It was another week of dodging rain, and enjoying all the sunshine mother nature offered. 

This has been a very strange Spring. The zucchini, winter squash, and melons haven’t done much growing thanks to repeated nights in the 40s. A few of our melon plants have a flower or two on them, but the plants are too small to support fruit if it gets pollinated and decides to grow. On the other hand, our cool weather crops like bok choy have gotten so warm during the day, some of them are starting to flower. You’ll see some of those in your share this week–the flower stalks are actually delicious! 

In non weather-related news, the crew worked really hard last Tuesday to get more of our storage cabbage in the ground. This year has been exciting getting to plant with our new-to-us carousel planter. It has significantly decreased planting time. However, there is a lot more stopping and adjusting as we continue to learn about and navigate the new planter. We think we’re finally figuring it out, and it will hopefully be smooth sailing for the rest of the season. 

When we weren’t planting, the crew was giving the crops some much needed love and attention. Our greenhouse tomatoes have baby fruit on them! This marks the time when we start removing bottom leaves from the plants to increase air flow and help the plants avoid disease. The Colorado potato beetle is already showing up in large numbers. Our crew spent a few hours hunting for adult beetles, and searching for their eggs. The sooner we catch the eggs, the less damage the potato plants will endure. 

This time of year marks what I call “maintenance season”. We still have a few crops to be seeded and planted, but most things are already in the field. Now our focus shifts to keeping the plants alive and happy. We will do lots of weeding, hoeing, pruning, fertilizing, and pest inspecting in the coming weeks. 

In your box this week:

Lettuce – Baby Bok Choy – Beets – Greens Mix – Broccoli – Green Onions

If you’ve been around for a while, you probably know that I love shakshuka. This Root to Leaf Beet Shakshuka is the most fun version I’ve tried so far. It’s lighter and less acidic than a traditional tomato based version. This one uses every part of the beet, which is a great way to use up the beet tops if you aren’t sure what to do with them.

This Bok Choy Salad makes a great side salad. It’s bright, light, crisp, and very refreshing. I like serving this alongside salmon, pork, or chicken. The recipe calls for 8 heads of baby bok choy. You can scale down the recipe to use the amount of bok choy provided in your box, or you can substitute some of the bok choy for greens mix. A lot of our greens mix is asian style greens, so the flavors will go really well in this salad.