The News from Windflower Farm
Hello from Windflower Farm! Thank you very much for joining us for the 2022 season – we hope you enjoy your CSA experience. Vegetable and egg shares begin this week and fruit shares will probably get underway next week with the season’s first strawberries.
What’s in your share?
- Arugula
- Fordhook Swiss chard
- Magenta lettuce
- A mix of kales
- Red Rover radishes
- Bunching onions
- Garlic scapes
- Thai basil pot
What’s new on the farm?
For the first few weeks, your shares will consist primarily of salad crops. Soon that list will grow to include spring turnips and kohlrabi and, with a little luck, spring broccoli. Cucumbers and zucchinis mark, for me, the beginning of summer, and their arrival this year should coincide with the solstice. And then, in the first weeks of summer, you should begin to see beans and tomatoes and corn. But for now, as is always the case in June here, it’s salad season.
On a recent bike ride along the high roads of southern Washington County, we could see large swaths of the woods in bloom – acres of white against an otherwise green backdrop of new leaves. As we approached, we could see that these were black locusts, a native species that grows in large groves, and their fragrance was sweet and delicious. Old timers will tell you it’s safe to plant your frost sensitive vegetables once the locust blooms. This year’s bloom peaked about ten days ago. Its showy ivory-colored flowers have been dropping and the trees are fading back to green. In the place of each blossom a pea-like pod will grow. The locust is a legume, and its flowers are edible and sweet, but, unlike honey locust pods, black locust pods are poisonous. As I laid drip tape out on beds of onions near a locust hedge today, blossoms rained down and the ground was covered in a white mulch. I wonder if the onions will taste of the sweetness of the locust.
Have a great week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 