This Week's Vegetable Harvest*: Garlic Scapes Purplette Red Onions - use the bulb as a red onion and greens as a scallion! Carrots White Kohlrabi Zucchini Baby Fennel Summer Salad Mix Yellow Popcorn  Cucumber - Off-farm pickup sites will receive this week.  *Unless otherwise noted, all vegetables are certified organic and grown by Prairie Wind Family Farm. This Week's Fruit Harvest (from Mick Klug Farms, St. Joseph, MI) Fresh Sweet Cherries Red Raspberries

What's New at the Farm Stand

Regenerative Farm Products! In an effort to support more Illinois regenerative farmers, we are featuring local bulk juneberries from Field Restored Farms in Ogle County, Illinois. You can use juneberries just as you would blueberries -- atop cereal, as a snack, with yogurt, on ice cream, etc. Enjoy this native fruit before blueberries arrive! You will also find a return of Joe's Farm eggs, a favorite of many. The Farm Stand is open daily, 7am-7pm.

Upcoming Farm Event

The Liberty Prairie Foundation (our landowners, partners and friends) are seeking volunteers to help clean up the Prairie Crossing Farm hedgerows following the spring wind storm and prepare their outdoor learning spaces for the 2023-24 school year. The workdays are: Friday, June 30th, 8am-11am Friday, July 14th, 8am-11am Friday, July 28th, 8am-11am If you're interested, please sign up on their website to volunteer. Thank you!

Farm Journal

Thanks to our farm crew and our cat-sitting friends, we took a few days away from the farm last week to join our son, Owen, for his college orientation. The trip to Lincoln, Nebraska was Lila's first road trip, and she did great! While we could tell she missed playing with (tormenting?) the farm cats, she enjoyed spending time in the backseat with the boys and visiting new parks provided for plenty of puppy adventures.

Throughout the orientation weekend, we took adventures of our own like touring the UNL teaching gardens, checking out the agricultural research being conducted and sampling the ag school's delicious homemade ice cream. All the while, our farm kept humming under the steady stewardship of our farm crew. Speaking of which, we wanted to take a moment to introduce you to the people that grow your food.

This spring, we welcomed David (left front) and Cleto (right front) back to our farm after serving on our farm crew during the 2022 growing season. David comes to us from the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, and Cleto is from Jalisco, just a couple of hours west of Puerto Vallarta. Last year, these two became good friends after meeting at our farm. With their complimentary skillsets, these two were quick studies on the intricacies of our farm, especially how we grow and produce food.  We strengthened our family farm by inviting Cleto and David's family members -- Cleto's father, Anacleto (center) and David's younger brother, Miguel (center left) -- to join our farm crew this season.

We also welcomed back Riley from our 2022 farm crew to join us during his summer break from college (pictured here last season with David and Cleto). Riley is from Wadsworth, Illinois, and fits right in with the good humor and warmth of his fellow farm crew veterans. Riley is finishing up his degrees at Illinois State University next year and he's busy majoring in agronomy management, horticulture land management, and agribusiness. Given Riley's six years of growing experience, he's specifically helping us with farm efficiency, machinery, and delivering shares to members each week.

Given the collective experience on this team, everyone has stepped up to take on new responsibilities in the field this season. In addition to growing organic produce each day, this team is helping us transition once under-managed areas of the farm into areas using regenerative growing strategies. With only 25% of the farm in annual crop production, we've found it critical to have a capable, smart team to work with us to steward land beyond the acres in active vegetable production. Not to mention, this team is willing to steward the farm so we can leave for a long weekend away!

Rainbows and rain even welcomed us back into Illinois on Sunday evening -- we couldn't have been more grateful for this surprise and our team. We have a good group of people growing your food this season. We hope that you can see and feel this in the shares that you receive. Warmly, ~ The Miller Family, Cleto, David, Riley, Anacleto, and Miguel

Notes from the Farm Kitchen

Kohlrabi, like broccoli and cabbage, is a member of the Brassica family and as such has a sweet and peppery flavor -- sweet like cabbage and peppery like a turnip. This week's kohlrabi is a storage variety which means that you can remove the top leaves and place the bulb into a plastic bag where it will store well for months. You can eat the greens and they pair very nicely with other greens, like last week's swiss chard. This variety is one of sweetest so we love to slice a piece, add kosher salt and eat for a refreshing snack.

Sweet cherries are best eaten fresh, though I've been known to include them in muffins in combination with blueberries or frozen peaches lingering in my freezer. Sweet cherries, unlike the more fragile raspberries, will keep well in the refrigerator for up to a week. We do our best to avoid any mold that quickly forms due to the condensation of moisture on raspberries, but it can happen. Fresh raspberries ought to be eaten within a couple of days.

Seasonal Recipes in the Farm Kitchen Roast Sausage with Fennel and Orange 50 Summer Drinks - great ideas for fresh fruit Picked Garlic Scapes Carrot and Zucchini Fritters Scrambled Eggs with Goat Cheese, Greek Yogurt and Greens - try adding salad greens or any leftover greens you may have to this flexible recipe

• Tags: Carrots, Fennel, Garlic Scapes, Raspberries, Salad Mix, Zucchini

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