This Week's Vegetables

Springdale Farm News

This week's vegetables: lettuce, scallions, cilantro, garlic scapes, mushrooms, parsley, broccoli

Coming soon/next week: lettuce, peas, scallions, garlic scapes, strawberries, maple syrup (next week)

Vegetable tidbits: For those of you who are unfamiliar with the strange curly looking things in your box, they are called garlic scapes and are the beginning of the garlic flower. The tip can be cut off and the stem used in the same way that you use garlic. Chopped garlic scapes are especially delicious in soups and stir fries, and if you're truly adventuresome, you can mix them raw into a salad!
We aim to have a variety of vegetables ready for the first delivery, so you would be coming for more than just some greens. We are currently in the process of building several greenhouses, which will eventually enable us to have tomatoes and cucumbers in our first boxes, though that plan will need to wait for another season, at least, before coming to fruition. In the meantime, the quantity of vegetables in the boxes for next few weeks will be on the slim side, especially with the effect of rain on (some of) the crops.

Recipe: Easy Guacamole from Subscriber Melanie De Vriend


3-4 avocados, peeled and cored
1 Large tomato, chopped
1/4 - 1/2 red onion, chopped (can be replaced with scallions and/or chives)
Handful of fresh, chopped cilantro (can be replaced with parsley)
1 Lime


Dice and smush until mixed. Squeeze either half or whole lime (to your taste)
and mix in. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with tortillas, chips,
or sandwiches.

Garlic Scape Pesto with Pasta from subscriber Tim Larson
(from Milwaukee Journal Sentinal)


20 fresh garlic scapes (about 1 1/2 cups chopped)
2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups hazelnuts, Brazil nuts or pecans
2 cups safflower oil
1/2 cup good white wine (optional)
salt and pepper
1 pound linguini
Extra Virgin Olive Oil


Puree scapes, cheese and nuts in food processor. Add oil and then wine, if desired, until pesto is desired thickness. Season to taste. Serve over cooked pasta as a tasty side dish. To make a main dish, add roasted, sliced chicken breast. Makes about 4 servings.


Leftover pesto may be frozen in muffin tins for single serving portions.


White Bean and Garlic Scapes Dip from a New York Times article published June 18, 2008 sent in by subscriber Leanne DeMuijnck. To read the full article go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/dining/18appe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

1/3 cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt, more to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling.


1. In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough purée.

2. With motor running, slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. Pulse in 2 or 3 tablespoons water, or more, until mixture is the consistency of a dip. Add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice, if desired.

3. Spread out dip on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with more salt.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups.



Flood report: Fortunately, most of our crops have weathered the downpours pretty well. Our fields usually drain pretty quickly (especially since our subsoil is primarily gravel and stones that are typical of the Kettle Moraine area), so only a small percentage of our field ends up in standing water. But some have suffered, including eggplant, onions, and the spinach that we should be harvesting this and next week. Our planting schedule has been altered as well; when the fields are too wet, it is simply impossible to get the soil ready for planting, so several succession sowings of assorted crops, like green beans and lettuce mix, have to wait till dryer times, consequently leaving harvest 'holes' later in the season. Hopefully things will dry up soon! The hard, driving rains also washed away portions of several of our newly seeded beds; it's sad to see such erosion occurring right before our eyes!

Bread and eggs: Many of you are purchasing bread, and/or eggs, from us; you will be able to confirm that by checking the pick-up list posted at your pick-up site. Be sure to take the appropriate quantity, and the correct kind of bread (if applicable) you ordered. (This week begins with the whole wheat bread; next week is the herbed bread.) We did have an accident with an L.P. heater in our chicken coop in the winter (we suspect), resulting in the burning down of the entire chicken coop (including 400 baby chicks). It was a sad day for us, to be sure. To keep our commitment to have eggs for you, though, we arranged to get eggs from another poultry farmer, Norman Miller of Pardeeville, who was happy to supply us for this season. His certified organic eggs will be taking the place of our own for the time being; perhaps later in the season we'll rebuild our chicken coop.

Reminders: Please return your box to your pick-up site, unfolded, and stack it neatly in the appropriate pile. We hope soon to send to you a link where you can view a short video on how to break down your box without ripping it apart, (rendering it unusable,) but in the meantime, be gentle with the flaps as you 'wrestle' with the box! We do need a bunch more egg cartons, so if you have a chance to grab some, bring them to your pick-up site (whatever their original source), and we'll make use of them for Norman's eggs. Thanks.

Chickens and pork: We do have a supply of frozen, whole, free-ranged meat chickens (with most about 5 lbs. total weight) that are available for immediate purchase. Cost is $2.50 per pound, and if you buy 10, the 11th is free. We would bring them to your pick-up site, insulated with newspaper, if you would like to purchase some. We also have 1/4 hogs available, if you'd want to try some organic pork. The cost of a 1/4 hog (comprised of about 45 lbs. of assorted cuts, including some ground pork that can be made into ground sausage, or links or brats) would be just above $4 per pound, depending on your processing choices. Send us an e-mail or call us (920) 892-4856 for the details. Although we will probably have the chicken and pork available for much of the season, we'd be happy to minimize the amount of rental freezer space we will need to maintain, so soon would be a great time (for us) to order some. Excellent quality for both the pork and chicken.

Have a good week!

The Seelys