Farmer John Writes . . .

Greetings from Angelic Organics

Weather

Many of you already know that when moisture is scarce here, we irrigate, so drought does not impact us like it does neighboring farms. Still, rain from the sky is a blessing on our farm. Rain arrived at Angelic Organics over the weekend, gentle steady rain. High temperatures are to follow.  The crops are growing fast and beautifully. I sometimes gasp at their lushness.

Even though a lot of our crops revel in the high temperatures, baby greens, head lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower do not appreciate the heat. (Note this when wondering how so much of the production of these varieties has ended up non-locally in California, in a more moderate climate.) Another downside of the heat is that it is hard on some of our crew members. We try to get the outdoor work done in the cooler mornings, and then bag and wash things in the shade during the hot afternoons.

Repeat Notices for those who Pick up their Boxes on Even Weeks

(I won’t normally devote so much space in our newsletter to people who pick up their box every other week, but the notices below are relevant for the whole season. For those of you who pick up every other week, I suggest consulting our Angelic Organics Farm News blog for the weeks you don’t pick up, just to stay tuned to our farm happenings.)

New Farm Newsletter Policy

We will include a hard copy of our newsletter with each box. In the spirit of Community Supported Agriculture, we want our shareholders to know what’s going on at the farm, such as: what was this week’s weather? why so many tomatoes? why is a paper version of the newsletter being published?   Community builds out of communication (they are very similar words). We believe a hard copy of our newsletter is more likely to be read than an electronic copy. We will also publish the newsletter electronically on our blog.

Farmer John’s Cookbook

Our farm cookbook is sadly out of print, so we will no longer be offering it to new shareholders. Besides recipes for all the vegetables we grow, the cookbook featured essays about Biodynamics and Community Supported Agriculture. It was crafted to be a cultural, culinary and educational centerpiece for our farm. Of course, there are many resources online today for working with vegetables, learning about CSA and Biodynamics: it won’t be difficult to substantially bridge the gap left by our cookbook going out of print. I believe there are still some copies of Farmer John’s Cookbook available at Amazon.

Recipes

Though our cookbook is friendly and finite, making for a manageable and cozy shareholder experience, the web is almost infinite and almost omnipresent, making for an expansive and cosmopolitan shareholder experience.  For example, go to Google Recipe Search, type in the ingredients you want to work with, and you’ll have choices galore for how to proceed. We will occasionally publish recipes from our cookbook, however, just to keep your culinary experience personal and farmy.

Vegetable of the week: broccoli

What’s in the box?

Brassicas – 2 heads broccoli

Fruiting Crops – maybe a small zucchini

Cooking Greens – Tatsoi & Kale

Alliums – Scallions, maybe some garlic scapes

Salad Greens – 3 heads of lettuce, & spinach

Root Crops – radishes & maybe baby turnips or maybe beets

Herbs – parsley