Farm News for the week of May 15th 

Important Reminders

• This week is a pickup week for all members registered for Spring Vegetable Shares and Spring Egg Shares.
• Join us this Saturday at the Oak Park Farmers' Market! We welcome you to the season-opener of the Oak Park Farmers' Market where you can find us and other locally grown produce, sounds of live bluegrass music and the smell of fresh, homemade donuts in the historic Village of Oak Park. The market takes place Saturdays from 7 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the Pilgrim Church Parking lot at 460 Lake St., Oak Park. 

This Week's Vegetable Harvest:

• Spring Salad Mix
• Ramps - from Harmony Valley Farm, Viroqua, WI
• Over-wintered Parsnips - from Harmony Valley Farm, Viroqua, WI
• Fresh Dill 
• Winter Spinach
• Bibb Head Lettuce
• Japanese Salad Turnips
• Asparagus

Farm Photo Journal

We've received 2+ inches of rain since Saturday, which our field greens love! While we wait for them to size up, we harvest from our hoophouse soils. This week's hoophouse harvest includes a nice, large bag of this multi-colored salad mix.

After any of our greens are harvested, we whisk them from the warm soil into the cool pack shed. Here, Ophelie washes the winter spinach in chilly water to remove the field heat before the it heads to the cooler.  

Greens were a theme this past weekend at our annual Organic Plant Sale and Open House. We had a great time welcoming back familiar faces of CSA members and farmers' market customers, and sharing the spring harvest with those new to the farm. Thank you for spending the day with us! 

We also had fun with our friends from Pizzeria DeVille. We watched Chef John's creativity as he surveyed our fresh, spring produce the morning of the plant sale. In no time at all, he created spring wood-fired pizza recipes, featuring our vegetables and wood-fired egg biscuit sandwiches using our fresh eggs, served throughout the sale. 

Here's one of his vegetable pizzas with asparagus and peppers, which was delicious (although we may be slightly biased)! We are working with John again later this month when host the first of our Sunday night Pizza at the Farm on Sunday, May 27th from 4-7pm. Please join us for more creative pizza combinations, salads, music and a relaxing evening on the farm.

Have a great week!

Your Farmers, 
Jeff, Jen & the farm crew     

Notes from the Farm Kitchen 

Ramps are sort of like a cross between a green onion and a baby leek. After chopping off the end roots, I like use whole stalk and leaves and use them in place of onions. They grow wild in the woods around Harmony Valley Farm in Viroqua, Wisconsin. We’ve gotten to know the farmers at this farm and we admire their work greatly.  Their farmers harvest them judiciously, selecting large bulbs with healthy leaves, leaving behind plenty to replenish the population for future harvests. The season for ramps is quite short -- only 2-3 weeks -- due to our late spring this year. 

Also from our friends at Harmony Valley, parsnips are closely related to carrots, though they have a nutty-sweet taste and hearty texture all their own. Like carrots, they can be harvested in the fall, but they are much sweeter when left in the ground all winter and then dug in the spring. Sometimes overwintering leaves a slight outer peel discoloration. We often peel overwintered parsnips, however peeling is optional as there's a good amount of nutrition in the outer peel.  

Our Favorite Seasonal Recipes
Chicken Noodle Soup with Parsnips & Dill
Wild Ramp Pesto
Spring Salad with Roasted Asparagus

Preserving the Harvest
How to Preserve Leafy Greens
Simple Pickled Asparagus

Next Week's Harvest (our best guess)... scallions, lettuce, leaf cabbage, asparagus and more!