This week you’ll find in your share:
• Tomatoes
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Onions
• Sweet Peppers
• Head Lettuce
• Swiss Chard
• Boc Choi Mix
• Basil
Next week you might find in your share:
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Chard or Collard
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Peppers
• Garlic
• Herb or Cut Flower
From Your Farmers…
We had a great dinner last Tuesday featuring peppers stuffed with veggies and chicken sausage, a tomato and basil salad, and red velvet brownies featuring natural food from…our very own beets! Delicious. If you didn’t make it, be sure to join us next time. Mark your calendar for August 22.
The taste of summer is here, and your shares are full of it. Seemingly out of season, we have fresh, sweet lettuce to offer. We’d been craving cold things in the heat of the day, and with the cucumbers out to lunch, we’re glad we can offer these refreshing leaves.
To those of you who have returned your surveys, thank you. If you don’t recall finding one in your share, PLEASE let us know, and we’ll get one to you.
We will REUSE the cherry tomato boxes. Please return them with your share bags.
Food For Thought…
Yesterday Randy, Whitney, and I toured Three Rivers Community Farm in Elsah, Illinois for a refresher on production farming, and learned a great deal. Three Rivers has endured many of the same challenges we have here at SOHF, including serious weeds, bacterial and blight issues, and mosaic in the squash, but is thriving nonetheless.
We learned many lessons that will help our operation along, and will help us to fulfill our mission of increasing access. For me, it was a lesson in people, and the fortune I’ve encountered by being a farmer.
Three Rivers’ head farmer, Amy Cloud, was very welcoming, treated us to lunch in her home, and shared any and all we asked about her farm, her methods, and her overall view about farming for a livelihood. Meeting folks like her, basically small scale farmers, again and again is quite inspiring, as they freely help each other along, rather than hold onto their secrets for a leg up in the business world.
Recipes of the Week: Summer Made Easy
First suggestion: take one of your big red, juicy tomatoes, slice, salt, enjoy.
Or, slice a tomato, top with a couple basil leaves and cheese, broil until cheese is melted.
And another:
Fry up two slices of bacon per person.
Pour some bleu cheese into a dish, add a bit of water to slightly thin. Stir water and bleu cheese.
Make a bed of lettuce and the boc choi mix, add some sweet peppers, sliced tomatoes (or sungold cherry tomatoes) and when the bacon’s done, crumble and sprinkle over salad. Maybe add thinly sliced onion. Drizzle the bleu cheese, add salt and pepper to taste. Yum.
Upcoming Events:
Saturday, August 10 Whitney will be hosting our second Open House. Come have a tour of the farm, help your food along, and have some delicious farm fresh goods before you go. The Open House is very casual, just come when you can, leave when you need to- know previous experience is necessary. This month’s theme: reclaim. RSVP to me at 566.8643 or Whitney at WSewell@caastlc.org.
CAASTLC's Seeds of Hope Farm 