- Lettuce – eat your salad every day, baby romaine, called “Little Gem”, butter lettuce and red leaf lettuce
- Sugar snap peas
- Fava beans
- Scarlet red turnips or fennel
- Beets or carrots
- Kale or chard or collards
- Garlic – Cal early, use it fresh
- Zucchini – get ready for a super zucchini year, we have tried to over plant those cucumber beetles, but we can still use any beetle hunters who want to get out there a catch them!
- Green onions
- Cabbage or broccoli or Cauliflower
The garlic is drying nicely. It is amazing what one week can do. The garlic is hanging and will need about 6 weeks to develop it’s full rich flavor. It looks like a great crop of German red. We still have the one bed to harvest of “our” garlic, which will likely be saved mainly for seed for next year. The garlic beds have been planted in Brussels Sprouts (5 different varieties for your delight).
The onion crop looks quite good. We went a bit crazy with the aliums this year. There are yellow, white and red onions, cippolini heirloom onions and 4 varieties of shallots. The greens are huge and look to be just where we want them for June 21. At the solstice the onions get the signal to bulb as the days shorten. They are usually ready for harvest about 4-6 weeks after that. Once the onions come out we turn those beds into fall broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.
We are swimming in lettuce if you had not noticed. Although it was planted every week for the past 3 months it has decided to come ready all in the same week. Please take a selection of our favorite varieties. The small romaine is one of our favorites, cut away the outer leaves and enjoy her tender center leaves.
The tomatoes inside and outside of the greenhouse are setting fruit. They show no sign of ripening yet, but it is just mid-June. Our goal is to have tomatoes for you in one month. The cucumbers are starting to give us fruit but some family members seem to get there first. There should be enough for harvest in the next week or two. Basil is planted and still relatively unhappy, but there is a ton of it.
The World Cup has started and threatens our farm! Juvencio is an avid fan and plans his work on the farm in between matches. Fortunately we have our sons who are here on summer break that will make more hands for the work that needs to be done. We count on members to participate in 2 harvests over the course of the season. Please remember to sign-up. The harvest can take up to 5 hours depending on help and crop we are harvesting. Please come prepared to stay for the harvest. Kids are welcome but it is best to have two adults, one to harvest and one to supervise the kiddos as they try to help.
Piglets are on the way! They will arrive later today. There are only 4 so far. The price of pork has sky rocketed so piglets are up in price. Be sure to speak directly with Juvencio if you want pork. There is only one pig not spoken for. Juvencio will search for more piglets if there is interest. He needs a $100 deposit to reserve your pig. They will be butchered in November/December. You can order a ½ or whole pig. Prices will be between $3.50 – $4.00 per pound hanging weight.
Beef! We will butcher 5 steers in the fall (September or October). You can order a ¼ or ½ and this also requires a $100 deposit. Communicate directly with Juvencio to reserve your beef.
Alright, enough chatter, off to harvest!
Grilled Fava Beans as told to Andy by Bruce Hill of Bix in San Francisco
The easiest way to prepare favas is to grill them. The heat of the coals will pop the pods open and split the hulls that wrap each bean. Remove the beans with your fingers and they’re ready. If there’s a bit of char on your fingers from plucking out the beans from the grilled pods, it only helps the flavor.
Julia’s Desperation Favas
This works best with freshly picked young fava beans.
1. Have children, guests, or domestic partners remove fava beans from pods.
2. After taking the beans out of the pod but BEFORE removing the ‘skin’, sauté the beans with garlic, olive oil and salt. The skins come half off and the whole thing can be eaten hot over rice, noodles, as a side dish or as a salad if chilled. Enjoy!
Our Favorite Fava Beans
from Julia and Andy
These two recipes are similar to the desperation favas, above, but these can also be used with larger fava beans, or ones that have already been stored a few days since harvest.
2 pound favas, taken out of the pods
1-4 cloves of garlic, chopped AND/OR:
1/2 cup onions, chopped
olive oil
S & P The simplest version: sauté the favas with the garlic in the heated oil. the shells will come off in the pan, they are a lighter green, and the whole thing can be eaten like that. (Season with S & P) Version #2: Put the light green favas (that have been removed from the pod) into boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Remove immediately, rinse in cold water. Take the outer shell off each fava bean, so that you have just the bright emerald green bean. Then cook just the inner brighter green beans in the heated oil with the garlic for 2-3 minutes, then eat. We like both versions, and which one we do depends on if we have guests or willing children to help in the extra step of Version #2.
Fava Bean/Couscous Salad (you can adapt the vegetables to whatever you have on hand….)
-1 cup raw couscous (Trader Joe’s has whole wheat…) Cooked according to package intructions. (This is easy! Bring one cup water with a bit of butter or oil and a pinch of salt to a boil. Turn off heat and stir in 1 cup raw couscous and stir up well. Put a lid on and set the timer for 5 minutes. Fluff couscous and you’re ready to go.)
-1 small bowl or more shelled, blanched favas (the bright green ones)
-3 green onions, chopped
-large handful orach leaves, thinly sliced
-Green Garlic Dressing
Mix all ingredients above, making sure you don’t put in too much dressing. Eat!
Green Garlic Dressing
1-3 stalks roughly chopped green garlic, tough end leaves discarded
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1 Tablespoon honey
1/3 cup olive oil
S & P
Whirl all in a blender. Can be used as a salad dressing or marinade.
Fava and Fresh ricotta Bruschetta
Recipe from Lou Bustamonte
All I did was cook the favas in low heat in a tiny bit of water, peeled them, and sprinkled them on top of some olive oil and garlic brushed toasted Acme bread that had a nice helping of farm fresh ricotta. I added a little salt and pepper, and ate. Amazing.
Roman-Style Raw Fava Beans, Scamorza(or Smoked Mozzarella), and Fresh Onion
Antipasto di Fave e Cipolla Fresca
from Verdura by Vivana La Place
A springtime antipasto of raw fava beans and new onions. Eating tender fava beans is a special treat. Eat them unpeeled if you enjoy the refreshing bitter edge of the peel, or peel them first for a sweeter flavor. Serve this dish with crusty breadsticks, a sturdy country loaf, or black pepper taralli, a type of pretzel found in Italian specialty markets, and company with a pitcher of cool dry wine.
2 pounds fava beans, unshelled weight
a few small lettuce leaves
3 scallions or 1 small fresh onion, thinly sliced
1 pound scamorza cheese, sliced (substitute smoked mozzarella)
Basket of bread sticks, black pepper taralli, or bread
Shell the favas and mound in the center of a platter. Surround with the lettuce leaves and scatter the onions over the top. Arrange slices of the cheese around the edge of the platter. Serve with the bread.
Umbrian Fava Bean Stew (Scafata)
This recipe is about as simple as spring cooking gets. It’s adapted from Antonella Santolini’s La Cucina Delle Regioni D’Italia: Umbria The name comes from the Umbrian word for the hull of the beans.
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup shelled fava beans
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped fennel
1 1/2 cups chopped chard leaves
1 1/2 cups chopped, peeled tomatoes
salt, pepper
Cook oil, beans, onion, fennel, carrot and chard over low heat in medium saucepan. When beans are quite tender, after about 45 minutes, add tomatoes and cook for another 25 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.