The 12 week long Peak Season shares officially start this week and it’s a great time to start since we are in the thick of strawberry season! Once the strawberries start to ripen, they like sunny and dry days and, well, that’s all that is in the forecast so it looks like it will be a great season! We have been picking our favorite and the first ones to ripen every year called Earliglow. This heirloom variety has the best flavor of any strawberry I’ve ever tasted but does tend to be on the smaller side. We also started picking a variety called Flavorfest that is related to the Earliglow but maintains a bigger size and still tastes excellent! By the end of the week we will probably be starting to pick our 3rd and final variety called Dickens which is a fairly new variety that we grew for first time last year and were very impressed by it’s flavor and productivity. This week and next we will have extra quarts for sale at $9/ qt and if you would like a flat of 8 quarts the price would be $64.
As some of you may have heard, our rhubarb patch was hit pretty hard by the late April freeze so it’s productivity was way down. Luckily though, my Aunt and my sister both have a rhubarb patch that is much more sheltered near their house and fared a lot better then ours did out in the open field. They were happy to share it with us and we now have enough to include into the CSA shares again this week!
Our one new item for this week is Garlic Scapes. Garlic scapes are the curly, vibrant-green flower stalks that sprout from the center of the garlic plants each Spring. They can be used pretty much exactly like a scallion. They taste like a milder, slightly sweeter version of garlic cloves, featuring a tender-crisp texture similar to asparagus. They are popular in pesto, stir-fry, grilled or even pickled!
Many of our crops are just days away from being ready to harvest, and it’s exciting to see the garden really coming into its own. The broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are all heading up nicely and should be ready soon. The peas are beginning to fill out on the vines and are looking great—they just need about another week to reach their peak.
I always try to keep the CSA shares varied and interesting from week to week, but with so many crops on the verge of harvest, this week’s share will be similar to the last. The good news is that we’ll be adding fresh garlic scapes, giving everyone something new to enjoy while we wait for the next wave of vegetables to come in.
We will have a nice selection of mushrooms this week from Mother Earth Organics including Maitake, Oyster, and Royal Trumpet. As well as some new varieties of cheeses including a Sheep Feta and a Blue Cheese from Birchrun Hills.