Delivery #3, Week of June 9, 2025

The News from Windflower Farm

What’s in the vegetable share?

• Red or green lettuce
• Hakurei (sweet white) turnips
• Red Russian Kale
• Mixed mustard greens
• Bunched onions
• Garlic scapes
• And radishes

Japanese turnips can be sliced thin and used like radishes or sauteed until caramelized in olive oil and used as a side dish. They are sweeter and less turnip-like than the traditional fall varieties. Scapes can be pureed and used like garlic in its clove form.

The fruit share is a quart of Yonder Farm’s strawberries.

News from the farm

It continues to rain too much (more than 3 inches last week), but I’m not going to complain about it this week.

Black locusts have been in blossom this past week, which seems a little late to me and makes me wonder if the cool and wet spring has had anything to do with it. They have a sweet fragrance and an appearance resembling the white blooming horse chestnut, at least from a distance. Gardeners following the planting advice in the Farmers’ Almanac will tell you that the locust bloom indicates that it’s now safe to set out tomatoes and other frost sensitive vegetables. We planted our first tomatoes on April 25^th, nearly six weeks ago, into the protected environment of a high tunnel (essentially a greenhouse without a heater) and they are now nearly shoulder high and full of small green fruits. In this cool year, tomatoes will be slow to start – look for them in CSA shares in about four weeks.

In early May, we also planted cucumbers, another frost sensitive vegetable, in a high tunnel. We conducted a trial of this last yearwith mixed results. The plants produced well at first, but they were invaded by striped cucumber beetles and went down prematurely due to a disease they carried. This year, we wrapped the entire tunnel with an insect screen and, although some beetles have found their way inside, the planting appears healthy and small fruits are getting their start. We have trained the cucumber vine to climb up a single trellis wire and they are now up to my waist. Small quantities of cucumbers should be in shares soon. Field cucumbers are about two weeks behind them.

Have a great week. Best wishes, Ted

PS. Windflower Farm hats are once again available for purchase. If you would like one or two hats, please preorder them here: Windflower Farm’s Hat Order Form. We’ll be closing the order form within the next couple of weeks and we’ll send them on the truck to your site a little later this summer. Stay tuned!