Welcome to the 6th share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2023 Summer CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

• Lettuce Heads – One head of Mikola Butterhead lettuce and one head of Crispino iceberg lettuce.
• Red Cabbage
• Broccoli and/or Cauliflower
• Bolty Cilantro – It bolted before we to it, but it’s still tasty. Just watch out for any woody stems.
• Bunching Onions
• Beets
• Fennel – A little anise flavor for your dishes this week. The fennel bulb is the star of the show here, but the fronds can be used too. The bulb can be sliced and roasted, braised, pickled, or eaten raw shaved into salads. Check out the recipes at the end of the post for some inspiration.
• Romano Beans – Flat podded purple striped snap beans, great for any snap bean/green bean recipe.
• Mixed Cucumbers – Including a new-to-us burpless Asian variety called Tasty Green F1, our standby green slicer called Poinsett 76, a yellow slicer called Silver Slicer, and the classic lemon cucumbers.
• Mixed Zucchini & Summer Squash

Happy Independence Day! We hope you all have a fun and safe celebration today. We’re sticking to the schedule and we’ll be in Salem with the vegetables as usual. Let us know if you can’t make it today and would like to come down to the farm for the on-farm pick-up tomorrow or need to arrange something for later in the week.

We’re in for a hot couple of days ahead. It may not be the 116 degrees of a couple years back but it’s going to be warm nonetheless. Stay hydrated out there folks! And try to get your vegetables home quickly. They don’t want too be abandoned in a hot car this week.

On Sunday we managed to bring in the 2023 garlic harvest. After being planted last October, the garlic plants slowly grew through the winter months and then shot up as the spring approached. Thanks to multiple flaming weeding sessions with the propane torch last fall and a day spent cleaning up some grassy areas this spring it was a fairly clean stand of garlic, despite the persistence of some shorter weeds.

I think it was likely our fastest garlic harvest to date, as we got it all finished in a single day. We’ve got the process down to:

• Chiseling the paths so the undercutter will dig in. This chisel is an implement that attaches to our big tractor and has two long, strong shafts that are pointed on the bottom. These shafts match up with our wheel tracks in the paths and dig into the ground to break up compaction.
• Undercutting each bed. The undercutter is an implement that attaches to the big tractor, spans the width of the bed, and has a blade across the bottom that digs into the ground and cuts the roots and lifts the plants as the tractor drives forward.
• Pulling the plants and making bunches of 15.
• Tying two bunches together using baling twine and labeling the variety on the twine.
• Transporting the tied bundles and hanging them to dry down further.

The approximately 3,045 heads are now curing, hanging in the rafters of the shop barn. Fingers crossed we’ve got enough for the next 10 months of CSA shares.

Ahead of the garlic harvest we managed to keep the transplanting train on track. We got the fourth round of sweet corn in the ground in addition to the fall kale, collards, celery, dill, and cilantro. Fourteen beds of future tasty goodness! Jeff was also able to cultivate quite a few crops and things like the winter squash and pumpkin patch are looking good. I weeded some peppers after getting through a big week of propagation that included more fall crops plus lettuce and cilantro and dill. Needless to say it was another busy and tiring week.

The week ahead will look similar. More propagation, more weeding, more cultivating, more transplanting, and soon enough more harvesting. And always irrigating. That’s farming in the summer in Oregon!

Enjoy the vegetables and we’ll see you here next week!

Your farmers,
Carri Heisler & Jeff Bramlett

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Here are a few recipes to get you inspired:

Shaved Cauliflower, Fennel, and Beet Salad with Parmesan Dressing

• Parmesan vinaigrette
• ¹/₄ cup freshly ground (or finely grated) parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
• Pinch kosher salt

• Salad
• ¹/₂ head of cauliflower
• ¹/₂ bulb of fennel (cut lengthwise, stem still attached)
• 2 small beets, preferably red and golden, peeled
• Kosher salt
• Ground or finely grated parmesan, for garnish

Parmesan vinaigrette

Combine the parmesan, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt in a jar with a lid. Close and shake, shake, shake until creamy and emulsified. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed.

Salad

Break the cauliflower into big florets. Shave on a mandoline into 1/8”-thick slices—if they’re too thin, they’ll fall apart—directly into a large bowl. Halve the fennel half, lengthwise, leaving the stem attached (this ensures pretty fennel cross-sections). Shave each fennel quarter on the mandoline into paper-thin slices, directly into the bowl. Shave each beet on the mandoline into paper-thin slices, directly into the bowl. Sprinkle with a couple big pinches of salt and toss gingerly with your hands.

Dress the salad—you’ll use all of the vinaigrette—and toss again with your hands. Taste and adjust the salt if necessary. (This can keep in the fridge for a couple hours.) Shower with more ground parmesan just before serving.

From Food52.com by Emma Laperruque, https://food52.com/recipes/74830-shaved-cauliflower-fennel-and-beet-salad-with-parmesan-dressing

Fennel & Red Cabbage Slaw

• 2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• ¹/₂ teaspoon kosher or sea salt
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup shredded fennel bulb
• 1 cup shredded red cabbage
• 1 tablespoon chopped fennel fronds

Combine the vinegars, dijon and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk until the salt is dissolved.

Add the oil and whisk until the dressing is emulsified.

Place the shredded fennel and cabbage in the bowl on top of the dressing, and toss to combine.

Add the fennel fronds and toss again just before serving.

*This recipe includes directions for making smoky pork burgers too.

From Food52.com by LastNightsDinner, https://food52.com/recipes/315-smoky-pork-burgers-with-fennel-and-red-cabbage-slaw

Crunchy-Shell Cauliflower Tacos

• 1 head cauliflower
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 ¹/₂ teaspoons chili powder
• ³/₄ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 8 hard-shell tacos
• 1 cup shredded iceberg lettuce
• 1 cup grated pepper jack cheese

Preheat the oven to 450° F. Line two rimmed sheet pans with silicone mats or parchment.

Remove the very bottom of the cauliflower stem, as well as the green leaves. Roughly chop. Add about half to a food processor and pulse until it’s almost riced. Some chunks here and there are good—this is supposed to look like ground beef. Dump onto one lined sheet pan. Process the remaining cauliflower florets and add to the sheet pan. (Psst: Don’t try to process in one batch! It’s too much volume and will chop unevenly.) Add the olive oil, chili powder, and salt to the cauliflower. Toss. Divide this mixture between the two sheet trays. (Spreading the cauliflower out this much helps it brown, not steam.) Roast for about 20 minutes—rotating the pans top to bottom and front to back halfway through.

When the cauliflower is done, remove from the oven and add the hard-shell tacos—either directly on the oven rack or onto another sheet pan—to toast for a couple minutes, until warm.

Assemble the tacos in the following order: shell, cauliflower, lettuce, cheese.

From Food52.com by Emma Laperruque, https://food52.com/recipes/76795-crunchy-shell-cauliflower-tacos