Thank you so much for coming out to see us last Saturday. It was a trifecta of suboptimal weather conditions – cold, windy and gray. Rain would have made it unbearable. I hope that the delicious vegetables made it worth the trek through the bad weather. The green garlic is really perfect right now, as are the beets. We had at least one first-time beet eater – you know who you are, and we’re dying to know how it went!
This coming Saturday will definitely be worth the trip because we are bringing two serious crowd pleasers … salad mix and spinach!! If you haven’t had fresh leafy greens since last fall (and I don’t mean Earthbound Farm pre-washed greens!), you are in for a real treat. The salad greens are a diverse mix of early spring favorites – leaf, bibb, romaine, speckled, and more! The spinach is to-die-for. Sweet and crisp enough to eat as a snack. Our boys go nuts for it. By the following Saturday, we hope to bring head lettuce.
We’re also bringing more nettle. Don’t be afraid of the stingers – they melt away when you drop them into boiling water. Blanch for two minutes, and then use it like you’d use spinach. I’m not just saying this … nettles are awesome! They are every bit as good as cooked spinach. We use them in omelets regularly, and we make nettle soup on occasion.
This week I had the opportunity to “teach” a group of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at Northpointe Elementary School. They were al l members of the school’s Ecology Club. The topic – local food. The kids were really into it! I brought some Earthbound Farm arugula and baby spinach for sampling and a bag of some other brand of baby carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. I revealed the truth about “baby” carrots (they’re just mature carrots that have been put through a lathe). It was a blast! (Especially the part where we talked about heritage turkey breeds. It didn’t occur to me how funny the 5th grade boys would find the discussion about broad breasted white turkeys, whose breasts are so large that they can’t stand up. In reality, it’s a very disturbing fact about factory-raised turkey. However, for a 5th grade boy, it’s just a chance to laugh about big breasts.)
Just when life couldn’t get any better for the boys, our farmhand Phil brought them a TRASH BAG full of his old Legos. Do you know how much space is taken up by a dumped-over garbage bag of Legos? About half of your living room. When Ben asked Noah if he could find tractor pieces in the pile, Noah answered, “Ben you can probably find anything you want in there.” Lego nirvana.
The boys also found the first ripe strawberries of the year. Whoopee!
Out in the field, Bill and the farmhands have been very busy taking advantage of the recently dry weather. They transplanted 600 sweet potato plants, weeded 6,000 onions and 8,000 garlic plants, transplanted 280 tomatoes, 250 eggplants, and 300 peppers, planted ½ acre of sweet corn (keep your fingers crossed and we may get some if we can keep the raccoons away), weeded four 150-foot beds of spinach, mulched about 1/3 of the 1200 pounds of potatoes that we planted, mulched the kale, collards, and Brussels sprouts. Bill also hooked up and tried out his new 1960’s New Holland 450 sickle mower for cutting hay. It works, but it needs a new sickle blades to be really effective.
Potatoes after hilling
For the next market, here’s what you can expect:
Spinach
Beets
Green Onions
Green Garlic
Nettle
Salad Mix
If you have a burning veggie question, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.
Best,
Mercy
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