I meant to take a photo today, but I never got around to it. Today was the first Thursday harvest of the year, and it was basically the same as Monday's, so if you're looking for notes on the share, check out Monday's post. 

Besides harvesting, today was a big weeding day, and we need one or two more big weeding days to get caught up. All of the the lettuces and celeriac got hoed. We ran the tiller between the rows in the experimental corn, beans and squash planting. And, not on the weeding front, we got the wire up for the tomato and cucumber trellis, but didn't have time to actually tie yet. The tomato plants are looking good, and I'm sure they'll look even better once they're off the ground. A little warm, sunny weather is on its way and it's probably just what the fields need right now.

I'll admit, I probably didn't get around to taking a photo today because I was busy sneaking into the blueberries every spare moment I had. The plants are loaded and if you're interested in getting some you should come out to the farm this weekend. You can check out the blueberry page for more information. I'll try to make sure to get a field photo posted soon. Things are changing fast out there.

Josh Volk
Sneaky Blueberry Eater

Summer is starting slowly this year. The warm season summer crops are off to a good start but the early summer holdovers from spring are in a bit of a lull. Kale is a workhorse for us this year. There's a guy in Vermont who makes Tshirts that say, "eat more kale" and it's an appropriate sentiment this year. Chard is coming along slowly so there's a small bunch in the shares. Lettuce, which is usually a mainstay, seemingly is not liking the new soil and refuses to get very big so there are small heads in the share. Finally, we thinned some of the sweet onions and put one in as a green onion.

The kale is fortunately a favorite of mine. My typical preparation is to slice out the stems and cook them separately from the leaves. The leaves I slice thinly and then sautée in a bit of olive oil, adding a bit of balsamic half way through cooking. It's great as a side, or mixed into pasta or on top of a sandwich. Cook that with the onion and it would be extra special.

Chard I cook in the same way, but it has a completely different flavor and texture, and I prefer to cook it very quickly, leaving it slightly crunchy. If I'm mixing it into eggs I do cook it down a bit more, and that's a great combination.

Enjoy the greens, I'm sure we'll have more soon.

Josh Volk

Head Greenskeeper

This is the last week of spring and the days are longer than at any other time of year. We have a hint of summer in this week's share, just a few of the first pinches of basil. Also in the share are some of the late spring standards: lettuce, green onions, kale and fennel.

The lettuce has been growing very slowly so the heads are still very small. The green onions, on the other hand, are quite large, but they are still very tasty. They would be perfect grilled, in case you're grilling, but they'd also be good chopped up raw in a salsa or on a salad. The fennel is very small, also good raw on salads or grilled, but with a sweet flavor, not sharp like the onions. The kale we are growing is a variety called Lacinato Rainbow that was bred here in Oregon by Frank Morton. There's a lot of variation in the color, shape and texture of the leaves. I really like if for that reason, and because it has excellent flavor. I generally like it cooked, sauteed in olive oil is my standard, with just a splash of balsamic at the end. It can also be eaten raw, made into a salad or slaw.

In the field this week we're trying to get tomatoes and cucumbers tied up. The summer plantings are all in so planting has slowed, but we're still seeding in the greenhouse and the first of the fall chicories gets seeded this week, along with a few other fall and winter crops. With all of the plantings that just went in for the summer we also have a much bigger weeding load right now. So far we've managed to keep on top of the weeds, but we'll see what happens as the weather warms up and we move to harvesting two days a week in the summer.

Speaking of summer, we have lots of summer CSA shares still available. We've ramped up production for the summer so we're hoping to sign up twice as many folks as we had this spring. If you'd like a share, now's the time to order one. 

Josh Volk
Chief Vegetable Pedaler (or is that peddler?)

Yesterday we dodged showers all day, starting by cleaning up in the greenhouse and the barn, and then taking advantage of a mid day lull to hoe our experimental field of corn, beans and squash. Things had dried out just enough at that point that we were able to rush to prepare two beds for planting and to get beans, lettuce, and cilantro planted for the CSA before the showers returned, encouraged us to cry, "uncle" and take off an hour early. 

I'm looking forward to the open house on the farm tomorrow and hope to see you all there! We've ordered up good weather, but still bring your boots for tromping through the fields if you're interested in the complete tour.

Josh Volk
One Wet Weeder

A few new items this week, while we wait for the lettuce to get back on track. Usually lettuce is a stalwart, but for some reason it's lagging a bit right now. The kale has been doing decently well so we picked a few more leaves this week. Fennel, chard and garlic scapes all make their first appearance. Garlic scapes are a once a year treat. We only have enough in the ground to save for seed this year so there won't be any actual garlic in the shares, but we still have to harvest the scapes so here they are. With the seed we save this year we should have a bit more next year. Use the scape fresh, or cook it anywhere you'd use regular garlic.

