Summer CSA Share #13

Welcome to the 13th share of the Pitchfork & Crow 2025 Summer CSA! Here’s what’s in the share this week:

Head Lettuce – Green leaf lettuce this week.
Broccoli
Purple Napa Cabbage
Flowering Cilantro – Packed with cilantro flavor, but in flower form! Use it however you would use cilantro leaves. You may also notice some hard green seeds. These are fresh coriander and is delicious on salads or added to sauteed vegetables.
Beets w/ Greens
Yellow Onions
Sweet Corn
Mixed Snap Beans
Cucumbers – Mixed green and silver slicers. Shoutout to CSA member Coral R. who shared their go-to refrigerator pickle recipe with us a couple of weeks back and we agree it’s a keeper. The recipe says kirby cucumbers only but we used small-medium slicers and have been eating up the crisp pickles on everything. Check it out here and get some cukes pickling. You won’t regret it.
Zucchini & Summer Squash
Poblano Peppers – The classic stuffing pepper, also good for flavoring any dish that is asking for a mild chile kick.
Jalapeno Peppers
Tomatillos – A little like green tomatoes, tomatillos make excellent salsa verde and enchilada sauce.
Mixed Tomatoes – Pints of cherries plus all the slicers this week. We’re using a lot of the pint boxes for tomatoes and would appreciate it if you could leave them behind or return them for another go around. Thanks!
Mixed Melons – Including Tirreno Tuscan cantaloupes, Honey Orange honeydews, and a few Lambkin piel de sapo melons.

^{Jeff found a praying mantis while weeding carrots (top left), the bees are loving the flowering cilantro (top right), and the sunflowers (bottom left), and a tree frog in the cilantro starts (bottom right).}

And just like that, we’ve made it to the halfway mark of the 2025 Summer CSA season! The height of summer produce is rolling in and it’s time to be gettin’ while the gettin’s good. Getting good things to eat that is. This is the time of year we dream of in December when we’re looking through seed catalogs and planning for the growing season ahead. The memories we’re making now of tasting melons in the field and eating sweet corn raw and hauling in all the tomatoes will fuel us through the winter months, through the planning, to the next season in hopes of re-creating the summer produce magic that is happening right now. The extra corn in our freezer and canned tomatoes will help get us through the winter too.

^{Nugget playing ball in the cucumbers (left) and a sunrise view on a hot day this past week (right).}

We began the harvest day yesterday getting heads of lettuce out of the field with the sound of thunder in the distance. Thankfully any threat of lightning held off and the harvest proceeded with a welcome cloud cover for most of the morning. The hot afternoons haven’t been messing around this past weekend and we’re ready for a return to milder temps. The retreat to air conditioning has been a game changer though. That’s been a good investment.

The past week on the farm has been working toward the big onion harvest, planning for upcoming greenhouse plantings, getting a little transplanting done, cultivating newly transplanted crops, and of course irrigating. As the transplanting winds down a little from half acre plantings to just a few beds, we’re moving into bulk harvest season. The pears are ripening, the potatoes are ready to harvest for storage, the dry beans aren’t far off, the onions have been undercut and are ready to be brought in for drying down in the prop house.

^{We headed to the coast with Jeff’s Aunt and Uncle for a day trip last week.}

We had visitors to town last week as we continued the harvest push and did all the farm things that needed doing. Jeff’s Aunt and Uncle arrived on Monday to check out the state of things in August. They visited Crater Lake and the coast while we finished up harvest and distribution and then we all headed back to the coast on Thursday for lunch. It was a nice visit full of good food and catching up. And it was fun that they got to witness part of the on-farm CSA pick-up last week. They enjoyed seeing what we were up to and meeting some of you too!

In the week ahead we’ll be transplanting a late round of fall kale, kohlarabi, cilantro, dill, and spinach. The planting goes on! There’s also a little propagation to get to, including lettuce and bok choy. Then there are those pears to harvest, onions to pick up, and the perpetual mowing. and cultivating, and weeding etc. And it’s time to get greenhouses prepped for fall planting. Go, go, go!

