Grass Is Greener Gardens

Our veggie CSA is humming along and in comes the weatherman to give us bad news, early frost. What? Early frost? We’ll have none of that damn it. We’ve got peppers on the vine, tomatoes still ripening and those stupid eggplant have yet to arrive en masse. Not ready, no sir Mr. Weatherman. So last week the crew spent an entire day covering crops and picking vegetables. If you haven’t seen the storyboard, look here.

Peppers and basil were picked fast because they are the first to succumb to frost. Tomatoes covered, just in case. The last huge patch of green beans was covered. We did in fact get a frost and you can see a hint of frost bite on many of the sensitive plants now. But they have perked up and we are betting we get a little more out of those true summer veggies before the real frost comes.

Good news. The fall crops are ready and your shares changed shape and color this week. Winter squash and pie pumpkins have arrived. Radishes are back. Next week we expect lettuces to return and growing strong for the final few weeks we expect spinach, more radishes, kale, carrots, chard and possibly even surprises like more broccoli and kohlrabi.

This week savor your shares as they are a transition from straight up summer to fall. Happy eats all. Make a pumpkin pie and freeze some peppers for winter use. Enjoy!

Hello all,

This week brings the return of another cool weather crop: the radish.  Enjoy these baby radishes, one of our favorites. You will also see the little eggplant that could, which we are so very excited to see flowering and producing fruit.  Our basil unfortunately frosted during last week’s unseasonably cool evenings–we have a fall crop of basil that weather depending will produce, but for now savor this fresh basil.  Some of you may be relieved to hear that our current crop of beans is slowing down (others of you may be happy to hear that more are on the way).  Everyone this week gets dragon tongues, and then most are getting green or purple beans.  Also included are french fingerling potatoes, onions, jalapenos, bell peppers or red sweet pimento peppers, chard or kale, parsley for some, black cherry and grape (the small red ones) tomatoes, and  heirloom tomatoes.

Lettuce and spinach are growing every day, so you should see them in the coming weeks.

In other farm news, our neighbor marked us for suckers (and we confirmed it), so we have a new addition to the farmily.  Meet our new kitten here:

I will distract you.

As always, happy eats.

It is late summer and sort of bittersweet. Many think of back-to-school as the end of summer, which often feels like the end of food growing in the midwest. Good news, we expect a few more weeks of summer vegetables like tomatoes, beans & peppers. The eggplants we tried to kill are finally coming and there may be enough for everyone over the next couple of weeks.

You have to see the photo of the eggplants. You may recall our blathering on about how we have tried to kill them. Look at the flea beetle bites to the leaves. (They do not eat the fruits, don’t panic!)

organic eggplant

It probably won’t surprise you that the first of our fall crop to arrive on the scene is the beet crop. You might wonder why you get beets all the time from GIGG. They happen to be a best seller at markets and very healthy. They require a lot of weeding and attention to detail. They are awesome pickled. Beets are a good food. Eat the tops. Eat the tops!

Beets aren’t the only fall crops though. The following are forward looking statements about fall crops. Fall crops are highly risky and weather dependent. Optimism prevails for fall crops, despite the risk of sounding all-forward-looking and stuff.

Beets, Mixed Lettuces, Spinach, Kale, Broccoli, Cabbage, Kohlrabi and Carrots germinated in the last two weeks. A fall crop of basil and fennel looks up-and-at-em. Winter squash germinated in June makes an appearance soon. You never know, as with spring crops, fall plantings depend on perfect weather. We shall see.

This week though – Carrots. Bigger.
Green Beans,Dragon’s Tongue Beans,Basil,Oregano,Kale, Heirloom & Black Cherry Tomatoes
Jalapeno Peppers,Beets,Potatoes,Onions, And of course eggplant ~ A smattering of little finger eggplants arrived today. Not everyone received them. We expect a good solid harvest next week and hope everyone will get some. These babies are harvest small.

Enjoy your shares! We enjoy driving them to you…..

going to town

Okay, so we may have been in the bean fields a little too long.

the vegetables are here. en masse. bushels and bushels. they are here. about three weeks late, but the onslaught of vegetables has arrived. your shares grew overnight and we expect an abundance through September. The fall crops have been planted. I’ll tell you about that in a bit. This week’s shares include:

A mixed bag of yukons and beautiful French fingerling potatoes

Peppers; some will receive bell peppers this week along with hot peppers, others will receive a mix of hot peppers. The peppers look super good on the plant and we think next week is the peak. Look for sweet and hot for everyone next week.

