July seventeenth, 2023 Publication | Monroe Natural Farms

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Expensive Mates of the farm,

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

Fruit Shares:  One other scrumptious week of cherries is headed your manner.  They are going to be Rainier cherries, a fantastic 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 the rows of garlic with our helpful harvester which lays the bulbs of garlic on prime of the soil.  We then come by with trays and acquire all of the garlic.  This garlic lasts for the remainder of summer season CSA and throughout winter CSA, too.  We might be honored when you would come out and assist us acquire the garlic into trays out within the discipline.  We then make stacks of the trays all through the sector and are available decide them up with our tractor.  It is a tremendous child pleasant activity, and we welcome your family and friends members.  Dad and mom, you may be 100% answerable for conserving your children secure and away from all vehicles, tractors, any gear, and volunteers carrying trays.  Convey your complete crew and make a morning of it!  Be sure to put on lengthy sleeves and pants, a hat, sun shades, convey numerous water and snacks for the best way right here and residential. If you wish to use bug spray and sunscreen, please apply them at house after which wash your arms totally earlier than coming to the farm.  We develop a very scrumptious heirloom number of onerous neck, porcelain garlic.  The bonus is you could take house garlic seconds!  Come out and assist us put the unity in Neighborhood Supported Agriculture. You do not want to contact the workplace when you can be part of us. Simply present up! The extra the merrier!

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

Muskmelon:  Many folks aren’t conscious of the distinction between muskmelon and cantaloupe.  There may be truly a massive distinction!  Musk melon has an identical 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.   For that reason, you don’t see them on grocery retailer cabinets.  Muskmelon have 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.  In the event you like them chilled, lower them open and allow them to sit for ten minutes.  Like a nice wine, they should breathe to boost their taste.

Betty Jo’s Fast Scoop Melon Trick

-Wash your melon properly

-Minimize 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 fashion 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 remainder. Quickly it obtained nightfall, a grapy nightfall, a purple nightfall over tangerine groves and lengthy melon discipline; 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