This Week's Vegetable Harvest*: Salad (Hakurei) Turnips Fresh Dill Romaine Head Lettuce Baby Fennel Bulbs Oak Leaf Head Lettuce Summer Spinach Garlic Scapes Potatoes - from Igl Farms, Antigo, WI Summer Salad Mix *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) 'Jewel' Strawberries 'Valentino' Dark Red Rhubarb

What's New at the Farm Stand

Greens are at their best right now, so enjoy the peak-season flavors! Salad mixes, head lettuces and spinach greens are a nice complement to the local soups, grillable meats or additional veggies found in the farm stand. All are on sale now at the farm stand. The Farm Stand is open daily, 7am-7pm.

Farm Journal

Good afternoon from the farm!

Welcome to the (early) summer season! With just nine days until the summer solstice, we thrilled with today's gentle rain storm and we are making good use of long daylight hours each day.

The Klugs are doing the same! Our fruit shares feature fresh fruit grown by long-time partners and friends, Mick Klug Farms located in St. Joseph, Michigan. We have worked together for many years planning shares, helping each other troubleshoot challenges and most recently, our crews traveled together to our farms this spring! We're grateful for the Klugs' long-time friendship and their passion for growing healthy local fruit for our farm share members.

We know a number of Michigan growers, and we like to help each other out with weather warnings as storms cross the lake. When I asked Abby about the weather at their farm this season, her story sounded very familiar. The Klug Farms have experienced "volatile weather, very dry conditions but managing well due to a lot of work/effort put towards irrigation!" Sure sounds like last week's newsletter, doesn't it?

Abby shared that their strawberry plants are loving up the warm, dry conditions and their tree fruits are thriving, so we all look forward to a nice fruit share season ahead.

Between our two families, we also trade stories about our kids and family happenings. The Klug kids recently wrapped up their school year with their Dad taking them to the bus one last time on the farm cart.

The Klug's story was quite relatable to a farming dad who's supporting a thriving kid bee-keeping business. Jeff even harvested cute kids back in our early days of farming! To all of the dads who make time to have fun with their kids (whether they still fit in a harvest crate or not)...Happy Father's Day to you!

As we move into the summer season, our farming families look forward to sharing a delicious, local vegetable and fruit harvest with you. Enjoy this week's early summer harvest! Warmly, ~ The Miller Family, Cleto, David, Anacleto, Miguel, and Riley

Notes from the Farm Kitchen

We often harvest early, young fennel at a baby size to take advantage of its tender, sweet flavor. Members will receive two young bulbs with fronds attached this week. Raw fennel has a distinct anise flavor and smell. Sautéed or roasted fennel is excellent paired with broiled fish and a touch of butter and lemon. My favorite way to use fennel is to slowly (on medium-low heat) sauté sliced fennel with onion, enough to caramelize slightly and then add Italian sausage. Add the mixture to hot pasta with wilted spinach, add extra olive oil on top and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan cheese, diced fronds, and salt to taste.

The curly 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 along side our asparagus and then, chop both and put 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.  Here's a favorite link of ideas might be helpful. Enjoy!

Fruit share members will receive fresh rhubarb to complement strawberries in this week's shares. We enjoy rhubarb for its versatility in both savory and sweet dishes, and it freezes very well, too! To freeze, simply wash the stalks, chopped into 1/2 inches pieces, and freeze in 1 or 2 cup increments so it's ready to use in combination with strawberries or other sweet fruit.

Seasonal Recipes in the Farm Kitchen Stewed Rhubarb with Ice Cream and Granola Potato Garlic Scape Soup Mixed Lettuce Salad with Cucumber Herb Vinaigrette Rice Salad with Fennel, Orange and Chickpea Farro Salad with Turnips and Greens

• Tags: Fennel, Garlic Scapes, Lettuce, Rhubarb, Salad Turnips

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