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes Our heirlooms might look a little funny but they have great flavor. There’s a kinda funny story that happened last Saturday at the Beloit market. A customer came to our stand and looked at our tomatoes. Then she went to another vendor and looked at theirs. They buy their tomatoes from a produce wholesaler. We grow ours. She asked why they looked funny, and then bought the tomatoes from our neighbor. (Which are like Canadian greenhouse tomatoes) She came back just to tell us that she was glad tomatoes had been improved over the years. To each his own, we’ll take a real tomato anytime.
Kale and Swiss Chard continue to provide for us. Use them as accents for any dish. They are packed with nutrients.

Green Beans will be in shares for another week and then will take a break for about three weeks. Some of you will receive Purple Beans this week and some will receive the Striped Dragon’s Tongue. They are all good fresh or in a sautee. If you can’t eat them all, blanch, shock and freeze for winter soups.

Basil just keeps coming, thank you Basil!
Chives are headed out to our Beloit members.
Parsley goes to Chicago.
Rosemary to Oak Park

And everyone gets small and medium sized red and yellow onions this week.

We’ve planted all of our fall crops and baby beets are coming back. Carrots, lettuce and radishes have germinated. We hope to see more broccoli, cabbage and spinach. We also have fields of lovely squash vines we hope will produce an ample supply for everyone.

Happy late summer. We still have plenty of good food to come. Enjoy!

Dear Beloit,

If your shares were wetter or muddier than they usually are, it’s because we were too. Sorry.

Does he remind anyone else of the yellow teletubby?

Or four, or five cheers. This week’s shares contain a lot of green beans and we hope you will eat them, freeze them or do our very favorite canning activity, pickle them. We grow an abundance of beans for our CSA and for our food processing operation. We turn them into dilly beans which make a great snack or martini or bloody mary garnish.

This link will take you to a recipe booklet from the University of Wisconsin Extension and contains a lot of great info on pickles.

Also in the shares this week….

Potatoes. We continue to deliver these weekly because, well, potatoes are a staple. Ours are organic, which is really pretty unusual to find, even in places like Whole Foods. No pesticides or herbicides ever, we hand plant, hand weed and hand harvest.

Yellow Cherry Tomatoes. We are making tomato jelly this week. Recipe for tomato marmalade can be found here.

You’ll also receive some great heirloom tomatoes in various stages of ripeness.

Jalapenos! Yay!

Green Bell Peppers can be stuffed with meat and rice for a perfect peasant food. Every culture has a variation of this. We also recommend a nice, light, summer vegetarian chili by chopping them and adding tomatoes, beans, onions and chili peppers.

Basil will be in your share again because we hate to see you pay $3 at the grocery store for a tiny little clamshell package. Use it in pasta dishes or dry it for winter use.

We’ve got white and red onions, smallish, perfect for soups and stew.

Everyone will be receiving leeks this week. Leeks grow steady and slow, and we’re harvesting once this year. Make a nice potato & leek soup. Leeks also pair very well with eggs in any recipe.

Purple beans are coming your way! These fun beans are much like green beans. Eat them raw or steam or sautee.

Our curubits are performing poorly this year. This includes summer squash, melons and cucumbers. They seem to be coming back, but not very fast. Everyone will receive a grab bag of squash & cucumbers. We’re not sure how many, but at least some.

Everyone will also receive cilantro. We made last call last week, but see there’s still more in the field.

Kale is on for this week in smallish bunches. Kale pairs well with eggs too. It is also a great addition to any soup.

Next week, maybe, maybe, eggplant!

Happy eats from GIGG.

(Beloit…Free Sunflowers! What? Free stuff? Yep, our flowers are blooming like crazy so we’ve left some at the pick up for you to take. Enjoy. Take what you like, first come, first served.)

Tomatoes are coming on strong…Yellow Cherry Madness continues. Also, new varieties are coming on strong. Today your heirloom tomatoes appear in a just-before-ripe stage. Sit them on your counter for a day and let them mature. They travel better this way. The varieties you might received include: Black Trifele; A pear shaped, dark colored, juicy tomato. It should be dark on the bottom and lighter at the top when ripe. Striped Cavern; This tomato is often hollow on the inside, making it a good choice for stuffed tomatoes. Black Cherry; This juicy cherry should be dark in color, with little green showing. Let them ripen on your counter. Also, these are heirloom varieties which means they sort of ‘play it as it lays’. Expect blemishes on these rich, old fashioned fruits.

Summer squash is sort of a joke on the farm now. Who could kill a zucchini? Again, us. About 100 feet of plants and we’re getting about three a day. Some of you will get some, others, no. This is crop failure. Though we think they might come back. Rich has a theory on this crop failure related to (micro) environmental change. Perhaps he will share on the blog.

