Sunday's Harvest

This Sunday turned out pretty good. Everyone worked hard and had fun putting everything in boxes.

There are heads of Lettuce, onions,and turnips on the table. That's only a small part of what was actually in the boxes.  :) Other veggies were peppers, Tomatoes, Squash, cucumbers and more!

Its a lot of work to get those heads of Lettuce for the boxes. We are doing all of this for you to have healthy and fresh veggies at home. :) 

Coming Soon!! More Tomatoes for you :)

Until next time -Ms.N

Box #7 contents...

Hard to imagine that we're already about 1/3rd through the season! Here is an annotated pic of what was in your boxes yesterday (sorry for the delay in sending it out; also sorry, Morgan, I did end up choosing the pic with your feet in it as the best one to annotate =)

Folks, please consider joining our WIKI (link at the top right of the page) and sharing a recipe with your fellow share members!!! Also, please consider taking a bucket+lid from me next Sunday, to collect fresh food scraps for us to turn into organic fertilizer. Our worms are hungry :)

best,
Mr. M

We have a wiki!

We do, we do!

Check at the top of the right sidebar on our homepage, 37Gyouthveggies.blogspot.com, and you will see that we now have a place members can go to post pictures, storys, recipes, etc. Its a WIKI, or user-editable website, courtesy of wikispaces. I've added one of my favorite recipes already, and I'm hoping other members won't be afraid to use the wiki and create their own pages with things related to the garden/food that they'd like to share. Chuck, how about that radish/turnip/beet salad? Who was it that had that amazing kohlrabi slaw recipe last year? And, I'm sure someone found something unusually snazzy to do with the surplus of eggplants we had! :) The more fun or useful stuff we can all contribute to the wiki, the better!

Also, I wanted to extend the offer again to share members: I have super-handy food waste recycling pails that you can bring home and use to help us (your local veggie garden) make wonderful, organic fertilizer. The pails come with lids and peat moss to sprinkle in occasionally. Here's how it works: you put all your uncooked food scraps in the pail throughout the week, I empty/return your pail when you pick up your share, and finally the scraps get brought back to our red wigglers. These are worms that we are keeping at the garden, for the express purpose of turning what would otherwise be waste into organic nutriment for our plants!

best, Mr. M

PS -- Make sure you follow the 'Join' link at the top of the wiki page, so I can enable your creating/editing priveledges!

Workin' hard (for you, for us... for good food!)

I think if you were to read our vegetable garden's slogan, and then watch us (the students + the adult supervisors -- Ms. Schulz, Ms. Goodman and I) you'd agree that we're bustin' our butts to make sure we can keep filling your boxes with organic goodness. Here's Ousmane, one of our interns, a rising senior at Phillips, taking a rare pause for a snapshot and wearing his work shirt:

In case its hard to read, it says... FRONT: "What's that creepin' in the garden?" (incl. picture of a Wildcat, our school mascot) -- BACK: "Just good food!"

In case you didn't know, we secured paid internships for four students over the course of the summer, to supplement the funds you all (our share members) helped us raise for spring and fall internships. And they were earning every penny on Wednesday, when it reached the mid-90s and the humidity was nothing to laugh at.

Ms. Goodman told me they got almost everything on our six-item to-do list done, including finishing composting our potatoes, watering, mowing in between and around our rows, and dressing our baby fruit trees with wood chip mulch at their bases.

The fruit trees, much like the young people active in the garden now, need time to grow stronger. Unlike the fruit trees, they bear the human responsibility of learning the techniques, science and attitude needed to care for a great host of nourishing plants. All -- fledgling trees, luscious plants and the young adults that tend them -- are working together to accomplishing a delicious feat this summer. =)

Until next time! - Mr. M

This week's box... if you dare! :)

Here is what we've picked for you this week (sorry the bottom edge of the pic got cut off...):

I wanted to explain flower stalks, as I think some people are just puzzled about what they can/should do with them. Flower stalks happen when the plant starts sending sugars upward, to create first a flower and then later (when pollinated) a seed. They tend to have the same taste as the root or leaves of the plant they grow on, but are a little bit sweeter, as there tends to be more sugar/unit volume. We try to only pick/bundle flower stalks that are soft and edible 'raw,' but may occasionally include one that is tough to your tastes. In these cases, a little pan-frying, steaming or boiling works wonders. So go on and purdy-up that salad or those steamed veggies :)

Also, this week in addition to choosing which flower stalk you want, you have another surprise: an optional mini-bag of hand-picked chantrelle mushrooms. If you've never cooked with/ate them before, they have a wonderful apricot-ish aroma and a chicken-like texture. Good for risottos and other rice dishes for sure, but my folks eat them butter-sauteed with onions on top of just about everything.

Finally, if you are really wild and risky, you can take the one box that has a zip-lock bag stashed with milkweed floret (pre-flower) bundles. A tasty wild edible that we've cultivated a small bit of on our veggie patch, it tastes like a sweet combination of broccoli and celery. Most delicious when steamed and with a bit of salt and butter -- if you ask me!

Mr. M