The fennel is young and has tender fronds which would be an excellent addition to salad. It can also be cooked with other greens, like the chard. The chard leaves are the first leaves from our planting of Five Color Silverbeet. Chard is edible raw but is better cooked. We'll have more chard and fennel in future shares.

I meant to write this post on Thursday. We also planned on planting the leeks at the end of April (although they didn't really need to go in that early).

Thursday we finally got around to planting the leeks, about 1000 of them. Today I'm getting around to posting a little update on the fields. The fields look good. The weather has been much more conducive to growing than they have been for a few years. I'd say the one thing that concerns me right now is the acidity of the soil, which is stunting some of the vegetables. It's a bit hard to tell if it's the acidity, or the weather, or what, but we have had a few crop failures this spring, notably the early beets and spinach. 

The good news is that we're basically caught up on planting and we're not too far behind on cultivating. We've been managing to get to hoeing quite consistently and last week two new Heron hoes showed up, which are great (if you're looking for one all around cultivating hoe check out the Herons). 

I also managed to sneak into the wood shop this weekend and build more boxes to put CSA bags into. Summer starts in three weeks and with summer we'll start harvesting two days a week, which means we need more boxes and bags. Below there's a little photo gallery of many of the steps involved in building the boxes. 

Josh Volk
Sideline Box Builder

The recent spate of warm weather has caused the berries to start ripening sooner than expected. The five inches of rain we received in late May didn't hurt either!

We had planned on opening our u-pick stand at the end of June but if this weather holds, we'll have ripe berries by June 21st. We'll post opening hours on our website and on Facebook and you can follow us on twitter @OurTableCoOp for the latest updates.

We look forward to seeing you at the u-pick stand on our farm. We'll have pre-picked berries available for purchase there as well. We will also be selling berries at the Sherwood and Wilsonville farmer's markets starting early July and for folks in Portland, the Food Front grocery cooperative and Local Choice Market will be carrying our blueberries.

Here's hoping for a very delicious and blue summer!

It's impossible to predict the weather months in advance, which is one of the reasons it's hard to plan out exactly what will be in the shares from week to week. Still, I make a plan and then we see what happens. This week's share is definitely different from the plan. Today, there's a small bunch of Lacinato Rainbow kale, a variety bred right here in Oregon at Wild Garden Seeds. There are also Guardsman green onions, yet more Hakurei turnips, and a single spring raab bud. The single bud of raab is more garnish than anything else, tasty garnish though.

This is the first year in many that I've grown green onions. They are sweet and flavorful and can be eaten raw or cooked. I like kale chopped into thin ribbons and sautéed. I like most vegetables that way, including turnips. The turnips have been prolific this spring, which is good because a few other crops have failed to thrive, like spinach.

The back and forth in weather this spring, swinging from very warm and dry to cold and wet and back again, has had a slight accordion effect on the maturity of crops. Last week's share saw a few crops stack up, this weeks harvest is a bit stretched. The joys of truly seasonal eating.

I never know what will be in the following week's harvest, even though I do try to go by the plan.

Josh Volk
Chief Harvest Forecaster

Our Summer Open House is only a few weeks away so please reserve the date.  For those who have all ready visited us, the changes on the farm between the seasons and construction are worth another visit. For our first-timers, the flower-studded fields and full blueberry bushes makes this an idyllic time to come. Join in our farm tour and tasty treats during our afternoon together!

Saturday, June 15th from 3:00-5:00 pm 
13390 SW Morgan Road Sherwood, OR 97140

Two weeks ago was the biggest planting week of the year, only it was so wet we couldn't prepare beds for planting. This last week was a pretty big week too, and finally on Thursday it was just dry enough to get into the field for bed preparation and we hit the ground running. Thursday we planted cucumbers, melons, peppers, basil, summer squash and celeriac, 12 beds of our 80 beds in all. We also covered everything except for the celeriac with hoops and row cover to help transition it out to the field, and to keep it a little warmer at night since it's still pretty cold (even though it's basically June). 

Friday Karen and I came out for an extra day of planting and managed to finish transplanting the lettuce and peppers and to direct seed parsnips, arugula, carrots, root parsley, as well as multiple varieties of dry beans and corn which are for a project that's tangential to the CSA. That tangential project is an experimental field of dry corn, dry beans and hard squash. A little more than half of that field was seeded two weeks ago just before it started raining and those seeds are just now germinating.

Multiple times during the planting I wished I had a camera to take a snap shot for the blog. Unfortunately my camera (aka phone) was being repaired, likely broken partly from the incredibly wet harvest day we had on Monday - which is what is pictured above. Actually that's probably a photo from two weeks ago, but who's counting. If you were ever wondering about how we pack all of those bags, 80 in all, this big crazy rack is the answer.