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

Your farmers,
Carri Heisler & Jeff Bramlett

Here are a few recipes to get you inspired:

Tzatziki with Beets and Mint

2.5 cup greek yogurt (I use 0.5% which works just fine)
1 teaspoon salt
1 head minced garlic (or less if you don’t love garlic as much as I do)
4 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large beets (probably a bit more than one pound)
1 handful of fresh mint, chopped finely

Step 1 Mix together the yogurt and the salt. Let it drain in a coffee filter for a few hours.

Step 2 Add olive oil and garlic and a bit of pepper (depends on your preference).

Step 3 Shred the beets roughly and just before serving add them to the yogurt mixture as well as the mint.

From Food52.com by Mettch, https://food52.com/recipes/3300-tzatziki-with-beets-and-mint

Fried Oniony, Garlicky Green Beans

2 to 3 tablespoon olive oil
4 cup regular green beans or haricots verts, chopped into 1-inch pieces
A few tablespoon water
1 cup evenly diced onion
1 pinch salt
1 clove garlic, zested with microplane
2 splash soy sauce
1 to 2 lemon wedges
1/2 handful chopped cilantro, for garnish

Step 1 Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on a medium heat, and add the beans. Let them cook for about 4 minutes (it might be significantly less depending on the type of bean you’re using and the strength of your burner). The heat should be high enough that the beans are sizzling. They should be getting brown and a little wrinkled, but they should not burn.

Step 2 Continue to cook, adding a tablespoon or so of water and swishing it around. Push the beans all around the edges of the pan to create a space in the middle. Place the onions into the space you have created and sprinkle a little salt on top. Let the onions cook for a few minutes, then slowly start to mix everything together. At this point everything should be getting pretty brown. Add the garlic and mix it in as you stir.

Step 3 When the onions are nice and brown, which should take 5 to 7 minutes, add a splash or two of soy sauce and a squeeze of lemon. Cook for two more minutes and serve, garnished with chopped cilantro.

From Food52.com by NavahFrost, https://food52.com/recipes/31211-fried-oniony-garlicky-green-beans

Spoonbread-Stuffed Poblanos

4 large poblano peppers (about 1 pound)
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon butter
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
pinch cayenne pepper
1/3 cup stone-ground cornmeal (preferably Bob’s Red Mill medium grind)
1 cup corn kernels (from 1 large ear)
1 cup grated Pepper Jack cheese
4 large scallions, thinly sliced (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs, seperated
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup (about 3 ounces) cherry tomatoes, preferably Sungolds

Step 1 To roast the poblanos, place the peppers directly over a gas flame on the stove, using one burner for 2 peppers at a time. Cook, turning every 2 or 3 minutes until charred all over, 6 to 8 minutes total. Transfer to a plastic bag to steam and cool, about 15 minutes.

Step 2 Squeeze the peppers gently through the bag to remove most of the skin. Remove from the bag and peel any remaining skin. If the peppers naturally split, open them along this line. If not, cut a slit with a paring knife from the stem to the tip, keeping the stem intact. Gently rinse all the seeds from inside the pepper and blot dry with a paper towel. The peppers can be prepped to this point up to 2 days ahead.

Step 3 Heat the oven to 400˚F. Pour the milk into a small saucepan and add the butter, 3/4 teaspoon salt, a few grinds of pepper, and the cayenne. Whisk in the cornmeal and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until thickened. Transfer to a bowl, stirring to speed cooling.

Step 4 Add the corn kernels, cheese, scallions, and baking powder and stir to combine thoroughly. Stir in the egg yolks and blend well. In a separate, clean bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until creamy and fluffy, but not dry. Stir half the egg whites into the corn mixture to lighten it, then fold in the remainder.

Step 5 Arrange the peppers in a large baking dish with the slits facing up. Spoon the corn mixture into the peppers, dividing it evenly. Fold the peppers up somewhat to enclose the filling. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect. Season the cream with 1/4 teaspoon salt and pour it all around the peppers in the dish. Scatter the tomatoes around the peppers and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the cream is bubbling and the spoonbread is golden brown. Serve warm.

From Food52.com, https://food52.com/recipes/90815-spoonbread-stuffed-poblanos