Also Lemon and Orange Gem Marigolds, which have a citrusy smell. Plant into larger pots or tuck somewhere in your yard. The flowers are delicious and beautiful in salads, on desserts, or frozen into ice cubes. They don’t last long picked, so we wanted you to have these alive so you could pluck and garnish as you prepared meals.

Herbs – We also included a pot each of chives, thyme and parsley, herbs you won’t want to be without for the week in between deliveries. Try chive blossoms in salads, too. You also have cut dill. These delicate fronds always look to me like a plant that belongs underwater. Enjoy tiny pieces in tomato and potato dishes, cucumber salads or with sauteed greens. Add to basmati rice and sprinkle on grilled fish. Finally – you’ll know the last herb by it’s incredible smell. Chocolate Mint! My favorite. Throw a few leaves in iced tea or lemonade. Or get Cuban with a sweet Mojito.

Spinach – This is a very happy time for spinach, so you’ll get a lot. But when it starts to get hot, the spinach will stop. So what you can’t eat now, blanch and freeze for later. These leaves are tender enough to eat raw in salads, but we end up cooking most of ours with garlic or putting it in a weekly lasagne.

Turnip Greens – These can appear quite scary and prickly, but are jam-packed with nutrients and you should not pass them up. Blanch first, by holding by the ribs and plunging into boiling water for several minutes. Then cut into ribbons and saute in olive oil and garlic and sprinkle with hard-boiled eggs. Or slow-cook with ham hocks. See that recipe in the next post. Most serious gardeners will have a plethora of various greens most of the growing season, because they tend to be an abundant extra on top of the smaller root crops. They are an economical and highly nutritious food, but much overlooked in our collective American palate, outside of African-American culture, where they are a soul food staple. Do give them several tries. We think you’ll get hooked on their rich heartiness.

Purple Turnips – These were meant to be salad turnips, mild and crispy to eat raw with lettuce. However, in the recent hot weather they got very spicy. So, try cooking these up and mashing with potatoes for hot flavor shot.

Radish – We won’t send many of these in the box, as most of the crop went to seed during the few hot patches we’ve had. Radish are at their best in cool weather, and get woody when stressed. Enjoy in salad, or on French bread with butter, salt and pepper. We’ll try growing the next batch in the shade of our lower garden.

Green Onions – My favorite way to eat scallions is on bread with butter and salt. Try making a little lunch plate of scallion and radish sandwiches on baguette slices. Pretty and fabulous. Americans tend to waste a lot of a green onion. Asian friends have several times expressed dismay at the sight of the green stems being discarded in our kitchen. Try to use the whole tender plant sliced into delicate rings in your stir fry dishes and soups.

Cabbage Leaves – These giant leaves come from the outside of our cabbage heads which aren’t mature enough to pick yet. Slice these spicy, crispy leaves into salads, add to soups or lightly saute and toss with rice wine vinegar and browned sesame seeds. When we send our heads out in a few weeks, I’ll include a family recipe for Hungarian Cabbage and Noodles.

Rhubarb – The stalks are both green and red, but both taste equally tangy and delicious. If you don’t have any favorite recipes for rhubarb, let me refer you back to the June 2 post.

Flowers – The flowers this week are mostly wild-grown in our hedgerows and pastures. But from our perennial bed, you’ll see some pretty pink and white penstemon. The salvia is starting, too.

A Note on Holes. There will be holes in your produce. Especially on greens belonging to the brassica family like turnips, cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi. Also on radishes. The small holes are the work of the dastardly flea beetle, who seems to be quite at home in my gardens this year, and is in general pretty abundant wherever greens are grown. Flea beetles jump when disturbed, hence the name, and can be regularly vacuumed off plants. A more sane approach is to cover those tasty crops with floating row covers, lightweight polyesters sheets, until the plants are established. All of my cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli are growing under row covers now. So the garden isn’t as pretty, but the crops should be beautiful. Those covers only discourage certain pests, however, and there are always more hungry insects lurking around the edge of the beds.

But as a grower, I entreat you: “Don’t panic, it’s organic!” When you see produce that is free of holes, that’s a nearly certain sign that it’s been sprayed or dusted or drenched with poisonous pesticides that inevitably hurt more than just the bad bugs. Google “honeybees” for just one example. And enjoy the hole-y harvest!