Week 3 of Pekarek’s Produce CSA

SORRY ABOUT THE LATE POSTING!  Every once in a while, technology and I get in a little argument and technology wins.  Thought this was posted Wednesday morning, but apparently I thought wrong……

Hello folks!

We hope everyone is enjoying their bags of produce.  We are having a great time hearing from each of you about how you are using your vegetables.

So, last week was one of those weeks where there was a lot of anxiety on the farm.  For those of you that were paying attention to the weather last week, Thursday was kind of wicked.  And as I get stressed out over every storm in the spring, Ryan lives by the mantra “it is what it is.”  Unfortunately, what it was, was hail.  Farming is definitely not for the faint of heart.

So what did the hail do?

Prepare yourselves, because the hail (pea size to ¾”) did a significant amount of damage.  Let’s start with lettuce and spinach – it’s done.  The hail completely wiped it out.  The tomato vines are torn up, often splitting at the growing point.  Most of the fruits on the tomato plants were scarred, so they had to be stripped. At a minimum we lost 10 – 14 days on the growth of both tomatoes and cucumber.

The hail punched up the zucchini, so two picks have already been thrown out.  Some kohlrabi are split open.  The potato vines have been beat up.  Where hailstones hit the broccoli heads, there is a brown dead spot.  Several have already been thrown out.  The leaves on the sweet corn are stripped, but they should still make a crop.  The leaves on the cabbage plants have been torn up and some of our green beans got deluged with water near the high tunnel.

We’ll probably be seeing damage all season.  All that said, farming is definitely not for the faint of heart!  But in spite of the stress, we really enjoy growing nutritious food.

What’s in today’s bag:

This week’s full share has:

• Beets
• Broccoli
• Turnips
• Kohlrabi
• Sweet Pea  Substituted Potatoes due to hail!
• Zucchini
• Bulb Onions
• Radishes

Partial Share

This week’s partial share has:

• Broccoli
• Bulb Onions
• Sweet Pea  Substituted Potatoes due to hail!
• Cauliflower
• Kohlrabi

Recipe Suggestions

This week, try your broccoli as Broccoli Salad – you won’t belive how EVERYONE gobbles it up!

If you have a recipe to share, email it to pekareksproduce@hotmail.com or include it in the comments section.

As always, if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions send us an email or give us a jingle and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Your Farmers,

Ryan, Katie, and Crew