Red Onions – Small and medium sized red onions. They are great for stews and soups. To handle these small treats, cut off the roots and stem. Cut off the top at a place where it still feel moist. With a small knife, cut a slit in the onion longways and peel off the papery skin. Ready to go.

Jalapenos – The first of our peppers. These hotties make great pico de gallo with yellow cherry tomatoes, chopped onions and a squeeze of lime.

Potatoes – Our potatoes are strong this year and we expect them to keep coming as a staple every week until mid September.

Basil – more. makes us giggle how much we have. If you have too much, just dry it by hanging it up or laying it on the counter. The fragrance in winter is amazing.

Cilantro – Use it with tomatoes, onions and peppers. Last call for cilantro!

Parsley – The most understated of all herbs. We grow the fancy Italian variety. Tabouli.

Green Beans- Three cheers!

And then there’s Earl Paulson, who provided our shares with burpless cucumber and sweet yellow onions this week. Earl is cool he is the master of veggie growing.

Happy Eats!

Hello CSA members! Since Anna and Jackie are both busy, busy this week I will attempt to fill there mighty blogosphere shoes. Here is your farm update for the week.

The weather has been quite pleasant the last few days. We received some much needed rain on Saturday and then some clear skies and cool temperatures this morning for our harvest to begin the week. This means happy plants will be arriving in your homes very soon. Also, Rich has been hard at work repairing all of our important mechanical devices as we head into the second half of the CSA season. And, T.J. are newest farmily member has been fitting in wonderfully. She is an extremely hard worker which makes all of us at GIGG happy farmers. But enough jibber jabber let’s get down to business.

Everyone this week will be receiving the following herbs and vegetables in their shares:

Yukon Gold Potatoes, Yellow Cherry Tomatoes, a mix of Green Beans and Purple Beans, Purple or Yellow Onions, Basil, and Jalapeños. The other night we wrapped whoole Yukon Golds up in tin foil and threw them on the grill. When they came off about 20 minutes later they were soft, fluffy, and just perfect with a little butter and salt. Also, if you have cilantro left over from last week, I recommend tossing 2 cups of halved Yellow Cherry’s, 1 cup of chopped Onions, 1 Jalapeño, and 1/2 Cup of fresh cilantro in the blender/food processor. Blend the vegetables to your desired chunkiness. Finally, mix in equal parts sugar and salt to taste, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and a short pour of beer (preferably Modelo or Negra Modelo). And, with that simple recipe you have a delicious pico de gallo! If you want to get fancy you can also throw in carrots, cucumbers, and different peppers.

Some locations will receive a smattering/mix’n'match of these herbs and vegetables:

Squash, Carrots, Black Trifele and Striped Cavern heirloom tomatoes, Kale, Chard, Green Peppers, Zucchini, Chives, Parsley, and Cilantro. In the last week we have seen great growth for both the carrots and the heirloom tomatoes. The really look and taste delicious! So, in honor of the first batch of heirloom tomatoes, I made a farm fresh red pasta sauce last week. For my sauce I cut up squash, tomatoes, and onions and chopped up oregano, parsley, basil, and rosemary. However, with just basil and parsley it would still taste excellent. I sauteed the onions first and then added the squash and tomatoes. After letting the vegetables fry for about 3-4 minutes I added a can of tomato paste and a cup of water. Finally, I added the herb mix and then let the sauce sit on low heat for about an hour. Really a wonderful dish to make while the tomatoes are in season.

So, that’s gist of it for this week. If you all have any questions, comments, or recipes to share please post them to the blog or send them our way at giggardens@sbcglobal.net.

Have a wonderful evening and enjoy the food!

Dear CSA,

We enjoyed a nice change of pace today: 70s, clouds, and rain for most of the day.  Other news at GIGG:  we could pick yellow cherry tomatoes all day long and never finish.  Update from the little eggplants that could: first flower spotted today!  We said goodbye to Winston last week–he starts up at Beloit College again in a few weeks–and said hello to T.J., our newest intern.  Fall crops are going in these next few weeks: broccoli, beets (you know you’ve missed them), peas, more green beans, kale, carrots, radishes, spinach, lettuce, herbs.

This week’s shares include: potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, onions, chard, kale, carrots, cilantro, zucchini, Benning’s green tint squash, lemon cukes, bell peppers, and jalapenos.  Everyone is also getting organic crookneck squash from our neighbor, Emily. I get a lot of questions about the Benning’s squash at the farmers’ market.  This squash is great for sauteeing…cook up in olive oil and garlic and onions.  Put it on pasta or eat by itself.  Sean has a great recipe for pico de gallo, which is a very tasty way to use your tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and peppers…I will pester him tonight to post.

enjoy the cool weather!