Welcome to the 15th share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2023 Summer CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

• Head Lettuce – Choose from two romaines and two leaf lettuce types this week.
• Purple Cauliflower or Lacinato Kale – We didn’t have enough cauliflower for everyone, so we’re giving you a choice this week. The cauliflower and broccoli both should be back soon.
• Cabbage
• Dill
• Yellow Onion
• Beets – It’s cool enough to think about roasting beets, hurrah! Check out the recipe for pickled beets down below too.
• Sweet Corn – We’ve moved on to the first variety of the fourth succession and unfortunately noticed a handful of corn earworms again. Keep an eye out.
• Mixed Cucumbers – Including green and yellow slicers and lemon cucumbers.
• Mixed Zucchini & Summer Squash – Choose from green, yellow, and light green Mexican zucchinis.
• Mixed Sweet Peppers – Mixed Bell and elongated/pointy Italian Frying Peppers, different shapes but similar in taste and use. Some with more color than others (these varieties ripen to red and yellow) but all are sweet with no heat.
• Shishito Peppers – Known as a roulette pepper, 1 in 10 might be hot. They’re great with eggs, or anything else really, but traditionally blistered in hot oil and eaten with a little salt.
• Mixed Cherry Tomatoes & Slicer Tomatoes
• Mixed Melons – Including Tirreno Tuscan cantaloupes, Honey Orange honeydews, and Lambkin piel de sapo melons.
• Asian Pears – Crisper than other pears, these hold up well to cooking but are also great raw. They ripen to yellow.

We welcomed the start of meteorological fall with the first real rain in months and a noticeable cool down in the weather. Our planting plans were shifted to Sunday, once things dried out a bit. That left time to tackle a different project, the pear harvest.

We lucked out with nice weather this past spring when the trees were flowering and we had good pollination. Jeff then made an effort to keep the orchard watered throughout the summer, which honestly hasn’t always been a priority. Needless to say, it’s a good year for pears and apples too. We’re sharing some nice Asian pears this week and will share bartletts and hopefully more Asian pears in the coming weeks. It’s time to break out the pear recipes.

In addition to the rain shifting the work tasks, the resident beekeepers decided it was time to begin transporting hives to their home place for the winter. They closed up several hives Friday night and came on Saturday morning to take them away. That process made for a lot of confused bees that couldn’t find their hives. The agitated honeybees seemed to rile up the yellowjackets too. It was a weekend of dodging bees and wasps, a good excuse to stay inside and can tomatoes (for me) and to head to the river for a few hours (for Jeff).

In the week ahead we’ll be finishing up the planting that didn’t get done this past week. We’re testing the seasonal limit to see how late is too late to transplant a little extra winter kale. We’ve also got more carrot weeding (always), general cultivating, mowing, and fruit harvesting on deck. The big things we’re looking forward to this week include restocking our freezer and pantry with our annual Salmon CSA share from Iliamna Fish Co. and celebrating Jeff’s birthday this weekend. Fun times!

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:

Gingered Pickled Beets

One 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into 1/8-inch thick disks
1 cup distilled white vinegar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 ¹/₄ pounds beets, peeled and very thinly sliced (using a mandoline, if you have one)

Pour 1 cup water into a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, and add the ginger, vinegar, salt, and sugar. When the brine simmers, add the beets, and when it returns to a simmer, continue to cook for 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cover loosely, and let cool to room temperature. Transfer to a quart-size glass container with a lid, and seal tightly. Chill further in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until ready to serve. The pickles will keep in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks.

From Food52.com by Matt & Ted Lee, https://food52.com/recipes/13336-gingered-beet-pickles

Creamy Kale and Cabbage Salad

• Salad
• 1 bunch Tuscan kale (preferably organic), stems removed and sliced into 1-inch ribbons
• ¹/₂ Savoy cabbage, shredded
• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
• ¹/₂ cup sun-dried tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
• 1 tablespoon shelled hemp seeds
• 2 tablespoons raw shelled sunflower seeds
• Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

• Tahini-Dijon Dressing
• 3 tablespoons organic raw tahini
• 1 ¹/₂ teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar (such as Bragg)
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 6 tablespoons water
• Sea salt, to taste

First, prepare the dressing by whisking all of the ingredients together. Season with salt to taste, but note that the nutritional yeast alone can make the dressing quite salty.

At this point, dress the shredded kale, cabbage, and bell pepper and let the salad sit for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the cherry tomatoes and the sun-dried tomatoes and measure your other ingredients.

Stir the tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes into the salad and toss.

Season to taste with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

Top with sunflower seeds and hemp seeds. Serve immediately, or cover and store in the fridge for later use.

From Food52.com by Maja Lukic – Veggies & Gin, https://food52.com/recipes/23150-creamy-kale-and-cabbage-salad

Salmon with Cucumbers

• 2 fillets of wild salmon
• ¹/₄ cup cucumber, thinly sliced
• 4-5 radishes, thinly sliced
• 3 tablespoons dill, chopped
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• salt and pepper to taste

Peel cucumbers in lengthwise strips, leaving thin strips of skin between peelings. Either by hand or with a mandolin, slice cucumbers and radishes into very thin rounds. Place both in a bowl with rice wine vinegar, dill, sugar, and pinch of salt to season. Toss to combine, and set aside.

Season both sides of the salmon with salt and pepper. In a hot fry pan or on a hot grill, cook the salmon for several minutes, until nicely browned. Turn over, and continue grilling until just cooked through. Salmon will look flaky when done.

Place pickled cucumbers on a serving platter, top with salmon fillets, and serve.

From Food52.com by Audrey Needs More Wooden Spoons, https://food52.com/recipes/12623-salmon-with-cucumbers