Circle M Farm

We’ve had a most delightful, colorful and delicious week in the gardens. First, we harvested these beautiful Mini Red Purplette onions. And then we started digging the potatoes and found we had some of the most shockingly gorgeous tubers ever to emerge out of our sandy black dirt.

Deciding when to harvest potatoes is always a matter of great deliberation around here. We plant a half-dozen varieties every year, designed to meet a range of culinary needs, but also to mature at different times. So we always expect to dig some early and leave others to dig closer to fall. Potatoes dug before they have mature, cured skins, “new potatoes,” reward us with lovely bright colors. But the longer we leave them in the ground, the bigger the tubers and the higher the yields. However, the longer they remain in the ground, the more likely they are to be afflicted by scab or diseases that might cause rot or blemish. Bugs and other critters may find them and eat them first. Every day a potato spends in the ground it is vulnerable to a host of assaults from numrous sources. Sounds scary? It is!

Two years ago I had such beautiful, bug-free potato plants that I decided to forgo harvesting early potatoes in the hopes of having a huge yield later. Well, in late August we had a flood that covered the potato patch for two days. By the time I was able to dig in there, my huge yield had turned to smelly mush. This year, the plants started off strong and full of promise, standing nearly three feet tall by our Lambs and Lettuces Festival on June 13. I was darn proud to show them off. A week later, the first red shiny larva started showing up on the leaves. I picked and squished. I sprayed organic Bonide and diluted garlic. Nevertheless, by July 13, some of the plants had just two or three leaves remaining at their tips.

When life hands you Colorado potato beetles, make potato salad! In other words, the decision of whether to harvest new potatoes was easy this year. I didn’t feel there was any point in leaving tubers to grow bigger under near dead plants. Imagine my great delight when the first row to come up – the All Reds – was full of big, beautiful, glow-in-the-ground potatoes! The next, All Blue, were smaller and yielded less, but the tubers were an amazing dark purple with a metallic bronze sheen. The Red Chieftains, planted to be the earliest to dig, were in fact large and healthy, and a pretty orangey-red. The only disappointment was the French Fingerlings, which, just like last year, were very small and sparse. Their leaves were by far the most eaten and even the stalks were rotted off in places. I will not be planting them again, even though they are a unique skinny shape, very tasty and a pretty rose-pink color.

The rest of our potato varieties: Satina, Yellow Finn, Red Pontiac and Rio Grande Russet will remain in the ground for a while. These plants showed the greatest resistance to the beetle larvae, and I even see signs of their leaves growing back. So barring some crazy above or below grown disaster or plague – we’ll have lots of potatoes into September!

Here’s what else is in the box:

Zucchini - The first of the year! Yum!
Broccoli – The last of the spring crop. We think the plants are finally done in, but luckily we’ve already started the fall crop in the cold frames.
Cauliflower – This purple variety looks rather odd, but tastes pretty good.
Cabbage – Try making a multi-colored slaw with the carrots and the purple onions. Recipe below.
Multi-Colored Carrots
Mini Purplette Onions – These sweet little beauties are wonderful used raw in salads.
New Potatoes
Kohlrabi – These are getting along in age (like all brassicas, they don’t prefer heat and are ready to die) and are less tender than the last batch in the boxes. Use in the Baked Kohlrabi recipe below, and they’ll soften up.
Herbal Bouquet: Parsley of the Italian variety we grow has large flat leaves and crisp stalks. Oregano has slightly furry leaves. Use in any sort of meat or tomato dish. Monarda Flowers are ridiculously bright, and have a fresh spicy oregano flavor. Pull the petals off the flower heads and use them to garnish cheese spreads and salads, while saving the leaves to make a piquant tea that tastes like Earl Grey. Lemon Balm is the tallest herb in our bouquet this week, and is a terrific addition to salad dressings, savory breads, shortbread and breakfast muffins. Also makes a great tea. Chives are a boost in all egg and potato dishes.
Thyme – We put thyme in almost everything all summer long. It’s got it’s own little bag this box. You can store it in there for at least a week, but you could also take it out now and dry it to use later.
Basil – MMMMM, summer! We love the taste of basil. We’ve included Red Rubin and Sweet Basil large-leaf varieties, as well as the wonderful Lemon Basil small-leaf. Try experimenting with the basic pesto recipe below.

Cabbage Carrot Slaw
We adapted this from The Joy of Cooking.
3 cups diced cabbage
1/2 to 3/4 cup combined shredded carrots, zucchini and/or kohlrabi
1/8 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped parsley and/or lemon balm
Grated zest of one lemon

Combine, then toss with 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar and 1/2 cup mayonnaise. Add two to three shakes of hot pepper sauce, if desired. Grind peppercorns to taste. Serve with roasted pepitos (shelled pumpkin seeds) to sprinkle on top.

Basic Pesto
Pesto is really whatever you want it to be – some kind of herb, usually basil, chopped and blended with olive oil, nuts and parmesan or some other hard cheese and served over pasta. We’ve hear of everything from garlic mustard pesto to garlic scape pesto. Oh, and you will want some garlic in your pesto, too. Here’s a starting point.

2 cups basil leaves, removed from stalks (add parsley, lemon balm or other herb if desired)
1/2 C grated Parmesan
1/3 cup pine nuts (or walnuts, which are a lot cheaper and still pretty good)
2 medium garlic cloves

Combine in a food processor til a paste forms. Then slowly add, with the machine running, 1/2 cup of olive oil or more to achieve the consistency of a thick sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Use immediately, or it will turn black (thought it will still taste fine!). Or, cover with a fine film of olive oil and refrigerate for up to a week. We freeze ours in ice cube trays or old yogurt containers, so we’ll have some in the winter.

Parmesan Baked Kohlrabi
This recipe is from From Valley to Bluff: The Featherstone Farm Cookbook.
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
3 cups of 1/4 inch slices of kohlrabi (if you don’t have enough, you can add diced cabbage to make up the amount)
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Butter an 8-inch round pan, and dust with 1/2 tablespoon of the breadcrumbs.
3. Boil the kohlrabi until they become just tender, about 7 minutes; drain. Toss with melted butter. Place the kohlrabi in the prepared pan, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, the remaining breadcrumbs, and pepper.
4. Bake 1 hour until browned.