July seventeenth, 2023 Publication | Monroe Natural Farms

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Expensive Associates of the farm,

That is week 6 of 18 weeks of CSA.  This week you can be receiving crimson potatoes, onions, slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, summer time squash, carrots, garlic, kale, and MUSK MELON!!!!!  Let’s go, July!

Fruit Shares:  One other scrumptious week of cherries is headed your means.  They are going to be Rainier cherries, a stupendous white with a blush of pink.  Yum.  

We want your assist harvesting garlic on Saturday the 29^th and Sunday the 30^th of July from 8 AM -11 AM.  Come and go as you please!  ***Not this weekend, however the subsequent weekend***First, we roll by means of the rows of garlic with our useful harvester which lays the bulbs of garlic on prime of the soil.  We then come by means of with trays and gather all of the garlic.  This garlic lasts for the remainder of summer time CSA and all through winter CSA, too.  We might be honored if you happen to would come out and assist us gather the garlic into trays out within the subject.  We then make stacks of the trays all through the sector and are available choose them up with our tractor.  It is a tremendous child pleasant activity, and we welcome your family and friends members.  Mother and father, you can be 100% chargeable for maintaining your youngsters protected and away from all vehicles, tractors, any tools, and volunteers carrying trays.  Convey your complete crew and make a morning of it!  Ensure that to put on lengthy sleeves and pants, a hat, sun shades, convey a number of water and snacks for the best way right here and residential. If you wish to use bug spray and sunscreen, please apply them at residence after which wash your palms totally earlier than coming to the farm.  We develop a really scrumptious heirloom number of laborious neck, porcelain garlic.  The bonus is which you could take residence garlic seconds!  Come out and assist us put the unity in Group Supported Agriculture. You don’t want to contact the workplace if you happen to can be part of us. Simply present up! The extra the merrier!

Flower bouquets out there!  A few of you could have observed that we’re dipping our toes into flower manufacturing this 12 months.  We’re actually stoked to be rising blooms.  Better of all, we now have sufficient to supply them to you all.  This week, we will probably be sending out pattern bouquets to every of our distribution facilities.  There will probably be bouquet sign-up sheets at every distribution middle, as properly.  The bouquets will probably be $20 every.  Please add your identify to the sign-up sheet if you need to obtain a bouquet made with the flowers at present considerable on our farm.  We select what contains every bouquet.  We are going to invoice your account accordingly.

Muskmelon:  Many folks aren’t conscious of the distinction between muskmelon and cantaloupe.  There’s truly a massive distinction!  Musk melon has the same taste to cantaloupe, however they’re stronger and sweeter with a barely “musky” style.  The upper the sugar content material, the earlier the melon must 

be eaten.   Because of this, you don’t see them on grocery retailer cabinets.  Muskmelon had been initially grown in Egypt alongside the Nile River.  They love sandy soil, scorching days, cool nights and a great deal of water.  Our farm could be very sandy, and we frequently discover fossilized mollusks within the rocks right here! Musk melon has the identical netting as their cousin cantaloupe besides with ridges that run from prime to backside.  Trace:  They’re greatest eaten at room temperature.  When you like them chilled, minimize them open and allow them to sit for ten minutes.  Like a superb wine, they should breathe to boost their taste.

Betty Jo’s Fast Scoop Melon Trick

-Wash your melon properly

-Lower your melon in half and take away all seeds (don’t have a compost? Scatter them for the birds!)

-Seize a big spoon or an ice cream scoop

-Scoop out melon flesh right into a mason jar or storage container, safe lid onto jar or container

 (You may get actually cute with this and use a tiny scoop for little fingers to seize, or current them tapas type and put a toothpick in every scoop on a platter with or with out prosciutto)

-Refrigerate

-Take pleasure in at your leisure

The solar goes down lengthy and crimson. All of the magic names of the valley unrolled – Manteca, Madera, all the remaining. Quickly it received nightfall, a grapy nightfall, a purple nightfall over tangerine groves and lengthy melon subject; the solar the colour of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy crimson, the fields the colour of affection and Spanish mysteries. I caught my head out the window and took deep breaths of the aromatic air. It was essentially the most stunning of all moments.

–Jack Kerouac

Thanks for being right here with us!

Kyle, Sam, Jerry, Jacquie, Linda, and The Crew