This Week's Vegetable Harvest: Rainbow Carrots Summer Salad Mix Mixed Lettuce Heads Fresh Dill Scallions Zucchini "Taster" Black or Red Radishes  Garlic Scapes Mini Cucumbers* *Wilmette, Evanston, Glenview, Deerfield, Northbrook, Lake Forest, Vernon Hills, Libertyville and Ikonix members will receive this week. This Week's Fruit Harvest: Strawberries Sweet Cherries

Farm Journal

Good evening and happy summer solstice from the farm!

On this extremely warm day, we're celebrating the summer solstice with a salad for dinner! This week's farm share is perfect for creating salads with plenty of salad greens and flavorful toppings.

We're also celebrating the solstice by spending time working alongside our team. When the weather is hot, it is reassuring to know that we're all working hard together to lighten the load. Owen and Silas worked together to carry irrigation hoses into the far fields as we install new irrigation to reach our crops farthest from the farmstead.

Riley, David and Arlet all tried their hand-eye coordination riding the finger weeders to help weed the popcorn. We generally call June and July "weed season" as the weeds grow as fast as the crops, so when we're not harvesting or watering, you'll find us weeding!

As you can see, Arlet and Riley find riding a tractor-powered finger weeder is much easier (and more fun!) than weeding by hand.

While summer hits a fever pitch on its longest day, we slow down to take in the chestnut flowers (pictured at the top of the newsletter) and elderberry flowers (pictured here) as they mature before a harvest for our brewing friends. We wish everyone wonderful salads, refreshing beverages and cooler summer evenings to come!  Warmly, ~ The Miller Family and the Prairie Wind team

Notes from the Farm Kitchen

Cherry season is a celebrated season in Michigan! We're providing you the start of the celebration with sweet cherries and the last harvest of the strawberry season in this week's fruit shares. When you pick up your cherries (and strawberries for that matter), we encourage you to promptly lay them on a paper towel in the fridge so the condensation from the humid air can evaporate as soon as possible. That is if you don't eat them on the way home first!

As the asparagus harvest ended, we welcomed our first early summer zucchini harvest. We call our first harvests a "taster" as members receive a small amount this week. However you'll certainly receive more zucchini (and cucumbers) in the near future, as the plants are looking green and healthy, and they are happy with the heat!

As we mentioned in last week's share, the garlic scape season is in full swing so members will share in shares for the next few weeks. The garlic scape is the flower stalk of the garlic plant. We snap the scapes off at this stage in the plant's development so that the plant will devote all of its energy to making a delicious, big garlic bulb rather than a flower. You can use the entire scape. Chopped scapes can be used in place of chopped garlic cloves in most dishes. We grill the entire scape alongside our asparagus and then, chop both and put them onto a grilled pizza with olive oil and parmesan cheese. Scapes have a mild garlic flavor and are only available for a limited time (and volume) in early summer.

Seasonal Recipes in the Farm Kitchen Garlic Scape Salad Dressing Cherry Almond Muffins Soba Salad with Lemon-Miso Vinaigrette Miso Roasted Black Radishes Carrot Top and Fennel Frond Pesto

• Tags: Carrots, Cherries, Fennel, Garlic Scapes, Radishes

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