Looking for a little culinary inspiration when it comes to our summer produce? We love sharing recent favorite recipes during our Saturday Farm Stand from 9am-noon! Recently, we’ve been chopping up and blanching long beans to use in salads throughout the week. Farmer Chandler made a niçoise salad with long beans recently that was phenomenal! You can use this recipe as a guide and sub in long beans for the green beans. Even though it’s a simple preparation, we love roasting okra throughout the summer and enjoying it as a side dish, piling it on tacos, or pairing it with remoulade for an appetizer. We recommend trying this simple roasted okra recipe and changing up the seasonings to suit your tastes. 

While we can’t grow cool season greens like kale and chard during the summer, there are delicious summer alternatives like roselle greens and Malabar spinach. We just planted a round of roselle in the field and have Malabar spinach in the greenhouse that just germinated! Roselle (above) is a multi-use crop that provides us with tangy leafy greens in the summer and tart ruby-red pods in the summer. Malabar spinach (below) is a tropical vining plant with succulent leaves that is not a true spinach, but rather has a similar mild flavor. We are excited for both of these leafy greens to hit the Farm Stand later this summer!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Cucumber, Long Beans, Okra, Eggplant, Tomatoes (last week!), Zucchini, Jalapenos, Bell Peppers, Shishito Peppers, Poblano Peppers, Carrots, Basil, and Flower Bouquets and Stems

Look how tall our Sudangrass has gotten! Sudangrass is a type of sorghum that we are utilizing as a cover crop. Our soil has a high clay content which means it can compact easily, especially after an extended soggy period. The roots of Sudangrass are helpful in loosening up soil compaction, leading to improved soil structure, drainage, and an overall better environment for our crops to thrive. This lush green growth will add a lot of nitrogen-rich organic matter back to the soil when we mow it down for fall planting.

We’re harvesting a new leafy summer green for you: roselle. This crop (above) is an edible hibiscus variety in the same family as okra that grows really well during our summer season. Roselle leaves have a lovely tart, lemony flavor that can be eaten raw in salads or cooked. In Indian cuisine, it is often used in curries, chutneys, and pickles. We recommend trying our roselle leaves in this dal recipe or in this quick and easy pesto. 

Due to the hurricane and recent wet conditions, we’re moving into a bit of a summer lull. This is typical this time of year though in years past it is usually due to extreme heat. Production has slowed momentarily while we wait for some of our late summer crops to come in. Despite the slow down, we still have plenty of okra and long beans coming out of the field! Farmer Matt’s go-to is a classic stir-fry flavored with soy sauce, fennel seed, cumin seed, turmeric, and ginger. Both of these veggies can be found at the Farm Stand.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Roselle Leaves, Okra, Butternut Squash, Jalapeños, Shishitos, Korean Melons, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Long Beans, and Eggplant. 

We planted one of our favorite summer greens last week in the high tunnel: molokhia. Molokhia, also called “Egyptian spinach”, is a plant in the mallow family that produces edible leaves. Since it does incredibly well in hot climates, we grow it during the summer as one of our leafy green crops. Molokhia has a taste similar to spinach so it can be used in much the same way. It is a fairly quick grower so we should have some for you at the Farm Stand in about a month!

Tomato season is swiftly coming to an end so make sure to enjoy this beloved veggie while you can! As much as we’d love to push their season further into the summer, it’s becoming too hot for our tomato plants to continue pollinating and setting fruit. Overall, tomato plants aren’t as productive once high temperatures are regularly above 90 degrees. If you’d like to extend their season longer in your kitchen, try preserving them! We recommend making a batch of tomato jam or salsa.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Cantaloupe, Eggplant, Slicing Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Slicing Cucumbers, Pickling Cucumbers, Serrano Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, Shishito Peppers, Poblano Peppers, Okra, Kale, Basil, and Cut Flowers (limited)

Coming Soon: Long Beans and Summer Greens

We’ve got a new summer green for you at the farm stand this week: Malabar spinach! This tropical plant (pictured above) isn’t a true spinach but rather the succulent leaves have a similar mild flavor. The leaves and shoots of Malabar spinach can be eaten cooked or raw. For a raw preparation, Farmer Alex recommends using it like a lettuce wrap or taco shell. If you’d like to enjoy the greens cooked, you can use them just as you would chard or spinach leaves. Make sure to stop by the farm stand to try some!

The shade cloth on the high tunnel has been immensely helpful for our crops that are more sensitive to the intense heat and sun of summer. We planted a round of pole beans in the high tunnel last week that will hopefully benefit from the presence of the shade cloth. The pole bean variety we planted is called Bai Bu Lao. When harvested young, this variety resembles a tender green bean. If left to mature, Bai Bu Lao begins to flatten out and resemble a Romano bean. We can’t wait to share them with you!

We are entering what we like to call our “lean season”. The ongoing hot and dry weather pattern is incredibly challenging for a young farm. Instead of expending all of our time and energy into keeping the whole farm in production mode, we’re beginning preparations for fall. One major way we’re doing this is to plant several of our vacant rows with cover crops. This will allow us to nurture the soil before it is replanted in the fall season. And, it gives us plenty of time to dream up a delicious fall crop plan!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Malabar Spinach, Egyptian Spinach, Italian & Asian Eggplants, Jalapenos, Fresno Peppers, Cayenne Peppers, Criolla Sella Peppers, Sweet Peppers, Okra, Armenian Cucumbers, Bitter Melon, Zucchini, Tomatillos, Long Beans, Delicata Squash, Spaghetti Squash, Cherry Tomatoes, and Basil.

June 24th, 2021

It’s officially summer on the farm! That means tomatoes will be making their way out of season in the next couple of weeks and we will be focused only on crops that can thrive in our hot and humid summer weather. We were able to transplant more of our summer greens this week and we’re pretty excited about the variety that we’ll be able to offer. We’ll be growing purslane, red amaranth, Malabar spinach, and Tetragonia (New Zealand spinach). If you’re curious what some of these crops look like, the red amaranth can be seen above and the Tetragonia can be seen below.

In order to make way for more summer crops, we’ve been focused on preparing our vacant beds for planting. Since we farm predominantly with a no-till method in order to keep the soil food web intact, bed preparation always starts with a broadfork to help aerate the soil. Once we broadfork our beds and add amendments like compost and organic fertilizer, we’ll be transplanting more successions of summer crops like peppers, okra, squash, and luffa.

Have you had a chance to make it out to our farm stand yet? The farm stand (located right on the farm) is open on Wednesdays from 4-6pm and Saturdays from 10am-12pm. It provides a sustainable option within the community as you’re able to get the produce directly us which greatly reduces fossil fuel consumption. A tomato from us travels less than 50 feet before it gets to you while a tomato at a grocery store may have traveled a thousand or more miles. Also, the closest grocery store to our location is approximately 8 miles away by car! This Saturday, we’ll have the following for you at the farm stand: cherry tomatoes, slicer tomatoes, cucumbers, green bell peppers, long beans, okra, eggplant, basil, and fresh cut flower bouquets.