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Rising River Farm
13208 201st Ave SW
Rochester, WA 98579 360-273-5368
contact@risingriverfarm.com
www.risingriverfarm.com
Aug 1 ***** Box 7
CSA potluck is this Sunday from 4-7.
Please join us and see where all your veggies are coming from
and how they are grown. We will give a tour of the farm and
enjoy some good food and company. We have swing set and sand
box for the kids-lots of dirt too and volleyball and bocce
for anyone. Come meet your farmers and fellow small farm supporters.
Friends and family are all welcome. Please bring a potluck
dish to share (label it if it has meat), your own plate, silverware
and cup. We’ll provide drinks. Be sure to wear shoes
that can get a little dirty. Only a steady rain will cancel
the event. If unsure of the weather, just call first.
Directions to farm: (From Olympia) Take I-5 south to exit
88. Turn right off the ramp onto HWY 12 west. Go straight
through the stoplight and travel for about 5 miles. Turn left
at the one and only stoplight in Rochester onto Albany. Turn
right on 185th (big community hall on corner). Follow the
bend in the road, which will put you onto Marble, then Independence.
Follow Independence for a while and when you go over the bridge
over the river continue for 2 more miles. Turn right on 201st
AVE SW (gravel road) and follow it all the way down. We are
just after the “S” curves. The house is white.
I am feeling more relaxed this week. We are slowly gaining
the upper hand with the weed situation. Jim fixed both tractors
and we temporarily hired 2 more people to help out. They showed
up out of the blue last week minutes after I had finished
a stress-filled walk through the fields. What timing!
Most of the planting is done. All that’s left is a few
successions of herbs, lettuce, fall spinach, and radishes.
There is the last planting for things like cabbage, kale,
basil, and chard as well. We are in the height of harvest
now and that takes up much of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Many summery crops are happening now. We found a few huge
eggplants (though most of the others are still a bit small).
Tomatoes and green peppers are ripening fast. The sungolds
cherry tomatoes finally have the sweetness we like. The zucchini
is doing well, but I think I got some bunk crookneck squash
seed. They have been greener, tougher and bumpier that they
should be-not the smooth buttery texture we expect. I hope
it was just the rainy weather making them behave oddly, but
you may not see much crookneck this year. Time will tell.
New in your box this week is Walla Walla onions. This is
perfectly timed with the last of the green onions. We now
have the real thing! Our onions are a little behind this year.
We planted them in the new field early in the spring and there
was still a lot of carbon in the soil from the cover crop
breaking down. This tied up much needed nitrogen and caused
the onions to just sit there and grow painfully slowly. We
foliar fed them multiple times with a liquid fish/kelp fertilizer
and that plus the warmer weather got them on the right track.
French fingerlings are the feature potato this week. They
have a velvety, melt-in-your-mouth texture that holds together
well when cooked. We like them steamed, roasted in the oven
with olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe some garlic, or used
in the recipe I will include today.
The green beans are cranking so you’ll get a healthy
dose today. Fennel is here again. (The crazy frilly licorice
flavored thing). Grill it, braise it, add it to Italian fare,
or chop it up in your salads.
This recipe is one of my favorite summer dishes, one where
you can open up your CSA box and toss in a handful of everything
you get. Feel free to change the main ingredients some to
fit what you have on hand. Most recipes beg for tweaking.
Use it as a guide. You can use canned stewed tomatoes if you
don’t have 6 fresh ones you are willing to give up in
one dish. I rarely use the shelly beans in this, because I
don’t have any on hand and it is an extra step I sometimes
feel lazy about. It is great with the pesto sauce, but if
you only have a little basil you can add the leaves in near
the end and have grated Parmesan on the table to top off the
dish. And remember, if you are lacking a certain fresh herb,
chances are you have a neighbor with a little herb garden
from which you can pinch a few leaves-with permission, of
course! Consider planting your own perennial herb garden for
those herbs you use frequently. Sage, Bay, Thyme, Oregano….The
farmers market is a great place to find herb plants. Spring
Creek Farm (our friends from here in Rochester) has a booth
at the market with a great selection of herbs. No yard or
good soil? Try growing in pots on you patio or sunny porch.
Enjoy! Jennifer
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